2023 KINSHIP CONSERVATION FELLOWS

Forest carbon projects validator and verifier and Forest management auditor

Freelance

Mexico

Carlos is a freelance Forest Engineer (BSc+MSc) with later studies in Rural Development (MA) and twelve years of international experience in natural resources management and sustainable development. His work area links forests and the environment with social issues. This has led him to work across many countries, by supporting global and local efforts to bridge the gap between poverty and natural resources conservation through landscape management and governance improvement, sustainable livelihoods promotion, ecosystem markets and value chain development, and capacity building within a climate change framework. 

Current Work: Scaling lessons learned to improve market based approaches for conservation 

This project builds on successful market-based tools Carlos has worked with by replicating learning in other areas where its resonance is greater, such as decision making spaces in the private sector, and particularly related to the development of forest carbon projects in energy companies. “My desired result is a constructive and hopeful critique of market-based conservation models that puts nature and people at the center of the discussion.”

Country Coordinator

Green World Campaign Kenya

Kenya

Caroline, who goes by Dama, leads Green World Campaign’s flagship operation in Kenya. She has helped initiate regenerative projects including schools, faith-based organizations, youth groups, and farmers groups with Indigenous coastal communities. She leads Green World Campaign’s partnership with the over 38 local and international partners, ensuring communities at the front line of climate change embrace agroecology initiatives that encompass indigenous, exotic, and mangrove tree species that enable regeneration of degraded soils, food systems, and riparian lands while gaining the capacity to run thriving agribusinesses. She  has helped communities on the front line of climate change get sustainable income from moringa oleifera products and indigenous coconut trees planted by rural farmers. 

Current Work:  AIRS: Automated Incentives for Regenerative Stewardship

The vision of the Green World Campaign (GWC) is to pursue a holistic approach to reforestation and agriculture to renew landscapes and communities by designing and implementing new fintech tools to expand regenerative economic activity via mobile platforms in direct support of local land stewards in Kenya. The adoption of Automated Incentives for Regenerative Stewardship by GWC has the potential to reduce the manual effort required for assessing the fulfillment of goals and dispensing performance-based funds. Based on results in reforestation or soil carbon sequestration, AIRS will enable blockchain-based audit of concerned areas and a trustworthy payment system that routes funds from donors to participating communities.

Environment and  Social Manager

Tulu Moye Geothermal Operations

Ethiopia

Daniel is a convener of multi-stakeholder platforms and change agent for sustainability. He manages an initiative that leverages private-sector investment for restoration of landscapes and improving livelihoods of communities in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia. He has a background in agriculture, forestry, and environmental science. He enjoys playing chess. 

Lake Ziway is the only freshwater lake in Ethiopia’s dry rift valley. It is used for irrigation by multinational floriculture farms as well as subsistence farmers. The shores are key habitats for migratory birds and home to a rich biodiversity. Recently, the water in Lake Ziway is declining in quantity and quality because of over-abstraction, agrochemical pollution, and land degradation. This project addresses these challenges through a multi-stakeholder platform.  At the local level, we work with farmers in adoption of good agricultural practices, reforestation of the catchment and improving livelihoods of communities. At the sector level, flower farms are urged to practice integrated pest man-agement and to treat their waste water. At the governance level, we engage with the government to implement a fair water allocation and tariff.

Acting Director of Conservation

The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa New Zealand

New Zealand

Erik is an experienced strategic leader with a strong track record of facilitating collaborations

between government, Indigenous communities, and the private sector to deliver solutions to nationally-significant conservation issues. He is passionate about protecting the New Zealand environment, having spent the last 20+ years studying and working exclusively in the conservation sector, particularly at the interface between strategy, policy, engagement, Te Ao Māori, and operational delivery. 

Current Work: Kotahitanga mō te Taiao: market mechanisms for sustainable conservation financing 

The Kotahitanga mō te Taiao Alliance (KMTT) aims to help people and nature thrive across 3.5M hectares of biodiverse land, freshwater, and sea in the top of the South  Island of New Zealand. This area is a national biodiversity hotspot within a global biodiversity hotspot, but faces many threats. The project will explore how payments for carbon and biodiversity could be combined to incentivize restoration and protection in the areas that will drive the greatest return on investment for climate, ecological connectivity, reduced sediment and nutrient pollution, protecting threatened species and ecosystems, and reduction in natural hazards. A key focus will be on how the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Māori) can leverage off these markets to support outcomes for their people and their general wellbeing.

