Marina Silva

Marina Silva was born in 1958, deep in the forest, at seventy kilometres from the nearest city in the Brazilian state of Acre. Growing up in a family of rubber tappers, Marina and her sisters collected latex, planted staple food crops, hunted and fished since children to help their father.

At the age of sixteen, Marina contracted hepatitis and travelled to Rio Branco, the nearest city, for medical treatment and to pursue her dreams of studying and becoming a nun. In Rio Branco, she started to learn reading and writing and graduated in History at the Federal University of Acre eight years later. Marina was also awarded a postgraduate degree in psychology.

Together with Chico Mendes, Marina was one of the leaders of the rubber tappers’ and indigenous peoples’ movement that fought to protect their forest heritage in the 80’s. With her passion, moral strength, charisma, and skills, she supported the rubber tappers’ peaceful movement in their efforts to defend the environment and sustain their livelihoods.
 
Marina was elected municipal representative in Acre’s capital and at age of 32, she was elected the youngest Brazilian Senator in history. In her role, she became a tireless defender of social and environmental causes.

Marina was Brazil’s Minister of the Environment from 2003 to 2008, the longest term and in a period where critical steps were taken to decrease deforestation in the Amazon by 70 per cent. She was instrumental in paving the way for Brazil’s volunteer commitment to reducing Green House Gas emissions to levels below 2005 by 2020 .

Marina was a presidential candidate for the Green Party in 2010 and received close to 20 million votes, finishing in third place.

In 1995, the Time Magazine nominated her one of the “Young People with a Future for the World”, and in 1997, she was selected as one of the “25 Women in Action in the World for Life on Earth” by the United Nations Environment Programme. In 2007, the Guardian newspaper highlighted her as one of the “50 People Who Could Save the Planet” and Marina received the title of “Champion of the Earth”, the leading UN environmental award.

Frances Seymour

Director‐General, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

Frances Seymour is Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), an international organization with headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia. At CIFOR, she has led the formulation and initial implementation of a new strategy for the organization focused on six priority research domains. She is a co-author of the CIFOR report Do Trees Grow on Money? and contributor to Moving Ahead with REDD and Realizing REDD+.

Prior to CIFOR, Ms. Seymour was the founder and Director of the Institutions and Governance Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), where she guided the launch of The Access Initiative, a global civil society coalition promoting citizen involvement in environment-related decisions. She has authored and contributed to several WRI publications critically examining the role of public and private international financial institutions in promoting sustainable development. She previously served as Director of Development Assistance Policy at World Wildlife Fund, and spent five years in Indonesia with the Ford Foundation, where her grant-making focused on community forestry and human rights. She has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including those of World Neighbors, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development, the African Centre for Technology Studies, and the Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge in China. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a masters degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a B.S. in Zoology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Simon Henzell-Thomas

Head of Sustainability, The Body Shop International plc

Simon Henzell-Thomas is Head of Sustainability at The Body Shop International plc where he is responsible for devising and implementing international sustainable development strategy, NGO stakeholder management and sustainable development reporting. He has responsibility for ensuring the sourcing of sustainable raw materials, particularly wood and palm oil. Simon is successfully leading the business towards meetings its target to source 100% FSC certified wood by the end of 2011.

Simon has over ten years of experience in sustainable development, gained in the corporate and NGO sectors with a particular focus on sustainable supply chain management. Previously to working at The Body Shop, Simon was at Business in the Community (BITC), where he assisted companies to develop sustainability programmes. He was the organisational lead on sustainable supply chain issues and has particular expertise in developing ethical trade and sustainable agriculture programmes for global multinationals.

Simon has an MSc in Business Strategy, Politics and the Environment from the University of London, specialising in sustainable sourcing. He is also a Trustee for The Body Shop Foundation.  

Kumi Naidoo

Executive Director, Greenpeace International

Dr. Kumi Naidoo is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International. In addition to leading the
organisation to critical campaign victories, Naidoo has worked to foster further cooperation between Greenpeace and many parts of civil society in the fight against catastrophic climate change all the while working to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.

Born in South Africa, Naidoo became involved in the country’s liberation struggle at the age of 15. In 1986 he was arrested and charged with violating the emergency regulations and was forced underground for almost a year before fleeing to exile in England. During this time he was a Rhodes Scholar and later earned a doctorate in political sociology.

After Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990, Naidoo returned to South Africa to work on the legalization of the African National Congress. During the democratic elections in 1994 he directed the training of all electoral staff in the country.

Naidoo was also a founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), Secretary General of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and founding Chair of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) and continues to serve in the role of global ambassador.

In 2003 he was appointed by the former Secretary General of the United Nations to the Eminent Persons Panel on UN Civil Society Relations and currently serves as Chair of the ‘Global Campaign for Climate Action’ (GCCA). Kumi Naidoo became Executive Director of Greenpeace International on November 15, 2009.

Nelmara Arbex

Deputy Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiave (GRI)

Nelmara Arbex is Deputy Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Nelmara joined the GRI Secretariat in July 2006 as Director for Learning and Services. She is responsible for de-veloping the program and content of the Learning Services Department, which supports reporters and report users in their use of the GRI Guidelines.

