Bhaskar Vira’s research focuses on the political economy of natural resources, ecosystem services and development. His work has examined the political economy of land-use and landscape level strategies, water use and management, forest management, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and human well-being. His research on incentives for natural resource use and management deals with trade-offs and discourses relating to the concept of ecosystem services, and how this overlaps with poverty and human well-being. He is interested in the political economy of human-environment interactions, the ways in which societies value nature, and the political and economic context within which communities, businesses and policy makers make choices about alternative land and resource use strategies. Bhaskar is Reader in Political Economy at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, and Founding Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute. He is closely involved with promoting inter-disciplinary collaboration and dialogue through his leadership roles in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, and the Global Food Security strategic research initiative at the University of Cambridge. He is an Associate Editor of Environmental Conservation, Editorial Board Member of Global Environmental Change, and Advisory Board Member for Conservation and Society.
Stephanie Mansourian is a freelance consultant. In the past she has been responsible for setting up and consolidating WWF’s global programme on forest landscape restoration. Stephanie has also worked at UNCTAD on the development of a micro-finance programme looking at alternative livelihood options for the poor and was responsible for coordinating the project in the countries of Central America. She is also the editor (with D. Vallauri and N. Dudley) of Forest Restoration in Landscapes: Beyond Planting Trees (2005).
Christoph Wildburger is the coordinator of the Global Forest Expert Panels initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) for IUFRO, the International Union of Forest Research Organisations. As a consultant on environmental policy and natural resource management, he has twenty years of work experience with international institutions and organizations, universities, government agencies, NGOs, and the media. Mr. Wildburger is mainly working at the science-policy interface, providing scientific synthesis and technical analysis, policy proposals and research on relevant issues. His clients include the World Bank, UNEP, the UNFF Secretariat, the CBD Secretariat, UNECE, IUCN, WWF, FOREST EUROPE, the European Commission and governments. He holds a PhD from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna.
