RICHARD CAINES

richard's story

Richard has spent much of his life around the River Thames and other water bodies.  Born in Windsor, he grew up near Henley-on-Thames and has lived in six other locations along its course: Fulham, Barnes, Marlow, Maidenhead, Oxford and currently, Sonning.  While living aboard, the Potomac in Washington DC, the harbor in Hong Kong and the Bosphorus in Istanbul were never far away.  Richard has also spent much of professional career assessing potential or actual impacts on rivers, particularly from hydropower development.

A marine biologist by training, he was introduced to the impacts of sewage pollution on Britain’s coastal waters and beaches in 1990, when he edited the Good Beach Guide for the Marine Conservation Society.  He subsequently researched and campaigned on how industrial chemicals - specifically persistent organic pollutants -  were affecting the reproductive health of whales and albatrosses.  

Richard is the Senior Director of safeguards and human rights at WWF International.  Through this work, he understands the importance of rivers: to the people and communities who live alongside or subsist from them, to cultural heritage and tradition and to biodiversity and wider ecological health.  Prior to WWF, Richard  worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a development bank that focuses on promoting sustainable, responsible private sector investment in emerging and developing countries.