Ruth has been working with certification and sustainable management of natural resources for nearly two decades. Her experience includes running a global forest certification programme, advising governments, industry and NGOs on responsible natural resource management, developing international and national standards and writing a range of guides and books. She has worked in more than 40 countries and has vast experience of developing, interpreting and implementing policies and processes for delivering sustainable management and independent verification of natural resources.

Ruth is a co-founder and director of ProForest.

Neil has spent the last eighteen years working with environmental certification and responsible management of natural resources.  He has extensive experience of delivering practical solutions to sustainability requirements, specialising in audit and certification, supply chain control and best management practices, in an extremely wide range of tropical and temperate settings. His experience has included management of the largest global forest certification programme, and a leading role in the development of sustainable oil palm.

Neil is a co-founder and director of ProForest.

Abraham has over 14 years of experience working on natural resource management with a specialisation in sustainable forest management, certification and forest policy. His experience involves managing community forestry projects, developing and implementing forest certification programmes and providing support to forest standard setting and policy implementation. As the Forest Programme Leader at the WWF West Africa Forest Office, he coordinated several forestry projects including providing technical support to the FLEGT/VPA process. He has also provided training and technical support to companies on forest certification for the Global Forest and Trade Network.

Abraham is an Associate Director at ProForest.

Alex has 12 years of experience within the business and investment sectors and specialised in Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Funds, and how these can drive better practices in the arena of natural resource management.

He has conservation, land use and woodland management experience.

His focus now is on how companies can deliver practical implementation of business policies, especially those that reflect their environmental and social impacts.

 

Dawn has a background in rural development, and natural resource management. She has extensive experience in developing and implementing certification and accreditation systems, including forest certification, and global multi-stakeholder initiatives working with soy, cotton, sugarcane and oil palm. She has considerable field experience in participatory research and development projects in Latin America where she lived and worked for over 10 years. Her experience includes projects working with participatory land-use planning, community forestry, forest certification, NTFP harvesting, advocacy and information networks and participatory monitoring and evaluation.

Dawn is an Associate Director at ProForest. She is fluent in Spanish. 

Chris is an Associate Director of ProForest, with a background in biology, forest ecology and tropical plant physiology. His experience includes extensive periods of ecological field research and project work, mainly in the tropics. Since joining ProForest in 2006, he has worked on conservation and sustainable crop production projects, especially the development, interpretation and application of conservation frameworks within natural product standards. Since March ’09, he has been managing the High Conservation Value Resource Network full-time.

Previously, he spent several years in the biopharma and food industries developing high-value crops such as medicinal plants and oils. He also worked for the UK Government, directing the UK Technology Programme’s support for Environmental Technologies, including policy development and funding for technological innovation.

Kate has a background in natural resources conservation and environmental policy.  She has previously worked as a stream ecologist in a research forest and also with sustainable transportation solutions. Currently, she leads on ProForest’s biofuel work, and has extensive experience on the sustainability of biofuels including standards development, practical implementation of verification of sustainable field production and chain of custody solutions for a range of feedstocks including jatropha, palm, soy and sugarcane.  She is also involved in responsible timber procurement and co-ordinated CPET for 2 years. Kate is Canadian/British and speaks French.
 

Anna has a background in zoology and conservation management, her recent training including environmental policy and forest governance. She has experience working on reforestation programs and biodiversity conservation in Scotland and Costa Rica. She has a BSc in Zoology and recently completed an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation and Management at Oxford University. Her dissertation was on wildlife corridors to reduce human-wildlife conflict as a cost-effective management strategy.

Anna joined ProForest as a Project Manager, working in the Forest Management team and focussing on governance, sustainable forest management and carbon issues. Anna is French/Spanish and is fluent in both languages.

Remi has a background in quality and environmental management and has specialized in sustainable management of forest resources. He worked in Gabon for a timber company where he was in charge of the Sustainable Forest management service for a concession and was involved in the FSC certification process. Previously, he also worked in Chile with Mapuche communities on the participative process for developing a national reserve management plan.

