Today’s youth are ready and willing to get our voices heard by actively engaging in environmentally and economically sustainable projects, providing with new and fresh ideas to forge solutions to the planet’s greatest climate and development challenges.
We have a vision for an inclusive and equitable world where people come together to collaborate across boundaries, sectors and generations to achieve sustainability for our global and local landscapes.
The Youth in Landscapes Initiative contributes to that world by uniting and empowering youth (aged 18-35 years) from diverse backgrounds around the world to have a voice, and affect positive change in their landscapes and livelihoods. Since our first program in Warsaw alongside the first Global Landscapes Forum (GLF), the Youth in Landscapes Initiative has built intergenerational capacity of hundreds of GLF delegates, through skill building, networking, mentoring and leadership development.
“A super exciting programme that I was part of last year. Working with like-minded people works in so many subtle ways (apart from the obvious ones) that I still draw from this experience and realise anew the things I learnt. p.s. I miss everyone I met in Paris. The best thing to happen in a long time!” 2015 alumnus.
The Initiative is a partnership between the International Forestry Students Association (IFSA), Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) and the Global Agroecology Alliance (GAEA). Together, these organisations represent over 18,000 young people working and studying in agriculture, forestry and agroecology.
As the Youth in Landscapes Initiative is a program driven by youth for youth, we have a geographically diverse team of young people who volunteer their time to make the program happen. Many of the team members are program alumni. Being on the organising team is a coveted role and is a capacity development activity in itself, with many youth team members going on to secure job opportunities as a result of their involvement.
2016 team
Claudio Castro
Claudio Castro is an agronomist who is currently working at the EUROCLIMA-IICA Project in Costa Rica. He has also worked in biological pest control with sugarcane farmers in México. Hiss professional goal is to contribute to raising awareness of how to produce food in an innovative, climate-smart way.
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Daniela Rivas
Daniela Rivas is a thinker, designer and manager for sustainable development projects in rural Peru with hands on experience in North, Central and South America. Consultant in rural education and YPARD Peru national representative.
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Dinesh Panday
Dinesh Panday is a PhD scholar in Soil Fertility at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a YPARD member as Nepal representative and Communication officer at YPARD Asia and Pacific Coordination Unit. He also coordinates EduMala Mentoring Program.
@dineshpanday 
Enricka Julien
Enricka Julien works in the livestock sector, created the blog Ebites and is reading for a Post Graduate Diploma in Land Administration. @EnrickaJ
@EnrickaJ
Florent Kaiser
Florent Kaiser is a young, passionate forester who is keen to overcome barriers between youth and older professionals to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge, skills and innovative problem solving.
Gabrielle Schittecatte
Gabrielle Schittecatte is currently working at Médecins Sans Frontières International Office. Gabrielle has a background social science research, with a focus on environmental policy, political communication, and framing. She drew on her experiences teaching at university to co-lead the capacity development of the Youth in Landscape 2015 project in Paris, France. Since then she's facilitated several other workshops, completed her data collection and analysis for her role in the international COMPON (comparing climate change policy networks), and published a paper in Forest Policy and Economics.
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Hannah Smith
Hannah Smith is a PhD candidate in Natural Resources and Society at the University of Idaho in the United States. She is a cofounder of Shift Leadership which engages mid-level managers of organizations and youth in the climate change conversation. She also designs and delivers leadership education courses with the Center for Creative Leadership.
Javier Rodríguez Ros
Javier Rodríguez Ros is a Co-Founder & Sustainable Water Management Specialist at Global AgroEcology Alliance (GAEA).
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Jhannel Tomlinson
Jhannel Tomlinson is a PhD candidate at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, doing research on Community based adaptation to climate change.
@Jaybritz 
Karen Veridiano
Karen Veridiano is currently working as a Research Scientist at the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institut-Institute of International Forestry and Forestry Economics. She has a background on forestry and environmental science but mainly works within the nexus of GIS and remote sensing, IP and community-based forest carbon accounting and monitoring, REDD+ and science-based policy decision making.
@KarenVeridiano-
Marina Cherbonnier
Marina Cherbonnier is Web and Communications manager with Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD).
@MarinaDev 
May Anne Then
May Anne is a community animator and loves exploring inter-connectivity through dialogue and collaboration.
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Michelle Kovacevic
Michelle Kovacevic helps people learn, tell and create stories and crafts experiences that surprise and transform people.
