MSc Conservation and Biodiversity

Course Overview

Our Conservation and Biodiversity Masters offers great flexibility, with a wide choice of topics from across disciplines, enabling you to construct a programme that suits your individual interests and career ambitions in this increasingly important field.

You will have the opportunity to gain a solid foundation in the key theoretical issues, such as wildlife population dynamics and conservation biology, and learn how these are applied to real-world problems, such as managing habitats or dealing with wildlife-human conflicts. Additionally, you will gain and develop the key skills that are valued by employers, such as problem solving, report writing, data analysis and presentation skills.

This project forms a substantial part of your Masters degree. It will enhance your practical and analytical skills and give you the opportunity to apply your learning to a real-world challenge. This may involve a doing a project with a government agency or conservation organisation through our award winning Centre for Global Eco-innovation, which uses our excellent links with the environmental and conservation sectors. Examples of previous dissertation projects are:

• Effectiveness of habitat management for fritillary butterflies (with Butterfly Conservation)
• Impact of tourist disturbance on breeding seabirds on the Isle of May (with CEH)
• Predation impacts on breeding success of black-tailed godwits (with RSPB)
• Deer and forestry interactions in the Czech Republic (placement with Czech university)
• Habitat selection by sand lizards in coastal dunes
• Impact of urbanization on blue tit song behaviour
• Habitat loss and biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest (with Lavras University, Brazil)
• Biodiversity in reed fringes on Lake Windermere (with Freshwater Biological Association)

Graduates have gone on to successful careers in the environmental and conservation sectors, as well as further study for a PhD.