Georgina Mace (1953–2020)

Obituary Georgina Mace (1953–2020)

Pioneer of biodiversity accounting who overhauled the Red List of threatened species.

eorgina Mace shaped two corner- gathering. It also contributed to a common stones of modern ecology and understanding of priorities across fields. conservation. One was the global Mace bridged the gaps between genetics, inventory of species threatened with population ecology and macroecology, extinction, the International Union sub-disciplines in which she regularly super- Gfor Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. vised students, networked and published. The second was the United Nations Millennium She also demonstrated the importance of Ecosystem Assessment. One of the sharpest conservationists engaging with researchers minds of her generation, she strove to docu- in other disciplines, such as climate science, ment and stem biodiversity loss with analytical economics and social science. She excelled rigour and multidisciplinary approaches. She in building consensus, a key step towards died on 19 September, aged 67. evidence-based policy. Throughout her career, Mace developed Mace was coordinating lead author for tools for evidence-based policymaking. Before biodiversity on the Millennium Ecosystem her, the Red List was based on nominations Assessment, launched in 2001, which from experts rather than data, undermining demonstrated that rapidly growing demand confidence in its accuracy. She devised crite- for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel ria to standardize assessments. The Red List resulted in a large and largely irreversible is now the most used and trusted source for loss in biodiversity. She supported the devel-

JUSSI PUIKKONEN/KNAW assessing trends in global biodiversity. opment of assessments for the biodiversity Mace was born in London in 1953. She stud- population-biology theory. These included, target of the UN Convention on Biological ied zoology at the University of Liverpool, for example, total effective population size, Diversity in 2010 and, most recently, acted as UK, before doing a PhD in the 1970s at the the population trend over the past five years review editor for the Global Assessment of the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, where and observed or projected habitat loss. Mace Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on John Maynard Smith was pioneering mathe- later introduced, among other things, catego- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. She held matical approaches to evolutionary ecology. ries for species that are not currently under similarly pivotal roles at the national level, on As a postdoc at the Smithsonian Institution threat. This work ultimately defined the cat- UK climate and environmental assessments. in Washington DC, she studied the impacts of egories that the IUCN uses now. She broke several glass ceilings. Mace was inbreeding on captive animals. In 2006, Mace became director of the NERC the first president of the international Society In 1983, she joined the Institute of Zoology, Centre for Population Biology at Imperial for Conservation Biology from outside North the research arm of the Zoological Society College London. There, she worked on the America, and the first female president of the of London, where she remained for 23 years, definition of biodiversity targets and assessing British Ecological Society. Her many awards latterly as director from 2000 to 2006. There, and honours included a fellowship of the Royal Mace continued to work on the genetic man- “She excelled in Society and, in 2016, she was made a dame. agement of zoological collections and small Georgina was a role model: firm but fair, populations. Her findings informed the conser- building consensus, collaborative, reliable, unassuming, approach- vation status of several species, including the a key step towards able — the kind of critical friend we all need. She western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), evidence-based policy.” supported the career progression of numerous and highlighted the value of reproductive tech- ecologists and influenced many more. She’d nology in managing captive populations of nominate you for a post even when you didn’t endangered species, such as the Arabian oryx species’ vulnerability to climate change. She think she had noticed your work; she’d make a (Oryx leucoryx) and Przewalski’s horse (Equus also studied the link between biodiversity and witty remark in the middle of a heated discus- przewalskii). She became increasingly inter- ecosystem services — the benefits that humans sion. Few knew that she had cancer. Never one ested in population viability, extinction risk draw from nature, such as carbon sequestra- to make a fuss about herself, nine days before and setting conservation priorities. tion, medicines or waste decomposition. she died, she published a paper on habitat con- In 1991, this led her, together with US pop- From 2012, as founding director of the version and biodiversity loss (D. Leclère et al. ulation biologist Russell Lande, to question Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Nature 585, 551–556; 2020). Her death leaves the IUCN categories of threats and the asso- Research at University College London, she a void: she will be sorely missed. ciated nomination process as being largely developed an interest in natural-capital subjective. They suggested three categories: accounting, the process of calculating the total Nathalie Pettorelli, a senior research critical, endangered and vulnerable. These stocks and flows of natural resources and ser- fellow, started at the Institute of Zoology, they defined in terms of the probability of a vices in an ecosystem or region. Her blending London under Georgina’s directorship; they species becoming extinct within a specific of economics and ecological theory to define co-supervised a PhD student at Imperial period, such as five years or two generations. a risk register for natural capital helped to pro- College London. They drew up standardized criteria based on vide an effective focus for monitoring and data e-mail: [email protected]