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  • FTA 2020 Science Conference - Maryam Rahmanian, 14 September - Keynote speech

FTA 2020 Science Conference – Maryam Rahmanian, 14 September – Keynote speech


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  • Michael Allen Brady

Michael Allen Brady


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Michael Allen Brady is a Principal Scientist at CIFOR and leads its Value Chains, Finance and Investment (VFI) team as well as FTA’s Flagship 3. He manages VFI programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America in achieving sustainable value chains and commodity supply in forest landscapes; developing business models that deliver improved social and environmental outcomes; and promoting responsible finance that contribute to advancing sustainable land and resource uses. Prior to joining CIFOR he was a senior forestry officer at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. He has worked for over 30 years in Indonesia, and throughout East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa on forestry research, policy and management; forestry investment and finance; forest ecosystem dynamics and restoration; and sustainability standards and certification systems. He has a BSc in biology, a MSc in forest management and a PhD in tropical peat forest science.


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  • Keynote presentation – Quality of research for development – foundations for a high-achieving, impact-focused culture

Keynote presentation – Quality of research for development – foundations for a high-achieving, impact-focused culture


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Holger Meinke, Strategic Research Professor for Global Food Sustainability at the University of Tasmania, Australia at FTA 2020 Science Conference 14-25 September 2020.


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  • FTA 2020 Science Conference - Holger Meinke, 14 September - Keynote speech

FTA 2020 Science Conference – Holger Meinke, 14 September – Keynote speech


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  • Federica Coccia

Federica Coccia


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Federica joins the FTA team as MELIA coordinator after having worked as an Evaluation Analyst for the CGIAR-IEA. She has a long standing experience in evaluation approaches and methods for evaluating agricultural scientific research for development. Prior to joining the CGIAR, she worked for FAO for 12 years, mainly in evaluation, project management and gender. She took part in various FAO evaluations including the 2006 Independent External Evaluation (IEE) of FAO. Following the IEE, she was also closely involved in FAO’s reform process.


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  • Brian Belcher

Brian Belcher


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Summary Brian Belcher’s research has focused on understanding and improving the role and potential of natural resources to sustainably contribute to rural development and on research effectiveness. Belcher served as director of the Centre for Livelihoods and Ecology at RRU from 2007 to 2013, when he became the university’s first Tier 1 Canada Research Chair. As a CRC, he is leading a program in Sustainability Research Effectiveness that aims to develop theory and methodology for evaluating sustainability research in complex transdisciplinary contexts and to conduct comparative analyses and evaluations of a series of sustainability research projects. Belcher teaches in the Doctor of Social Sciences program and supervises master’s and doctoral students. He is also a senior associate scientist with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Coordinator of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment (MELIA) Unit of the Consortium Research Program of Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. Experience Prior to joining RRU in 2007, Belcher worked at CIFOR, based at the headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia, for a decade. While there, he served as Senior Scientist, Leader of the Forest Products and People Program, and Director of the Livelihoods Program. Belcher led and contributed to a series of research projects including a large international comparative analysis of cases of non-timber forest products commercialization and the Poverty and Environment Network. He worked at Canada’s International Development Research Centre in New Delhi, India, from 1994-97, and Ottawa, from 1989-92, and at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, doing research in Northern Manitoba and the Eastern Arctic. Credentials Belcher is a Canadian national with a BSc in biology (ecology) from University of Winnipeg, master of natural resources management from University of Manitoba, and PhD in forestry (economics and policy) from University of Minnesota, and research experience in a variety of natural resource management systems.


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  • Marlène Elias

Marlène Elias


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Marlène Elias is a gender specialist in conservation and management of forest genetic resources at Bioversity International. Her efforts focus on coordinating gender-specific research projects, mainstreaming gender institutionally, and strengthening the capacities of Bioversity International staff to conduct participatory, gender-responsive research that will deliver positive and equitable benefits to men and women. Before joining Bioversity International in 2013, she conducted research on gender, forest-based livelihoods, and tree resource management in Latin America and Africa. Among other positions, she has worked in UNESCO’s Division for Gender Equality and in the Department of Anthropology of Université Laval in Canada. She is the founder of the non-governmental organization, Burkina Canada, which facilitates education to underprivileged girls and boys in Burkina Faso. Marlène Elias has an MA and PhD in Geography and a BSc in Biology and Environmental Sciences.