Sourcing Manager

BioCarbon Partners

Zambia

Essau is an experienced, committed, and passionate conservation practitioner who is at the forefront of shaping the global voluntary carbon markets. He is responsible for leading BioCarbon Partner’s Sourcing department aimed at bringing new and existing partners under REDD+ project agreements and connecting them to carbon financing. It is a business development role that requires skills engaging with communities, government departments and working to international standard compliance through participation, inter alia, in VCS and CCB verification and validation processes by independent auditors and VERRA. This will eventually monetize forest carbon units through voluntary carbon markets. 

Current Work: Luangwa Community Forests Project (LCFP)

The Luangwa Community Forest Project (LCFP) protects over 1 million hectares of highly threatened forest in 18 Chiefdoms spread out from Lusaka Province to Eastern Provinces, with 217,000 beneficiaries from the REDD+ activities. With that in mind, the project has been successfully VCS verified four times, CCB Triple Gold validated and disbursed over $9 million directly to community bank accounts since 2017. The project supported the Government of the Republic of Zambia in the development of enabling legislation recognizing community carbon rights. LCFP is now the world’s largest REDD+ project by number of people benefitting (217,000) and Africa’s largest by hectarage.

Conservation and Climate Finance Manager

Sitawi

Brazil

Fernando has more than 10 years of experience in biodiversity conservation and strategic management of natural capital. He is currently Conservation and Climate Finance Manager at Sitawi, where he leads initiatives related to the development of financial solutions that support the sustainable management of biodiversity and climate change issues. Before joining Sitawi, he worked at Boticário Group Foundation developing actions in the field of economics of biodiversity and impact investing. Fernando graduated from the Federal University of Paraná, and holds an MS in Agriculture and Silviculture from the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, and an MS in Ecology and Forestry Management from Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg, Germany.

Current Work: Shared solutions for common bottlenecks of biodiversity value chains in the Brazilian Amazon 

Small and medium forest businesses lack administrative and financial procedures, market development planning, access to new capital, and logistical and infrastructure support. They face high regulatory risks that undermine scaling  up and their long term sustainability. In this context,  this project develops a hub of services to support local biodiversity business development that will work closely with subnational governments aiming at regulatory risk reduction. Our approach makes productive chains of the Amazon bioeconomy by providing financial and non-financial support that contribute to the solution of  its organizational and logistical challenges, through the implementation of shared resources.

Co-founder/development lead Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Development of Communities (ISSD) NGO

Armenia

Irina Mkrtchyan is the co-founder of Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Development of Communities (ISSD), where she is leading various environmental and rural development projects.  She has also worked as a national and international expert in organizations like UNDP, British Council, and others. After working for many years in the business sector,  

she has followed her passion in the field of environmental protection. She is also a Fulbright Alumni (Hubert H. Humphrey program) and holds several degrees.

Current Work: Recycle it!

Launched in 2018, “Recycle it!” is the largest, non-govern-mental solid waste management project being implemented in Armenia. The vision of the project is to create a waste sorting and recycling culture in Armenia and lead the country to circularity. The project serves over 400,000 stakeholders including 700 entities, 220 of which are schools. The project focuses on creating proper infrastructure, awareness raising, and reusing/recycling. The team operates a small recycling facility where plastic is turned into synthetic filler and yarn, as well as various stationeries. 

Founder CEO

EcosystemImpact Foundation & āluān

Indonesia

Jane is an entrepreneur and environmental pioneer. Her business, āluān, works together with her foundation, EcosystemImpact. EcosystemImpact conserves critically endangered species both through community rangers who patrol the frontlines from poaching and through breeding and release programs. āluān is a regenerative coconut business that produces the highest quality, organic certified coconut oil for cosmetics and food manufacturers including Lush Cosmetics. Jane has led the company to have strong female-led management in Indonesia’s only Shariah law province where opportunities for female leadership are transformative in rebalancing gender disparities. The company partners with 500 coconut farmers who are supported with organic certification and are working to solve the issue of financing smallholder replanting. 

