Impactful research to protect our planet's future
Looking to do a PhD project? Chat to us about research in conservation and biodiversity science.
Our Mission
Building a nature positive future
Conduct leading-edge research that drives protection, management, and restoration of biodiversity, to ensure nature can recover and people can thrive.
Our Research Themes
Planning for biodiversity recovery
The Ward Conservation lab conducts fundamental research to determine precisely where species occur, identify the key threats they face, pinpoint the actions necessary for their recovery, and estimate the associated costs of these interventions. By mapping species distributions, evaluating impacts like habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change, and rigorously quantifying conservation actions, the lab generates critical knowledge for effective conservation planning. This approach ensures resources are strategically allocated, making species recovery both practical and economically viable, ultimately underpinning scientifically robust strategies to halt biodiversity loss.
Strategies for successful and cost-effective implementation
The Ward Conservation lab specializes in researching and designing innovative strategies and practical frameworks for cost effective implementation. Recognizing that most habitats critical for threatened species are located on privately owned or developable land—often targeted for urban expansion, agriculture, or utility infrastructure—we develop spatial planning approaches that balance biodiversity recovery with sustainable economic growth and community well-being. Our research generates targeted, spatially explicit solutions that facilitate biodiversity conservation while ensuring communities thrive and economies prosper, leading to landscapes where nature and people coexist safely and healthily.
Monitoring recovery and impacts
Nature-based investment mechanisms
We develop practical, cost-effective tools and methods to monitor whether conservation actions are successfully recovering species. By leveraging innovative technologies such as remote sensing, automated sensors, and citizen science, we create efficient systems to track species populations and habitat health over time. Our monitoring frameworks provide essential data to measure conservation progress, enabling adaptive management and informed decision-making. This ensures that investments in conservation yield tangible outcomes, continually improving the effectiveness and accountability of actions aimed at species recovery.
Nature-based investment mechanisms
Environmental governance and policy
Nature-based investment mechanisms
Conservation actions are often expensive, requiring sustained investment to restore habitats, manage threats, and monitor outcomes. At the Ward Conservation lab, we research the most effective nature-based investment mechanisms to ensure conservation financing is both high-integrity and impactful. This includes designing and evaluating biodiversity credits, nature repair markets, and blended finance models that channel public and private funding into priority areas. Our work ensures these mechanisms are grounded in science, deliver real ecological outcomes, and avoid greenwashing—supporting a future where conservation is financially viable, transparent, and equitable.
Environmental governance and policy
Environmental governance and policy
Environmental governance and policy
Strong environmental governance and policy are essential to reversing biodiversity loss and achieving long-term sustainability. At the Ward Conservation lab, we critically evaluate existing policies and regulatory frameworks to identify gaps, inconsistencies, and unintended consequences that undermine conservation outcomes. Through rigorous analysis, we offer evidence-based recommendations to strengthen environmental laws, planning systems, and biodiversity strategies. Our work supports the development of more coherent, accountable, and ambitious policies that enable effective conservation action, align with international commitments, and ensure that environmental decision-making is transparent, inclusive, and grounded in the best available science.
Meet the Team
Dr. Michelle Ward
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Dr. Michelle Ward is a lecturer at Griffith Univesity. Her research centres on combining remote sensing technology with political science, economic instruments, and systematic conservation planning to achieve the best solutions for the environment. In doing so, she have explored the effectiveness of environmental legislation in mitigati
Dr. Michelle Ward is a lecturer at Griffith Univesity. Her research centres on combining remote sensing technology with political science, economic instruments, and systematic conservation planning to achieve the best solutions for the environment. In doing so, she have explored the effectiveness of environmental legislation in mitigating threats, developed advanced datasets to explore threat drivers and impacts, established novel, problem-based models for cost-effectively prioritizing conservation actions, quantified the cumulative impact of development on threatened species, investigated complex sustainability problems through scenario analysis, evaluated bushfire impact and recovery, measured ecosystem services under different policy pathways, and assessed global-scale structural connectivity of landscapes. Michelle is currently leading research to build integrity into the nature positive promise. This research is cross-disciplinary, linking methods from remote sensing, ecological modelling, economics, monitoring, and political science.
