IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Ms. West is the Director of the IUCN Washington, D.C. Office. Prior to her tenure at IUCN, Ms. West was an experienced international environmental lawyer and diplomat, and a consultant on international environmental issues. From 1996 to 2003, she was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs of the U. S. Department of State, with rank of Ambassador. Prior to 1996, Ms. West served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, and also in the Office of the General Counsel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Ms. West received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Ang joined the IUCN US Multilateral Office as Financial Officer on April 06, 1998, and was named Senior Finance Manager in April 2008. Prior to joining the IUCN US Multilateral Office, Ang was the Senior Finance Officer of the IUCN Nepal office from December 1992 to March 31, 1998. Prior to IUCN Nepal, Ang worked for projects under the Government of Nepal jointly funded by the Government of Nepal and donors (such as Swiss Development Corporation, USAID, UNDP, World Bank and AsDB in Nepal).

Ang Jangbu Sherpa is a Certified Public Accountant from USA. Ang is a graduate of Tribuvan University in Nepal and Ang also received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree from Strayer University in Washington DC. Ang is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

Ang is married to Ms. Phurba Sherpa and has two boys, Kalden and Nima Gyalgen.
 

Debbie Good is the Human Resource Manager and the North America/Caribbean Membership Focal Point of the IUCN-USA Multilateral office. She also serves as Executive Assistant to the Executive Director.

Debbie began her career in the international environmental field in 1972 at the US Environmental Protection Agency where she worked in the Office of International Activities on various environmental issues. After spending 18 years in the government, Debbie joined Environmental Defense (an IUCN member), working with the International Counsel on climate change issues. She joined IUCN-US in 1994 as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Director and soon thereafter took on management of human resources and membership for the office. Outside of work Debbie enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren, and skiing.
 

All the way from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Carlos has worked in the financial field for over 10 years.  Carlos worked for the Peace Corps here in Washington before returning to La Paz where he worked for the American Embassy as an accountant. After six years, Carlos and his family returned to the States as an accountant and book keeper for Booz Allen Hamilton and the PA Consulting Group. 

Carlos is married to Luz and they have three sons, Miguel, Leandro and Cristian. On the weekends Carlos enjoys spending time with his family and playing, watching or listening to soccer.

Having started life at IUCN as a research fellow in the summer of 2008, Amanda proved her organizational skills when she attened the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.

Promoted to a permanent staff position, as Office Administrator, Amanda continues to provide support to Senior Staff and the US team as a whole. Amanda ensures the smooth day to day running of the US office and still finds time to pursue her studies at American University's School of International Service.
 

Larissa Hotra is the Fundraising Officer of the IUCN office in Washington, D.C., part of the Strategic Partnerships Unit in Gland, Switzerland. Prior to joining IUCN, Larissa has worked for over six years on issues relating to the environment, including environmental education, justice, human rights, resource-based conflict, community-based conservation, green technology, development and sustainable agriculture.

Larissa holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and a B.S. from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources.

Narinder Kakar is IUCN’s UN Permanent Observer in New York. Narinder will devote half of his time to working for IUCN and the other half to his work as Director of the UN Liaison Office in New York of the University for Peace. Narinder also serves as Visiting Professor to the University, teaching a course on the United Nations System.

An Indian citizen, Narinder has extensive experience of the UN, including 30 years' work with UNDP, both in New York and at country level, as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. He also was associated with the work of the IPCC.

Narinder obtained his B.A. from the Delhi Polytechnic and received a Diploma in Journalism from the Institute of Journalism in Delhi. He also received an MBA degree from Haceteppe University in Turkey. He was a Research Associate at Harvard University in Massachusetts, USA, in 1994, carrying out work in the field of social development.

He has served on a number of important boards and committees, including the UN Joint Staff Pension Board and the Board of Directors of the UN Federal Credit Union, of which he was Chairman. Within the United Nations he served as Chairperson of the UN Joint Appeals Board for a number of years.
 

With a masters degree in economy for natural resources and the environment from the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile, Connie joins us from the IUCN regional office for South America (SUR) in her native Ecuador where she worked on the Forest Conservation Program since 2002, first as a consultant, then as program officer before acting as regional program coordinator for SUR.

Before joining the IUCN fold, Connie worked in the application of economic instruments for the conservation of protected areas at the Universidad Catolica del Ecuador and worked at a UUNN environmental Facility in Ecuador coordinating the work of regional volunteers. Whilst completing her masters in Chile, Connie worked as a research assistant, carrying out coast assessments on the impacts of climate change on the south coast; building equilibrium models for testing economic instruments to achieve environmental and social objectives for restoring river basins. Connie then went on to join Fundacion Terram, an IUCN member in Chile, carrying out a set of studies in the economic department looking into green accountability, the valuation of Chilean biodiversity, assessment of natural resource industries (timber, mining and fishery), and macro-economics.

