AERF - Key Persons
Aaron is a US Student Fulbright Scholar collaborating with AERF to investigate the feasibility of conservation agreements for the protection of biodiversity in India. Aaron was educated at the University of Colorado and Yale where he earned a master's degree in environmental science. Before coming to India as a Fulbright Scholar, he was a Colorado Conservation Trust Fellow working to permanently protect private land of high conservation value in his home state. Prior to this experience, he served in the Dominican Republic as a US Peace Corps Volunteer working tso integrate community development and natural resource management. Aaron is married to an Indian citizen he met as a graduate student and is dedicated to joining his experience in conservation at home and abroad with opportunities for improved conservation in India.
An Information Management trainee from SPJIMR, Mumbai, Divya Bhagwat , worked on the 'Branding and Promotion of the My Forest campaign' as a part of a program that aims to develop corporate citizenship in management students. At the end of her six week internship, she suggested some modifications in the existing campaign so as to meet target segment needs and delivered a new website layout in keeping with the same.
Job Titles:
- Student at Cambridge University UK
PhD student at Cambridge University UK working on on incentive-based conservation models in India. Arshiya studied AERF's project on incentive based conservation in the Ratnagiri district as part of her PhD work during her internship at AERF. She also gave presentation on the same topic at International Conference on Conservation Biology(ICCB) held at Auckland, New Zealand,
An engineering student from France spent two months with AERF supporting various activities under the Energy and Biodiversity Programme. She visited all AERF field sites and joined AERF team in setting up decentralized bio-fuel centers and helped in undertaking resource assessments.
Subrajit has worked in the oil industry for over two years where he led a team to carry out market research of fuel consumers to segment the Retail Network Channel. He is now studying at SPJIMR, Mumbai. As part of his internship programme with AERF, he tried to understand environmental issues and worked on 'Branding and Promotion of the My Forest campaign. He drafted his recommendations for the ongoing campaign
A student of Geography from the University of Cologne, Germany. Volker works as a professional cameraman for a private channel in Germany. After visiting AERF, he expressed his wish to offer his skills in film making for promoting the remote village electrification project of AERF.Weagreed on the fact that documentary films could become an excellent PR strategy for promotion of renewable energy in rural India as well as for promoting AERF's mission among the donor agencies.
Dr. Alan Hamilton, PhD, ScD, FLS, has been in the field of professional conservation and has also worked as university lecturer in the UK and Uganda for many years. His research specialty is the history of climate, forests and land use in central Africa. He was a founder of the People and Plants Initiative, a joint programme of WWF, UNESCO and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, designed to raise global capacity in applied ethnobotany . In 2009, Alan was made an Honorary Professor in the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences in recognition of his collaboration on conservation with Chinese scientists.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Founder
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
- Member of the CORE TEAM
Dr. Godbole is the founder Director of AERF and has more than 20 years of experience in the field of conservation and natural resource management. She was awarded the Whitley Associate Award for her long term work on sacred groves. She is also an invited NGO member representative of the Clinton Global Initiative and AERF's commitment on Safeguarding Forests and Biodiversity of Northern Western Ghats has been felicitated in CGI annual meeting of 2011. Under her able guidance, AERF has completed a number of research and implementation projects, contributing to the objectives of AERF and to the process of biodiversity conservation.
Dr. Govindasamy Agoramoorthy, a world renowned primatologist has been guiding officials, technical and research staff members for over 25 years in the field of ecology. He currently teaches at the College of Environmental Sciences in Tajen University, Taiwan. He has served in various global environmental conservation organizations. His research and conservation activities are spread across the globe including India, Liberia, USA, Venezuela, Taiwan, Trinidad, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Peru, Brazil and China. He has been awarded with numerous awards and memberships including best scientist award, National Environmental Science Academy (2007)
Job Titles:
- Director and Founder of Big Sky Consulting
Dr. James Danoff Burg is the Director and Founder of Big Sky Consulting and is dedicated to providing creative, science-based conservation and education solutions for NGOs, zoos, and aquariums. His twenty years in grant writing, strategic planning, evaluation, community-based conservation, biodiversity surveys, curriculum creation, and public outreach help him to be a global leader in conservation, education, and strategy. Dr. Danoff-Burg's graduate training focused on insect and marine invertebrate conservation evolution and ecology. For the past two decades, his research, teaching, and conservation implementation actions have focused on reducing the negative effects of human activities on biodiversity through conservation education
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
Mark Lethbridge has research interests in wine quality detection using active optical instruments, wine yield estimation, chain of supply issues in agriculture, vegetation condition monitoring using field and remote sensing, optimization algorithms, decision support tools in production and natural resource management and ecological, movement and spatial modelling. Together with Dr Micheal Westphal, he developed OPRAH, a landscape restoration prioritization algorithm used in NRM. Dr Lethbridge has 15 years of field biology experience in radio tracking, mark recapture and mark resighting and has undertaken everything from small mammal pitfall trapping to medium-sized mammal treadle trapping to perfecting camel immobilization techniques with Dr Wayne Boardman. He is currently developing new and innovative ways to capture species vital rate and population growth rate data remotely using camera traps and improved aerial survey techniques.
