Biography
Dr. Andrew Wardell has over thirty-five years of experience working on natural resource governance, capacity development and finance issues in more than twenty South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa countries. He is now based at CIRAD in Montpellier, and responsible for a new global initiative, The Landscape Fund and CIFOR’s projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously he was Research Director of CIFOR’s Forests and Governance Portfolio which focused on understanding the complex patchwork of institutions, decision-making processes and formal and informal rules that shape how access to, and use of land and forest resources are actually governed. He managed more than forty scientists, associates and interns and a portfolio of research projects in S.E. Asia, Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America. These included research on the impacts of global trade and investment in bioenergy feed stocks, Chinese investments in Sub-Saharan Africa, community rights in relation to land and forest tenure reforms, and informal chainsaw milling in the Congo Basin. He raised substantial funding for CIFOR during the period June 2010-June 2016.
Dr. Wardell has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Agricultural Botany from the University of Reading, a Master of Science in Forestry and its relation to Land Use from the University of Oxford, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental History exploring the legacy of British colonial rule on contemporary forest policy and practice in Ghana from the University of Copenhagen. He received National Environmental Research Council and F.C. Osmaston scholarships, and the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau Prize during his tenure at the University of Oxford. Dr. Wardell was formerly a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for World Environment History at the University of Sussex. He has published 3 books and edited collections, more than 45 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and 70 technical publications. He is currently working on a CITES book project with Cambridge University Press.
Prior to his CIFOR assignment Dr. Wardell was Regional Director for the Clinton Climate Initiative-Forestry in the Asia-Pacific region supporting the development of several REDD+ projects, two of which successfully completed the Voluntary Carbon Standard dual validation process for accredited avoided mosaic deforestation (Cambodia) and avoided planned peatland conversion (Indonesia) methodologies.
Dr. Wardell previously worked as a diplomat at the Royal Danish Embassy in Cambodia, a Research Associate at the University of Copenhagen and successfully managed his own small consulting company, Miljo ApS based in Denmark, for more than a decade. His earlier assignments have included work for The World Conservation Union (IUCN), GIZ, The World Bank, UNDP, OECD-DAC, Oxfam and ACORD.
