Dr Laurence Barea is a Gibraltarian living and working in New Zealand. His love of nature, and birds in particular, started at a very young age and blossomed in Gibraltar in the late 1970s.

A statement from the Gibraltar Museum follows below:

He subsequently went on to complete a BSc and then  MSc with research into the ecology of the New Zealand falcon. After working for  the New Zealand Department of Conservation he worked a consultant in the USA  before moving to Australia with his family where he completed his PhD on the  relationship between painted honeyeater and their primary resource, mistletoe.  He is now a Principal Ecology Advisor for the New Zealand Department of  Conservation where his work sits in the interface between science and policy and  the development of new environmental legislation. His work also focuses on  strategic leadership of threatened species management.  

Dr Barea will be delivering a special museum lecture, on Tuesday 16th July at 7  pm at the John Mackintosh Hall, entitled Bird Conservation in New Zealand:  Predators and Prospects. In this presentation Dr Barea will provides an overview  of the pressures facing New Zealand birds. Using a case study on the endemic  Kōkako (Callaeas wilsoni), he will show how understanding these pressures and  adaptively managing them can prevent the extinction of New Zealand’s unique  avifauna. The presentation is open to the general public and is free of charge.