Lennart Ackzell is the Senior Advisor, International Affairs at the Federation of Swedish Family Forest Owners. He is engaged in the Confederation of European Family Forest Owners as well as in the Board of the International Family Forest Alliance and its collaboration in the Right Holders Group. Dr Ackzell has a Masters degree in Forestry and a Phd in Forest Genetics. He has spent three years in Africa and was engaged in international forestry-related negotiations for 14 years for the Swedish Government. Since 2008, he works for smallholders and family forestry initiatives.

Yemi Adeyeye is a graduate student, studying sustainable tropical forestry, a double-degree Erasmus Mundus Masters program. For his first year, he specialized in environmental forestry at Bangor University, Wales. His second specialization is forests and livelihoods at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Prior to his graduate degree, he obtained a Bachelors degree, First Class Honours, in Forestry and Wood Technology from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. He has professional certifications that span from business consultancy to health, safety and environment. Yemi has received various awards and honours as a result of his academic record.

Ronnie de Camino is Director of the Latin American Chair of Forest Landscape Management of CATIE and President of the Board of the Iberoamerican Model Forests Network. He was also Deputy Director General in CATIE. He participated in the process for the creation of CIFOR and was one of the members of the founding Board of Trustees of the Center. Prior to this, he was Professor at the United Nations mandated University for Peace and officer of a GTZ project in IICA. He is a forest engineer and economist and has worked in education and research in forest management, policy and governance of natural resources.

Doris Capistrano is Senior Advisor of the SDC-supported ASEAN-Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change (ASFCC) and Senior Fellow of the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA). She was Director of Forests and Governance of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Visiting Professor in Forest and Conservation Policy of Wageningen University. She served as Ford Foundation’s Deputy Representative for India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and Program Officer for Rural Poverty, Resources and Environment in Bangladesh.  She previously taught Economics at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos.

Mirna Cunningham Kain is an Indigenous Miskita woman from the community of Waspam, located on the banks of the Wangki River in Nicaragua. After studying as a Primary Education Teacher, she went back to Waspam to work as a teacher. She left her community once again to study medicine and surgery at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Nicaragua, becoming the first female Miskita doctor. As Governor she played an important role in the consultation process on the autonomy of the multi-ethnic region and the negotiation of peace agreements that resulted in the approval of the Law of Autonomy of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (1987) and the establishment of the first autonomous regional governments.

Colin Dyer is Director of the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research, a private sector research institute in association with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg. He obtained a PhD in Plant Systematics from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa in 1991. He has worked as a researcher and research manager in agriculture and forestry for 35 years, at the South African Forestry Research Institute, the CSIR and at the ICFR. He serves on the boards of several forestry research and science organisations in South Africa and is the South African representative on IUFRO’s International Council. He is also the Chair of the South African Sirex Control Programme. He is the chair of the technical sub-committee of the Local Organising Committee for the XIV World Forestry Congress.

M. Hosny El-Lakany holds a B.Sc. in Agriculture and M.Sc. in Forestry from Alexandria University, Egypt, a Ph.D. in Forestry from the University of British Columbia, Canada and a D.Sc. honoris causafrom Laval University, Quebec, Canada. He is Professor Emeritus at Alexandria University, Egypt and Adjunct Professor and Director of the International Forestry Program at the Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Canada. He chairs the International Partnership on Forestry Education (IPFE) and lectures; supervises research and consults on international forest policies and natural resource management. He is the founder and president of the International Forest Policy Consulting (IFPC) based in Vancouver, Canada. 

Godwin Kowero, a Tanzanian citizen, is the Executive Secretary of the African Forest Forum (AFF), a pan-African forestry institution based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has considerable experience in academia, research, management and administration as related to forestry, both in and outside Africa. In this regard he was a Professor of Forest Economics in several universities in Tanzania, Mozambique and Kenya. He also has considerable exposure to research, having worked for ten years with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), as a Senior Scientist and Regional Coordinator for its Eastern and Southern Africa office. 

Sunita Narain has been with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) since 1982. She is currently the director general of the Centre and the director of the Society for Environmental Communications and publisher of the fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth.  She is a writer and environmentalist, who uses knowledge for change. In 2005 she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government.

She has also received the World Water Prize for work on rainwater harvesting and for its policy influence in building paradigms for community based water management. In 2005, she also chaired the Tiger Task Force at the direction of the Prime Minister, to evolve an action plan for conservation in the country after the loss of tigers in Sariska. She advocated solutions to build a coexistence agenda with local communities so that benefits of conservation could be shared and the future secured. She is a member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Climate Change as well as the National Ganga River Basin Authority, chaired by the Prime Minister, set up to implement strategies for cleaning the river.

