Ian Baird, co-founder and executive director of the Global Association for People in the Environment (GAPE), a Canadian NGO working in mainland Southeast Asia, is also one of the co-founders of MAP. Between 1995 and 2003 he was the coordinator of the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives in Laos and has also worked extensively with local fisheries in the Mekong River basin in developing community-based co-management approaches. Ian is currently a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

 

 

Barry Bendell, MAP Associate, Thailand, works with invertebrates in seagrass meadows, and completed a PhD on the subject at James Cook University, Australia. Previous work involved freshwater communities with the Canadian Wildlife Service.   He is now collaborating with MAP, monitoring seagrass, and researching the impacts of small marine protected areas established by local communities on Phra Thong Island.

Pisit Charnsnoh, President, Yadfon Association, Thailand, is a co-founder of MAP, as well as co-founder of Yadfon (Raindrop) Association.  He has been recognized by the Thai Royal Family for his pioneering work in creating models for village-management of mangrove forests, is an Ashoka Fellow, and has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize (2002) and the Rolex Award (2004).

• Abdoulaye Diame, Coordinator, WAAME, Senegal, is working in local communities in the mangrove zone near Dakar.  He is coordinator of the West African Mangrove Network, WAM Net, an association of West African NGOs working to conserve mangrove forests in their region.

Dr. Maurizio Farhan Ferrari, Forest Peoples Programme, U.K., is coordinator for the Wetland Forest Peoples Programme of FPP and is actively committed to local community empowerment and rights in management of coastal resources.

 

 

 

Marion Howard is a member of the faculty of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, USA, teaching in its graduate programs of Sustainable International Development. She also works as advisor to the Colombian government’s environmental management and sustainable development agency, CORALINA, in the San Andres Archipelago. Her expertise is in environmental planning for coastal and marine resources, protected area development, and community participation.

Khushi Kabir, Director, Nijera Kori, Bangladesh, works for the rights of the poor.  Nijera Kori is one of the most respected NGOs in Bangladesh, having achieved significant victories for both the local communities and the environment.  Their call to Save the Sundarbans is one which MAP supports.

 

 

Dr. James Gitundu Kairo, Mangrove Research Institute, Kenya, is the Mangrove Reforestation Coordinator with the Kenya Marine Research Institute in Mombasa.  He has been active in rehabilitating an abandoned shrimp farm site, as well as in helping to initiate an oyster culture project in this region.

 

 

 

Roy R. "Robin" Lewis III, Certified Professional Wetland Scientist, President, Lewis Environmental Services, Inc., Tampa, Florida, USA, has more than three decades of experience in marine wetland research, publishing more than 70 scientific papers on mangrove and seagrass restoration, and has worked in 11 foreign countries on mangrove restoration projects, including Nigeria, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cuba, Mexico, and Costa Rica. www.RoyRLewis.com,www.mangroverestoration.com

Nalini Nayak, Fisheries and Women’s Activist, India, is a founding member of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF).  An Ashoka Fellow, she is an international consultant and has published articles, monographs and books on women in fisheries and other socio-economic issues.  Presently she is the coordinator of the Animation Team of the ICSF and one of the activists of the National Fishworkers Forum, a fishworkers’ trade union in Kerala, India.

• Peter Riggs, Director, Forum on Democracy & Trade, a nonprofit organization that works with state and local governments on international trade policy and economic development.  Prior to founding the Forum in 2003, Riggs was for a decade the Director of Asia Programs for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.  He has worked on coastal and marine issues for international agencies and local NGOs in Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India.

Donnapat Tamornsuwan, Senior Field Officer, Raksthai Foundation (Care Int.), Thailand. Donnapat is an ecologist with 10 years experience of applied wetlands conservation and natural resource management in Southern Thailand. He is an expert in bird ID with a special focus on shorebirds. He has been involved in development projects on responsible use of natural resources, biodiversity assessments, and promoting community participation in conservation through several major projects in Krabi and Trang provinces.. He has been cooperating with MAP-Asia since 2006 on trainings, mangrove field work and environmental education.

Elizabeth Taylor, Executive Director, CORALINA, is a marine biologist and specialist in tropical coastal and marine resource management. As director of this Colombian government agency, she has led community-based mangrove conservation, monitoring, and restoration programs and promoted grassroots education, outreach, and advocacy.

 

 

 

Dr. Peter Vandergeest (Ph.D., Cornell, 1990) teaches and writes in the areas of political ecology, agro-food studies, and the cultural politics of environment and development. Current and recent research encompasses agrarian studies in Southeast Asia, the history of scientific forestry in Southeast Asia, privatizing environmental regulation in industrial aquaculture, and democratization in natural resource management.        

 

 

 

Jorge Varela, Coordinator, CODDEFFAGOLF, Honduras, received the Goldman Prize (1999) in recognition of his achievements in mangrove forest conservation, while addressing the serious problems associated with shrimp aquaculture and working for the rights of local fisher communities in Honduras.  He has traveled around the globe advocating for sustainable and equitable development.

 

 

 

Dominic Wodehouse, Bangor University UK. After a career in advertising he has worked in Thailand, with Wetlands International as a mangrove technical officer and with MAP as a volunteer, supporting the EMR training and demonstration sites.  Presently, he is completing a PhD looking at local knowledge and best practices of community mangrove management and restoration.