Meet the brave men and women of our Advisory Board!

So, you’ve been wondering how decisions get made at The Charcoal Project? Is it just Kim and Nina and the elves?

Not always.

We receive invaluable input from individuals who voluntarily serve on our Advisory Board.

Their collective on-the-ground experience and knowledge help guide The Charcoal Project in its mission.

We take this opportunity to thank them for their continued support!

Emmanuel de Merode, Ph.D., is Chief Warden of Virunga National Park for the Congolese Wildlife Authority. Illegal charcoal production using the park’s forest resources poses the greatest threat to the 720 gorillas left in the wild in Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Providing sustainable alternative biomass fuels for the communities surrounding the park is therefore a top priority. By mid 2011, Emmanuel hopes 300,000 people will be using biomass briquettes instead of wood and charcoal, and at least 7,600 people will have permanent jobs as a result of the project.

Tuyeni H. Mwampamba, Ph.D., is a Tanzania native and UC Davis graduate currently doing post-doc research in Mexico. She is the author of an influential study on urban charcoal consumption in Tanzania and its implications to present and future forest availability. Her hands-on research also extends to Tanzania’s forest carbon sequestration capacity and the implication for the carbon market, community, and forest conservation. She is presently researching payment programs for ecosystem services generated by communities in Mexico.

Tim Tear, Ph.D., is The Nature Conservancy’s Africa Program Science Director and has been working in conservation for 25 years. In the 1980’s, Tim worked in Eastern Africa on national park management in Kenya and Southern Sudan, as well as in Arabia on the reintroduction of the Arabian Oryx to the deserts of Oman. After receiving his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Idaho in the early 1990s, Tim returned to work in Tanzania where he worked with Tanzania National Parks to establish a visitor and education center for Serengeti National Park, and to provide technical advice to park management. Since 1998, Tim has worked for The Nature Conservancy.