WHO WE ARE

and what we've done

TEAM MEMBERS

Robin Chazdon

Principal Consultant

[email protected]
Skype: rchazdon

Robin Chazdon is a Professor Emerita in the Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut and is a part-time Research Professor with the Tropical Forests and People Center at the University of the Sunshine  Coast. She specializes in ecology and regeneration of tropical and temperate forests, conservation and restoration of tropical forests, tropical second-growth forests, biodiversity and conservation in agricultural landscapes.

Sarah Jane Wilson

Consultant

Sarah Jane Wilson is a forest geographer with a background in ecology/biology (MSc, BSc) and human geography (PhD). She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher with the PARTNERS restoration network at the University of Connecticut. She has worked with community-based forest restoration and conservation enterprises in montane cloud forests in Andean Ecuador and the Nepalese Himalaya, and in lowland jungle in Guatemala’s Peten.

Cesar Sabogal

Consultant

Cesar Sabogal has over 35 years of international professional experience in research, rural development, education, capacity building, and project formation and evaluation in various forestry areas. His areas of focus include forest resource assessment, silviculture, forest management and monitoring, and landscape restoration.

Tahia Devisscher

Consultant

Dr. Tahia Devisscher has experience working at the interface of environment and development in different forest landscapes around the world. Over the past decade, Tahia has worked in more than 20 countries with more than 50 partners supporting global to local strategies to anticipate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Daniella Schweizer

Consultant

Daniella Schweizer is a tropical socio-ecologist with 13 years of experience in ecological and social data analysis and synthesis of forest restoration. Her work includes research on the ecology of understory succession and enrichment planting in native species silviculture plantations in Panama, the political ecology of watershed committees in the Panama Canal Watershed, the use of tools such as phylogenetic ecology in planning and conducting restoration plantings and in the assessment of restoration success. Currently, she is conducting research aimed at characterizing the various approaches to FLR implementation and the perceptions on barriers and opportunities to increase the scale of forest restoration.

Michael Verdone

Consultant

Michael Verdone is a Ph.D. economist with work experience at the intersections of development, economics, and the environment. He enjoys using economic tools and theory to work with NGOs, governments, academic institutions, and other partners to find creative and collaborative solutions to pressing environmental and development problems.

Renato Crouzeilles

Consultant

Renato Crouzeilles is a Ph.D. in Ecology with an emphasis on forest landscape restoration, spatial prioritization and conservation biology. His focus is to reconcile environmental management with public policies at different spatial scales to be applied in actions related to biodiversity conservation, forest restoration and adaptive management.

Kurt von Kleist

Consultant

Kurt von Kleist worked as an applied ecologist performing environmental assessments across an array of ecosystems with the U.S. National Park Service, Florida Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Forest Service prior to becoming a project manager with a consulting firm in western Montana. After 10 years planning, developing, and implementing restoration projects in the northern Rocky Mountains, he took his skillset abroad to improve restoration outcomes in tropical forests. His current interests include bridging gaps between policy, planning, and implementation via extension and outreach in order to effectively scale-up forest restoration and better attain the biodiversity objectives inherent in global reforestation efforts.

Pedro Brancalion

Collaborative Partner

Pedro Brancalion is a Tropical Forestry Professor at the Department of Forest Sciences of the “Luiz de Queiroz” College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo, Brazil, where he develops research and outreach programs on tropical forest restoration in human-modified landscapes.

Manuel Guariguata

Collaborative Partner

Manuel Guariguata serves as CIFOR’s Principal Scientist on tropical forest ecology and forest management for production and conservation. Before joining CIFOR he was a forest researcher at CATIE, Costa Rica, where he also worked as a Professor on Conservation Biology in the Graduate Program. Manuel also served as Environmental Affairs Officer at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity where he facilitated intergovernmental deliberations on forest biodiversity and climate change.

PREVIOUS PROJECTS & CLIENTS

  • Consultations with leading restoration organizations on FLR strategy and implementation, including World Resources Institute, Trillion Trees, WWF, and Conservation International (CI)
  • Consultations on Strategy Development for the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration
  • Consultation on Ecosystem Restoration for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
  • Evaluation and selection of grant recipients for the Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative (FERI) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
  • Review of Decision Support Tools for Forest and Landscape Restoration published by the Center for International Forestry
  • Production of two policy briefs on Natural Regeneration of Forests with FERI and CI
  • Develop guidelines and frameworks for operationalizing Forest and Landscape Restoration in specific contexts, including work with the International Tropical Timber Organization, Society for Ecological Restoration, and WeForest
  • Conducting Restoration Opportunity Assessments in Ghana, Uganda, and Malawi