Dale Wright was employed at the beginning of 2012 as BirdLife South Africa’s Regional Conservation Manager for the Western Cape. His position is focused on the Important Bird Areas Programme, one of BirdLife International’s flagship conservation programmes. Dale will provide an introduction to the organisation BirdLife South Africa, and the identification of Important Bird Areas. Following this Dale will expand on establishing the IBA Programme in the Western Cape and other regional conservation work currently underway. Finally he will describe aspects of his career development thus far and how a background and training in science has facilitated his work in the NGO sector.