Rodrigo A. Medellín is Senior Professor of Ecology at the Institute of Ecology, University of Mexico (UNAM). He has dedicated his life to the study and his research has always been designed and conducted to advice conservation policy and conservation decision-making processes in Mexico and 16 other countries in 4 continents for over 40 years. Working from rainforests to deserts to montane forests, he uses community ecology, plant-animal interactions, population biology, and molecular ecology to solve conservation problems. He and his team designed and implement a three-pronged strategy where research, environmental education, and conservation actions feedback into each other and develop all activities in his projects. He is a very active professor, directing theses and teaching constantly, and a charismatic communicator and lecturer that is sought and well-known around the world.
He has produced over 300 publications including over 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and over 80 books and book chapters on bat ecology and conservation, jaguar conservation and recovery, mammal diversity analyses, and conservation of large mammals. His work has been cited over 18,000 times. His H factor is 59 and over the past 5 years he has produced 50 peer reviewed indexed papers. Rodrigo is most comfortable teaching, or in the field with his students, or cooking for whomever is around. His presence in the media is continuous, with dozens of appearances each year in national and international TV, radio, and the press, from BBC, National Geographic, El País, Deutsche Welle and the Wall Street Journal to local, influential publications.
His impact on conservation is constant, being Councilor of the Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), and his work has resulted in the recovery of endangered species such as the lesser long-nosed or tequila Bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) which was the first mammal to be delisted from the Mexican Federal List of Endangered Species after 20 years of work by Rodrigo and his team to recover it. He has been very active in the creation and operation of new protected natural areas, the valuation of ecosystem services by bats, and the creation of conservation programs in cooperation with industry. For example, the Bat Friendlytm tequila and mezcal program is quickly becoming the industry standard. Tequila and mezcal producers pledge to allow 5% of agaves to flower without harvesting and this secures genetic diversity and exchange, alleviating the extreme genetic loss of 150 years of asexual propagation of agaves.
Rodrigo was Director General of Wildlife of the Mexican Federal Government in 1995-96. Since 1999 he has represented Mexico before the CITES Animals Committee. He was vice-Chair of that Committee for ten years. In 2011 he was elected by the CMS (Convention on Migratory Species) Conference of the Parties as Scientific Councilor. Since 2000 Rodrigo has been advisor of the Mexican Federal Government for wildlife issues. His work in CITES has led to high-level decisions in the context of sustainable use and conservation of sharks (listing several species in Appendix II on more than four Conferences of the Parties, COPs), protecting lizards, turtles, tropical fish, many mammals and birds, and promoting international cooperation such as the recently adopted Decisions Cop17.145-151 in which China is identified as the one country consuming totoaba, a fish that accompanies the critically endangered vaquita (Phocoena sinus) and whose swim bladder can sell for $50,000 USD, and in which the U.S., China, and Mexico are directed to join forces and stop the black market and illegal take of totoaba. For 6 years Rodrigo was a Multidisciplinary Expert Panel (MEP) member (18 total) of IPBES (UNEP), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, His work studying and protecting mammals has clearly spanned many continents, many groups, and through science applied to policy influenced both subjects. Rodrigo has been Advisor to the Mexican Federal Government on wildlife issues for over 30 years.
He was the first non-U.S., non- European President of the Society for Conservation Biology 2013-2015, and served on the Board of Directors of that organization for over 15 years. He was President of the Mexican Society of Mammalogists, and is the founder and director of the 25-year-old Program for the Conservation of Bats of Mexico, and the founding Director of the Latin American Network for Bat Conservation RELCOM, which today includes 23 countries. Rodrigo is Co-Chair of the Bat Specialist Group of IUCN since 2004. He co-coordinated Mexico’s first National Jaguar Census, CENJAGUAR. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Mammalogists for over 15 years.
He has taught continuously courses on conservation biology, tropical ecology, and Mammalogy in his home institution, UNAM, and also in other universities such as Columbia University, New York, University of Costa Rica, International University of Andalusia in Spain, the Kenya Wildlife Service, and many others. Rodrigo has directed over 60 thesis and dissertations of students of well over 10 countries.
Since 2016 he is a member of the Board of Review Editors of Science Magazine, and has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Mammalogy, Conservation Biology, ORYX, and Acta Chiropterologica. He is adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York, Andalusia International University, the University of Arizona, and Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, The Museum, Texas Tech University, and others.
Dr. Medellín has received various recognitions. In 2004 he received the Whitley Award for International Nature Conservation from the hands of Her Royal Highness, Princess Anne of England, the Gerrit S. Miller Award, given to persons “In recognition of outstanding service and contribution to the field of chiropteran biology”, and the 2004 National Nature Conservation Award from Mexico’s President Vicente Fox. In 2007 he received the Aldo Leopold Conservation Award from the American Society of Mammalogists, the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation of the University of Florida, and the 2007 Conservation Scientist of the Year from Wildlife Trust in New York City. Rodrigo received the 2008 Rolex Award for Enterprise. Rodrigo is only the third Mexican in over 30 years that the award has been given. He also received the 2008 Volkswagen “For the Love of the Planet”. The BBVA Banking Foundation selected Rodrigo as recipient of their prestigious Premio Fundación BBVA a la Conservación de la Biodiversidad 2011. In 2012 he received the first-ever Whitley Gold Award from Princess Anne of England again, the first individual ever to receive two Whitley Awards. Also in 2012 he was chosen as one of the 50 individuals who move Mexico forward (Quien50) by Expansion Corporate Group. In 2014 BBC Natural World produced the multi-awarded film The Bat Man of Mexico (narrated by David Attenborough) covering Rodrigo´s work on bats. In 2018 National Geographic Society produced the 1-hour documentary entitled Giant Carnivorous Bats with Rodrigo Medellin, showcasing his work on these endangered, misunderstood bats. In 2019 the National Geographic Society made Rodrigo the seventh Explorer-At-Large, and the first one not from the U.S. or Europe. In 2021 The Explorers Club appointed Rodrigo a Fellow.
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