MEET THE SCIENTIST Jon Paul Rodríguez

Whitley Gold Award 2019 winner Jon Paul Rodríguez has been working to conserve threatened species in Venezuela for over 30 years, including the nationally Endangered yellow-shouldered parrot.

- Jo Price

Ecologist Jon Paul Rodríguez has an impressive CV, which now includes a Whitley Gold Award for his outstanding contribution to conservation, or a ‘green Oscar’ as it is also known.

It all started in the late eighties when he co-founded Provita as an undergraduate with other students. Since then, the non-governmental organisation has championed numerous evidence-based projects to safeguard declining species in Venezuela, including the yellow shouldered parrot on Margarita Island – a biologically diverse place and threatened species hotspot.

“My friend Franklin Rojas-Suárez worked on the reproductive biology of the yellow-shouldered parrot on Margarita for his thesis,” says Rodríguez. “This was when we discovered that the bird was in trouble on this island.”