Dr. Mark Spalding

The Nature Conservancy

Dr. Mark Spalding first visited a coral reef aged 11. His marine science career began prior to university when he worked as an assistant on the Great Barrier Reef. From Cambridge University he took part in, or led, field expeditions to Egypt, Mexico, the Seychelles and the Chagos Archipelago. On graduating he began to work with the United Nations Environment Programme and began specifically to work on mapping marine and coastal ecosystems – in particular mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrasses. In parallel he worked with others on the documentation of the distribution and the coverage of protected areas systems and on modelling global threats.

Moving to The Nature Conservancy in 2004, Dr. Spalding began to focus on conservation prioritisation and, recognising a critical need, he convened and led the teams that developed a comprehensive classification of biogeographic units for coastal waters globally, the Marine Ecoregions of the World. This was followed by a classification of oceanic pelagic waters, the Pelagic Provinces of the World. Both systems are now widely used to understand the patterns of biodiversity and to prioritise conservation investments. Currently a significant focus of Dr. Spalding’s attention is on the accurate quantification of the value of nature to people – ecosystem services. This is seen as a critical adjunct to the existing (and critically important) arguments to protect nature for “nature’s sake” and has led to numerous new publications on the value of different ecosystems in coastal defence, in fish generation, tourism and carbon storage. Although mostly stuck behind a computer, Dr. Spalding is adamant that we all need to regularly get into the field in order to keep our work well grounded and useful. Dr. Spalding has written over 100 papers and several books.