ArcCona Team Members


After his diploma he worked for the environmental education programme in a game park. In 1988 together with two colleagues (s.) he founded a biological consulting bureau (GGV) in Kiel. Up to now the bureau has carried out more than 150 projects mostly in the North and East of Germany and gained broad experience in the regional fauna of Northern Europe. Its main activities are inventories and surveys of vertebrates and invertebrates, fauna-flora-habitat protection, management plans and environmental impact assessments.
He has also participated in ecological studies in South and Central America (Peru, Chile and Cuba) and West Africa (Benin). He initialisized the Pendjari project, which became the cradle of ArcCona. He is fluent in Spanish and English.

Hilger Lemke (M. Sc.) studied applied bio-geography in Trier, Germany and biology in Lund, Sweden. Since early university stage his broad interest for ornithology has led to various expeditions and research activities across the globe including Alaska, Canada, Portugal and Azerbaidschan. He repeatedly participated in different research projects dealing with various bird groups covering seabirds, waders, raptors and songbirds using advanced field techniques like colour-ringing, geolocators or blood sampling. Also, during university times he started to work as freelance biologist for both his own company and different consultancy bureaus. Through this ongoing work on environmental impact studies (e.g. wind turbines, power lines), surveys of breeding, resting and migrating birds both at land and off-shore and an ongoing project on meadow bird conservation he receives first-hand experience in both practical field work and data analysis. During his degree projects at Lund University he deepened his expertise for bird migration where he analysed tracking data of a songbird and raptor species. A special interest in waders has brought him into contact with the International Wader Study Group (IWSG). Since 2012 he supports the Sanderling Project within the IWSG as co-supervisor of the juvenile percentage data collection and analysis. Also, through the IWSG a link to the the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force was established since 2014, when a first expedion was joined to the overwintering-grounds in Bangladesh and further ones to the Chinese stop-over sites at the Yellow Sea followed in 2015 and 2016. Several reports and (international) publications underscore his effort in pushing the conservation of migratory birds forward

Author of several scientific and technical publications, member of the “Odonata Specialist Group”, an expert-team of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), of the “American Arachnological Society” (AAS) and of several national nature conservation associations (working group evaluation of environment impact studies at the “Agence béninoise pour l’environnement”, the “Association Béninoise d’Evaluation Environnementale”, etc.).
In addition he participated in studies about whales and dolphins as well as sea turtles at the Atlantic coast of Benin. He speaks French and English.