He has joined Proforest at the end of 2009 and will work on HCV and forest management topics. Remi is French. He is fluent in Spanish.

Nilofer is a zoologist, specialising in the behavioural ecology of primates. She spent three years living and working in tropical forests in Southeast Asia, which has given her a broad overview of the ecology of tropical forests and the adaptive responses of their inhabitants. Nilofer also has experience of teaching in British universities, including University College London.

Her current role at ProForest is coordinating the High Conservation Value (HCV) Resource Network, which involves promoting the HCV concept and ensuring a consistent approach is applied worldwide. Nilofer is of Pakistani origin and is fluent in Hindi and Urdu.

Andreas has a background in wood science and cultural anthropology and gained broad working experience in the forest product sector including extensive field experience in natural resource management in the tropics for almost a decade. His work covers support to timber industries in achieving sustainable forest management, the EU-FLEGT process and biofuels. As a researcher at the University of Hamburg, he coordinated recently a 3 year research project linking forest certification processes in Malaysia to timber procurement policies in EU. Next to various consultancies he has also worked with environmental NGOs.

Within ProForest Andreas manages forestry projects including legality verification and sustainability certification aspects.

Ilan is an agronomist and since 1995, has had extensive experience working with NGOs and the private sector in human development, conflict management and organizational change in Brazil. He has also worked as a consultant on strategic socio-environmental management and has a Master's degree in Environment Science from the University of São Paulo.

Ilan worked several years in WWF-Brasil dealing with conservation issues and the expansion of agriculture commodities, such as soy, sugar cane and cattle ranching.

Ilan is Brazilian and speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Isaac is a forester specializing in the socio-economics of tropical forestry. He has diverse work and research experience in forest ecology and social forestry particularly in his home country, Ghana. His experience ranges from coordinating community forest plantation development projects and assisting on ecological research in the tropical high forests of West Africa. Isaac has recently completed a master’s degree at the University of Copenhagen where his dissertation evaluated government interventions for forest plantation development in Ghana.

Isaac joined ProForest in 2010 as a project manager and his work focuses on forest governance in Africa.

Joyce Lam has wide experience in supply chain management, implementation of responsible timber purchasing policies for both private and public sectors. For example, she was involved in the evaluation of Danish procurement guideline in 2005, and the review of Belgian timber procurement policy in 2008. Joyce has also worked extensively in assessing forest certification schemes for different clients. Joyce has carried out baseline audits for timber product manufacturers in China and her native Hong Kong, and provides ongoing support on improving their timber sourcing.

Joyce joined ProForest in 2004 after finishing her MSc with distinction in Forest Ecology and Management in Edinburgh University. Previously, she worked in Forest and Trade Network in WWF Hong Kong generating the demand for certified forest products. Joyce speaks fluent English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

Nick has a broad background in natural resource management, sustainability and environmental policy. In particular he worked in Fiji as an ecological researcher, assessing marine and terrestrial resource use and developing environmental awareness campaigns in local coastal communities. Previous to this he worked in engineering consultancy on sustainability projects and lead business development in various infrastructure sectors. More recently he graduated from Oxford University with an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy.

He joined ProForest as the CPET awareness raising coordinator, and is involved with providing support for implementing the UK Government’s policy on legal and sustainable timber procurement.

Rhiannon has a background in land management issues and their implications for local communities. She has a Masters in Environmentalism and Society and has researched the history of the recent land crisis in Zimbabwe and its impact on the culture and traditions of the Shona people.

Rhiannon joined ProForest in April 2008 and is currently part of the CPET team. Her role involves, amongst others, organising the regular CPET workshops and editing and updating the CPET website and newsletters.

Rhiannon has lived and worked in a number of countries including Spain, Turkey, the United States and Zimbabwe.

