Efficient, integrative and professional

Ada Okoli’s work focuses on the development of nature-based carbon projects, with core expertise in agricultural land management (ALM) and grassland management projects.
She specialises in MRV of projects with the VCS and CCBS standards. Her regional focus is Africa

Adrian Birek focuses his expertise on developing monitoring and measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems for integrated agricultural land management (IALM) and agroforestry carbon projects. He is also involved in soil organic carbon and trace gas fluxes modelling.

Alison Vogler works as an Acquisition Assistant in the Business Development Unit. She provides support with the formal requirements in the acquisition process, ensures that all documents are correctly compiled and, as a Business Economist, supports the business processes. She has extensive experience in supporting international customers in a wide variety of industries and uses this in international correspondence with partner organizations and experts.

Altynai Adabaeva is an analytics engineer specializing in database modeling, data quality assurance, and analysis. Her primary objective at Unique is to enhance data efficiency and scale data analytics for forestry and carbon projects.

Alwin was Assistant Professor at the agricultural faculty of the University of Hohenheim (Germany) and he worked for CIMMYT as Senior Economist based in India. He focuses on analytical work and capacity development at the interface between agriculture, climate change and natural resource management. Alwin has strong exper-tise in quantitative and qualitative analyses related to the agricultural sector of developing countries.

The core areas of Angelo Mayer are geoinformatics and data science. He is specialized in the evaluation and analysis of 3D LiDAR as well as image-based remote sensing data from various platforms. His main methods and tools are machine learning algorithms, GIS and databases.

Annika Korte is a senior expert in quality management and environmental and social safeguards. She has worked in international cooperation since 2012 and is responsible for acquisition management and the company’s quality management system (ISO 9001) at Unique. As a consultant, she focuses on assignments related to safeguards and gender in Africa and Asia. In addition to Unique, she has worked at GIZ and the World Bank during her career.

Athena Birkenberg is an agricultural economist with experience in international climate projects, sustainable value chains (i.e. coffee and cocoa), governance and rural development. She has extensive experience with community participation and land uses in the tropics. Her focus is on investment-related biodiversity and community aspects (VERRA CCBS).

Axel Weinreich is an expert in silviculture, forest planning, forest inventories and forest information systems. His work focuses on the further development of multi-source forest monitoring systems, the modernization of forest planning and forest information systems (FIS).

Benjamin Schwarz is an expert in voluntary carbon markets, monitoring, and MRV for the land use sector. His work focuses on climate change project development, soil carbon modeling, and carbon fluxes. Regional foci of his work are West Africa, the South Pacific, and Latin America.

Carolyne Musee is an expert in rural development, supporting communities to integrate digital solutions in the monitoring of Sustainable Agriculture, Agroforestry, Climate change, and Livelihood improvement programmes. She has spent 13 years supporting the development and MRV process of Agriculture carbon projects under VCS. In Unique, she is supporting the design and setup of the MRV systems in Agroforestry Carbon Projects in Kenya to enable validation and verification of the projects against the VCS Verra standards.

Christian Held works across markets and value chain analysis, future markets of the forestry and timber industry, investment consulting for forestry and industrial companies and related valuation issues. He also works on timber trade flows, as well as timber sector and cluster studies in Germany and abroad.

Christina Unnewehr works in the areas of acquisition, project management and monitoring & evaluation. This includes coordinating the preparation of proposals, managing project implementation and project work in the field of M&E. In addition to two Master’s degrees in Evaluation and Development & International Relations, Christina Unnewehr has further professional training as a coordinator in International Project Management (IPM). She has also gained regional experience at GIZ in East Africa.

Christy Williams specialises in environmental and social governance for sustainable development projects as well as carbon finance policy. His work currently focuses on the application of climate, community and biodiversity standards for the voluntary carbon market along with the adoption of Paris Agreement Article 6 rules for market-based approaches. He also has experience in quality assurance and support for large-scale acquisitions.

Connor Kahlau specialises in climate-smart forestry in Central Europe. He works on climate change adaptation of forests and in biodiversity monitoring worldwide.

