FOUR LOCAL EXPERTS

FOUR LOCAL EXPERTS We have commissioned four local experts to ‘translate’ environmental science and data into information suitable to those interested in economic and labour market policy. They will present their dossiers during the symposium, and explain the methodology used for their assignment during the training sessions. The four ‘translators’ are preparing briefs that focus on four socio-economic policy fields, and which are important to Malta as well as most small island states and territories: air/sea transportation, agriculture, tourism and fisheries. A geographer by training, Dr Maria Attard (PhD, University College London, UK) has been the Director of the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Malta since 2009 and has published extensively in the area of sustainable mobility. She worked as transport consultant to the Government of Malta 2002-2009, implementing a number of national projects. She now coordinates the transport research group within the Institute and is particularly interested in research on transport modes, mobility behaviour and patterns, policy, parking and road pricing, and transport and climate change. She is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography and services and collaborates with various Faculties and Institutes within the University of Malta. Mr Tony Meli is a visiting senior lecturer at the Division of Rural Sciences and Food Systems within the Institute of Earth Systems at the University of Malta. He is an agribusiness, land use and landscaping specialist by training, holding a B.Bus. (Agric.) from the Western Australian Institute of Technology, a Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Management from the University of Malta, and an M.Phil. from the University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. In 1995, he was awarded a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship to carry out professional studies and training in environmental horticulture and land resource management at Cornell University, New York. In his career with the Department for Agriculture & Fisheries, he occupied various posts and was appointed Director of Rural Development in 2003 where he helped secure €40M & €100M in EU funds for the 2004-2006 & 2007-2013 Rural Development Programmes. In 2008, he joined APS Consult as Head of Advisory Services, and is now engaged as an Agricultural Policy Specialist with the Ministry for Sustainable Development and Climate Change in Malta.

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Professor Andrew Jones is Professor of Tourism and Hospitality at the Institute for Tourism Travel and Culture at the University of Malta, having joined the Institute from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK, in November 2012. He has been an active practitioner, researcher and academic in urban and regional planning, conservation, economic and cultural regeneration and sustainable tourism development since 1981. He completed his PhD on research investigating the relationship and tensions between economic regeneration, the environment and sustainable tourism markets. He has carried out numerous consultancy projects relating to tourism and economic development and has published a number of industry and academic articles, reports and conference papers. In recognition of his research to the industry he has been invited to participate in teaching assignments and international conferences in Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia. He is currently editing Disappearing Destinations, a book series commissioned by CABI International that is evaluating the impact of climate change on tourism environments, the first of which was published in 2011. Dr. Leyla Knittweis holds a PhD in fisheries biology from the University of Bremen, Germany and was employed as a fisheries advisor to the Government of Malta during 2008-2013. Over the last six years, Leyla provided guidance for the Maltese national fisheries data collection programme and participated in numerous fisheries stock assessment working groups. She coordinated Malta’s participation in several EU research projects on marine resource management topics, including marine spatial planning, the application of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, and mapping of sensitive and critical habitats such as nursery and spawning areas. Leyla is currently working as a scientific consultant and recently coordinated the development of a long-term monitoring strategy for the marine environment of the Maltese Islands as required by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). She is affiliated to the Department of Biology of the University of Malta as a research associate.

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