New AMBI Chair: Dr. Elena Lappo

2024-04-11

It is with great pleasure that CAFF announces the appointment of Dr. Elena Lappo as Chair of the Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI).

Courtney Price

Programme Manager

Dr. Lappo graduated from Moscow State University with an MSc (1985-91) in Geography (Biogeography), and a Ph.D. (1996) in Geography on Taimyr bird distributions. She is a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, a place where she has worked for more than 30 years. She is a consultant for BirdsRussia.

Dr. Lappo has spent 30 field seasons in the Russian Arctic: Taimyr Peninsula 1990-1995, the Northern regions of Sakha-Yakutia (Anabar - 1998, Olenyok and Lena Delta - 1997, Indigirka - 1999), Chukotka (2000-2023), Kamchatka (2007-2013). She made two trips along the Northern Sea Route, first in 1994 with the Russian-Swedish Expedition “Tundra Ecology – 94” and again in 2017 with Heritage Expeditions.

Dr. Lappo is involved into international communication and leadership along global flyways. She is the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force Group coordinator from Russia and one of the founding members of Chukotka Spoon-billed Sandpiper conservation expedition since 2000, and took part in the survey that discovered Meinypilgyno as a Spoon-billed Sandpiper breeding grounds in 2001. Elena has participated many field surveys in the Spoon-billed Sandpiper's wintering grounds: India (2005), Myanmar (2008, 2017, 2020, 2023 and 2024), Thailand (2006), Vietnam (2009), China (2013-16 and 2024). In 2018 she joint an expedition in Alaska in search of Spoon-billed Sandpipers.

Since 2022 she has led Chukotka Spoon-billed Sandpiper expeditions, coordinating the field activities together with the team in Chukotka to investigate populations of wild Spoon-billed Sandpiper, monitor nests and broods, track other bird fauna in the area, collect data for GIS modelling, communicating with local peoples and decisions makers on education and awareness raising, liaise with media and advance the creation of new protected area in Chukotka; the Local National Park “Spoon-billed Sandpiper Land”.

She has more than 60 scientific publications (in Russian and in English), one monograph (“Atlas of breeding waders in the Russian Arctic”, 2012, with co-authors) and has presented the results of research on many Russian and International conferences, workshops and symposiums.

Welcome Elena!