As Senior Forest and Climate Change Officer, Connie is focusing her attention on REDD opportunities – a financial and economic instrument for the mitigation of climate change and forest conservation and restoration. Connie will be keeping a close eye on the UNFCCC negotiations and forest governance arrangements which will effect the design and implementation of REDD initiatives.

Carole Saint-Laurent is IUCN's Senior Advisor on Forest Policy and Partnerships, and coordinator of the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration. She has 20 years of experience in environmental policy and programme development.

A keen birdwatcher since he was ten Jan Willem was involved in bird surveying and the maintenance of landscape elements throughout his school days. He completed a degree in Environmental Science with a specialization in Communication.

Jan Willem lived in the Indian Himalayas for 14 years during which time he managed a waste management program and mastered Tibetan. He set up and managed a research office empowering local youth in research, information management and media skills, and continued to support local sustainable development projects and initiatives in the field of income generation, gender issues and special needs education.

Jan also developed his understanding of birds in the sub-continent with a special focus on bird communities in the Western Himalayas and the wintering and migration of birds as part of the Central-Asian fly path. He authored two photographic guides of birds in the Himalayas and India illustrated with his own photographs. In 2007 Jan Willem returned to The Netherlands to work in Human Rights advocacy and media, and to pursue a Masters degree in Forest and Nature Conservation Policy at Wageningen University.

As Knowledge Manager, Jan Willem is charged with writing advocacy communications for the forest programme, scaling up voices for influencing post 2012 climate change regime, with a view to shaping pro-poor REDD options.

A passion for islands and island people are the reasons that Kate Brown loves her job. Kate is from New Zealand (an island country) and spent eight years working on island issues at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme in Apia, Samoa prior to joining IUCN. She also worked in Western Australia on promoting sustainable farming systems in agriculture.

Kate now leads the GLISPA Coordination Unit based in IUCN’s USA office. GLISPA is a partnership of which IUCN is a partner, with a steering committee to help with the functioning of the partnership.

The main focus of her work with GLISPA is to raise attention of island issues globally, facilitate the sharing of experiences between island countries and countries with islands, to support island leadership and commitment by facilitating both technical and financial resources to help islands meet their goals and to enable GLISPA members to work together to advance island conservation and sustainable livelihoods.

GLISPA is recognized as one of the mechanisms to advance the Convention on Biological Diversity’s island biodiversity programme of work and was called for by island leaders at the Mauritius international meeting for Small Island Developing States in 2005.

Laughlin comes to IUCN from one of IUCN’s government agency members and key partners, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As the Former Deputy Director Office of International Affairs, Tom will bring a wealth of experience as an international negotiator to the Union’s marine program as well as IUCN as a whole.

Tom spent 28 years with NOAA as a U.S. government spokesman dealing with a wide range of marine topics, including land based sources of marine pollution, regional seas, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) marine conservation and polar issues. He has served as chair for a number of working groups including a number of associated UNEP processes and the Arctic Council.

Tom Laughlin holds a B.A. in political science from Yale University and an M.A. in political science from Northwestern University.

Working within the IUCN Global Marine Programme, Harlan Cohen has responsibility for IUCN’s international ocean governance work. He advises on IUCN’s policies and positions with respect to a wide range of international oceans and fisheries fora to ensure that IUCN’s positions are coordinated, balanced, practical, and in keeping with resolutions and recommendations as adopted at IUCN’s World Conservation Congresses.

Harlan is a former senior member of the U.S. Foreign Service, where he worked on marine, Antarctic and Arctic issues. He served in Curaçao, Frankfurt am Main, Paramaribo, and Geneva. While in Geneva, he focused on environmental and scientific issues and worked with the staff of Secretariats for six global environmental conventions, four regional environmental conventions and with a number of other environmental and scientific organizations. Harlan edited the 9th edition of the Antarctic Treaty Handbook. He has a B.A. from Columbia University, a Ph.D. in modern European history from Cambridge University and also completed a year of graduate study in science, technology and public policy at the George Washington University.
 

For the past 10 years, Jennifer Palmer has worked as a marine conservation scientist and communicator with an aim to expand and support collaborative conservation networks from diverse regions, backgrounds and cultures all around the world.

Jennifer is currently working with IUCN’s Global Marine Program as Marine Program Officer for IUCN’s Washington, DC office and also coordinates the DC Marine Community (DCMC)—a diverse network of over 550 participants, including non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), government agencies, foundations, bilateral and multilateral agencies, fellowship programs, and independent consultants and academia/students.

