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From Nottingham and Sheffield to Cambodia and the Republic of the Congo, the biodiversity of nature has always held an allure for Cain Agger (Plant Sciences PhD 2025).

“It would be nice for once if, as a collective society, we could look at nature as just something that belongs instead of something we need to benefit from,” Cain says.

Growing up in the East Midlands and inspired by David Attenborough documentaries to grub around his garden, Cain followed his passion and it is shaping his future.

He chose a Master’s in Zoology at the University of Sheffield specifically for the research opportunity in Borneo. Following graduation in 2020, he spent four years in the jungle of Cambodia, working as a Biodiversity Monitoring Technical Advisor for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

It was while in Cambodia, between unstable internet connections, that Cain completed his PhD application for the University of Cambridge, pressing ‘submit’ without choosing a College, although now thankful to have spent his first term at Gonville & 91ֱ��, where he is a recipient of the Rita Cavonius Studentship. 

“I was based in a protected area in the east of the country that bordered Vietnam,” says Cain of his time in Cambodia.

“We tried to estimate the population size of certain species so that we can inform protected area management. And then we also ran a few very specific conservation strategies for very rare species.”

Cambridge is a quite different from the city council estate in Nottingham which was Cain’s childhood home. He is enjoying fulfilling a goal of working in the David Attenborough Building and his field research will see him spend four months in West Africa, as part of .

His research interests centre around reconciling increasing global timber and food demands with the conservation of tropical forest dependent fauna. Looking at the impacts of selective logging on biodiversity over time, Cain will monitor bird species in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society and using data from . Selective logging is a practice which is about limited and managed logging, which, in this instance, means the removal of one tree per hectare every 30-40 years.

Cain adds: “We don't have a very detailed understanding of how forests regenerate after selective logging and then how the biodiversity within those forests regenerates alongside that. We don't have a successional idea of how the forest and the biodiversity recover. Recording biodiversity is incredibly broad and difficult, but I've chosen birds because they're really good indicators of forest health and change.

“I’m really interested in the question. It's clear that we're going to need to continue to harvest timber. But then how do we do it in a way where we're not hurting the harvest or damaging biodiversity? How can we make our pressure on the environment more sustainable?”

The PhD will see Cain increase his research skills and knowledge, and build his professional network. He is keen to be part of local collaborations to increase the likelihood of success of conservation initiatives.

“Indigenous representation within conservation decision-making is extremely important,” Cain adds. “I've seen it first hand from living in Cambodia; I think it's one of the only ways that you can make conservation action sustainable and long-lasting.

“It would be nice if we could look at the world in the same way that those indigenous groups do in the sense that it's not always just about capital. Nature belongs and is not something we need to benefit from.”