RESUME - TEIJA REYES

I am very passionate in promoting sustainable and inclusive rural development that truly benefits the local rural communities. I believe that with appropriate management and transparent fair trade of natural products, together with social and economic empowerment, the livelihoods of the rural communities would improve. I have worked with rural farmers and in multidisciplinary teams at multinational organizations, with governments, universities, the private and public sector, consumers, donors, and civil society to enable communication between different stakeholders about sustainable development initiatives and environmental issues.

I am a Dr. Sc. in Tropical Silviculture, specialized in rural sustainable development and agroforestry. I have always worked in natural resource management, on sustainable inclusive rural development in Latin America and Africa, aiming to help rural communities to benefit from a sustainable use of their natural resources, linking them to organic markets in Tanzania and in Peru. I have 20 years of experience of working and managing forestry and rural development projects in tropical development countries financed by various donor agencies.  

In FAO’s country office in Peru, my team developed a proposal of nationwide socioeconomic forest monitoring and governance system in the first National Forest Inventory in Peru, which was tested in all ecozones with local communities. I also assisted Peru in the preparation of the UN-REDD national program, supervised the forest governance projects funded by EU-FAO-FLEGT program about community forest management, monitoring, and transparency among the indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest. Additionally, I was involved in formulating the National Forest Plan and facilitating the process of the national plan of rehabilitation of forests and degraded areas, developing criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management and transparent forest governance, and in strengthening new forest laws and regulations for shaping the new forest policy.

I have supported the community-based forest management in the poorest regions of Tanzania by helping communities attain the title deeds and rights to manage their forest resources, capacitating them to manage their natural resources in sustainable ways, and helping them in the decentralization process. I have around ten years of experience in researching value-adding sustainable agroforestry systems, analyzing rural policies, lecturing in universities, improving livelihoods with organic spice markets, and conserving biodiversity.   

I am a Founder and Ex-Manager of Café Femenino Chile, a company that empowers Peruvian female coffee producers, who cultivate organic, high quality specialty coffee in their own lands. This FairTrade coffee business empowers them socially and economically and improves the livelihoods of local communities in rural Peru. In May 2020, Café Femenino Chile was ranked among the best socio-environmental projects in Latin America in UNDPs Premio Latinoamérica Verde, ranking 9th place in Human development, Social Inclusion, and Reduction of Inequality. Nowadays I am coordinating Sustainable Dialogs online that are giving visibility about the female entrepreneurs and their socio-economic and environmental impacts they have in Peru.