Dr Molly Grace

Molly is a Departmental Lecturer at SoGE and Course Director for the BCNR MSc, and a Retained Lecturer at Pembroke College. These roles represent a continuation of her years of research and teaching in ecology and conservation at the University of Oxford. Molly joined the Oxford Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science (ICCS) as a NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow in October 2017. From 2020-2022, she was a Biology Fellow at Wadham College, and a Lecturer in Ecology and Conservation from 2022-2024. In 2024-2025, she was Senior Research Lead for the Oxford-Accounting for Nature partnership.

Molly is also the Co-Chair of the Green Status of Species Working Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. This Working Group developed, and is responsible for delivering, the IUCN Green Status of Species, a new part of the IUCN Red List which provides a standardised way to measure species recovery and conservation impact. Molly's Green Status research is carried out in collaboration with Re:Wild, WCS, ZSL, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and others, and has been supported by NERC, the Lyda Hill Foundation, WWF, National Geographic, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.

Molly received a PhD in Conservation Biology from the University of Central Florida for her thesis "The behavior of humans and wildlife with respect to roads: insights for mitigation and management". She is a member of the IUCN Red List Scientific Committee, the Society for Conservation Biology Impact Evaluation Working Group and a Council Member for the International Network for Conservation Paleobiology. She is the first Accounting for Nature Accredited Expert in the UK. Her research has been commended by the Oxford MPLS Impact Awards and NERC Impact Awards.

Molly is a conservation biologist and ecologist focussing primarily on understanding species recovery and its drivers. As Course Director for the BCNR MSc, she lectures on the course in addition to leading on overall coordination, assesment, and supervision of students. The BCNR MSc replaces the Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management (BCM) Course (2003-2024), and is a full-time, one year course that provides students with the knowledge and skills to think adaptively, creatively, and critically at the intersection of biodiversity science, policy and action.

Molly's research profile includes projects in the UK and abroad, including ongoing collaborations with the Oxford Department of Biology, Oxford Arboretum, various Wildlife Trusts, the Zoological Society of London, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the International Conservation Paleobiology Network, Accounting for Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, Re:Wild, Indianapolis Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Doñana Biological Station, Stony Brook University, Monash University, and Queensland University of Technology.

Species Recovery

Conservation biology has long focused on predicting and avoiding extinction, such that (until recently), there was no standard way to track species' progress toward recovery. I have helped lead the development of the IUCN Green Status of Species, which is a globally applicable framework to describe species recovery status and which complements the world-renowned IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. To do this, the Green Status of Species draws on fundamental concepts in ecology- e.g., species functionality, viability, variability, and historic distribution.

The Green Status of Species assesses three facets of recovery. A species is Fully Recovered (or Non-Depleted) if, in all parts of its range prior to major human impacts), it is (1) present, (2) viable (i.e. not threatened with extinction), and (3) ecologically functional. These factors contribute towards a Green Score in the range 0–100%, which shows how far a species is from its Fully Recovered state. This score is converted into recovery categories that mirror those of the Red List (e.g. Critically Depleted, Slightly Depleted).

This definition of recovery is ambitious by design. It is not expected, nor is it a goal, that all species will eventually fulfil this definition of full recovery; for many species, large areas within their range have been irrevocably modified. Rather, this definition serves to standardise the assessment approach between species, and to identify areas of recovery opportunity in the context of what has been lost.

Current research projects on species recovery include:

• Developing and testing methods for a Green Status Index, which has been approved as a complementary indicator to Target 4 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (in collaboration with IUCN, Stony Brook University, ZSL, and Re:Wild)
• Understanding the impact of specific conservation programmes, e.g. work carried out by NGOs, on the recovery a species (in collaboration with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust); and the impact of broad classes of conservation actions more generally (in collaboration with Cambridge University)
• Assessing the recovery status of all Australian amphibians and reptiles to inform policy (in collaboration with Monash University and the Queensland University of Technology)
• Assessing the recovery status of all wild felid species and subspecies (in collaboration with the IUCN Cat Specialist Group)
• Working with historical ecologists and paleobiologists to develop pipelines for understanding species' pre-impact distributions (in collaboration with IoZ, Queen Mary University, Doñana Biological Station)
• Understanding the intersection between life history/ functional traits and species recovery (in collaboration with the Oxford Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, and Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Societal Drivers of Nature Recovery

In addition to understanding recovery from a scientific lens, I am also interested in understanding how societal levers can be pulled to promote recovery action by private and public actors. Current research in this area includes:

• Enabling environmental condition accounting by developing global for guidance for identifying reference state against which the condition of nature is measured (in collaboration with Accounting for Nature)
• Developing guidance for impact evaluation of nature-related claims (in collaboration with Accounting for Nature)
• Development of a Nature Relationship Index (NRI) to accompany the HDI (in collaboration with UNDP, LCNR, ECI, Oxford Martin School)
• Understanding the appetite for engaging in Payments for Ecosystem Services programmes by private landowners (in collaboration with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Molly is a Departmental Lecturer at SoGE and Course Director for the BCNR MSc, and a Retained Lecturer at Pembroke College. She sometimes supervises DPhil students, but is not able to take students every year, so prospective students should email her with a CV and short statement of interest before applying to the programme. Possible topics or areas of interest she has for potential doctoral students include: conservation biology, species recovery, IUCN, Green Status of Species, Red List of Threatened Species, historical ecology, environmental condition accounting, and transportation ecology.