Dr Shah is the Chief Executive Officer of Nature Seychelles which manages Cousin island Special Reserve, recently recognized as “one of the world’s great conservation success stories”. He was a founding Board Member of WIOMSA and a WIOMSA President from 2009 to 2013. He has contributed extensively to the development of WIOMSA activities and programmes such as WIO-COMPAS and the WIOMSA Magazine.

He was the long-time Chair of the Programme Committee of MASMA. Nirmal initiated the Nature Seychelles’ Reef Rescuers project whose spin-offs are numerous and widespread, extending to private and public partnerships for the rehabilitation of a coral reef – Lemuria Constance Resort’s Coral Garden to Magpie Robin’s conservation projects in several of the inner granitic islands of Seychelles.

These projects have also allowed for capacity building in research and conservation; providing training opportunities for over a 100 young scientists in reef restoration, marine turtle research, bird research, island conservation, and many other areas of coastal and marine science.