Ravindra is an economist with a progressive experience of over 15 years in programme development and management in the fields of natural resources management and rural livelihoods, adaptation to climate change and biodiversity management. After completing his economics training at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ravindra ventured into rural India to see how economics could help understand and find solutions to developmental challenges and trade-offs at the grassroots. He joined GTZ in 2004. He has been involved with designing and implementation of various projects in natural resource management, adaptation to climate change and biodiversity management.

Email: ravindra.singh@giz.de

Kunal is an interdisciplinary researcher with over 5 years’ experience in the field of climate change and natural resource management. His expertise lies in using data-driven tools such as scientific modelling, geospatial analysis and environmental finance instruments for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. Kunal’s systems approach to natural resource management spans across disciplines given his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai followed by a Master’s in Environmental Studies and Resource Management from TERI School of Advanced Studies.

Email: kunal.bharat@giz.de

Debojyoti is a graduate in physical planning and a post graduate in environmental planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. His core interests are regional, environmental and urban planning techniques, land use planning; and Strategic Environmental Assessment in the domain of spatial planning (SEA).

He has worked as an Assistant Environmental Planner in IPE Global Ltd. for the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project (ICZMP), Odisha. Prior to that, he has worked in the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun in the ‘Munnar Landscape Project’ as a Project Associate.

Email: debojyoti.mukherjee@giz.de

Avantika is an ecologist with over 5 years’ experience in the field of biodiversity and water management. Her expertise lies in policy research, data analyses, networking with stakeholders, and documentation. She has worked on various aspects of wetland management including challenges of managing wetlands as protected areas; urban and peri-urban wetland management for water sustainability and flood mitigation; and conservation and management of riparian forests and tropical mountain wetlands for water resilience. She has a postgraduate degree in Environmental Biology from University of Delhi and has published her work in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented the findings at national and international conferences.

Email: avantika.bhaskar@giz.de

Shambhavi is working towards merging her research background with policy development and grassroot implementation. Her core interest lies in ecological research and community outreach.

Prior to GIZ, she worked in the Natural Heritage Division of INTACH where she was involved in exploration, documentation and conservation planning of natural heritage including Rapid Assessment of Ramsar Sites of India and Sustainable Agriculture in Bundelkhand Region. She has interned with the Environment and Forest Division (Natural Resources and Environment Vertical) of NITI Aayog. She holds a postgraduate degree in Environmental Studies and graduate degree in Biological Sciences from University of Delhi.

Email: shambhavi.krishna@giz.de

Dr. Khera holds a doctorate in Forest Ecology, and advanced trainings on Managing Global Governance, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction. She has over 19 years of experience of working on conservation development issues including Urban biodiversity, biodiversity inclusive EIA, climate change adaptation, disaster management and capacity development approaches. Before joining the HWC project, she was responsible for coordinating the project measures in Gujarat and the National level Capacity Development under the Indo-German coastal marine project (CMPA). 

Email: neeraj.khera@giz.de

Vimarsh holds Masters in Wildlife Sciences. He has worked on a small grant project that he received on diseases and injury pattern due to the conflict in urban avifauna with SVSJ Charitable Bird Hospital in Delhi NCR region. Currently he is working with GIZ as a Junior Technical Expert with the Human Wildlife Conflict Mitigation project.

Email: vimarsh.sharma@giz.de

Dibyendu holds a doctorate in wildlife science from Wildlife Institute of India. He has over eight years of comprehensive experience in wildlife research and conservation across various taxa all over central, western and northern India. He has worked on striped hyenas as a model species to understand underlying reasons of carnivore group formation as part of his doctoral studies. He has also worked on reintroduced tiger population in Sariska Tiger Reserve. Dibyendu is now interested in translating research outcomes to implementable conservation strategies to mitigate human wildlife conflict. He’s also a cartoonist and loves to make humorous cartoons on issues related to wildlife conservation.

Email: dibyendu.mandal@giz.de

Navaneethan holds a doctorate in wildlife science from the Wildlife Institute of India. He started his career as a wildlife field biologist with a main interest in Mammals. He has over 10 years of comprehensive experience in wildlife research and conservation across different landscape in India. For his doctorate he has worked on the Ecology of reintroduction of Gaur (Bos gaurus gaurus) in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, Central Indian Landscape. He has specialised in Conservation Biology, Population ecology, Habitat Ecology and Human Wildlife Conflict. He also has experience in translocation, rescue and rehabilitation of wild animals and has worked with the Forest Department of Madhya Pradesh and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in planning the Population Rebuilding Work in Central Indian Landscape. He is now interested in translating research outcomes to implementable conservation strategies to mitigate human wildlife conflict in India.

Email: navaneethan.balasubramani@giz.de

Nischita Nagappa holds a master’s degree in Botany from Kuvempu University, Shimoga, Karnataka and Diploma in Medical Plants. She has over 5 years of experience with governance frameworks and biodiversity and its conservation. Previously she has worked with Access and Benefit Sharing Partnership project on strengthen capacity of Biodiversity Management Committees, development of training materials and documentation of People’s Biodiversity Registers in Tamil Nadu. She has also worked with the Karnataka State Biodiversity Board with the UNEP-GEF-MoEFCC ABS Project focusing on the implementation of Biodiversity Act and ABS in India. She is currently working as a Junior Technical Expert (Capacity Development) for the HWC Project.

