Lee Mcloughlin
Associate Researcher
Lee is a research associate with the Young Lives Research Lab and a PhD candidate at the Department of Global Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University.
After completing his Master’s degree in Protected Areas Management at James Cook University in Australia in 2009, Lee moved to Belize, Central America, where he would work for more than a decade in the promotion and improvement of protected area management, biodiversity conservation, and community livelihoods, working with local and international NGOs. In the latter part of this decade Lee also worked on the promotion and communication of the importance of the ‘Five Great Forests’ of Mesoamérica to regional and global audiences.
A growing interest in the social and political-economic drivers of environmental degradation led Lee back to academia in 2021 where he commenced a PhD in geography, specialising in political ecology, at FIU in Miami. His dissertation research looks at the dynamics of territoriality and decolonization in the biocultural assemblage of southern Belize, paying particular attention to decolonizing approaches to biodiversity conservation that are emerging.
Through Lee’s close relationship with Indigenous Maya communities in southern Belize, built over more than 14 years, he has recently been engaged with efforts to elevate Maya youth voices through film and storytelling. This work has also been inflected by his experience working on the creation of Belize’s first animated movie, Tecuani and the Duende - The Voice of the Jaguar, an adaptation of an Indigenous folklore figure known as ‘Tata Duende’ or ‘Nukuch Tat’.
Contact Lee McLoughlin: leroy.mcloughlin@gmail.com
Selected Publications
Peer reviewed articles
Gluszek, S., Ariano-Sánchez, D., Cremona, P., Goyenechea, A., Vergara, D. A. L., Mcloughlin, L., ... & Knight, A. (2021). Emerging trends of the illegal wildlife trade in Mesoamerica. Oryx, 55(5), 708-716.
Thornton, D., Reyna, R., Perera-Romero, L., Radachowsky, J., Hidalgo-Mihart, M.G., Garcia, R., McNab, R., Mcloughlin, L., Foster, R., Harmsen, B. and Moreira-Ramírez, J.F., 2020. Precipitous decline of white-lipped peccary populations in Mesoamerica. Biological Conservation, 242, p.108410.
Reyna-Hurtado, R., Radachowsky, J., Mcloughlin, L., Thornton, D., Moreira-Ramirez, J. F., Garcia-Anleu, R., ... & Polisar, J. (2017). White-lipped peccary in Mesoamerica: status, threats and conservation actions. Suiform Soundings, 15(2), 31-35.
Web-based Publications
Stinson, James and McLoughlin, Lee. (2024). How Climate Change is Undermining Indigenous Knowledge and Livelihoods in Central America. The Conversation (Oct. 1, 2024).
Stinson, James and McLoughlin, Lee. (2022). Digital technology for biodiversity protection and climate action: Solution or COP out? The Conversation (Dec. 2022).
Works
Tecuani and the Duende. Directed and Produced by Lee Mcloughlin, animation by David Daniel Smith, directors cut, In Awe Films, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/@tecuaniandtheduende2959