Tom Hammond is Senior Program Advisor for IUCN, The World Conservation Union, working specifically on forest and ecosystem conservation issues on behalf of the IUCN Forest Conservation Programme and the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management. Tom has 20 years of experience in environment and development, 10 of which were gained in a variety of field project initiatives in Africa and Latin America. Prior to joining IUCN in 2000 Tom worked with WWF in Central Africa as well as in its Headquarters in Switzerland. Previous to this, Tom worked with CARE in Central America, and in the late 1980s was a District Land Use Officer with the Government of Botswana. A native of Toronto, Canada, Tom obtained a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies in 1987 from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Natural Resource Management from the University of Ottawa in 1985. Tom is currently based in the IUCN Canada office and lives with his family in Montreal, Québec.

Alia El Husseini has 14 years experience in project implementation in the environmental, social and economic field of development. Her experience includes working closely with international organizations such as USAID, UNEP, UNDP, UNIFEM, World Bank and World Conservation Union (IUCN). During the past years she has been involved in the national, regional, and international events of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) preparatory process. Previous to this, Alia was engaged as a consultant to organize and prepare for two major WSSD Regional events, the Regional NGO Forum (2001, Bahrain), and the Parliamentarian Forum Towards Good Governance for Sustainable Development (2001, Lebanon), in addition to active participation in the World Summit (WSSD), which took place in Johannesburg, 2002. Presently, Alia is a member of the Regional Advisory Committee for Health and Environment – WHO, the coordinator for the IUCN National Committee in Lebanon, and a member of the Steering Committee Biodiversity Enabling Activity. Alia holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Sciences from the Bosphorus University-American University in Istanbul.

 E-mail: alia77@cyberia.net.lb / aliahusseini77@hotmail.com

Dr. Khwaja is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan. Dr. Khwaja is a PhD. from the La Trobe University of Science and Technology in Melbourne, Australia and M.Sc. from University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He is affiliated with the Chemical Society of Pakistan (CSP); the Ghana Chemical Society (GCS); the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN); the Global Alliance for Incineration Alternatives (GAIA); the Clean Asia Initiative (Cai-Asia); the Global Civil Society Forum (GCSF); the International Society of Doctors for the Environment (ISDE), the Pacific Basin Consortium for Environment and Health Sciences, UNEP SAICM NGOs Country Focal Person and the Pakistan environmental protection agency (Pak-EPA). Dr. Khwaja is the author of more than seventy-five research papers/articles published in national/international journals, proceedings, magazines and newspapers.

E-mail: khwaja@sdpi.org

Esther Neuhaus is the executive Manager of the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and the Development (FBOMS) since 2004, a network of more than 500 NGOs and social movements that deals with environment and sustainable development issues all across Brazil, aiming at influencing public policy on the national, regional and international levels. She has experience with community-based tourism, fishing communities, sustainable coastal development and communication strategies in the Northeast of Brazil. Ms. Neuhaus is member of the Coordination of the Latin American and Caribbean Civil Society Platform for the Environment within UNEP. She was member of the Brazilian Organizing Committee for the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2005, responsible for the Working Group on Sustainability and the Environment, and organized the Global Civil Society Forum "Welcome to the Real World" during MOP3 on the Cartagena Protocol on Biossafety and the COP8 on the Convention of Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil, in March 2006. Ms. Neuhaus was co-coordinator of the UN High Level Panel on System-wide Coherence Consultations with Civil Society on Sustainable Development in 2006, together with the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN NGLS), and Stakeholder Forum. Her academic background is geographer and journalist (University Fribourg, Switzerland) and specialist in International Information and Developing Countries (University Complutense Madrid).

Email: coordenacao@fboms.org.br

Prof. Koech is the Director of the Sustainable Development and Environment Network of Kenya (SENKE), and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Network on Sustainable Development and Environment in Africa (NESDA), Ivory Coast. In 2003, he was elected Chair of the African Civil Society Forum (ACSF) and he led the ACSF to the 6th GCSF in Jeju, in 2004. In 2006 he was elected Chair of ACSF, and Chair of the Global Civil Society Steering Committee for 2006/2007. Between 2000-2002 he was the Ambassador of the Kenya Mission to UNEP.  Prof. Koech teaches at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Kenyatta University. Currently he is the coordinator of the African Environment Outlook (AEO) Cities, The City of Nairobi (a UNEP initiative).

E-mail: amiacfed@yahoo.com / mi.koech@yahoo.com

Dr. Yousef Meslmani is the Head of the Air pollution and Aerosols Laboratories, Environmental protection division, Department of Protection and Safety, Atomic Energy Commission, Syria. Previously he was the Visiting Associate Professor in the Institute Atmospheric Physics, State Key Laboratory of atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Chinese Academy Of Sciences, Beijing, China. During the years 2005-2006 he was the International and Regional Expert for: 1- Global Expert and Author to the Atmosphere Chapter in the fourth Global Environment Outlook report (GEO-4), Implemented by Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA), UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya; and 2- Regional Consultant and Author for West Asia fourth Global Environment Outlook report (WA-GEO-4), Implemented by UNEP, West Asia Regional office in Bahrain Kingdom. Dr. Yousef is a PhD in Science, Atmospheric physics (Aerosols and Environment), from the University of Vienna, and a holds a Master in Technical physics from the Technical University of Vienna, Austria.

Sascha Gabizon, is the Executive Director of WECF Women in Europe for a Common Future. WECF is a network of 90 women’s and environment organisations based in 30 countries of Europe, Eastern-Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. Sascha Gabizon has a Dutch Nationality, and worked from 1992-1995 with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment (WI), where she was the co-founder of the Wuppertal Institute’s "FrauenWissen" (Women's Scientists). In 1994 Sascha Gabizon joined WECF to prepare the WECF conferences during the 4th World Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995. Since 1996, Sascha Gabizon has been the director of WECF and developed the network and it's activities in Western and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In 1999 she founded the German WECF-office, which works in close cooperation with the Netherlands WECF office, both serve as secretariat for the network activities of WECF. As executive director of WECF, Sascha Gabizon is responsible among others for the implementation of the water and sanitation programmes in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, in particular for rural areas. Currently these programmes involve some 6000 beneficiaries, receiving access to safe water supply and sanitation, in particular dry urine-diverting toilets which allow nutrient recycling and on-site waste-water soil filters. Sascha Gabizon lived and worked in Spain, Netherlands, France and Germany, and the US and has long-term project experience in Armenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. She has published a large number of case studies and articles.