Email: nischita.n@giz.de

Pradeep Mehta has a PhD in Forestry and management from Maastricht School of Management, The Netherlands. He has nearly 18 years of professional experience in research and development sector on issues related to sustainable agriculture, natural resource management, forestry, business and sustainability and climate change mitigation in mountain areas of India. He has worked as a senior manager with international NGO’s like Earthwatch Institute, Clean Air Asia, Appropriate Technology Asia and managed projects and programs related to conservation, sustainability and livelihoods. He is member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM); Commission on Environment Communication (CEC); World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) also South Asia Representative of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) mountain specialist group committee.

Email: pradeep.mehta@giz.de

Geetha Nayak is an ecologist, with a PhD from Pondicherry University, India. She did her post-doctorate from Centre for Agri-Environmental Research, University of Reading, UK; and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA. She is the recipient of prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Her research focused on studying the effect of land use intensification on ecosystem services delivered by pollinators in forests and agro-ecosystems. Dr. Nayak also pursues and enjoys mountaineering. Prior to joining GIZ, she led a project on Access and Benefit Sharing at Karnataka Biodiversity Board, Bangalore. At GIZ, Geetha is involved in the Access and Benefit Sharing Partnership Project and is based at the National Biodiversity Authority in Chennai.

Email: geetha.nayak@giz.de

Dr. Joachim Schmerbeck holds a Masters in forest science and a Certificate as State Forester from Germany. He did his PhD in forest science at the Technical University of Munich on the interaction of forest utilization patters of tropical dry forest in India. Since then he worked in India and Europe in capacities such as scientist, project manager and freelancer for several research organizations and international NGOs in the field of disaster management and sustainable natural resource. From 2009-2015, he was Associate Professor for Ecology at TERI University, New Delhi. He is specialized in vegetation dynamics in relationship to human interference, and how this influences the provision of ecosystem services.

Email: joachim.schmerbeck@giz.de

 Sanjay holds a Ph.D. degree in Forestry with specialisation in Landscape Ecology and has an extensive experience of 18 years spanning in the fields of integrated natural resources management (INRM), climate change adaptation, forestry, agroforestry and rural development sectors. He has been involved in designing, management and implementation of various projects in these fields.  He started his profession with NGOs and later worked with research institutions and GIZ. Prior to this GIZ assignment, he has worked with the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) for research management in South Asia.  At ICRAF, he was also leading the Sentinel Landscape project in Western Ghats - which was CGIAR’s (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) flagship programme on Forests Trees and Agroforestry.

Email: sanjay.tomar@giz.de

Satyan, an expert in the field of natural resource management has more than 11 years of experience in various sectors like watersheds, forestry, livelihoods, environment management, and climate change. He holds an M.Phil. degree in Natural Resource Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management. Satyan has worked for DFID funded Forest Sector Reforms Project in Himachal Pradesh.

Email: satyan.chauhan@giz.de

Ritesh Sharma is an Advisor with HP-FES project. He is Masters in Forestry with specialisation in Economics from FRI, Dehradun. He has previously worked with NABARD as Forestry expert and for a UK based development organisation where he coordinated natural resource management based projects. He has research experience with Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. His exposure includes working on biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation as well as application on Environmental economics. Presently he is looking after implementation of Forest Ecosystem service based demonstrations and learning from TEEB India Initiative through PES pilots. He enjoys bird watching and nature photographer in his leisure time.

Email: ritesh.sharma@giz.de

Harish Kumar works as driver for HPFES, Shimla and takes care of some additional responsibilities of assisting in administration work and organising events. Mr. Kumar has prior 8 years’ experience of working with GTZ, Shimla from 2004 to 2011 under WASH and PRI projects. After that he joined Acme d’ ace, an adventure sports company where he handled operations of Himachal region. In his spare time he goes for trekking and hikes.

Email: harish.kumar@giz.de

Khatila Walling has a Masters in Social Communication. A hard working professional with work experience of 8 years in administration, operations, events management, development communication and public dealing with various development organizations like UNICEF, Concern Worldwide, OXFAM and CARE. Currently, she is working as the Administration Officer for the HP-FES project at Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

Email: khatila.walling@giz.de

Jyoti Kashyap holds a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi. She is undergoing PhD in Wildlife Ecology and Management from the same University. Since 2013, she is working as a freelancer on projects related to biodiversity conservation and management with different organisations such as IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), GFF (Green Future Foundation) and GIZ. She is specialized in vegetation science and wildlife ecology. She also gives field training about ecology and biodiversity to different groups of people such as local community, corporates and students . Her hobbies are bird and butterfly watching and travelling.

Email: jyoti.kashyap@giz.de

With great love for the field of creative design, Aashima’s interest lies in combining various facets of the traditional world with modern techniques of communication. She has completed her undergraduate degree in Communication Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Kangra. She likes working with different aspects of design like graphics and displays, along with photography, management and advertising. As an intern she worked with the HP-FES project to prepare outreach material for the village communities and photograph the project’s demonstration sites. Prior to GIZ, Aashima interned with NEst by Arpit Agarwal, a lifestyle brand inspired by the culture and crafts of the North-East, at Guwahati (Assam), and at the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Department in the fields of marketing and promotion.

Email: aashima.negi@giz.de

Suresh Kumar works as a driver with the HP-FES team and supports daily office activities as well. Prior to GIZ he was working with ICARDA, New Delhi.

Email: suresh.kumar@giz.de