She received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and her Master’s degree in Applied Ecology and Conservation from the international program of University of East Anglia (UK). Prior to her graduate research on the conservation of sea turtles in Costa Rica, she worked with several non-profit, government and private sectors such as the NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, University of St. Andrew’s Sea Mammal Research Unit, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, and the Ocean Institute.

Jennifer’s extensive field experience has led her to research endangered Hawaiian monk seals, albatross and green sea turtles while living on one of the worlds most remote coral atoll chains, now known as the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. During this time she assisted National Geographic’s CRITTERCAM series and Jean-Michel Cousteau’s PBS series Voyage to Kure. Prior to Hawaii, she joined Ocean Alliance's R/V Odyssey expedition, a scientific voyage that circum-navigated the globe to study the health of the world’s oceans and whale populations. Through this experience, she sailed across the Pacific Ocean collaborating with cultures across Baja, Galapagos Islands, Marquises, Republic of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Additionally, she has been a naturalist/researcher from Alaska to Mexico, researching and educating about gray whales, humpback whales, blue whales, harbor seals, northern elephant seals and CA sea lions.

In her personal time, Jennifer trains in rock climbing, yoga, and dance, is an avid hiker and photographer, and remains actively involved as a mentor with international youth leadership programs such as Ocean Revolution.

Caitlyn started her professional life as a marine mammal biologist, working in behavior and acoustics. After her master’s on grey whale behavior and residency patterns, Caitlyn worked in wildlife filmmaking and eventually founded a company that brought at-risk students into the marine environment to create in-water conservation projects. Looking to broaden her professional reach she joined the Nature Conservancy as a scientist for the Global Marine Team in 2006, where she was tasked with coordinating work on marine ecosystem based management, ecosystem services, coral reef resilience and undertaking a global shellfish condition analysis. She has co-authored multiple papers on these subjects and presented at international conferences throughout her tenure.

As MPA Coordination Officer for IUCN, Caitlyn works closely with the WCPA-Marine team, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International in order to implement the PPOs “commitment tracker” and ‘review” process. By highlighting the successes and challenges of MPA network development and implementation at international events, and bringing partners together to increase synergies and momentum for the creation of global MPAs by 2012, Caitlyn hopes to demonstrate the international importance of protecting our oceans.

Charlotte's experience in marine conservation spans 15 years and ranges from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate to the establishment of marine parks in East Africa. She also ran the Greenpeace oceans campaign in Washington for two years. Charlotte completed her Master's degree in Marine Policy at the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in Marine Studies at the University of Delaware. In addition to international diplomacy and field work, Charlotte has extensive teaching experience, having taught at the University of Delaware and American University in Washington, DC, as well as spending almost two years teaching marine policy for Boston University in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Charlotte has been associated with IUCN since 1998 and is a member of three of IUCN's commissions, the Marine Turtle Specialist Group, the World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Environmental Law. She co-authored three major IUCN publications on marine biodiversity, international fisheries and high seas resources. Charlotte is currently working with WCS on the establishment of marine protected areas to enhance resilience of coral reefs to climate change in Madagascar and on fisheries sustainability in Morocco. In her spare time, Charlotte is a Divemaster and a budding triathlete.
 

David Freestone joined the IUCN Multilateral Office as Senior Adviser in December 2008 after retiring from The World Bank Legal Office, where he had served as a Senior Adviser and as Deputy General Counsel, and for eight years was Chief Counsel and head of the Environment and International Law Group.

As well as being staff at IUCN, Freestone is also a Lobingier Visiting Professor at The George Washington Law School where he teaches International Environmental law and International Climate Change Law. He is a Visiting Professor at the UN University Institute of Advanced Studies and on the List of Experts in Environmental Law appointed by the Secretary-General of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Prior to joining The World Bank in 1996, he held a faculty chair in international law at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, where he is still an honorary professor. He has written widely on international environmental law and law of the sea and is the founding editor of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (now in its 24th year) and a member of the editorial boards of the British Yearbook of International Law, International Yearbook of Environmental Law, and European Yearbook of Environmental Law. David is General Editor of a new monograph series Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development, published by Martinus Nijhoff and in 2007 was awarded the Elizabeth Haub Gold Medal for Environmental Law.
 

Dorothée Herr joined IUCN’s Global Marine Program as a Marine Program Officer in 2009. Despite being a native of land locked Luxembourg, Dorothée is particularly interested in policy processes relating to ocean and climate change. In her capacity at IUCN Dorothée is following the current UNFCCC negotiations and working towards including marine and coastal issues more centrally into the international climate change policy debate. She is active in a wide range of marine related climate change topics and initiatives, including ocean warming and ocean acidification as well as nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Dorothée is also the lead author of IUCN’s publication - The Ocean and Climate Change. Tools and Guidelines for Action.

