Dr Nicolas PICARD

Directeur, GIP ECOFOR

Dr. Nicolas Picard is the director of GIP ECOFOR, a group of twelve French institutions related to forest research that aims to gain and enhance knowledge to support public policies and sustainable forest management practices. He obtained a PhD in forest sciences from AgroParisTech in 1999. He has worked for 18 years as a forest researcher at CIRAD, with successive positions in Mali, Gabon and Cameroon. His research interests dealt with the sustainable management of forests, either for fuelwood provision in West Africa or for timber production in Central Africa, and with the assessment of forest carbon stocks and its role in climate change mitigation. From 2015 to 2020, he worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as the secretary of Silva Mediterranea, a committee of the Forestry Department of FAO dealing with forestry questions in the Mediterranean region.