Current Work: Together We Heal Our Planet

The Bangkaru & Simeulue Islands of Indonesia have  global significance for their biodiversity and ecosystem services. They also offer one of the last refuges and nesting sites for critically endangered turtles as well as several bird and primate species. While the rest of Sumatra has seen massive deforestation from palm oil expansion, Simeulue retains 70% forest cover. The company’s current challenge is to finance smallholder replanting of aging coconut trees. 

Community based  conservation project lead

The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

Mongolia

Jaka works as the communi-ty-led conservation project lead at TNC Mongolia. She is a development and conservation practitioner with a PhD degree in Environmental Technology  and 14+ years of leading, consulting, devel-oping, and executing complex projects/programs in Asia, Europe, and the US. Prior to joining TNC, Jaka served as the national manager of several UNDP-Mongolia projects on mobilizing resources for biodiversity conservation, improving legal frameworks, and implementing innovative waste management. Jaka also worked as an environmental specialist while teaching pollution prevention policy and abatement technologies at the graduate level in Mongolia. 

Current Work: Conservation finance initiatives hand-in-hand

Mongolia is facing dual crises—biodiversity loss and climate change—at a time of worsening poverty due to the post-pandemic economic downturn. Various development and conservation organizations are continuing to pursue multiple initiatives to implement countermeasures for the potential impacts or match the resource mobilization with an aim to achieve transformational conservation outcomes. There is a need to map the components and steps of the initiatives through systems thinking and find the leveraging points for different organizations or stakeholders involved. Once the leveraging or entry points are identified, nudging and adaptive management approach could be implemented  to reach the needed cooperation. 

Analytics Team Director and Senior Fisheries Scientist

Ocean Outcomes (O2)

United States 

Jocelyn is the Analytics Team Director at Ocean Outcomes (O2), a non-profit organization that aims to improve the sustainability of seafood production and its contributions to our collective environmental and socio-economic well-being. She has a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the University of Washington. She has worked with fisheries participants all over the globe, including oyster farmers in Japan, Native American tribes harvesting and raising salmon, artisanal fishers in Guyana, and distant water tuna fishing companies. 

Current Work: Climate Risk Evaluation and Adaptation for Fisheries Sustainability Projects

While extensive research has been undertaken around the climate crisis as it applies to fisheries and aquaculture, this thinking has not yet been synthesized and regularly applied to fisheries sustainability interventions, including fishery improvement projects (FIPs). This project will develop an evaluation approach and framework for integrating climate vulnerability assessment and action planning into fishery sustainability projects. The intent is for the framework to be  used by project implementers and fishing communities, to help ensure that their work will produce successful outcomes.

Stewardship Coordinator

Conservation South Africa

South Africa

Lerato has been working in nature conservation and community development for eight years. Her work has largely involved working hand in hand with communities in rural Southern Africa to address the impact of climate change on local ecosystems, livelihoods, and well-being. She is currently based in the Kruger2Canyons Biosphere region where she works with small-scale farmers and local SMMEs to implement a project that focuses on biodiversity conservation, ecosystems restoration, and sustainable use of natural resources in communal rangelands.

Current Work: Pro-nature enterprise for the people of Southern Africa

The goal of the project is to restore and conserve one million hectares of biodiversity-rich habitats, and directly benefit 30,000 people in three critical Trans-frontier Conservation Areas in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Under negotiated “Conservation Agreements,” rural communities will voluntarily commit to implement planned grazing of their livestock to minimize overgrazing, remove invasive vegetation that hamper grass growth and water availability, adopt human-wildlife conflict mitigation practices, and adopt sustainable fisheries practices among other measures identified in consultations with local actors. In turn, they receive support to improve the quality of their livestock, reduce animal losses from wildlife predators, access facilitated livestock markets and receive support for sustainable fishing gear. 

