Conserving nature.
Working with communities.

As Chief Technical Advisor and Team Leader for BRL Ingénierie, I led the São Tomé and Príncipe component of ECOFAC IV, the regional programme for the conservation of forest ecosystems of Central Africa financed by the 8th European Development Fund.

I supported the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in establishing the institutional and regulatory framework for sustainable natural-resource management, forest ecosystems and biodiversity conservation, and in identifying and programming interventions for the establishment of the country’s national parks.

Key responsibilities

• Environmental policy and regional cooperation. Advised on the development, harmonisation and implementation of policies for forest ecosystems and biodiversity conservation on land, along the coast and at sea. Assisted the country’s protected areas in joining the Central African protected-area network, RAPAC.
• Protected-area and local development planning. Provided technical expertise for protected-area management plans, including local development plans for communities in park buffer zones.
• Infrastructure and community micro-projects. Supervised ecotourism infrastructure and the construction and rehabilitation of park offices. Coordinated community micro-projects in buffer-zone villages, including water-supply systems and sanitation works, under EDF procurement procedures.
• Training and participation. Trained local staff and project stakeholders in terrestrial, marine and coastal protected-area management, biodiversity conservation and participatory approaches to community biodiversity use and development.
• Climate change. Advised the Ministry of Environment on implementing a climate-change mitigation and adaptation project on the northern coast of São Tomé Island.
• Monitoring, evaluation and GIS. Established results-based monitoring and evaluation for forest and biodiversity use and conservation, including GIS tools to monitor national-park management and development activities in buffer zones.
• Stakeholder networks. Promoted environmental, biodiversity and climate-change platforms involving project stakeholders and local and national authorities.
• Ecotourism and value chains. Supported business planning for the parks, focusing on ecotourism and value-chain development.
• Programme administration and team leadership. Worked with the Steering Committee on work plans, budgets and results-oriented technical and financial reporting. Served as Operational Programme Estimates Imprest Administrator under EDF/EU procedures and supervised long- and short-term international expertise for management plans, GIS and community development, including sustainable biodiversity use.

For the European Commission’s EU Delegation to Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and São Tomé and Príncipe, I coordinated and conducted a training workshop for national environmental-sector stakeholders, including government services and NGOs.

The workshop addressed the identification and formulation of environmental grant projects within the programming of the 10th EDF allocation for São Tomé and Príncipe.