Dejan’s major fields of interest are GIS and remote sensing, forest inventory design, forest management planning, and forest information systems. He contributes to both the development and execution of forestry field campaigns. Through spatial statistics and analytics, Dejan actively supports FLR studies and projects regarding climate change and the forest’s response to it.

Ella Grimwade holds an MSc in Environmental Governance and specializes in community engagement for nature-based solution projects. Core areas of her work include participatory project design and setting up effective stakeholder communication channels. Her regional focus is Africa and Asia.

Emma Lima specializes in social and environmental governance aspects of nature-based solutions projects, especially for the voluntary carbon market. Her expertise is on integrat-ed monitoring approaches with a focus on safeguards.

Eva Kehayova is an expert in forest sector development with a focus on private forests, both in a national and international context. Her work focuses on the development of strategies on forest policy issues and the design and implementation of transformation processes in response to changing market and environmental conditions, including actively engaging relevant stakeholders in participatory processes.

Gero Pawlowski is an expert in sustainable forest management, forest and resource conservation. His work focuses on the acquisition and supervision of studies as well as the coordination of the implementation of long-term projects. The regional focus is South America and East Africa. Gero Pawlowski is currently head of an agroforestry training project in Zambia on behalf of the BMEL.

Gopika Suresh is a senior Remote Sensing/Earth Observation (EO) scientist, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) expert and a Python programmer. Previously, she worked on developing SAR based methods & tools for detecting and monitoring forests & land cover changes, marine/coastal hazards and mapping damage from hazards like floods, storms, earthquakes and wildfires. At Unique, she is responsible for co-ordinating & developing EO based tools & solutions for global carbon projects.

Guilherme Arruda is a geographer and enviromental scientist, with overall work experience in GIS and remote sensing. As a brazilian, he has professional experience in and prior knowledge about Brazil and Latin America, acquired in different areas of the private sector.

Jacinto is a senior expert in the development and implementation of environmental and climate finance projects. His focus is on sustainable land use, restoration and REDD+. Prior to joining Unique, he worked at UNEP on private and financial sector engagement in REDD+, sustainable land use, and supply chains and governance. Jacinto has extensive experience in Latin America, Africa and Asia Pacific.

Jaime Garbanzo Leon is a geoscientist and expert in GIS, modeling, quality control and assessment of monitoring data. He works at Unique at the interface of web-mapping, remote sensing and geophysics. The focus of his work is on the automation of mapping processes and the development of programming tools.

Jill Voelkel is a biologist who specialized in environmental governance during her master’s degree. At Unique, she works in the Business Development department on the management of acquisitions and projects as well as safeguards and gender assignments. Before joining Unique, she supported the German cooperation agency GIZ on forest conservation with local communities in Brazil.

Johannes Pirker is an experienced expert in international forestry. His work focuses on the development of voluntary carbon market projects, forest financial cooperation programs, and MRV and monitoring systems in the context of REDD+ and FLR. His regional focus is Francophone Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

John Nyaga is a senior expert for the development of smallholder farms and sustainable land management projects for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The focus of his work is on designing, training, monitoring and implementing agroforestry projects in East, West and Southern Africa.

Jonas Lechner is an expert in tropical forestry, FLR and plantation management. Prior to joining Unique, he established and managed nurseries and plantations in Borneo. His work focuses on implementing forest investments, carbon forestry projects and supporting smallholders in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Jonas Nacke is a forestry expert with a focus on market studies and analysis along the timber value chain. Furthermore, he works on economic analysis and valuations of forest enterprises. His regional focus is on Europe and East Africa.

Joseph Macharia is a senior expert for the development of nature-based projects for the voluntary carbon market. He is specialized on smallholder agroforestry projects, including training and monitoring, implementation, and MRV systems. His regional focus is East, Central and South Africa.

Juan Carlos Zamora is a forestry expert with expertise in designing land use interventions for the voluntary carbon market, monitoring / MRV and global change assessments. His work focuses on the development and implementation of nature-based climate solutions in Latin America, South-east Asia, and Africa.

