Rich Baxter is the Director of the Indian Ocean Tortoise Alliance (IOTA), which focuses on island ecosystem restoration and giant tortoise rewilding in the Western Indian Ocean. He has over 15 years of experience working on islands in Mauritius and Seychelles.

He began his career in Mauritius, working on invasive species control in Black River Gorges National Park, and later ran the field research station on Île Ronde (Round Island), developing habitat restoration strategies with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. This included the introduction of Aldabra giant tortoises to promote habitat restoration.

Rich holds an MSc in Environmental Science from the University of Zürich, during which he studied Aldabra giant tortoise movement ecology on Aldabra Atoll while serving as lead field ecologist for the Zürich Aldabra Research Program.

In Seychelles, he has served as Conservation and Sustainability Manager of Frégate Island (2017–2019) and worked as an ecological consultant with international private companies on sustainability and environmental management projects.

Rich is passionate about chelonians and is an active member of the IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group (TFTSG).