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Team Members

Kerstin Canby

Senior DirectorForest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative

Kerstin is Senior Director of Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative, overseeing Forest Trends’ work on regulatory and market approaches to promote legal and sustainable production and associated trade of timber and other commodities harvested from forest areas, as well as policy and public finance for forests. Increasingly, this work is highlighting illegal land use / conversion, the role of conversion timber in the global sourcing of wood fiber, and agricultural supply chains from legal or zero-deforestation zones. A significant portion of her time is spent on the China/East Asia region.

Prior to joining Forest Trends, Kerstin worked at the World Bank developing natural resources management projects and grants, and other forest governance programs. She has advised governments and stakeholders on REDD+ donor programs and FLEGT initiatives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. She has also worked with the US Forest Service in Oregon and was the co-founder of an environmental education program in Durham, North Carolina. Kerstin holds a BA and Masters of Environmental Management from Duke University’s School of Forest and Environmental Sciences, where she focused on economics, forestry, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems.

Phuc Xuan To

Managing DirectorForest Policy, Trade, and Finance

Phuc is the Manging Director for our Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Program, based in Hanoi, Vietnam. He received his doctoral degree in Geography at Humboldt University in Berlin in 2007, where he also worked as a junior researcher at the Junior Research Group on Post-socialist Land Relations. His dissertation examines the political economy of the forest sector in Vietnam, with particular attention given to the dynamics of access and control over forestland and forest resources. From 2007 to 2009, Phuc was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Anthropology Department at the University of Toronto, where he was involved in a research project entitled “The Challenges of Agrarian Transitions in Southeast Asia” (ChATSEA). Currently, in addition to his work with Forest Trends, Phuc continues to work with ChATSEA and serves as a Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Toronto.

Xiufang Sun

Senior Policy AnalystForest Policy Trade and Finance

Xiufang works with Forest Trends as an Analyst, based out of Beijing, China. She holds an MS in Forest Products Marketing and Management from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and an MA of Engineering in Management from Jilin University of Technology in Changchun, Jilin Province in China. Most recently Xiufang held the position of Agricultural Specialist in the Agricultural Affairs Office (USDA/FAS) in the United States Embassy in Beijing. Her responsibilities included market analysis reporting for China’s forestry and forest products, tracking market and policy changes for other commodities assigned, facilitating negotiations between the U.S. and Chinese officials for trade conflicts in the agricultural sector (including forest products)and serving as interpreter for such negotiations when needed. In addition, Xiufang has worked as a consultant to the WWF China Program. She has prepared and delivered numerous presentations on hardwood use in China’s furniture industry and on potentials for exporting forest products in China. Her research has been published in various publications including the Journal of Forestry and the Forest Products Journal.

Kevin Woods

Senior Policy AnalystForest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative

Dr. Kevin Woods has worked in the Mekong Region, including Myanmar (Burma), for nearly two decades on environmental governance and conflict in the land, forestry and agricultural sectors. For the past decade he has worked to help build Forest Trends’ program in Myanmar. Initially focusing on more narrow legality aspects of Myanmar’s timber trade with regards to FLEGT, the Myanmar program has since expanded to encompass conversion timber from agribusiness concessions and more recently, Myanmar’s EITI for forestry and broader resource governance reforms that contribute to political federalism and environmental peacebuilding. Dr. Woods has a master’s degree in environmental science from Yale University and a Ph.D. in political ecology from UC Berkeley. He has published extensively in NGO reports, including for Forest Trends, and other policy fora, as well as academic book chapters and journal articles.

Nguyen Vinh Quang

Program AnalystForest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative

Quang joined Forest Trends in July 2013 as a Program Analyst for the Forest Trade and Finance Program. He is based in Vietnam where he focuses on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, sustainable forest management, and enhancement and maintenance of carbon stocks (REDD+), and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). Most recently Quang worked for the REDD+ Program of the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) in Vietnam, focusing on integration of multiple benefits into REDD+. He also has extensive experience working on climate change, natural (forest) resource management and conservation, forest policy and tenure. Quang holds a Ph.D in Forest Sciences from Kyushu University in Japan (2008), an M.Sc. in Social Development from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines (2003), and a BA in Business Administration from Hanoi National Economics University in Vietnam (1997).