Juha Leppänen has been working on private and public forest sector projects and assignments in Asia, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa for the last 15 years. He is specialised in forest investment activities starting from forest resource and site assessments combined with market and financial analytics for timberland investment decisions.

Julia Balzer specializes in climate mitigation land use projects, with a focus on sustainable forest management (SFM) and forest landscape restoration (FLR), including agroforestry systems, reforestation, and natural forests in the tropics. Core areas of her work include project design, greenhouse gas monitoring, and forest growth modeling.

Julia Schütze is an expert for soil hydrology in sustainable land use projects. The focus of her work is on the quantification and MRV / monitoring of soil erosion and the impact of land uses on water, e.g. in voluntary carbon market projects for the land use sector. Regional foci of her work are Africa, India and Latin America.

Katia Obst is a senior expert in project management and gender in the forestry and land use sector. Since 2002, she has been responsible at Unique for identifying relevant tenders, managing acquisitions and projects and ensuring the quality of internal processes. The regional focus of her consulting assignments is the German forestry sector and, as a native Spanish speaker, Latin America.

Katja Weyhermüller focuses her expertise in tropical forest ecology. The focus of her work in the Digital Solutions Team (DST) is the analysis of geoinformation and remote sensing data. She works on projects mainly in the field of carbon certification (VCS), soil erosion and sustainable land use. She is also part of forest monitoring projects in Germany, Latin America and East Africa.

Laura is an expert in international climate projects, with a focus on governance, safeguards and gender. The regional focus of her work is Latin America, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. She further worked already in the field of climate risk management and Loss and Damage.

Leif Nutto has many years of international project experience in the specialist areas of silviculture and utilization of plantation and natural forests. His focus is on the analysis and optimization of process flows along forestry and timber industry value chains as well as the review and implementation of investments in the forestry sector.

Lincoln is an experienced agricultural economist who joined Unique in 2018. His work focuses on the development and economic modeling of sustainable land use business models and cost-benefit analysis of forest landscape restoration (FLR), climate smart agriculture, and sustainable investment.

Maribel Narváez Gallardo is a senior expert in the design, development, and implementation of nature-based solutions under the voluntary carbon market.
Prior to joining Unique, she has played a key role in the launch of impact investment vehicles, leveraging blended climate finance for rural development and the environment. She has primarily worked in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Marlène Zehfuß is an expert in forest valuation, forest inventories, geodata processing and statistical analysis. Her activities focus on management consulting for private and communal forest enterprises as well as the preparation of forest value assessments. Marlène Zehfuß is a publicly appointed and sworn expert in the field of forestry, soil and inventory valuation.

Marnix Becking has 30 years of professional experience in planning, implementation, M&E of international cooperation projects. His expertise is REDD+ and conservation & sustainable use of natural resources. He has been working from Latin America since 2010.

Matthias Dees is an expert in forest inventories, remote sensing and geoinformation systems. He has many years of worldwide experience in method development, design and implementation of inventories, and monitoring. Matthias teaches forest inventory and remote sensing at the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources.

Matthias Wenzel is a technical leader in forest management planning, forest inventory and forest nature conservation. He is a publicly appointed expert in forestry. His core activities are forest management in municipal forests, operational assessments in private forests and the processing of nature conservation issues, including the coordination of mapping for ecological management plans.

Maximilian Roth is a renowned expert in biodiversity, SFM, coastal protection and mangrove management. He is Unique’s country focal point for Vietnam and manages the Hue-based regional office. His regional focus is on Southeast Asia and Africa.

Maximilian Sperlich’s core competencies are geoinformatics and big data management. Maximilian works on the development of software for use in the forestry sector with a focus on the acquisition and analysis of remote sensing based data.

Nathaniel Allen is a full-stack software engineer with over 8 years of experience in test-driven application development, development of DevOps infrastructure, and a touch of product management. He extended this experience into the “real” world by writing a Master’s thesis combining drone photogrammetry and deep learning in order to expedite research biodiversity S. Africa’s Fynbos.

