Paul is Head of NEOM’s Nature Reserve (Saudi Arabia) and Adjunct Professor at James Cook University (Australia). He is responsible for leading the visionary program to conserve 95% of NEOM (25,000 km2) as a protected area spanning spectacular red deserts, snow-capped mountains, vibrant coral reefs and deep ocean habitats. NEOM is a gigaproject that aims to accelerate human progress and spearhead delivery of Vision 2030 for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In collaboration with Saudi Arabian and international partners, the NEOM Nature Reserve will kickstart a new era in the conservation of Arabian wildlife through a unique approach integrating landscape-scale habitat restoration, rewilding, nature-based tourism, and development planning.
Prior to this role, Paul was founding Chief Environment Officer for NEOM. He led establishment of NEOM’s innovative program of environmental protection, embedding environmental performance in all areas of the business, ensuring that the world’s largest and most ambitious development projects also sets new benchmarks in nature conservation.
Before joining NEOM, Paul served as a Managing Director of Reef Ecologic, a company specialized in creating innovative solutions for environmental challenges. This followed a 15-year career in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, where he was the founding director of the Climate Change Program and led key programs in research, monitoring, conservation planning and resilience-based management. Throughout his career spanning private sector, government and NGO engagements, Paul has regularly advised and worked with international organisations, national governments, NGOs and leaders from the private sector. These have included International Union for the Conservation of Nature, UNESCO, The Nature Conservancy, NOAA, The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and governments of Australia, USA, St Lucia, Grenada, Belize, Vietnam, Palau and Saudi Arabia.
He is a founding member of the IUCN Working Group on Climate Change and Coral Reefs, member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, member of the Advisory Board of the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre, founding co-chair of the International Working Group on Management for the Coral Restoration Consortium and serves on the Executive Committee for Sustainability of the Red Sea.
Paul holds a PhD in Coral Reef Ecology and Management from James Cook University in Australia and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne. He continues his long affiliation with James Cook University as Adjunct Professor with the Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research at JCU. He has authored over 80 peer-reviewed articles, including internationally significant reports and books. He is certified as a Commercial Diver from the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme (ADAS) and has completed over 2000 scuba dives spanning the world’s oceans.
Paul has led the scientific discovery of NEOM’s largely unexplored sea- and land-scapes. He was NEOM’s Expedition Leader on the 6-week NEOM-OceanX expedition to explore and document the natural wonders of the northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba. This included discovery of at least 10 new species, the first comprehensive deep sea bathymetric surveys of the area, charting of previously unknown deep-sea pinnacles (over 600 m high), discovery of the world’s northernmost brine pool at 1500 m depth, and the first record of a giant species of squid from the Red Sea (over 5 m long and yet to be identified). Paul has completed over 100 SCUBA dives exploring the spectacular coral reefs of NEOM and has spent hundreds of days exploring the deserts and mountains of NEOM, documenting unknown geological features, new habitats and unrecorded cultural heritage sites. He has coordinated the production of over 200 studies and scientific reports, led the first State of the Environment Report for NEOM and is currently leading efforts to design and plan the Nature Reserve that will protect and rewild the spectacular environments of NEOM. He is the first person to have reached the highest point of NEOM at 2,500 m and explored the ocean depths in a submersible to 700m.
