LUCIA CHMUROVA
I am a conservationist with a special interest in insects, wildflower meadows and tropical rainforests.
My passion for insects was sparked during my Wildlife Conservation degree in Plymouth where I spent hours on end looking down a microscope, meticulously drawing various (non)creepy crawlies. A lucky coincidence brought me to the Natural History Museum in London where I did my industrial placement and shortly after that got employed as their Curatorial and Entomological Research Assistant for several years.
Here I became proficient in insect identification and preparation and took part in expeditions across Asia and Africa where I collected insects for the museum and even discovered two new species (see here)! After a few amazing years at the museum I decided to enrol on Ecology and Environmental Management degree in York and pursued my other real passion - academic research and conservation.
Because I couldn't get enough of constant sweatiness, malaria-ridden mosquitos and leeches, my rainforest checklist grew and I added places like Papua New Guinea where I did my Masters thesis on tropical food chains and more recently Madagascar, where I worked with a charity SEED Madagascar as their Research Programme Coordinator and camped for 9 months in a very rare littoral forest habitat.
You can see some amazing wildlife and culture from these places in my gallery.
Since then, I worked with a number of conservation charities in the UK:
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Worked on a Short-haired Bumblebee Reintroduction Programme with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust
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Successfully developed a HLF-funded project on landscape-scale moth conservation - Kent's Magnificent Moths with Butterfly Conservation
Lucia