Dorothée received her masters degree in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University and her diploma in Geography from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Fluent in four languages Dorothée comes to IUCN with extensive experience within the private sector, government agencies and NGOs having worked at the Luxembourg Ministry of the Environment, Greenpeace and the International Network for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development (CEPS/INSTEAD).
 

Martin Sneary is a Senior Information Management Adviser, working on a shared programme of work with BirdLife International and Conservation International, splitting his time between Cambridge and Washington DC. In his capacity he is involved with the development of a number of software applications supporting the compilation, management and reporting/analysis of scientific data, notably for species and priority sites for conservation, the presentation of these data on the web site, and training.

On the fun side, as a mad keen wind surfer he's often found in rubber battling 40 knot winds and can occasionally be seen in the field with a pair of bins hanging around his neck.
 

Neil Cox is a Programme Officer of the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and Conservation International's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science based in Washington, DC. At present, his primary focus is the Global Amphibian Assessment, a comprehensive review of the conservation status for each of the world’s 5,500 amphibian species.

Before joining IUCN, Neil was a Programme Officer for the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Cambridge, UK). At UNEP-WCMC, Neil worked on a wide range of global and regional biodiversity related issues including conservation assessments, species trade (CITES) and biodiversity indicators. Neil has been associated with the IUCN Red List, since 1994, in a variety of capacities including species assessment and data collection and management.

Marcelo is a Programme Officer within the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and the Science and Knowledge Division of Conservation International. The main focus of his work is to provide support to ongoing global assessment initiatives and to synthesize, manage, and analyze species conservation data. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in his native Argentina, and his Ph. D. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. After completing his graduate studies, Marcelo was involved in conservation planning research in Chile, both in the terrestrial and marine realms. He has also conducted research in Argentina combining species distribution modeling and conservation planning to identify conservation priority areas for several groups of species. Prior to joining IUCN, Marcelo worked at the University of California in Davis reviewing and selecting environmental and socio-economic indicators in two watersheds in Northern California.

Cristiane Elfes is a Programme Officer with the Biodiversity Assessment Unit, a joint initiative of IUCN and Conservation International. In this capacity, she is working on the Global Marine Species Assessment – an initiative that will greatly expand the marine taxa assessed under the IUCN Red List, providing a clearer picture of the global state of marine biodiversity.
 

A native of Brazil, Cristiane began her career in the marine field, working with coastal communities on sea turtle conservation in her home country. She holds a Bachelors degree in Biology from Universidade Federal de São Carlos (Brazil), and a Masters degree in Aquatic and Fishery Sciences from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her graduate research focused on determining levels of organic contaminants in humpback whales as part of the SPLASH Project – an international collaboration to study humpbacks in the North Pacific. Cristiane speaks four languages and brings expertise from work on a variety of marine related projects, including fish toxicology and human health (with the University of Washington’s School of Fisheries), biological and social dimensions of marine protected areas (World Wildlife Fund), and marine mammal ecology (NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Laboratory).
 

Gary works on a programme of conservation advocacy with global institutions – such as The World Bank – by drawing together a range of IUCN members in coordinated efforts. Gary is on secondment to IUCN from the BirdLife International Secretariat.

Gary worked on the conservation of wetland birds in the UK for his PhD at the University of East Anglia (Norwich) and thence in both forests and wetlands in a range of countries – from Canada to Indonesia but mostly in Africa – before beginning work at the BirdLife Secretariat in 1990 on the BP Conservation Awards. He then moved on to the Africa team becoming head of the region for seven years and was subsequently head of the Pacific region for five years before leading advocacy work with European institutions.

Outside work Gary enjoys dancing, food and wine, cigars, his wife’s company and the peace of birdwatching, except that is when his two children are anywhere near.
 

Chris Spence is currently on assignment with the IUCN-USA Multilateral Office and is based in New York working with the IUCN Permanent Observer Mission to the UN. He is Deputy Director of IISD Reporting Services and editor of Linkages Update. After joining the ENB team in 1998, Chris has worked in various roles, including as editor of Linkages Journal (1999-2001) and climate change team leader (1999-2002 and 2005-). After consulting for various UN agencies and other organizations in 2003 and 2004, and completing a book on global warming, Chris returned full time to IISD Reporting Services in early 2005 as the new Deputy Director. Before he joined IISD, Chris was a political researcher and speechwriter (1992-95), investigative journalist (1995-99) and lobbyist (1997-98).