Parallel 3B
HE Arlette Soudan-Nonault
Mrs. Arlette Soudan-Nonault is Minister of Tourism and Environment of the Republic of Congo.
During the 1980s and 1990s, she worked as a journalist, and held the position of press secretary at the presidency of the Republic of Congo from 1992 to 1997.
She is a member of the Political Bureau of the ruling Congolese Labor Party (PCT). She was first appointed as Minister of Tourism and Leisure in the government led by Prime Minister Clément Mouamba on April 30, 2016.
She is Minister of Tourism and Environment of the Republic of Congo since August 2017.
She is a strong advocate for sustainable management of peatlands, and has been a leading actor in mobilizing the international community and countries in the Congo Basin to take urgent steps to protect 'natural capital' that peatlands represents, and to implement the Brazzaville Declaration on peatlands.
HE Ola Elvestuen
Ola Elvestuen is Norway's Minister of Climate and Environment. He is a politician from the Liberal Party of Norway (Venstre). He was first elected to the Oslo City Council in 2003. Elvestuen was leader of the Oslo branch of the Liberal Party from 2000-2007, and has been deputy leader in the Liberal Party since 2008. In 2013, he was elected to Parliament, from Oslo, and re-elected in 2017. He has since 2013 chaired the parliamentary Committee on Energy and Environment. On Friday the 17 of January 2018, he was appointed as Minister of Climate and Environment.
Nazir Foead
Nazir Foead was appointed by the President of Indonesia to lead the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG RI) in January 2016. He has been tasked to lead restoration of 2,5 million hectares of Indonesia’s peatland within five years. Prior to this, Nazir joined Climate and Land Use Alliance as the Indonesia Initiative Coordinator in February 2014, to direct grants and support for Indonesian CSOs. He has also been Conservation Director of WWF Indonesia.
Catherine Lovelock
Catherine Lovelock is Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Queensland. Her research focuses on climate change and its impacts on coastal plant communities. She is a member of the International Scientific Blue Carbon Working Group of The Blue Carbon Initiative. She leads projects in Australia and Myanmar focused on climate change adaptation, carbon sequestration and restoration of mangroves. She is lead author for the 2019 refinement of the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories for Wetlands.
Daniel Murdiyarso
He is currently holding a position as Principal Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Professor at the Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). He received his first degree in Forestry from IPB and PhD from the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK.
His research works are related to land-use change and biogeochemical cycles, climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed high impact journals. He was a Technical Adviser for the World Bank on the development of BioCarbon Fund and Forest Carbon Partnership Facilities. He is part of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC as Coordinating Lead Author of several IPCC Reports, including the 2013 Wetlands Supplement for 2006 IPCC Guidelines.
Dr Murdiyarso served the Government of Indonesia as Deputy Minister of Environment (2001-2002), during which he was also the National Focal Point of the UNFCCC and CBD. Since 2002 Professor Murdiyarso is a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences.