Michael Jenkins

Michael Jenkins is the founding President of Forest Trends, Forest Trends, a Washington D.C. based non profit organization, was created in 1999 by leaders from conservation organizations, forest product firms, research groups, multilateral development banks, private investment funds, and foundations. Its mission is to maintain and restore forest ecosystems by promoting incentives that diversify trade in the forest sector, moving beyond exclusive focus on lumber and fiber, to a broader range of products and services. To fulfill its mission Forest Trends works to accelerate development of markets for forest ecosystem services, expand markets of sustainably produced forest products and advance markets that serve the interest of forest communities. Forest Trends convenes market players to advance market transformations, generates and disseminates critical information to market players, and facilitates deals between progressive actors in sustainable forestry. In its first five years Forest Trends has established itself as one of the leading international environmental groups focused on market and policy solutions to these issues.

In 1998 Michael was in a joint appointment as a Senior Forestry Advisor to the World Bank. He worked on a number of initiatives to develop partnerships with the private sector, and authored a publication "Capital Markets and Sustainable Forestry". From 1989-1999 he was the Associate Director for the Global Security and Sustainability Program of the MacArthur Foundation. Michael's responsibilities with the Program included all grant making in Latin America and the Caribbean, program development in Asia and Africa, as well as overarching program management.

He holds a Master's of Forest Science from Yale University. From 1983-1986, he worked as an agroforester in Haiti with the U.S.A.I.D. Agroforestry Outreach Program. He has also worked in Forestry projects in Brazil and the Dominican Republic. From 1981-1982 he was the technical advisor with a Washington based development organization, Appropriate Technology International. In the late 70s, Michael was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay working in agriculture, apiculture and forestry projects.

He has traveled/worked throughout Latin America, Asia and parts of Africa, and speaks Spanish, French, Portuguese, Creole and Guaraní.

Michael has contributed to a number of books and articles and with Island Press published "The Business of Sustainable Forestry, Strategies for an Industry in Transition" which has been recently translated into Japanese and Chinese.