@kovamic 
Natalia Cisneros
Natalia Cisneros is a forest engineer working on CIFOR's Global Comparative Study on REDD+. She believes in giving youth platforms for their voices to be heard.
Pieter Van de Sype
Pieter Van de Sype is a landscape and spatial planning expert in a programme of the Belgian Development Agency and the Peruvian Ministry of Environment.
@PieterVandeSype-
Prakriti Mukerjee
Prakriti Mukerjee is a research and communications officer with SIFOR. She now lives and works in the Indian Himalayas having grown up and studied in New Delhi. She is interested in traditional communities, their knowledge systems and their management of natural resources.
@adreamoftrees -
Renata Lozano
Renata Lozano is from Mexico City, she currently works for a civil society organization called Reforestamos Mexico, where she is the project coordinator of the Landscape Restoration initiative.
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Sabina Dessartre Mendonça
Sabina Dessartre Mendonça is a young forester, with some experience in forests in South America, North America and Europe. Currently working with non-timber forest products and traditional communities in Brazil, she's very into international and global environmental issues as well.
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Sarah Dickson-Hoyle
Sarah Dickson-Hoyle is the mentorship coordinator and former CIFOR Liaison Officer with the International Forestry Students Association, and works as an ecological consultant with Eco Logical Australia.
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Special advisor
David Thomas
David Thomas is a facilitation and engagement expert and founder/director of Danaqa ltd, a social enterprise working on increasing linkages between and within development landscapes.
2015 team
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Michelle Kovacevic
Michelle is a science communicator and has experience organizing capacity building programs for youth, journalists and researchers while working for the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
@kovamic -
Florent Kaiser
Florent is a young, passionate forester who is keen to overcome barriers between youth and older professionals to ensure a smooth transfer of knowledge, skills and innovative problem solving.
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Javier Rodriguez
Javier Rodriguez is a Co-Founder & Sustainable Water Management Specialist at Global AgroEcology Alliance (GAEA).
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Sarah Dickson-Hoyle
Sarah Dickson-Hoyle is the mentorship coordinator and former CIFOR Liaison Officer with the International Forestry Students Association, and works as an ecological consultant with Eco Logical Australia.
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Marina Cherbonnier
Marina Cherbonnier is Web and Communications manager with Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD).
@MarinaDev -
Wen-Yu Weng
Wen-Yu Weng is a masters student at the London School of Economics, runs the Taiwan Debate Union and volunteers with Development in Action.
@wenyuweng -
Mona Zoghbi
Mona Zoghbi is a freelance consultant working with UNESCO and UNDP on integrating climate change and sustainability education into the curriculum and organizing training workshops for youth, teachers, NGOs and practitioners in the Arab region. She’s also an MIT Climate CoLab Fellow.
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Abby Waldorf
Abby is a communications and engagement specialist for the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. Abby organised the 2014 Dragon¹s Den at the Global Landscapes Forum.
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Noor Nasir
Noor Nasir is a Master’s student at Lund University studying environment and sustainability science.
@risanroon -
Natalia Cisneros
Natalia Cisneros is the current Vice-President of the International Forestry Students' Association and works with the communications team at the Center for International Forestry Research.
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Enricka Julien
Enricka Julien works in the livestock sector, created the blog Ebites and is reading for a Post Graduate Diploma in Land Administration.
@EnrickaJ -
Sekar Ayu Woro Yunita
Sekar Ayu Woro Yunita is an undergraduate forestry student at Universitas Gadjah Mada and is the Asia-Pacific Regional Representative for the International Forestry Students Association.
@sekarayunita -
Gabrielle Schittecatte
Gabrielle Schittecatte is working on a trans-national and global climate change policy network project as well as the Flexible Learning Initiative. She just finished her thesis defense at the University of British Columbia.
Hannah Smith
Hannah Smith is a PhD candidate in Natural Resources and Society at the University of Idaho in the United States. She is a cofounder of Shift Leadership which engages mid-level managers of organizations and youth in the climate change conversation. She also designs and delivers leadership education courses with the Center for Creative Leadership.
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Myriam Perez
Myriam Perez works with the Agropolis Foundation where she supports researchers applying for new project funding. She also works with SupAgro, fostering better linkages between educational programmes and the needs of the job market as well as being is YPARD’s France representative.
@PDMyriam -
Kim Nicholas
Kim Nicholas is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University in Sweden, researching sustainable agriculture and climate change. @KA_Nicholas
