Meet the team: Aaron Hawkins
Aaron has been working in international development since 2007, supporting projects in nutrition, water and sanitation, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and maternal and child health across more than 20 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa. He has served as Acting Country Director and Chief of Party for the American NGO Management Sciences for Health and as a Team Lead with UNICEF in Madagascar. Since June 2025, Aaron has been Durrell’s Madagascar Country Director, overseeing our programme and more than 100 full-time employees at seven field sites.
What sparked your passion for Madagascar?
I had always been interested in Madagascar since doing my undergraduate degree in Montreal, where Malagasy was featured as a case study in my linguistics class. Malagasy is such a fascinating and unique language, but that’s for a separate conversation! When a position opened up there, my family and I jumped at the chance to go. We moved to Madagascar in 2020 after I accepted a position with UNICEF and have been here ever since. It is a fascinating country, as unique and beautiful as its national language, with seemingly endless diversity and so many incredible corners to explore.
How did you get into your role at Durrell?
I had just finished closing out a large-scale public health programme, and my family and I were keen to stay in Madagascar, when a recruitment firm helped connect me with Durrell. I have always had tremendous respect for conservation organisations and was intrigued by what Durrell was doing. I’ll admit that I became even more interested after watching the Durrells of Corfu series! I love the history behind the Trust and have been incredibly impressed by the expertise, dedication, and passion of its staff.
Tell us about your role
As the Country Director for Durrell in Madagascar, I help oversee our programmes, strategies, business operations, and relationships with partners, donors, and the government. I work most closely with the members of the Madagascar Senior Management Team as well as the Field Programmes Team in the UK. I have the immense privilege of working with a dedicated team of over a hundred staff across five regions of Madagascar.
We have breeding centres for endangered species, community awareness activities, and carry out large-scale capacity building work. We also serve as site managers for a couple of Protected Areas and work inside a few National Parks. It is a complex and fascinating mixture of projects that I am proud to have the privilege of supporting.
What do you enjoy most about your work, and what do you find most challenging?
Durrell is an incredible organisation, and I have been blown away by the work that the Madagascar team has accomplished over the past nearly four decades (2026 is our 40-year anniversary!). I consider myself incredibly fortunate to work with such a dedicated team of hardworking professionals who are committed to improving conservation efforts and protecting endangered species here. I love the diversity of our work, the places where we work, the people we work with, and the kind of impact that we are clearly having. It is certainly not without significant challenges, however! We are looking at how to improve operations, be more efficient with our work, improve and expand relationships with key stakeholders, and revamp our communications efforts, both internally and externally. It is, I believe, a pivotal moment for the country office and I am honoured to be part of the team at this particular juncture.