IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee

Deputy Chair

Dr Rima Jabado is the Deputy Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) and Chair of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group. As a scientist and conservationist, she has spent over 20 years developing and leading conservation initiatives globally. Her work focuses on bridging the gap between science and policy to ensure issues such as bycatch, threatened species conservation, and illegal trade are effectively addressed through national and international policy and management frameworks. Her research has directly informed fisheries management, wildlife trade regulation, and multilateral environmental agreements for the protection of threatened species. She currently leads the Important Shark and Ray Areas (ISRA) project, a global initiative designed to integrate sharks, rays, and chimaeras into area-based management and spatial planning worldwide.

She is co-Chair of the IUCN Marine Conservation Committee, serves as the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) Appointed Scientific Councillor for Marine Fish, and sits on the Advisory Committee for the CMS Sharks Memorandum of Understanding as the representative of the Asia region. In parallel, she founded the Elasmo Project, a non-profit initiative that encourages and supports work in data-poor regions, with a particular focus on understanding and addressing shark and ray fisheries and trade.