Dr. Lee Durrell is Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, she helped shape it into one of the world’s most important centres for breeding endangered species and training conservationists. Alongside her husband Gerald, WPC’s founder, she helped launch the Programme for Belize, the first project undertaken by the World Land Trust. She remains deeply committed to preserving her late husband’s legacy, and was awarded an MBE in 2011 for her services to conservation.

She completed her PhD in zoology at Duke University.

In 1986, she published her first book “The State of the Ark” which offered a comprehensive review of species conservation efforts worldwide.