Commission Chair. Anthropologist specialized in Land Geography and Evaluation, with a MsC in Land Ecology from ITC - University of Twente, NL. She has over 30 years of professional experience in ecosystem management, land-use planning, climate change adaptation and public policies associated with these matters. She has worked in Colombia as the subdirector of the Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC), Ecosystem Chair at the Environmental Ministry and Climate Change and Biodiversity Policy Senior Director for Conservation International Colombia. She has been a consultant for diverse topics related to the application of the ecosystem approach for the development of conservation corridors, protected areas, land-use planning in the Amazon, and ecosystem-based adaptation, among others.

Deputy Chair. Dr. Vasseur is a full professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Brock University where she is also a member of the Women and Gender Studies program and the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, one of the five transdisciplinary spaces at the university. Since 2014, she holds the UNESCO Chair on Community Sustainability: form local to global at Brock. She currently leads the thematic group on Climate Change Adaptation of the Commission for Ecosystem Management of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Her interest for women in science and higher education stems from various involvement at the national and international levels. She is currently the President of the Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology (CCWESTT) and the President-Elect of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES). Her research program is highly interdisciplinary and links issues such as community-based ecosystem management, climate change adaptation and resilience and sustainable agriculture. Her community-research work with the City of greater Sudbury led her to receive in 2011 the Latornell Pioneers Award from Conservation Ontario. She is currently in the codirection committee of a large project on Coastal Communities Challenges in the face of Climate Change, funded by the Social and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has done over hundred publications and more than 200 presentations as a researcher. Her work focuses not only on Canada but also internationally such as in China, where she is a Minjiang Scholar at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.

Vice Chair Europe. Jonny is currently WCMC Chief Executive Officer at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), and former chair of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and nine leading internationally focused nature conservation organisations. From 2012 to 2021, Jonny served as an elected Council member for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), where for four years he also chaired the Council’s policy and programme committee. He is non-executive director of Corrour Estate, a large upland estate in Scotland and also chairs the Ecological Advisory Board of Ardtornish Estate. He is also a trustee of the Postcode Trusts which disburse funds from the People’s Postcode Lottery. Jonny holds a BA (Hons.) and an MsC (Hons.) is an honorary fellow of the University of Edinburgh, an Ambassador for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and an honorary fellow of Scottish Environment Link. In his spare time, Jonny is a keen field naturalist with interests in botany and bryology. He plays tennis, five-a-side football, table football and coaches squash. He has wide interests including sustainable urban design, Italian Renaissance art and early 20th century American literature.

Vice Chair for Latin America and the Caribbean. Dr. Bernal Herrera-Fernández is an Associate Professor at the International Institute for Wildlife Conservation and Management, National University of Costa Rica. He currently works for United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) as Regional Coordinator for the Restoration Action plan for Latin America & the Caribbean. Prior to that, Dr. Herrera-Fernández was the subdirector of Fundecor (NGO) and the Director of the Chair of the Latin American Chair of Protected Areas in CATIE. As an expert in nature-based solutions and social innovation, he serves as advisor and consultant for national and international organizations across the region.

Vice Chair Oceania. I have spent more than 30 years in environmental management with a particular emphasis on biodiversity conservation and climate change. For most of this century I was first a Principal Terrestrial Ecologist and then Manager Climate Change Science for various NSW state government based Environment and NRM agencies in Australia. In early 2013 I had well and truly had enough of being a public servant so I decided to leave and to look at opportunities outside of Australia. Since then I have been an independent consultant involved in a number of biodiversity, climate change and EbA projects with an increasing global focus. I have worked in multiple countries on projects in the Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean, as well as a few projects that have an Asia/Pacific wide audience. The work has been quite varied and I have had the opportunity and privilege to work with communities on remote Pacific islands on EbA actions, conservation planning with farmers in Africa through to Climate Change Adaptation and Conservation policy advice to National Governments as well as research and review work on climate change adaptation and EbA for the Head Office of Multilateral Development Banks. I won’t bore you any more with details so If you are at all interested you can look me up at LinkedIn here: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-smith/56/648/693

Vice Chair Asia. Dr. Shalini Dhyani is a Senior Scientist with the Critical Zone Group of Water Technology and Management Division in CSIR-NEERI, India. She is South Asia Regional Chair for IUCN CEM (Commission on Ecosystems Management) (2017-2024). She is IPBES Lead Author Global thematic assessment on Sustainable Use of Wild Species (2018-2022) and was lead author for IPBES Asia Pacific regional assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services in Asia Pacific (2015-2018). Dr. Shalini has worked on Biodiversity Inclusive impact assessment of important developmental projects across India and has also contributed to many NGT and Judiciary projects. Dr. Shalini was awarded “IUCN-CEM Chair Young Professional Award” at World Parks Congress 2014 in Sydney, Australia for her excellent research and publications on forests of the Himalayan region. She has been selected among 100 women for their exceptional work in Asia by Asian Rural Women's Coalition (ARWC), Malaysia for her work on Fodder Bank to reduce pressure from forests of the Himalayas in 2010. Her work on Fodder Bank was among the 10 best case studies of SAARC countries for sustainable forest management in mountains in 2014. Dr. Shalini is the recipient of various national as well as international financial grants and has published many peer-reviewed national, international research publications and popular articles. Shalini is passionate about science outreach and is a popular science writer who is interested to popularize the importance of ecosystems, nature-based solutions, and biodiversity.