Biodiversity and Business

Dr Laladhas K P is an eminent academician, researcher and a social activist involved diligently for the empowerment of students. He has 27 years of meritorious academic service in higher education teaching and research. He is involved in coupling modern scientific technology for the enhancement and conservation of traditional biodiversity. His areas of research include conservation of biodiversity, bio-prospecting, molecular characterization, biological assays and computational research.

He has completed different major and minor research projects funded by Government of Kerala, the Department of Science & Technology and the University Grants commission. He has also worked on consultancy projects funded by the UNDP and National Medicinal Plant Board. He has also participated in two COPs of UN CBD. Four International Books have been edited; two books were published by Springer International and two by Bentham Publishers. More than Seventy five research publications were published in peer-reviewed International and National Journals. He has also authored seven books in the area of Environment & Biodiversity and been published by National Publishers.

He was formerly the Principal of St Stephen's College, Pathanapuran, in Kerala. He also served as the Member Secretary of Kerala State Biodiversity Board for more than five years. His expertise has been registered in the academic and administrative committees of different Universities in Kerala such as Member Senate, Board of studies and Faculty. He has also functioned as an Expert member in the different policy-making committees of the National Biodiversity Authority, Government of India and Government of Kerala. He has also worked as an expert member of Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India, and Member of the working group on Biodiversity constituted by Kerala State Planning Board for the 13th Five-year plan. At present Dr Laladhas is functioning as the Corporate Manager of Lutheran Schools of IELC.

Dr. Prakash Nelliyat is a renowned Environmental Economist having enormous experience in Natural Resources' Management including Biodiversity. Presently, he is the 'Key Expert' (Economist) in the 'Monitoring and Evaluation' team of the World Bank sponsored 'Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agricultural Modernization (TNIAM)' Project at Centre for Water Resources, Anna University Chennai India. Previously he worked as 'Subject Expert' (Economic Valuation of Tradable Bio-resources in Kerala) in the Rebuild Kerala Inetiative Programme at the Kerala State Biodiversity Board; 'Consultant' (Biodiversity Finance Initiative) at the UNDP; 'Fellow - Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)', at the Centre for Biodiversity Policy and Law, Chennai.

Dr. Prakash has more than 30 years research and teaching experience in Environmental Economics, Biodiversity and Water Resources Issues, and Natural Resources Management and received IWMI-TATA Water Policy Research Program's Young Scientist Award, 2006. Prakash received the World Bank Aided India Capacity Building project (Environmental Economics) Overseas Fellowship (2002) and carried out research at the Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Linkoping University, Sweden. He presented number of papers on biodiversity/water and other natural resources issues in national and international conferences in different countries and also published articles in reputed journals, edited books, and news papers.

Professor Oommen V. Oommen is an eminent zoologist and biodiversity conservationist with over four decades of experience as a teacher, scientist and as a policy decision maker. He was the Professor and Head, Department of Zoology and Dean of the faculty of science, University of Kerala India. Subsequently he continued his research career as a CSIR Emeritus scientist and visiting professor at central university of Kerala at Kasargod where he helped developing the animal science department. He has mentored more than 30 researchers for their doctoral degree from the University of Kerala. He served as the chairman of the Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) and during this period he had been responsible for bringing about policy decisions which enabled the conservation and sustainable use of bio resources in the state of Kerala. During his tenure in KSBB, he also gave leadership for documenting the biodiversity in the form of Peoples' Biodiversity Register (PBR) and the first Marine Biodiversity Register for the southern districts of Kerala. He has had research collaborations with several institutions in the country and a few abroad, like MD Andersons Cancer Center USA, Natural History Museum (NHM), London, University of Guelph, Canada etc. Considering his contributions to amphibian biology, the scientists from NHM honoured him by naming a Caecilian amphibian as, Uraeotyphlus oommeni. He has around 180 papers published in peer reviewed national and international journals apart from 15+ book chapters and edited 6 international books, four by Springer Nature. He has also authored several popular science articles and spread the gospel of Biodiversity Conservation by sustainable use of bio resources among the people of Kerala by adopting a People Inclusive form of Biodiversity conservation in the Western Ghats of Kerala. Prof. Oommen is a recipient of CSIR-CNRS fellowship to work in University of Paris, International Scientific Exchange Award from NSERC, Cananda to work in the University of Guelph, Ontario, Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship in the University of Sterling, U.K and was a visiting Professor in M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, U.S.A. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc), Kerala Academy of Science, (FAS) and Society for Reproductive Biology & Endocrinology (FRE), Chennai, India.