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Climate Forestry

Climate Forestry is a specialist professional forestry company with programmes of work to optimise operational forest management, support forest certification and timber legality assurance, develop and implement sustainable financial strategies, and support organisations to meet the requirements of International Conventions and Environmental Agreements.

We are uniquely positioned to assist local, national, and international companies and governments, enhance their forestry initiatives. Our professional services are implemented using a step-wise methodological approach to satisfy national and international environmental, social, and regulatory standards of compliance.

Climate Forestry collaborates with leading international professionals, to enhance the robustness and delivery of our professional services. While Climate Forestry is a new company, we have been in working in the forestry business for almost 20-years, and in that time, we’ve developed a robust clientele base. Are you looking to expand in the world of international forestry, certification, and/or climate change? Climate Forestry is always looking for industry professionals, established organisations and governments, to collaborate on project activities, and develop industry-leading solutions, together!

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Our Team

Dr Michael Galante

Dr Michael Galante is an expert in the fields of sustainable timber production from tropical forests, forest certification and timber legality assurance and climate change mitigation strategy and project development. Dr Galante has 20 years of experience as a technical expert throughout Southeast Asia. He has written numerous forest management plans and supports companies to achieve certification through FSC, PEFC, and ISO 9001 Standards of practice.

Dr Galante supports the development of innovative financial mechanisms and initiatives to ensure predictable, reliable and sustainable finance for responsible forest management activities as well as tracking International Conventions and Environmental Agreements to integrate requirements into responsible forest management. Michael obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh where he focused the development of a carbon accounting framework to support reduced-impact logging as a project-based activity under the Climate Convention in Sabah, Malaysia. Michael speaks fluent English and has professional working proficiency of Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Melayu.

Dr Bernd Hann-Shilling

Germany
Dr Bernd Hann-Shilling is a professional forester with over 28 years of working experience in tropical forest research and operational tropical forest management, forest certification, capacity building, and human resource development. Dr Bernd has supported numerous forest companies across Southeast Asia to achieve forest certification and he has supported the development of the Malaysian Forest Certification Standard. He was the Team lead and Technical Advisor in Forest Resource Assessment and Forest Management for the Malaysian-German Technical Cooperation Project Sarawak, Malaysia (1995-2001), supported by the German International Organisation (GIZ). Dr Bernd obtained his Doctorate in Tropical Forestry from University of Göttingen, Germany where he focused on structural analysis, biodiversity assessment, growth development, silviculture, management options in degraded peat swamp forest. Dr Bernd is a founder of International Forest Management Consultants (IFMC) registered in Mainz, Germany, consulting the public and private forestry and environmental sectors in the Southeast Asian region, and facilitating forest technology transfer and trade development of certified forest products. Dr Bernd speaks fluent English and German.

James Leitch, MSc

New Zealand
James Leitch has over 30 years of experience in the technical management of timber plantations, forest certification, and biomass and carbon accounting. James concentrates on the sustainability and strategic management of tropical agro-forestry assets through asset valuations and resource modelling for corporate strategic and production supply-chain value adding forecasting and implements best practice through the application of principles and criteria of timber certification. James has co-authored published research on various topics including tree taper functions to increase the accuracy in the estimation of forest volume and biomass. James obtained his Master of Forestry from Canterbury University (1976) and speaks fluent English and is proficient in Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malayu and Fijian.

Joseph Gasis, BSc

Malaysia
Joseph has over 30 years of experience working on responsible forest management in commercial forestry operations in Sabah. Joseph was the previous manager of Yayasan Sabah Foundation Group and established the Danum Valley Field Centre in Sabah, a centre of excellent dedicated to forest research and training based in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia. Joseph has advised FMUs in the commercial forest restoration, the establishment of responsible plantation estates, and he is familiar with field assessments involving high-conservation value forest, community assessments and biodiversity surveys. Currently, Joseph is a freelance consultant living in Keningau, Sabah. He received his BSc from University Kebangsaan Malaysia and speaks fluent English, Kadazan-Dusun and Malay.

Le Thien Duc, PhD

Viet Nam
Dr Le Thien Duc has approximately 20 years of experience working on forest management, forest certification and timber legality for responsible timber trade, and REDD-plus interventions in Viet Nam. Formally, he was the Forest Programme Coordinator for WWF Viet Nam where he acted as the link between Country Practice Leader and the core team to ensure strategic embedding of Practice Goals strategic plan. Currently, he is a consultant and the acting Vice-Director for the newly formed Center for Conservation and Development Viet Nam. Duc received his doctorate degree from Technische Universität Dresden focusing on Sustainable Natural Forest Management in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam (2015) and speaks fluent English, German and Vietnamese.

