Christoph Parsch

Research Interests

My research focusses on land-use change, corresponding conservation actions, and spatial conservation planning in Papua, Indonesia. While the region is still home to an extensive remaining forest cover, accelerating rates of land-use change and an associated deforestation are becoming a reason of concern. Papua is now at a crossroads between major investments into conservation actions and severe environmental degradation. An existent political momentum in Papua provides a narrow window of opportunity to adapt the current protected areas network to prevent considerable biodiversity loss in an increasingly pressured unique environment.


PhD project

Land use change in Papua, Indonesia – Assessing deforestation patterns and predicting future hotspots of habitat loss to inform spatial conservation planning


Publications

Parsch, C. , Wagner, B., Pangau-Adam, M., Nitschke, C., Kreft, H., & Schrader, J. (2022). Papua at the Crossroads: A Plea for Systematic Conservation Planning in One of the Largest Remaining Areas of Tropical Rainforest. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 5. pdf

Schrader, J., Parsch, C. , Mühlenberg, M., Stinn, C., Mühlberger, F., Weinrich, C., Hofmann, T., Kalor, J. D., Moeljono, S., & Sattler, C. (2020). An annotated bird checklist for Gam island, Raja Ampat, including field notes on species monitoring and conservation. Forest and Society, 4(2), 310–329. pdf


Affiliated projects

DAAD (PPP) - Identifying synergies of land-use monitoring and conservation prioritization in Indonesian New Guinea to assess impacts on biodiversity and carbon storage within tropical rainforest systems

DAAD - Integrating forest management with biodiversity education in Papuan Universities


Academic education

Since 2019 PhD program "Biological Diversity and Ecology", Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany
2015 to 2018 M.Sc. / M.I.N.C. Master of International Nature Conservation,
Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany / Lincoln University, New Zealand
2012 to 2015 B.Sc. Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Scholarships & awards

Since 2019 PhD-Scholarship - Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
2015 SETAC GLB Junior scientist award [2nd place] - poster presentation "Are sewage treatment plants relevant pathways of micro-plastics in aquatic ecosystems?"
2014 ERASMUS+ at the University of Tromsø, Norway
2012 to 2014 Germany Scholarship