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Astrid Agostini, Coordinator REDD+/NFM Cluster, Forestry Division, FAO: Astrid coordinates FAO’s work on REDD+ and National Forest Monitoring and is a member of UN-REDD management group. She has more than 20 years of experience in sustainable agriculture, natural resources management and climate change. After some years in economic consulting, Astrid joined FAO to support investment projects in Africa, Latin America and Asia financed by the World Bank, IFAD, GEF and GCF. She has promoted sustainability approaches across the agriculture sectors, including for biofuels, and coordinated FAO’s climate finance work. Astrid holds an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford and an M.Sc. in Environmental and Resource Economics from University College London.   

Hugo Flores, Forest Management and Restoration Director of the National Forest Institute of Guatemala (INAB): Hugo has 12 years of experience in management positions in the forestry sector, both inside and outside protected areas, having worked as forestry technician, head of forest inspection, subregional director, regional director, head of forestry plantations and agroforestry systems, head of natural forest management and director of forest management and restoration at INAB. With wide experience in promoting agroforestry systems, forest plantations, management, protection and restoration of natural forests at the national level. Hugo is an agronomist in renewable natural resources and a master's degree student in Environmental Design, Planning and Management. 

Edersson Cabrera, Coordinator of the Forest and Carbon Monitoring System from the Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam), Colombia: Forestry engineer, with a postgraduate degree in areas of spatial analysis and remote sensing. Edersson has extensive experience in digital processing of satellite images applied to natural forest monitoring, leading the development and implementation of methodologies, protocols and official technical procedures of the country. He is currently the Coordinator of the Forest and Carbon Monitoring System of Colombia, leads the Enabling Conditions pillar for the Amazon Vision program and is part of the technical team for REDD+ and the UNFCCC. He has also been part of the technical delegation from Colombia to the Conferences of the Parties –COP, within the framework of the UNFCCC.  

Rene Zamora Cristales, Senior associate for the Global Restoration Initiative of WRI's Food, Forest, and Water Program: Rene works for Initiative 20x20, a country-led effort aiming to bring 50 million hectares of degraded land in Latin America and the Caribbean into restoration by 2030. He is a co-author of the current World resources reports, The road to restoration, and roots for prosperity: The economics and finance of restoring land and lead author on The sustainability index for landscape restoration and economic optimization and prioritization of incentives for riparian forest restoration. Rene holds a Ph.D. in Forest Engineering with an emphasis in Operations Research. 

Carla Ramirez-Zea, National Forest Monitoring and Inventory Expert - Forestry Division, FAO: Carla is the author of the publication “Integrating forest and landscape restoration into national forest monitoring systems”. She has 20 years of experience supporting Latin American and the Caribbean countries on planning, designing, and implementing multipurpose NFMS, including national forest inventories, monitoring for REDD+, and forest and landscape restoration. In addition, is advisor on analysis and reporting of forest information for national and international policies such as climate change. Also is the lead editor of the book, National Forest Inventories: towards the harmonisation or forest information, to soon be published by 21 countries of the National Forest Inventories of Latin America and the Caribbean Network. Carla has a master's degree in Forest Management and Conservation of Biodiversity. 

David Morales-Hidalgo, Forestry Officer, NFM Team- Forestry Division, FAO: David has more than 25 years of working experience in the private, public, NGO and academic sectors in the fields of climate change, REDD+, forest restoration, conservation, monitoring and management in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Central Asia. He has produced several scientific publications and contributions to books on environment, sustainable production, forest monitoring, forest restoration, and climate change, and is the co-author of the FAO´s Voluntary guidelines on national forest monitoring systems, and the  publication “Integrating forest and landscape restoration into national forest monitoring systems”. David has a Ph.D. in Forest Sciences with emphasis in forest planning, tropical silviculture and biometry.