Olivier Wenzek’s core competencies are information systems design, software architecture and data science. Olivier is responsible for the development, expansion and infrastructure of Unique’s digital tools and information systems. His work focuses on the design of web-based solutions, DevOps and programming.

The core competence of Patricia Holter is to transform remotely sensed data into knowledge for forest ecology and forest management. Her work focuses on the collection, statistical analysis and provision of forest-related geodata for the monitoring of biodiversity and carbon as well as change detection and inventories. She is specialized in the data analysis of terrestrial LiDAR data.

Paul Borsy is an expert in rural development and resource management. His work focuses on the development, evaluation and supervision of long and short-term projects in the areas of resource management, biodiversity, climate change, agriculture and renewable energy. Mr. Borsy is active in Africa, South America and Asia.

Paul Jacovelli has extensive experience – primarily in Africa and Asia – and specializes in sustainable forest management for the production of timber, bioenergy and other value-added products. His particular focus is the development of incentive systems and support structures for smaller investors in plantations.

Paula Glenz holds an MSc in International Forestry and is specialized in the development and implementation of forest projects for climate adaptation. She particularly focuses on silvicultural adaptation measures and financing mechanisms within the voluntary carbon market. Her current project focus is on sustainable land use and afforestation/reforestation projects.

Paula Rothenberger has a background in Geography. During her Master thesis she conducted a time-spatial analysis of costs and benefits of Agroforestry Systems in Western Africa. She has dealt extensively with issues of land degradation and restoration, exploring sustainable land management approaches and nature-based solutions. Before joining unique she worked with the Economics of Land Degradation Initiative at GIZ and supported the Scientific Group of the UN Food System Summit.

Sara Bejtullahu concentrates on climate change mitigation projects in the agriculture sector. Core areas of her work are analytical work, quantitative assessments, and project development. Her technical focus lies on quantifying greenhouse gas emissions for rice systems and offering strategic sustainability recommendations.

Shimels Eshete Wassie is an expert in sustainable livestock management. His work focuses on analytical studies of dairy production and ‘monitoring, reporting and verification’ (MRV) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock production. He also develops climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies through ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) from the livestock sector. His regional focus is on East Africa.

Signe Nelgen is an international expert in sustainable agriculture and food systems. She focuses both on conducting data-intensive projects, such as global trade, market policy and food security, and on projects using qualitative methods. The latter includes food consumer behaviour and conservation projects. Among others, Ms. Nelgen has worked for the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

Simon Charré is an expert in natural resource management, particularly mountain forests and rangeland resources. His work focuses on developing value chains for non-timber forest products and strengthening cooperation between authorities, local NGOs and international organizations. Simon Charré’s regional focus is Central Asia and the Caucasus.               

Suzanne van Dijk is an expert in sustainable livestock management. She focuses on projects related to climate smart agriculture, sustainable dairy production systems and value chain development for smallholder farmers. She also analyzes the impacts of climate change and uses them to develop practical recommendations for agribusinesses. Suzanne’s regional focus is Europe and East Africa.

Thilo van Schwamen holds a MSc in Forest Sciences and is specialized in the development and implementation of sustainable grassland management projects for climate change mitigation. His main focus is the quantification of greenhouse gas benefits of these rangeland projects and the assessment of their financial viability. His current project focus is on sustainable rangeland management in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Titis Apdini has focused her expertise on sustainable livestock management. She focuses on the analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock and the identification of GHG mitigation options. She has developed experience in dairy production systems in the tropics such as Kenya, Brazil, Costa Rica and Indonesia. She is familiar with the role of livestock in circular food systems through her previous experience at Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands.

Veronica Lisini Baldi is a consultant in sustainable land use and natural resource management. Her work focuses on cross-sectoral issues such as forest landscape restoration (FLR), agroforestry and capacity building. Her regional focus is East Africa and South Asia.

Vincent von Dosky is an expert in forest and land use monitoring and inventories. His work focuses on terrestrial and remote sensing based forest monitoring systems, geoinformatics and data analytics. Outside of Central Europe, he has regional experience in Africa, as well as South and Central Asia.