Robin Moore



I am Robin Moore. I am director of the amphibian program at Conservation International and I am organizer of the Global search for lost frogs. This is a campaign to try to discover whether many amphibian species that have not been seen in decades are hanging on to survival or whether we really have lost them. One of the things highlighted by this campaign was that certain parts of the world really have a very high concentration of lost species. One of these areas is India and specifically the Western Ghats. And our partners in India have compiled a list of around 50 species of frogs that have not been seen in over a decade, some as many as 170 years. This is a really staggering amount of time not to see some of these incredible species. The Western Ghats is home to some of the most amazing frogs. One of my favorite frogs is the Purple Frog which our partner in India Dr Biju discovered and it’s an entirely new family. It lives underground for 11 months of the year, it has the most amazing life history and it really is astounding to me to that we can be discovering new species and new families and that really shows the potential of areas like this to increase our understanding of our biodiversity. In November I had the pleasure of travelling to Delhi to meet with our partners and to launch the Lost Amphibians of India campaign. This campaign will send team of scientists to look for these 50 species over the coming months and I am hoping that through good news stories of rediscoveries we’ll be able to highlight importance of this area not only for the frogs but for the forests that they call home and that are also vitally important for the communities that are living in these areas and through this we can promote their conservation. I am very excited to be a part of this campaign and look forward to working with my partners in India and internationally to steer this campaign in the right direction.