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Anne Larson


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Anne M Larson conducts research on multiple aspects of forest and landscape governance policy and institutions, including property rights, climate change, decentralization, indigenous territories and gender, from local to international scales. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from Stanford University and her PhD in 2001 from U.C. Berkeley in Wildland Resource Science, with an emphasis on resource policy and institutions. She is a member of the council of the International Land Coalition (ILC, 2019-21) and represents CIFOR to the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Before moving full time to CIFOR’s office in Lima, Peru, Anne lived in Nicaragua, where she worked with multiple organizations including GIZ, the Nicaraguan Forestry Institute (INAFOR), World Resources Institute (WRI), Ford Foundation, the Nitlapan Institute for Research and Development and the World Bank, among others. She has done both more traditional and action research, as well as supporting innovative efforts such as the design of a diploma course for indigenous communities and community leaders. Prior to obtaining her PhD, she worked as a journalist, activist and lobbyist. Current research priorities include forest land and resource tenure; women’s rights to land in communal forests; multilevel governance and multi-stakeholder processes; and climate change. She coordinates fieldwork in Peru, Brazil, Ethiopia and Indonesia.


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Peter Minang


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Peter A. Minang is a principal scientist and leader of landscapes governance research at ICRAF. He is also the global coordinator of the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins at ICRAF. He has more than 25 years of experience in REDD+, landscape approaches, conservation, community forestry, environmental education, climate forestry, payments for ecosystem services, and development policy and practice in tropical forest landscapes. His current research interests include community-based approaches to ecosystem-based adaptation and resilience, the nexus between adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and the interface between environmental services and development and multifunctional landscapes. He has rich editorial experience, publishing books and journal special issues in Climate Policy and COSUST. He recently published a book on climate smart landscapes.


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Yanxia Li


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Plinio Sist


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Plinio Sist is director of the Research Unit on Forests and Societies at CIRAD and coordinator of the Tropical and Subtropical Silviculture Unit of Division 1 at the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). He is a tropical forest ecologist with more than 25 years of experience in South America (Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru) and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia). His main interest is in understanding the impact of forest harvesting on the ecology of tropical forests in order to recommend sustainable forest management practices. More recently he has worked on research and development projects on forest landscape restoration and has acted as CIRAD’s representative in major initiatives on forest restoration – the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), Initiative 20×20 and AFR100.


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  • Christopher Martius

Christopher Martius


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Christopher Martius has been principal scientist in climate change at CIFOR since April 2013. He holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and is also a lecturer in agroecology at the University of Bonn. He was a senior fellow at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) in Bonn, Germany, and visiting professor at the Indo-German Center for Sustainability (IGCS) in Chennai, India, from 2012-2013. Prior to that, he was assistant director for science programs at the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) in Brazil from 2009-2011. He acted as head of the CGIAR/International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) Program for Central Asia and the Caucasus in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from 2008-2009, which won the “CGIAR King Baudouin Award for Outstanding Partnership” in 2008. Previously, he was a senior scientist at ZEF Bonn, where he supervised 30 PhD students, from 1998-2007. He is a cofounder and Advisory Board Member of DesertNet International, a network of scientists dealing with drylands, land degradation and desertification. Christopher coordinated an international, interdisciplinary project on land and water resource management in Uzbekistan, and has over 20 years of work experience in tropical ecology (Brazilian Amazonia, Africa) and in drylands. He worked for many years on conservation agriculture, soil ecology and organic matter in tropical and dryland soils.


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  • Introduction to Stream 1 - Inclusive value chains, finance and investments

Introduction to Stream 1 – Inclusive value chains, finance and investments


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  • Eduardo Somarriba

Eduardo Somarriba


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Eduardo Somarriba has a BS in biology and natural resources, a master’s degree in tropical forest ecology, and a PhD in agroecology (biology) from the University of Michigan. He has been an active researcher, educator and advisor/consultant in agroforestry to various governments and private companies over the last 34 years. He is currently head of the program on Agriculture, Livestock and Agroforestry at CATIE, and the focal point for FTA at CATIE. Eduardo’s current field of research is focused on the optimal management of trees on farms, multistrata agroforestry systems with coffee and cacao, and the production of timber on farms. He has provided technical advice to governments, development projects and NGOs in Latin America, led various science-based development cocoa projects in Bolivia and in Central America, and published nearly 300 publications, including scientific articles, technical manuals, books and educational materials for university students and farmers.


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  • Fergus Sinclair

Fergus Sinclair


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Fergus Sinclair leads ICRAF’s research into the contribution that trees can make to the productivity of farming systems. Fergus is well known for pioneering the development of knowledge-based system methods for acquisition and use of local agro-ecological knowledge; for using participatory modelling to better harness natural resources at the community level; and for exploring tradeoffs between the impact of farm trees on productivity and biodiversity. He has also combined these interests by contributing to the development of interdisciplinary GIS tools for spatially explicit evaluation of ecosystem service synergies and tradeoffs at landscape scales (Polyscape). He is seconded to ICRAF for 50 percent of his time from Bangor University, Wales, the UK, where he serves as director of the Centre for Advanced Research in International Agricultural Development (CARIAD). He is also a visiting professor at CATIE.


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