Sofie Tind Nielsen has background in biology, sustainable land use and natural resource management and has worked in developing countries assessing the effects of deforestation through ecological impact surveys and biodiversity analysis. She has professional expertise and experience with the process of developing public procurement policies for timber and an extensive knowledge of forest standards and certification. She is responsible for coordinating and managing the Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) which supports the implementation of the UK Government’s policy on legal and sustainable timber procurement.

Andry has wide experience in forestry and conservation projects. Her work has ranged from strategy development to practical fieldwork in Madagascar as well as in France. She also has extensive experience as production and quality managers for a range of timber companies in Europe. 

Andry is currently the Training and Quality Manager at ProForest, coordinating training and maintaining the quality management system. She also works in supply chain management with private sector clients on the implementation of responsible purchasing policies. As a native speaker of French, Andry is leading the ProForest francophone projects. She is a French and Madagascar national.

Pavithra has a background in economics, biodiversity conservation and most recently, in sustainable oil palm production. She has worked in Indonesia, US and the UK with various NGOs and government agencies in the areas of amphibian and mammal conservation, and climate change management. As a graduate from the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, her dissertation focused on the feasibility of sustainable oil palm production amongst smallholders in Aceh, Indonesia.

Pavithra has joined ProForest in mid-2009 and will predominantly be working in the agricultural commodities and biofuels sectors. Pavithra is of Indian origin and can speak Indonesian and Tamil.

Anni has a background in ecology, conservation management and forest governance. She has experience working in ecological research and forest conservation in the UK and Latin America. She has lived and worked in various countries in Latin America including Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru. She has a BSc in Ecology and she recently completed an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the University of Oxford. As a part of this degree, she carried out research on the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.

In ProForest, her work focuses on biofuels and agricultural commodities. Anni is Finnish and speaks Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Janka works at ProForest as the Office Administrator and her role is to support technical office staff and manage ProForest administration. She is also responsible for making travel arrangements for the project managers and supporting the Communications Manager. She has six years of experience in administration for both private and public sectors, and has recently completed a BA marketing management degree.

Janka speaks Slovak, as well as fluent English and Czech.

 

 

Junia joined ProForest in 2008 as the Office Administrator. She has a background in leisure management but at ProForest her role is to help run the office as well as ensure all the project managers get to the right place and on time. She is also responsible to ensure our office reduces its carbon footprint as much as possible.

Junia is Brazilian and speaks fluent English and Portuguese.

 

 

Min has a background in food & beverage management and has lived and worked several years in Leeds, UK. Upon her return to Malaysia, Min joined the ProForest South East Asia office in January 2010 as the Office Administrator. Min's role is to assist in the management and running of our regional office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Min is Malaysian and fluent in both English and Bahasa Melayu.

 

Raymond is a philologist and has a background in journalism and copywriting. He also has experience with public relations management and policy development in the non-profit sector.

Raymond is ProForest’s communications manager. He is Dutch.

 

 

 

Pam has been with ProForest since it started in 2000. As ProForest has grown she has done many jobs but is currently the accounts administrator, dealing with our financial administration, invoicing and payments.

 

 

Simon has extensive international experience of forest certification, gained over the last eleven years. This expertise has been gained as an auditor, a manager of certified woodlands and a producer of certified wood products.

His work also covers practical forestry and research both in the UK and abroad and includes projects for both public and private forestry and environmental organisations.

 

 

Anders is a forest ecologist with a research background in botany and entomology. He has vast experience consulting in the forest industry and forest owners' associations specialising in applied conservation and biology training. He then joined WWF, initially as national forest officer, then as certification officer for WWF International, before returning to consultancy. His work over the last 12 years focused on various aspects of FSC-certification, including the development of the Swedish FSC standards and development of the HCVF concept. He recently coordinated the now completed two-year policy phase of the international FSC Plantations Review. Anders' work for ProForest has included an advisory role in the setup of the HCV Resource Network.