Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Board
Janet Barber
United Kingdom
Janet Barber has national and international experience in planning and implementing public policy and field programs designed to achieve the socially and environmentally sustainable use of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. She has equivalent experience in analyzing the effectiveness of investments made, through monitoring and evaluation of projects and programs. She has worked with Forum for the Future, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and various other NGOs and international companies.
Amadou Diop
Technical Director, Rodale Institute
United Kingdom
The Rodale Institute works with people worldwide to achieve a regenerative food system that renews environmental and human health. The Institute integrates applied research, education and training, communications, and enterprise development aimed at developing awareness of the importance of healthy soil. More precisely, they promote regenerative agriculture. Mr. Diop is the Technical Director at The Rodale Institute. He is involved in a range of programs around the world that focus on education and extension of regenerative farming practices to young farmers.
Keith Goulding
Rothamstead: Head: Agriculture and the Environment Division
United Kingdom
Dr. Bossel has led research projects and studies on energy supply policy, global dynamics, agricultural policy, forest dynamics and management, sustainable development and indicator systems. Before his retirement in 1997 he was professor of environmental systems analysis and director of the Scientific Center for Environmental Systems Research at the University of Kassel.
Brendan Hoare
UNITEC, Auckland
New Zealand
Brendan's main interests are developing New Zealand as an Organic econation; exploring the role regions have in food economies; developing productive landscape ecosystems; and managing and working with change and researching traditional indigenous resource management practices throughout the Pacific and Asia. Brendan works with rural reconstruction movements throughout Asia, as well as facilitating developments with New Zealand government, including MAF's 'Organic National Strategy'.
Richard Perkins
World Wildlife Fund United Kingdom (WWF-UK)
United Kingdom
Mr. Perkins studied agricultural and forest sciences at Oxford and agricultural economics in Wales.
He has worked in Kenya, Lesotho, Eurostat, and Scotland, before starting at WWF-UK (formerly the WorldWide Fund for Nature) in August 1999.
Rudy Rabbinge
University of Waginengen
The Netherlands
Dr. Rabbinge's main teaching subject is Principles of Production Ecology. His main research projects include:
- Yield potentials of energy crops under various land use options
- Simulation and systems analysis for rice production
- Theoretical and experimental research on the nature and level of yield depresssion in crop canopies due to pest and disease causing organisms
- Towards ecologically sound management of Botrytis diseases in flower bulbs; scenario studies on optimal combination of cultural, biological and fungicidal options
- Development of methods for designing, validation and optimization of integrated cropping systems
- Methodological aspects of explorative land use studies
- Sustainable land use and food security in developing countries
- An explorative land use study for the Loess Plateau, China. A case for the Ansai County
- Exploring options for sustainable land use in small farms in the South of Uruguay
- "Creative with land" a knowledge transfer project about innovation in the rural areas of the Netherlands
Suhas P. Wani
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Patancheru, India
ICRISAT is one of the fifteen non-profit and non-political organisations belonging to the Future Harvest Alliance of Centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Suhas Wani is Soil Scientist by training and working as Regional Theme Co-ordinator for Asia for the Land, Water and Agro-Diversity Management and Principal Scientist (Watersheds). His area of specialisation is sustainable management of natural resources in the rain-fed areas, collective action for managing community watersheds, enhancing productivity and incomes for the farmers from rain-fed systems through efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. Suhas is leading a team of watershed scientists in Asia. ICRISAT-led consortium has developed an innovative farmers participatory watershed management model, which is being up scaled through more than 200 community watersheds in India, China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Tensie Whelan
Rainforest Alliance; Executive Director
U.S.A.
Tensie Whelan serves as Executive Director of the Rainforest Alliance. She has been involved with the Rainforest Alliance since 1990, first as a board member, and then later as a consultant, becoming the executive director in 2000.
Whelan served as the executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters from 1992 until 1997, prior to which she was Vice President of Conservation Information at the National Audubon Society. Whelan also worked as a journalist and environmental communications consultant in Costa Rica, and she was the managing editor of Ambio -- an international environmental journal based in Stockholm. For several years prior to coming to the Rainforest Alliance, Whelan worked as a management consultant to various environmental and political groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Hudson River Park Alliance and the Federation of State Leagues of Conservation Voters, among others.
Whelan's published work includes one of the first books on ecofriendly tourism, Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment (1991, Island Press). She is the Chair of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition and served on the boards of the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Vermont League of Conservation Voters. She holds an M.A. in International Communication from American University's School of International Service and a B.A. in Political Science from New York University.
Stephanie Williamson
Pesticides Action Network
United Kingdom
Stephanie trained as an ecologist and entomologist and has worked in environmental and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) training and educational activities, in the UK and abroad, since 1985. She has worked in over 17 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with four years spent in Nicaragua (where she also learnt how to pick coffee!) and has participated in numerous international conferences on IPM and farmer training. She served as a member of PAN UK's Board of Directors for two years whilst working at CABI Bioscience UK Centre, before joining PAN UK as a staff member in 2000. Her main area of work at PAN UK is on pesticide problems, IPM and alternatives, with an emphasis on Africa, as well as interests in Good Agricultural Practice and the implications of European pesticide legislation and market requirements for farmers in developing countries. Stephanie is currently studying for her Ph.D. with the Centre for Environment & Society, University of Essex.