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Hugh's research interests are in conservation research, operations research and ecology. More specifically he works on problems to secure the world's biological diversity: efficient nature reserve design, habitat reconstruction, optimal monitoring, optimal management of populations for conservation, cost-effective conservation actions for
Hugh's research interests are in conservation research, operations research and ecology. More specifically he works on problems to secure the world's biological diversity: efficient nature reserve design, habitat reconstruction, optimal monitoring, optimal management of populations for conservation, cost-effective conservation actions for threatened species, pest control and population harvesting, survey methods for detecting bird decline, bird conservation ecology, environmental accounting and metapopulation dynamics. He has always been actively involved in conservation policy and advocacy - to learn how listen to "The 2023 Univ Canberra Krebs lecture on Science, Maths and Environmental Policy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix2_UamShUw"
Hugh is 40% UQ in the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science to our website homepage (https://cbcs.centre.uq.edu.au/); 10% Accounting for Nature and 10% co-chair of the national Biodiversity Council. He sits on c30 other boards and committees pro bono.
His research projects are in the field of decision theory in conservation biology, including co-developing Marxan MaPP - Marxan (marxansolutions.org):
- Biodiversity offsetting
- Biodiversity markets
- Conservation policy at all levels of government
- Reserve design, biodiversity management and fire regime management
- Population viability analysis (PVA) - including the development of ALEX
- Pollination ecology
- Metapopulation dynamics
- Ecological economics
- Optimal monitoring and environmental accounts
- Stochastic modelling
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Population dynamics of marine organisms
- Marine reserve design
- Marine population dynamics
- Avian community ecology
- Edge effects and fragmentation
- Landscape ecology
- Behavioural and population ecology of parasitoids
Hugh is a key collaborator and mentor to the Ward Conservation Lab.
Natalya Maitz
Prof. Hugh Possingham
Natalya Maitz
Natalya is a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, and is supervised by Dr Michelle Ward, Associate Professor Diana Fisher, Professor Hugh Possingham and Professor Jonathan Rhodes. Her current research, in partnership with WWF and QTFN, focuses on maximising single-species conservation benefits at the landscape scale, using the b
Natalya is a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, and is supervised by Dr Michelle Ward, Associate Professor Diana Fisher, Professor Hugh Possingham and Professor Jonathan Rhodes. Her current research, in partnership with WWF and QTFN, focuses on maximising single-species conservation benefits at the landscape scale, using the brush-tailed rock wallaby as a model species. Natalya is interested in translating environmental policy into conservation outcomes and threatened species recovery, particularly in the identification and management of threatening processes and strategic conservation planning. Prior to beginning her PhD, Natalya completed a Master of Conservation Science at the University of Queensland in 2020 and a BSc in Biology at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Hannah Thomas
Jacqui Staunton
Natalya Maitz
Hannah Thomas is a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, in the School of the Environment and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. She is supervised by Professor Martine Maron at the University of Queensland, Dr Michelle Ward at Griffith University and Dr Jeremy Simmonds at 2rog consulting. Her research has inves
Hannah Thomas is a PhD Candidate at the University of Queensland, in the School of the Environment and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. She is supervised by Professor Martine Maron at the University of Queensland, Dr Michelle Ward at Griffith University and Dr Jeremy Simmonds at 2rog consulting. Her research has investigated vegetation management in northern Australia and the policy enabling conditions for ongoing deforestation. She is also interested in threatened species management, spatial analysis and forest and woodland restoration. Hannah is a Biodiversity Council Early Career Leader and is supported by WWF-Australia.
Nick Randall
Jacqui Staunton
Jacqui Staunton
With a professional background in high-performance sport, Nick transitioned into the environmental field in 2023 to pursue a more purpose-driven career focused on landscape restoration. His interests lie in practical revegetation, systems thinking, and the intersection of conservation and economics. Nick is currently completing a Master o
With a professional background in high-performance sport, Nick transitioned into the environmental field in 2023 to pursue a more purpose-driven career focused on landscape restoration. His interests lie in practical revegetation, systems thinking, and the intersection of conservation and economics. Nick is currently completing a Master of Environmental Management, with a thesis titled Cost-Effective Restoration in Queensland – Integrating Biodiversity and Carbon Markets supervised by Dr Michelle Ward. His research explores which regions and ecosystems present the most effective and feasible opportunities for biodiverse restoration in emerging and evolving market mechanisms. He intends to pursue a PhD focused on restoration economics, with a view to informing scalable, cost-efficient models for regenerative land management in Australia.
Jacqui Staunton
Jacqui Staunton
Jacqui Staunton
Jacqui is currently completing a Master of Environmental Management, with a thesis titled Effectiveness of international policies decreasing deforestation in Australia supervised by Dr Michelle Ward.
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