Kazoglou Ioannis

Dr Ioannis (Yannis) Kazoglou is Associate Professor at the University of Thessaly, Department of Forestry, Wood Sciences and Design (Karditsa, Greece) since April 2019. He is the director of the Laboratory of Rangeland Science and Management of Protected Areas and teaches courses in the undergraduate curriculum of the Dept. and in the postgraduate curriculum entitled “Multifunctional management of forest ecosystems and bio-economy”. He holds a Bachelor of Science – Integrated MSc from the Dept. of Agriculture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1994) and a PhD (2007) from the Dept. of Forestry and Natural Environment of the same university (thesis on the effects of water buffalo grazing on wet grasslands). He is an expert on the management of protected areas and, more specifically, wetlands and rangeland ecosystems and has actively participated in numerous research and applied restoration and monitoring projects in Greece and abroad since 1997. Among these projects, (a) a LIFE-Nature project on the conservation of priority bird species in Lake Mikri Prespa (2002-2007) which was awarded as one of the five “Best of the Best” LIFE-Nature projects among 26 “Best LIFE projects” in the E.U. that ended in 2007-2008 (398 projects in total all over the European Union), (b) an original study on the very important populations of bats at the transboundary Prespa Park carried out in collaboration with experts from France, Greece, Albania and North Macedonia (2006-2011), and (c) a post-doctoral research project on the development of tools for the management of rangelands and the support to extensive stockbreeding in the Municipality of Prespa, Greece (11/2014-11/2015). He has also contributed to important lawmaking acts for the protected areas of Greece and grazing management, as special advisor of the Deputy Minister of the Environment (Dec. 2016 – April 2018) and as chairman of the Hellenic Range and Pasture Society (2015-2016). His research and teaching interests focus on the conservation of biodiversity and on the positive effects that specific primary sector activities, such as extensive grazing, organic agriculture, breeding autochthonous livestock breeds, wet meadow and reedbed management, may have on biodiversity, especially in protected areas of the EU Natura 2000 network. An important part of his work aims at sustaining local communities and economies in remote areas and halting the loss of biodiversity due to land abandonment in rural areas. He currently participates in research projects on the (a) conservation of Chorthippus lacustris, an endemic to Epirus Region, Greece, grasshoper species (Orthoptera) that depends on the proper management of wet grasslands, (b) determination of grazing pressure and grazing capacity and preparation of a Sustainable Grazing Action Plan in the National Park of Helmos – Vouraikos (N. Peloponnese), (c) protection from overgrazing and management of critical habitats in the protected areas of Samothrace island, and (d) conservation of rare, endemic and endangered species of butterflies and Orthoptera species in the National Park of Helmos-Vouraikos and neighboring areas of the Natura 2000 network. Dr Yannis Kazoglou has participated in the production of more than 45 nature management plans and studies for protected areas and habitat types and has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, collective volumes and international conference proceedings, with more than 150 citations. He is member of various scientific associations, professional and other non-governmental organizations including the Hellenic Range and Pasture Society (chairman and vice-chairman, 2015-2018), the Hellenic Ornithological Society (board member, 2006-2010), the Greek Shorthorn Cattle Breeders’ Association (secretary gen. since 2016), the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature, the “Network for the Preservation of Greek Indigenous Farm Animals – Amalthia” and the Hellenic Agroforestry Network.