David Cassells

David Cassells "is the Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Asia Pacific Region Forest Program and Chief of Party for the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) Program. He is an Australian forester with more than 30 years management and research experience in tropical forest management and planning. He started his career with more than a decade of forest management and research experience in the wet tropical rain forest region of north-eastern Australia. David has subsequently had wide international experience and has held leadership positions with the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO); the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development; and the World Bank. He was the Chairperson of the IUCN Forest Conservation Programme Advisory Group from October 1996 – July 2005. From 2001-2005, he was a Co-Chair of the World Bank-WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use. He currently serves on the Boards of Forest Trends, the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development, the Tropical Forest Foundation and is the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Thailand-based Regional Community Forest Training Centre (RECOFTC). In January 2000, he was featured by the UK based People and the Planet Magazine as one of five “Millennium Trailblazers” in global environmental management in its special Millennium Issue on “The Ecology of Hope”."