Theme: Investing in Amazon Rainforest Conservation and Forest Friendly Economic Development

As a central resource for climate change mitigation and the global water cycle, the Amazon rainforest is vital for planetary sustainability. The financial products that reflect such wisdom and drive politics, however, have not existed until now. Join us and learn how to ensure that the forest is worth more alive and standing than cut and burned.

Jonah Wittkamper
10470 E. Creekview Dr
Cornville, Arizona, 86325
United States

Brenda Brito

Associate Researcher, Imazon

With more than 15 years of experience in the Brazilian Amazon, Brenda Brito has worked to improve: i) laws and policies for forest conservation; ii) land tenure clarity and management and iii) climate change mitigation efforts, with emphasis in reducing deforestation. Based in Belém, she is the founder of Gaiko Consulting and works as a consultant. She has a JSM and JSD degrees (Stanford Law School) and is an Associate Researcher at Imazon. Her original background is in law, but over the years she became an interdisciplinary researcher in land use law and policy. She has authored more than 40 studies published as papers, books and book chapters. She participated as an expert in governmental committees about land tenure and REDD+. She also attended several COPs to the UNFCCC as an observer and a speaker in side events.

Cacau Araujo

Coordinator, Alana Foundation

Cacau Araújo is the coordinator for Alana Foundation, an independent philanthropic organization that supports initiatives in the areas of inclusive education, health research and emerging technologies for good. It also works with international entities to promote partnerships for projects and platforms of Alana: a Brazilian socio-environmental impact organization that promotes children’s rights to integral development and fosters new forms of well being.

Cristina Vollmer Burelli

International Liaison for SOS Orinoco | Co-Founder & Executive Director of V5 Initiative Inc.

Cristina Vollmer Burelli, a Venezuelan-American social entrepreneur, is the founder and executive director of V5Initiative, a non-profit that leads and supports broad initiatives that promote better and more informed policy making and governance at the national and international level. V5 Initiative promotes and empowers the involvement of individuals, NGO’s and the private sector in matters of public policy through the dissemination of information that will raise awareness and invite action. She matriculated at Queens’ College, Cambridge in 1981 and read for an MA in Social Anthropology.

Daniel Nepstad

President and Founder, Earth Innovation Institute

Dr. Daniel Nepstad, Earth Innovation Institute, worked in the Brazilian Amazon for more than 30 years, publishing 160+ papers and books on the ecological processes, frontier dynamics and public policies that are shaping the region. In 2010, he extended his work to Peru, Colombia and Indonesia. An authority on REDD and low-emission rural development (LED-R), he was previously a Scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, Environmental Conservation lead at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Lecturer at Yale University. Dan co-founded the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) in 1995, Aliança da Terra in 2004, and was a founding board member of the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) in 2005 and INOBU (Indonesia) in 2015. He served on the REDD Offsets Working Group of California and the Science Committee of Acre State’s SISA program. He was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fifth Assessment. Dan holds a PhD in Forest Ecology from Yale.

Justine Leigh-Bell

Deputy CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative

Justine has spent much of her career helping business leaders and governments find solutions to the global challenges of climate change and sustainable development. She has provided advisory services for a number of global institutions and governments across Europe, Africa, India, Indonesia and Latin America. Her areas of focus includes sustainable development in emerging economies, climate change mitigation/adaptation strategies, climate finance, economic valuation and market based instruments for managing natural resource assets. As Director of Market Development at Climate Bonds Initiative, Justine's primary focus is in the emerging markets where she works closely with both public and private sector actors in developing national policy guidelines and roadmaps that will enable access to green bond financing. Currently, she leads Climate Bonds Initiative’s efforts in Nigeria and the Latin American region, where market development programs are underway in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.

Leonardo Letelier

CEO, SITAWI Finance for Good

Leonardo Letelier is the founder and CEO of SITAWI-Finance for Good (www.sitawi.net), a nonprofit organization that develops financial solutions for the social sector in Brazil by pioneering social loans and donor advised funds. It is currently developing a product to support nonprofit mergers. Leonardo founded SITAWI in order to reduce economic inequities in Brazil by increasing the capital available to for- and non-profit social enterprises, and also by improving their capacity to manage their own financial resources. SITAWI develops financial solutions for the social sector by aiming to multiply the capital available to Brazilian social organizations and by supporting their expansion and improving projects. SITAWI currently provides two types of products: social enterprise loans at below-market rates packaged with strategic advice, and social funds management, a donor-advised fund service for philanthropists and large corporations.

Luis Fernando Laranja

Co-Foudner and Managing Partner, Kaete Investimentos

Luis Fernando Laranja is Kaeté Investimentos managing partner and co-founder. Laranja has 25 years of experience in business development and consulting for food and pharmaceutical industries. Within the Brazil program of the Lab, he developed the Socio-Climate Benefits Fund. The instrument invests and provides technical assistance to restore degraded lands in smallholders’ farms with agroforestry systems and, at the same time, developing and facilitating sales of their products. The concept is currently being used by the anchor company Caaporã. Laranja holds a postdoc degree from University of Kentucky, a master in Agronomy by Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ/USP), a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the Faculty of veterinary medicine and Zootechny of the University of São Paulo and a graduate degree in Agribusiness Management from University of Lavras.

Marina Campos

Executive Director, Conexsus USA

Committed professional with more than 20 years of experience in sustainability, conservation, philanthropy, and strategic thinking to promote social change and sustainable development in Latin America (especially in the Amazon region). A natural at "connecting the dots", she enjoys building networks and connecting people and organizations. She is a proven negotiator who delivers results by engaging people and institutions into action for sustainability and solidarity. Having lived in diverse places ranging from indigenous villages to the world's largest cities, she comfortably communicates across cultures and organizations. She is a bicultural native Portuguese speaker who is fluent in English and highly proficient in Spanish.

Maritta Koch-Weser

Anthropologist, Amazon Third Way initiative

Anthropologist, international development specialist, Dr. Phil Bonn University. 20 years in leading environmental positions at the World Bank, Director General of IUCN, & President Earth3000. Developed Rainforest Business School project at Instituto de Estudos Avançados, USP, for Amazonia 4.0.

Peter Houlihan

Technical Lead, Prize Operations, Rainforest XPRIZE

Peter Houlihan specializes in leading expeditions comprised of local scientists and communities in understudied and threatened rainforests for conservation, operating in more than 20 countries across Africa, the Americas, and Asia. He has lived and worked extensively throughout the tropics, where he has led nearly 50 large scale expeditions and managed long term conservation programs, particularly in Borneo, Madagascar, the Amazon, Central America, and the Congo Basin. A tropical ecologist and conservation scientist by training, Peter’s research on rainforests has spanned butterfly community ecology, primate behavior, insect genomics, forest canopies, pollination ecology, and biodiversity monitoring. In addition to instructing graduate field courses for Johns Hopkins, Houlihan is a Fellow with UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, International Advisor for the Borneo Nature Foundation, and Technical Lead of XPRIZE Rainforest.