Integrating socio-economic data to improve the design and impact of REDD+ schemes

As Director of the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme, David oversees the delivery of a programme of work supporting large-scale nature recovery in Europe. After graduating, he worked at University College London exploring landscape-scale impacts of dams and drainage on economy, ecology and society in Tunisia.

David went on to work for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), providing technical advice on links between environment and local livelihoods at a floodplain wetland in northern Nigeria, before completing a PhD in Geography at the University of Cambridge.

From 1997 until 2017, David worked at BirdLife International where, as Head of Environment and Sustainable Development, he coordinated the different strands of BirdLife’s environment and sustainable development work and led on cross-cutting issues of conservation and governance, equity, rights, poverty reduction, gender, indigenous peoples, livelihoods and well-being.

Andreas Kontoleon is Professor of Environmental Economics and Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and Director of Studies, Trinity College. He holds a PhD in Economics (University College London), a MPhil Economics (University of Cambridge) and a BA in Economics and Philosophy (Athens). Professor Kontoleon’s research areas include environmental economics and regulation, micro-econometrics, applied welfare economics, policy evaluation and experimental economics, law and economics and methodological issues in economics. He has mostly worked in the fields of biodiversity, climate change, energy, food security, public health and poverty alleviation. He is co-moderator of BIEOCON, the largest academic network on the economics of biodiversity conservation. He has published on various topics including the value of wildlife species and habitat, the economic evaluation of land use policies in developing countries, the economics of GM foods, as well as papers on conceptual issues from the fields of welfare economics and law and economics issues. His more recent research focuses on using formal policy evaluating techniques (including randomized controlled trails and behavioural experiments), remote sensing data and social network data to assess conservation, livelihood aid, climate change and health policies in developing countries.

For more information see: Professor Andreas Kontoleon

I am currently CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology. A UK-based environmental NGO representing a unique partnership between citizen scientists and professional staff. Prior to that I have led research teams in academic and eNGOs focussing on ‘diagnosing causes of species decline and developing policy or practical solutions to stem or reverse those declines’. I have had strong interest in the impact of land use change on bird populations particularly birds in agricultural landscapes in Europe and Africa. I hold Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at Cambridge and an Honorary Professorship at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia.

Institutional economics, post-conflict economic recovery, sustainable management of renewable resources.

Institutional dynamics of rural communities in and around the Gola Forest (Sierra Leone, Liberia), Joint Leader of several research programmes.

management, community-based natural resource management, ecotourism development and carbon REDD. My current role is to manage the Gola Rainforest National Park programme in Sierra Leone for which we are also currently developing a carbon REDD project. I have over 15 years of conservation experience primarily in South East Asia (Cambodia and Laos), and more recently, in East and West Africa (Mozambique, Tanzania, Sierra Leone).

I am a Ph.D. student in the Forest Ecology and Conservation group. My interest is in the development of science-based policy, and I currently work on methods used to set reference-levels for REDD+ in tropical countries. Predicting emissions from forest activities under a business-as-usual scenario is critical for assessing the success of any intervention, and these scenarios require predictive models of future land-use change, with associated changes in terrestrial carbon stocks. Models must be transparent, effective and practical but also acceptable to policy makers.

Nicolas has worked in Africa for over 10 years and is particularly interested in the nexus between development and conservation.

The overall purpose of Nicolas’ position is to manage the RSPB’s large-scale tropical forest conservation projects in Africa, the beacon being the Gola Landscape (>300,000 ha) within the Upper Guinea Forest Biodiversity hotspot, including the Gola Rainforest National Park in Sierra Leone (www.golarainforest.org) and the Gola Forest in Liberia. Duties include working with relevant Birdlife Partners, Governments, project staffs (~200) and corporates to lead the implementation of these projects and ensuring direct social benefits to >120 local communities. The Gola REDD Project is the first of its kind in the region, selling carbon credits on the voluntary market.