Michael Peter is the Executive Director of Forestry South Africa which is the industry association representing over 94% of commercial timber grown in South Africa. He has 24 years of experience in the forestry sector in South Africa in the technical, financial, social and environmental management aspects of natural forests, woodlands, fynbos, grasslands and commercial timber plantations. He holds a National Higher Diploma in Forestry from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s, Saasveld School of Forestry and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Pretoria’s, Gordon Institute of Business Science. 

Moshibudi Rampedi has been the Counsellor, Agricultural Affairs at the South African Embassy in Rome since 2012. She is the Deputy Permanent Representative of South Africa to the Food and Agriculture Organization, International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme. She has worked for the government of the Republic of South Africa for the last 30 years in education, environment, forestry and agriculture. From 1997 to date she has represented South Africa internationally in various fora including CITES, UNCCD, WHC, UNFF and UNFCCC.

Tomas Schlichter is Coordinator of the National Forestry Research Program at the National Institute for Agricultural Technology (INTA), Argentina, since 1993. The Program carries out research in forest ecology, ecophysiology, genetic improvement, forest management and silviculture, covering all the forest regions of the country. The program has about 150 forest science research specialists, with additional support from many laboratories such as biotechnology, soils, GIS and others. Previously, he coordinated a regional project in Central America, dealing with the sustainable management of native forests.

In 1980 he obtained his PhD degree in Forest Sciences at the Georg- August University, Goettingen, Germany. Dr Schlichter has published more than 50 scientific papers. He has also directed 9 PhD and 3 Master theses. In 2009 he presided over the Technical Scientific Committee of the XIII WFC, which took place in Buenos Aires.

Cyriaque Nikuze Sendashonga - more commonly known as Cyrie Sendashonga - is a dual  Rwandan/Canadian citizen, with a PhD in Zoology from the Free University of Brussels. She joined IUCN in September 2010 as Global Director, Policy and Programme Group. Before coming to IUCN, she was with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) between January 2006 and July 2010 as Regional Coordinator for CIFOR Central Africa Regional Office, based in Yaounde, Cameroon. From 1999 to 2005, Cyrie was with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada, where she was Head of the Biosafety Programme in charge of matters related to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. 

Gerald Steindlegger is founder and leader of Steindlegger ISS – Integrated Sustainability Solutions based in Austria. He recently started his consultancy providing advice to the private and public sector as well as to NGOs. His main strategic approach is the integration of strategies and solutions for various sectors such as forestry, agriculture, climate change, energy and biodiversity and bringing together stakeholders to one common good: Sustainable Development.

Mmaphaka Ephraim Tau is currently the Acting Deputy Director General for the Branch: Forestry and Natural Resources Management (FNRM) within the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) where he is formally appointed as the Chief Director responsible for Natural Resources Management (NRM). His career spans from 1998 when he was appointed as an Assistant Planner in the then Department of Land Affairs (DLA) in the North West Province (based in Mafikeng). His responsibility was Land Tenure Reform and Land Administration. He grew through the ranks within the same department until he joined its office in the Free State Province as Assistant Director responsible for Policy and Planning Coordination in 2001.

Tint Lwin Thaung is an Executive Director of the Centre for People and Forests also known as RECOFTC (Regional Community Forestry Training Centre for Asia and the Pacific). Mr Thaung received Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Rangoon University, Myanmar; Master of Science in Natural Resources Development and Management from Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Queensland, Australia

Xiao Wangxin is working with the Department of International Cooperation, State Forestry Administration of China (SFA). She is responsible for cooperation with forest-related intergovernmental organizations, negotiation and coordination of forest-related MEAs and multilateral processes. She had years of experience in non-governmental forestry cooperation and management of international forestry projects implemented in China. She was desk officer of SFA for cooperation with international NGOs engaged in nature conservation. 

Michael (Mike) Wingfield, Ph.D. in Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota (1983), Harvard Business School AMP175, has conducted research on tree pests and pathogens especially concerning their global movement for more than thirty years. Amongst his most important contributions to forestry has been the role that he has played as an advisor to more than 60 Ph.D. students, many of whom now hold very senior positions globally. He was responsible for establishing the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP) in 1990, which became the catalyst for the establishment in 1998 of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI; www.fabinet.up.ac.za) of which he was the founding director.