Sandro Federici, PhD

Italy
Dr Sandro Federici is an expert in the fields of forestry, climate change mitigation, and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories in the agriculture, forestry and other land-use sector. Sandro has over 15 years expertise as a technical expert in reporting and accounting for GHG emissions and removals in the land-use sector, and he is an expert in forest modalities and mechanisms under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He has extensive experience as a consultant to the negotiations on Climate Change under the UNFCCC, for the delegations of Italy, the European Community, Papua New Guinea and Panama, including international organisations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Sandro holds a PhD in Forest Management from the University of Tuscia, Italy (2000), speaks fluent English, Italian and Spanish, and is proficient in French.

Shizuka Yasui, Msc

Japan
Shizuka has over 15 years of experience in responsible forest management and timber supply chains, particularly with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. In addition to working for the FSC national and international secretariat for nine years, she has auditor and trainer experience. She has worked with broader sectors around forest certification, illegal logging and REDD-plus, focusing on researching, advocacy and lecturing. Shizuka holds a BSc and an MSc (2007) in Agriculture focusing on Biological Resources – Forest Policy from Ehime University, Japan. She speaks fluent Japanese and English, is professionally proficient in Bahasa Indonesia and has reading comprehension in Chinese (Traditional/Simplified).

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Our Partners

DoubleHelix Singapore

DoubleHelix secures global timber supply chains to safeguard them from illegal timber substitution of unknown species or origin. By implementing supply chain monitoring, using a combination of document verification, field assessments, and scientific testing, DoubleHelix provides assurance of product quality and consistency, as well as regulatory compliance. Established in 2008, DoubleHelix is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Washington D.C., and Indonesia, and maintains a global network of industry experts. They work with intergovernmental agencies, governments, forestry concessions, exporters, importers and retailers.

FORLIANCE

FORLIANCE, together with its international clients, global partners, and multidisciplinary team of specialists strives to create intact forests and ecosystems that positively impact our climate, biodiversity and human well-being. FORLIANCE initiates, finances, creates and manages robust nature-based climate projects and integrate them into sustainability strategies with our clients to achieve their Net Zero Carbon targets. 

International Forest Management Consultants Malaysia

International Forest Management Consultants Sdn Bhd (IFMC) is a technical consulting company supporting forest operations achieve responsible forest management and sustainability. The company’s long-term, practical experience in the field has developed a sound knowledge platform for project design, management and evaluation and technical backstopping services, including growth models for planning and investments into the forest sector. The head office of IFMC is located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. 

OpenForests Germany

OpenForests is a consulting company working in collaboration with an expert network that supports the implementation of social, ecologically diverse and profitable forestry projects. Amongst services like fund raising, project due-diligence and the establishment of entire Forest Information Systems (FIS), OpenForests is specialized in providing an innovative forest mapping with proven experience in the development of cost-effective and precise orthomaps and Digital Crown Surface Models (DSM), to support forest operations aiming to achieve environmental and social standards. The head office of Open Forests is in Krefeld, just north of Dusseldorf, Germany.

RGI Investment Ltd.

RGI Investment Ltd. is licensed by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) Mauritius with the Global Business Licence 1 and the Investment Adviser (Unrestricted) Licence. RGI focuses on all types of investments, from high-yield bonds, exclusive portfolios or the potential to invest in pre-IPO companies. Recently, the company has expanded into the forest asset class supporting the development of forestry bonds and exclusive forestry products. Our investment approaches is flexible and modern and our goal is to achieve the return targets of our clients in a sustainable manner. To achieve this, we search for opportunities in trend markets day by day and week by week and using their natural volatility to our advantage. Risk management is not only a daily companion, but the basis for sustainable returns. 

Tropical Forest Foundation Indonesia

The Tropical Forest Foundation Indonesia (TFF) is an international, non-profit, educational institution committed to advancing environmental stewardship, economic prosperity, and social responsibility through sustainable forest management. The Foundation has become widely recognised for the establishment of demonstration models and training schools to teach Reduced Impact Logging (RIL), timber legality and forest certification, and other practices that encourage the sustainable management of forests. The head office of TFF is located in Bogor, West Jawa, Indonesia.

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For more information on how we can support your work in tropical forestry, please get in touch to schedule a meeting.

 

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