Judith Westveer, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director and Conservation Ecologist, Southern Plains Land Trust (SPLT) in Colorado, which has protected over 60,000 acres of prairie. Judith was born and raised in Amsterdam and holds a Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics as a Wetland Restoration Ecologist. She has worked for various environmental non-profit organizations in the Peruvian Amazon including Science Director at Conservación Amazónica, Wildlife Monitor at Fauna Forever, and Affiliated Researcher at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. She co-authored the World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Index Report. She’s also illustrated children’s books about nature conservation.

For the Summer 2024 issue, Judith recommended One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest, Wade Davis, Simon & Schuster, 1997, 544 pages.

For the Spring 2024 issue, Judith recommended The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, Andrea Wulf, Knopf, 2015, 496 pages.

For the Winter 2023-2024 issue, Judith recommended American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains, Dan Flores, University Press of Kansas, 2016, 222 pages.