Board:
Ralph Buij graduated from the University of Utrecht in 2000, specializing in tropical ecology and focusing on the relationship between fruiting patterns and orang-utan movements in Sumatran rainforests.
In 2002, through a degree and consultancies for and with the Centre for Wildlife Management at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, he shifted his research interests towards the African continent.
Since 2002, he has been involved in a variety of ecological research- and conservation projects in Southern and West/Central Africa, ranging from the development and implementation of ecological management plans for protected reserves in South Africa to his appointment as a research project coordinator for the Smithsonian Institution forest elephant project in Gabon. He is currently stationed at the CEDC research institute for the University of Leiden in northern Cameroon,
where he is responsible for the implementation and supervision of the Leiden University/Africa research program, including PhD and MSc students from The Netherlands and Cameroon specializing in ecology and conservation biology topics.
He has been closely involved in the Bénoué Large Carnivore Project as well as in ongoing research conducted on the Waza lion population. He is also contributing to the recently launched ROCAL project for the conservation of lion populations in West- and Central Africa.
His passion for predators in general and raptors in particular have resulted in his current PhD research dealing with the effect of land-use changes in Sahelian West Africa on the ecology of migratory and resident birds of prey.