Strategic Partnerships Coordination

La Mano del Mono

Mexico

Mauricio has 20 years of experience strengthening sustainable livelihoods in rural and Indigenous communities associated with conserved and protected areas, through the development of ecotourism, experiential education, and social business models. He has had the pleasure to collaborate with 500+ community-based enterprises, including 15 Indigenous communities living in 90+ protected areas of Mexico and Latin America. He has specialized in developing key partnerships with different stakeholders to achieve these goals.

Current Work: ReservaNatura: A new booking and visitor management system for protected areas to strengthen sustainable finances for biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation.

Mexico has protected +14% of its terrestrial land and +21% of its oceanic territory. Protected Areas receive between 25 and 30 million visitors per year. Nevertheless, the budget for managing this growing number of visitors is very limited. Fewer than 10% of visitors contribute economically for managing and conserving these key areas. ReservaNatura is a digital booking platform which is 100% replicable and scalable to natural areas with any kind of management 

(public, private or community-based) and allows managers to receive payments, control carrying capacities, and communicate with their visitors, while they can book their visits with confidence.

Senior Conservation Scientist

The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

United States

Michelle is a Senior  Conservation Scientist for The Nature Conservancy in New York. She leads the Natural Climate Solutions team, which focuses on the role nature plays in climate mitigation. Michelle started as an intern snorkeling for rare mussels and now has more than two decades of conser-vation experience spanning topics like land protection, resilient infrastructure, forest carbon markets, and policy. She recently served on a New York State government-ap-pointed panel that developed recommendations to help the state realize its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets. Michelle earned a Ph.D. from the University of Vermont where she was a Gund Graduate Fellow. 

Current Work: Scaling Reforestation in New York, USA

Reforestation is the largest opportunity to increase carbon sequestration in New York. To meet New York’s aggressive net-zero emissions goal by 2050, the number of acres planted a year needs to increase fortyfold. This magnitude of scaling requires every aspect of the reforestation process to expand, including seed collection, seedling production, workforce development, planting activities, monitoring, landowner participation, and funding. The overarching vision of this project is to facilitate and exponentially scale reforestation. The project aims to pilot replicable reforesta-tion approaches and includes: (1) exploring a wide range of market and non-market mechanisms to fund massive reforestation expansion, (2) aggregating seedling demand (from landowners) and supply (from nurseries) to increase seedling production capacity, and (3) co-creating refor-estation strategies and incentives to match landowners’ motivations and needs, and specifically engaging landown-ers in historically marginalized communities.

Africa Indigenous Landscape Officer

The Nature Conservancy (TNC)

Zambia

Miyoba works for TNC Africa Region as Africa Indigenous Landscape Program  Officer where she supports community conservation in Northern and Western  Tanzania, Okavango Angola, and Kafue Zambia. Previously she worked for the World Wide Fund for Nature where  she helped rural communities along the borders of  declining aquifer levels, making it necessary to reduce our water consumption across the Southwest. 

Land repurposing is a strategic transition from heavy irrigation to a multi-use and multi-benefit landscape.  The goal of this project is to repurpose agricultural land in a way that retains its economic benefits and uses for the community. Potential options for land repurposing include: crop-shifting to less water intensive crops, increasing  water efficiencies on farms through irrigation or soil tech-niques, and restoring land to wetlands or native vegetation for community and recreational use. 

Senior Analyst

Environmental Defense Fund

United States

Morgan is based in Tucson, Arizona, where she works for the Environmental Defense Fund on Arizona water policy. She focuses on finding innovative solutions to address Arizona’s decreasing water supply, which is a result of both the drought along the Colorado River and declining groundwater supplies. She is a professional engineer with  a background in water resources engineering. 

Current Work: Land Repurposing in Arizona to address Water Insecurity 

Arizona relies on both the Colorado River and groundwater for its water supply. Both of these water sources are at risk in Arizona. Significantly reduced Colorado River supplies due to ongoing drought and aridification, combined with declining aquifer levels, are making it necessary to reduce our water consumption across the Southwest.