Job Titles:
- Senior Consultant and Project Coordinator at the DST Centre for Policy Research
Dr. S. Natesh is a Senior Consultant and Project Coordinator at the DST Centre for Policy Research at IIT-Delhi. His book on the iconic trees of India is slated for publication in 2021. He received the Biospectrum Lifetime Achievement Award (2012) for his contribution towards taking the Indian Biosciences Sector to new heights. He started years ago by teaching Botany at the University of Delhi for almost a decade, after which he moved to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Government of india. In DBT he headed several divisions and oversaw the launch of important programmes on conservation and management of bioresources, human resource development, innovation and entrepreneurship. He built robust international collaborations for DBT and also launched and led a campaign to bring overseas Indian bio-scientists back to India. He has also served as Consultant-Advisor at the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi in the past. His current interests include tracking and mapping of the heritage trees of India, and plants that influenced history.
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
Elizabeth Johnson is a postgraduate student at the Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology (DICE), University of Kent, England studying for Masters degree in Conservation & Tourism. Having worked in the tourism industry she is interested in the potential of ecotourism as a conservation and development tool. Whilst at AERF she studied the potential for ecotourism as a tool to conserve the sacred groves in the Konkan region.
A native of Guatemala and student of International Marketing at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands, Maria conducted market research to understand the potential of engaging Indian private sector companies in biodiversity conservation. She tried to find out whether companies using logos of wild animal and other natural elements are more inclined towards making investment in biodiversity.
Jean Phillipe is a well known ecologist contributed to understand vegetation patterns and peculiar species from various regions in the Southern Western Ghats. He is a rare combination of a researcher and a conservation practitioner.
An Australian with expertise in conservation planning and wildlife research, Emma was interested in community based conservation work of AERF. She worked on preparing report on deforestation from North Western Ghats. She also made field visits to AERF's project sites from North Western Ghats to understand the impact of conservation agreement approach for biodiversity conservation and communities
A team of Post Graduate students from SP Jain Institute for Management Research with expertise in Finance and Information Technology helped AERF redesigning the website of MyForest initiative. They also helped in development of Business plans for AERF's project in renewable energy sector.
Mihir Kulkarni is currently pursuing his Masters degree in Zoology from the University of Pune. He is interested in studying the ecology of forests and sacred groves, their biodiversity, and the threats they face. As part of his internship with AERF, He is assisting a research fellow from DICE in his project on the potential of sacred groves to attract tourists. Main part of his work is to research, identify and promote non-charismatic native species as flagship species and help build a model of ecotourism around them.
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Innovation and Sustainability Associate
Mr. A.M. Gokhale, Recipient of Padmashri for his outstanding work on traditional of Village Development Councils in Nagaland, this former chief secretary of Nagaland has coordinated a participatory resource enhancement project, the Nagaland Environmental Protection and Economic Development, through People's action (NEPED), since 1995 in Nagaland. A keen plant photographer and a taxonomist, Mr. A.M. Gokhale also served as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) and as the Chief Secretary at the Ministry of Non Conventional Energy (MNES) . At present he is the Special Adviser to the Planning Commission for North East region.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ALIBAUG TEAM
- Field Assistant
Job Titles:
- Admin
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the ALIBAUG TEAM
- Field Assistant
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Program Officer ( Energy & Biodiversity )
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
- Member of the CORE TEAM
- Founding Member and Joint Director of the Applied Environmental Research Foundation
- Joint Director
An innovative enviropreneur and conservation practitioner, Mr.Jayant Sarnaik is a founding member and joint Director of the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF)-a conservation NGO based out Pune, India. He has over 18 years of on ground experience in the field of biodiversity conservation and cross-cutting issues such as energy, livelihoods and climate change. He constantly works on developing approaches and strategies for making conservation socially sustainable and economically viable. He is recipient of Alcoa Practitioner Fellowship in conservation and sustainability 2008 and the Conservation Leadership Award 2016
Job Titles:
- Member of the ALIBAUG TEAM
- Field Assistant
Job Titles:
- Member of the ALIBAUG TEAM
- Research Officer
Job Titles:
- Accounts Officer
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Technical Associate
Sanjay Upadhyay, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is the founder and managing partner of the India's first environmental law firm, Enviro Legal Defence Firm. He also established the charitable arm of the Law firm through the Environment Law and Development Foundation. Mr. Upadhyay has over 20 years of experience in environmental law and is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India - the Apex body for legal matter in India. He has substantial experience in rules and regulation related to forest governance and is currently member of the committee formed by the Government of India to study the regulatory regime related to felling of trees grown on private lands in India. He has been part of Drafting Committees of several forest, wildlife and biodiversity related legislations both at the national and state level. This exemplary work record of Mr. Upadhyay and ELDF will be very useful for handling the capacity building aspect of forest governance and in policy analysis which is an important part of AERF's projects.
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Research Officer
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Field Researcher
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- GIS Expert
Job Titles:
- Member of the PUNE TEAM
- Communications Incharge
A post graduate student in Ecology from University of Pondichery, Anusha completed her dissertation work during the internship at AERF. She primarily studied preference of nesting trees by Malabar pied Hornbill in private forest landscape of Sangameshwar block in Ratnagiri district.
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD of TRUSTEES
An undergraduate student in Zoology from Ratnagiri, Pranav takes interestin herpeto fauna. He worked as volunteer on Hornbill conservation project of AERF in Ratnagiri district.
A student of environmental science department at Pune University, Rajwardhan was interested in studying the supply chain of biodiesel resource centers established by AERF. He carried out extensive field work in Mhasala and Mangaon block of Raigad district to create awareness among the marginal farmers about the biodiesel resource center during his internship. His contribution helped AERF in expanding seed procurement center network in other villages.