IUCN WCPA World Heritage Specialist Group

Thematic Vice Chair, World Heritage
Alfred is the Director of International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). He has worked in conservation for more than 14 years, and currently focuses on global or multilateral policy frameworks addressing biodiversity, protected areas and OECMs, wildlife trade, migratory species, pandemics of zoonotic origin, climate change, food systems, and more. He has engaged with more than 30 World Heritage sites through the work of WCS, with wider experience through engagement on other sites and on cross-cutting issues with World Heritage decision-making fora. He co-chairs working groups convened under the WCPA on topics such as OECMs, and he has also co-authored papers in scientific and policy journals on protected and conserved areas, forest integrity, and more. Alfred holds a B.A. in environmental studies and literature from Connecticut College and a Masters in public policy and administration, focusing on international environmental law and governance, from Columbia University.

Elina Maltseva – a nature conservation expert, member of Kazakhstan’s UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Elina was fascinated with nature conservation since early childhood and started translating biological and nature conservation texts as a teenager. With background in molecular biology and biotechnology, she has received training on nature conservation from the Klaus Toepfer Fellowship Program “Future leaders in nature conservation”, while getting additional World Heritage - focused competence in UNITAR Workshop “Management and conservation of World Heritage Sites” and Young Experts Forum “Towards a Sustainable Management of World Heritage Sites” (held in conjunction with the 39thSession of the World Heritage Committee). In 2011 she has become a member of Kazakhstan National UNESCO “Man and the Biosphere” Committee and was actively involved in the preparation of the nomination dossiers for eight biosphere reserves that were successfully submitted and listed in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, as well as in numerous meetings including organization of several international meetings of biosphere reserves’ networks. After officially joining the Kazakhstan National World Heritage Committee in 2015, Elina took part in the inscription of the Western Tien Shan World Heritage Site in 2016, and then on the preparation of the new nominations, such as Cold-Winter Deserts of Turan, a transnational nomination of the Republic of Turkmenistan, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic inscribed in 2023, as well as on the update of the Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Elina is active in nature conservation issues, participating in the efforts to provide the status of international importance to outstanding natural sites of Kazakhstan.