Land repurposing is a strategic transition from heavy irrigation to a multi-use and multi-benefit landscape.  The goal of this project is to repurpose agricultural land in a way that retains its economic benefits and uses for the community. Potential options for land repurposing include: crop-shifting to less water intensive crops, increasing  water efficiencies on farms through irrigation or soil tech-niques, and restoring land to wetlands or native vegetation for community and recreational use. 

Research & Community Grumeti Fund

Tanzania

Noel is a conservationist  and wildlife ecologist  born and raised in Tanzania. His conservation career spans public and private sector experience, initially in the tourism and rural microfinance sectors, and later as a conservationist since 2007. He currently co-leads a Tanzanian conservation nonprofit, the Grumeti Fund, which supports conservation and community outreach initiatives in and around Grumeti and Ikorongo Game Reserves, that form a critical northwest buffer to Serengeti National Park. He holds a BS in Wildlife Management (SUA, Tanzania), Master of International Environmental Policy (Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, USA), and an MBA Conservation Leadership (ALU School of Business, Rwanda). 

Current Work: Microlending for Enhanced Rural Enterprise and Sustainable Livelihoods

This pilot microlending initiative aims to enhance and optimize gains already attained in the rural enterprise development program that we have implemented for a few years now. The microlending project is expected to further promote entrepreneurial capacity, enhance financial literacy, access, and inclusion especially among the less- privileged members in the rural communities surrounding the protected areas we co-manage together with our government and private sector partners. In addition, this project will create a key collaborative platform between conservationists, neighboring communities, and business for promoting sustainable livelihoods through win-win, enhanced awareness and compliance to good environmen-tal practices, access to capital, value-chain optimization, business formalization, and reduced unemployment. 

Senior Programme Officer International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

South Africa

Onkemetse Nteta has over 13 years of experience in the environmental sector, focused on threatened species conservation, protected areas establishment and expansion, and community-based natural resource management. He previously worked for WWF South Africa and IUCN ESARO (People & Landscapes Programme). This experience ranges from working at the local protected area-level, to the implementation of transboundary projects in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Region. Onkemetse is currently employed by IUCN as a Senior Programme Officer—SADC TFCA Financing Facility. He holds a Masters in Nature Conservation and Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration.

Current Work: Unlocking finance for infrastructure devel-opment and maintenance in TFCAs (Transfrontier Conser-vation Areas): a pathway from grant to blended finance

A critical challenge for many countries in the SADC region is the lack of funding for the development and management of TFCAs. The financial and technical support provided by SADC Member States and International Cooperating Partners (ICPs) is critical in ensuring sustainable develop-ment and management of TFCAs in the region. However, this funding will be neither adequate, nor appropriate to address the current financing gap for TFCAs, particularly for infrastructure development. To address this financing challenge, Onkemetse is developing a concept for a feasible pathway and model to unlock blended finance for TFCAs with a focus on infrastructure. 

National Technical Advisor 

Governance Blue Ventures Conservation

Madagascar

Zo has more than 10 years of experience implementing community-based marine resource management, focusing on fisheries and mangrove areas and commu-nities with high dependence on fishing in Madagascar. Zo is originally from Madagascar, where he specialised in developing and replicating locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) around the country. He is a GIS specialist and the National Technical Advisor for Governance at Blue Ventures NGO. He plays a key role in supporting local associations to implement fisheries and mangrove-re-lated projects with the small-scale fishers and promote market-based solutions integrating LMMAs in the western coast of Madagascar to address marine problems. He is a graduate of Sociology from the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar.

Current Work: Developing a sustainable business model for local marine management in Madagascar

In Madagascar, most of the LMMAs still rely on extensive support from external NGOs both technically and finan-cially, which results in high delivery costs and therefore affects the scaling up of those LMMAs. To facilitate the scaling up of the LMMA approach in Madagascar, in a more cost-effective way and to ensure their sustainability and viability, having a sustainable business model for local marine management is crucial. To achieve the project goal, we will review and improve the effectiveness of the existing governance mechanisms and management of LMMAs. Then we will identify viable long-term financing models through a partnership with business partners, diversification of existing and new market-based solutions targeting local and external opportunities, and ensure that the revenues contribute to the LMMA management.