The Major Group children and youth and IFSA are happy to have brought together a great group of 11 individuals to attend and report form UNNF14, taking place 6th – 10th of May 2019 in New York City

If you would like to follow what is happening here in NYC, follow us on twitter @unff_youth and @ifsadotnet, Instagramm, Facebook (IFSA and UNFF MGCY)and stay tuned for more blogs.
Also you can watch the session live here: UN-WebTV

Muhammad Ayaz

from Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is currently studying master degree (final semester) in China, at college of resources and environment, Northwest agriculture and forestry university under Chinese government scholarship program. He has completed his Bachelors in soil and environmental sciences from the university of agriculture Peshawar Pakistan. He is also president of the newly established IFSA LC-AUP PAKISTAN. He is deeply involved in bio-carbon use for maintaining soil fertility and land use management. So he has keen interest and passion for forest 🌳 land management and conservation. Off-course UNFF14 is a super exciting moment for him, to represent IFSA once again at UNFF14, New York and above all this will also enable him to learn a lot about forest policy and sustainable goals. Before, He has been to GLF Bonn 2017, 🇩🇪 and COFO24 2018 Italy. He does believe that this will be an awesome experience for him, to be among the people from diverse communities/ backgrounds and especially will meet FSA friends.

Frederik Buchholz

recently finished his B.Sc. in International Forest Ecosystem Management at the University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde, Germany. His areas of interest comprise discussions and concepts surrounding Forest Ecosystem Services, developments of national and international carbon markets, as well as critical perspectives on historically grown human-nature relationships and interactions. Currently he is working as an intern at the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) within the REDD+ Early Movers Project (REM), before he plans to start a M.Sc. program in Environmental Science at the University of Wageningen.

Frederick Damptey Gyasi

is from Ghana but currently studying for his PhD in Environmental Science with specialization in Ecology at the Brandenburg University of Technology- Cottbus, Germany. He is basically investigating ecosystem processes and patterns in human-altered landscapes using indicators like arthropods, forest structures among others. Before this, he studied MSc in Environmental Management at the University of Kiel- Germany and both diploma and BSC in Natural Resource Management with specialization in Silviculture and forest management at KNUST – Ghana. Frederick worked with the Forestry Commission of Ghana (National Service) in the past on the Community Forestry Management Program- a project which collaboratively engaged community members in forest restoration, management and protection. He currently collaborates with ForestAid Ghana most of the time to restore marginalized landscapes through tree planting activities to provide basic ecosystem goods and services to society.

Steffen Dehn

studied International Forest Ecosystem Management at the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde, Germany. His areas of interest are landscape restoration, participatory stakeholder management, and nature-based solutions to tackle climate change. He currently is the Focal Point for the Major Group Children and Youth to the United Nations Forum on Forests.After working with GIZ in the field of international cooperation and development in Indonesia, he kicked off his freelancing career combining human-centered, creative elements from Design Thinking with his areas of interest to foster innovative approaches to Sustainable Development challenges. (Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/steffendehn).

Lely Puspita

from Indonesia. She is a master student at Northern Arizona University and studying forestry. Her areas of interest are forest management, silviculture, forest certification and invasive species. Prior to beginning her MS degree, she worked for the Rainforest Alliance, WWF-Indonesia, and Traffic. She was responsible for overseeing forestry certifications under FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and VLC (Verification of Legal Compliance) standards. She is a qualified lead auditor for FSC, VLC and SAN (Sustainable Agriculture Network) standards and routinely conducted audits for forest operations and forest product industries in the Asia Pacific region (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, and Papua New Guinea).

Erica Di Girolami

holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Economics and Policy from the University of Turin, where she graduated in 2014. She is currently doing a second master in Forest and Nature Conservation, specialization Policy and Society, at Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands. As a student assistant, Erica investigated the impacts on biodiversity of forest certifications (FSC, PEFC) for the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, on behalf of Forest and Nature Conservation Policy group of WUR. At the moment, she is doing a systematic review on the environmental impacts of community forest management around the globe. Her main academic interests are the legality of timber trade and forest governance, community forests management, sustainable forest management and the role of forest certifications, landscape governance, and the importance of forests in mitigating climate change.

Rune Buchdal Nielsen

has studied a Bachelor’s in European Studies at the University of Aarhus BSS, Denmark, with a focus on environmental policy and EU cooperation. He also holds a Master’s in International Relation from Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacional (IBEI), Spain, with a focus on environment protection and economic degrowth. Since then Rune has worked with large scale ecological restoration in Jordan, field work in Rwanda in relation to water scarcity and at the Danish embassy in Argentina in relation to smart city development.  Rune is now at the Danish Ministry of Environment and Food as a student worker while finishing his second Master’s and thesis about the EU Nature Directives and intrinsic values of trees and nature habitats. Rune has a keen interest on diplomacy, green business and cross-functional perspectives in the field of political science and the Humanities.

Oloruntobi Muniru

is currently doing her Master’s degree in Sustainable Forest Management, University of British Columbia, Canada. She completed her Bachelor’s in Forestry and Wood Technology, Federal University of Technology, Nigeria. During, her undergraduate degree she co-founded an Environmental NGO, Eden World Initiative which focused on tree planting and forestry education. She hopes to bring on board how youths can be better included in forest and environmental management.  She further hopes to learn the politics of international forestry policy making and thereby encourage better youth inclusion in international forest policies.

Lisa C. Prior

is the current Vice-President of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA). In this capacity Lisa advocates for meaningful youth involvement in forest science and forest policy processes. She studied forest science (M.Sc.) at University of Göttingen and International Forest Ecosystem Management (BSc.) at the University of Sustainable Development Eberswalde. In-between studies Lisa worked with Scottish Natural Heritage at Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve and completed a Higher National Certificate in Gamekeeping with Wildlife Management at the Thurso Campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands. Currently, Lisa is a junior researcher in the Resilience Programme of the European Forest Institute (EFI), where she is working in the EFI-IFSA-IUFRO capacity building project on global student networking and green jobs in the forest sector.

Maximilian Schubert

is currently finishing his Bachelor studies in forestry and environment at the University of Freiburg. In his studies he utilised his long-term IFSA experience and focused on environmental politics and landscape management. After working internationally with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), Maximilian is currently undertaking a study of the international forest negotiations since 1991. In addition, he is the IFSA Liaison Officer for the Youth in Landscapes Initiative and links IFSA and various partners to the GLF.

Arturo Turillazzi

from Italy. He is an MSc student in Human Development and Food Security at the University of Roma Tre. He previously got a bachelor degree in Gastronomic Sciences, at the University of Pollenzo. His main interests are agroforestry and food security. His passion for forests started in 2017 when he went to India to work in a reforestation project. There, he collected data for his bachelor thesis, studying the importance of forests for the local food sovereignty. He expects to learn a lot during this conference and to be able to share his interests and acquire better knowledge on the topic of forests.