Nelmara joined GRI with a wealth of experience in corporate responsibility and sustainable development. She was manager for Corporate Responsibility at Natura Cosmetics, Brazil for three years. In that role she developed and implemented a management system for corporate responsibility, led participatory processes of sustainable development planning with communities, implemented national social and environmental campaigns, and was responsible for the company’s internal sustainability program for managers. She also coordinated the preparation of the company’s annual sustainability report.

Nelmara was manager of Knowledge and International Relations at Ethos Institute, Brazil from 2001 to 2003. She was involved in developing CSR management tools, establishing partnerships with academia, managing relations with international partners, and provided strategic guidance to companies about their social and environmental responsibilities and annual report processes. In addition to area coordination, Nelmara also collaborated and co-authored several publications, including books, manuals and research papers, and coordinated learning activities such as a CSR course at FGV Business School, and sessions at Ethos’s annual conference. Prior to working at Ethos, she was an associate consultant at McKinsey, São Paulo, Brazil.

Nelmara holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Marburg University, Germany (1997) and has been involved in many social and political activities of different civil organizations. She is currently an author of the Portuguese sustainability website and blog Sustentabilidade com Pimenta.

Ian Redmond, OBE

UNEP/UNESCO Great Apes Survival Partnership Envoy

Ian Redmond is a wildlife biologist and conservationist, renowned for his work with great apes and elephants. For 35 years he has been associated with Mountain Gorillas, and served as Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla 2009 and for the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species since 2010.

As with his mentor, the late Dr Dian Fossey, the focus of his work shifted in 1978 from research to conservation work, after poachers killed Digit – a famous young silverback – to sell his skull and hands.  Finding the headless, handless body of a gorilla he regarded as a friend was a turning point in his life. Ten years later in Kenya, the experience was repeated when some of the cave-elephants he was studying were killed by ivory poachers.  Working with many NGOs, such as the Born Free Foundation, he rallied support for these endangered species and their forest habitat.  

Putting conservation principles into practice, Ian has led anti-poacher patrols, guided film crews and special interest tours into close encounters with gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, elephants and erupting volcanoes, and worked to support local conservationists during the horrors of Rwanda’s and D.R. Congo’s civil wars.  

He established and chairs the Ape Alliance (www.4apes.com) and became Chief Consultant and Envoy for GRASP - the UNEP/ UNESCO Great Apes Survival Partnership he helped launch in 2001.  Ian was awarded an OBE for services to conservation in 2006 and an honorary doctorate by Oxford Brookes University in 2011.

Ian Cheshire

Group Chief Executive, Kingfisher plc

Ian Cheshire was appointed Group Chief Executive of Kingfisher plc in January 2008.  Prior to this he was Chief Executive of B&Q from June 2005.  His previous roles at Kingfisher include Chief Executive of International and Development, Chief Executive of e-Kingfisher and Group Director of Strategy and Development.  Before joining Kingfisher in 1998 he worked for a number of retail businesses including Sears plc where he was Group Commercial Director.
 
He is a Non-Executive Director of Whitbread plc and lead non-executive member on the Department for Work and Pensions Board. He is also a member of the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change and the Employers’ Forum on Disability President’s Group.

During Ian’s time with Kingfisher, the Group has consistently built on its heritage of responsible timber procurement. Leading through collaboration, in 2010 Ian invited M&S, IKEA and Carrefour to form the Timber Retail Coalition (TRC) in support of mechanisms to combat the import of illegally logged timber. Kingfisher has styled a successful partnership between retail and the FSC; FSC founding members B&Q UK were one of the first retailers to develop a responsible timber policy in the early 1990’s. Since then B&Q UK has achieved the aim of purchasing 100% of its timber from independently verified sources. As a Group, 81% of Kingfisher’s timber products are from proven, well-managed sources with over 50% FSC certified. As well as a wide Corporate Responsibility agenda, Ian’s vision is for Kingfisher to lead on 4 priority areas where the business can make a real and sustainable difference; product innovation, energy efficient homes, local communities and selling good wood.

Datuk Sam Mannan

Director of Forestry - Sabah Forestry Department 

Datuk Sam Mannan, 54, born in Sandakan, Sabah, graduated from the Canterbury University Christchurch, New Zealand in 1979 with 2nd Class Honors, Division One of Bachelor of Forestry Science. He has been with the Forestry Department since 1980 and has served in various positions over the years.

He was appointed as the Director of Forestry since 2004 and some of his key conservation achievements amongst others, include the launch of the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) concept in 1997, the certification of the first tropical forest in Sabah under Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), i.e. Deramakot Forest Reserve, the launch of Ulu Segama-Malua (USM) for Orang Utan Conservation in 2007, and the implementation of Reduced Impact Logging (RIL).

Datuk Sam Mannan was awarded “Datukship” by the Sabah State Government in 2006, and subsequently the “Johan Setia Mahkota” from the King in 2009 and WWF Award for Conservation Merit in 2010.