Department of Forestry Forest Carbon and Climate Program

Title

Emerging Climate-Oriented Bioeconomy Frameworks: A Central Role for Forests

Speakers

• Rachel Pasternack, Senior Advisor Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), The Nature Conservancy
  • Rachel is a Senior Advisor on Natural Climate Solutions, at TNC. She currently works on the Global Tackle Climate Change team at TNC, promoting nature (i.e. restoration and avoided forest loss) as a tool for climate mitigation. She holds a Master in Public Administration from the London School of Economics, London, UK, and a BAS with honors from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Rachel has a wide array of experience working on sustainable development; building public, private partnerships; and developing and implementing environmental policy in the UK, the US, and Latin America. She has worked for organizations such as The Nature Conservancy; The United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; The United States Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget; and various global charities, notably the World Bank.
• Ethan Belair, Natural Climate Solutions Forester, Nature Conservancy’s Global Climate Science Team
  • Ethan Belair is the Natural Climate Solutions Forester with the Nature Conservancy’s Global Climate Science Team, which studies the impacts of implementing natural climate solutions, primarily in forests. His current work focuses on measuring and modeling how forests respond to human interventions from local to global scales. He is an affiliate faculty member at the University of New Hampshire, where he previously worked as a faculty member and extension forester. His prior work has centered on improving the practice of silviculture in forest management, and has included elements of forest biometrics, wildlife habitat improvement, remote sensing, and human demographics. He holds an M.S. in Forest Biology from Purdue University, and a B.S. in Forestry from the University of New Hampshire.
• Yangyang Wang, Research Forester for Natural Climate Solutions (NCS), The Nature Conservancy
  • Yangyang Wang is the new Research Forester for Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) at The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Her work focuses on the forest impact assessment under forest management change, including forest conditions, forest goods, and ecosystem services. She currently studies the impacts of changes in demand for emerging Mass Timber Products (MTP) across key wood supply regions in the United States. Her primary work and research interests also include: 1)Develop spatially explicit forest conservation priorities and strategies under different management objectives (e.g., mitigate climate change, protect water resources, increase biodiversity, and generate timber income). 2) Mapping and valuing forest goods and ecosystem services (ES) associated with changes in forestland use, forest management decisions, and forest incentives and policies. Before joining the TNC, Yangyang received her Ph.D. in Forest Economics and worked as a Research Associate at the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University.

Supplementary Materials

• Presentation Slides

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