About People and Nature Consulting International

Mr. Danang Widodo (Managing Director) spent more than half of his career in financial and operational management at various levels in various countries. Among his employers were two Fortune 500 MNCs. Danang has more than 5 years experience in NGO management, including 2.5 years on-site management and 2.5 years of consulting. Danang's strengthes are strong leadership with deep understanding of corporate strategy, finance and business forecasting, operations and HR management, supply chain management, and business process re-engineering. His expertise in general management areas supports his clients with developing their organizational strengths, encouraging excellent corporate governance practices and fostering strategic decision making.

Edward M. Norton (President Director) is a lawyer by training (J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971), and he has been an advocate for the protection of special places of natural and historic value for more than 30 years. After various assignments, in 1977 he became a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney in Maryland, prosecuting violations of federal criminal law and supervising all environmental litigation in which federal agencies were involved in the U.S. District Court for Maryland. In 1981, he became special counsel to The Wilderness Society, a national conservation organization in the United States. He also served as Deputy Executive Director and Director of Membership and Development for The Wilderness Society. In 1986, he became the founding President of the Grand Canyon Trust, a regional conservation organization dedicated to protecting the national parks, public lands, and rivers in the Colorado Plateau. He was also the founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy, an organization that works to convert abandoned railroad corridors into recreational trails. He also was one of the founders and leaders of the Vietnam Veterans Reconciliation Project which worked to lift the trade embargo and to establish normal relations with Vietnam. In 1994, he became Vice President for Law and Public Policy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation responsible for all federal and state legislation and legal affairs for the National Trust. He served in that position until 1999, when he moved to Kunming, Yunnan Province, China to become the Senior Advisor to The Nature Conservancy's China Program. In that role, he helped to create The Conservancy's Yunnan Great Rivers Project to conserve biodiversity in northwest Yunnan Province and to establish a system of Nature Reserves and Protected Areas. During his six years as Senior Advisor, The Nature Conservancy's staff grew from 4 to 54 people with five offices at sites in northwest Yunnan and an office in Beijing working on national level policy issues with the Government of China. From January to June 2005, he was Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in Natural Resources and Environmental Law and Policy at the Department of Social and Cultural Ecology, Graduate School of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. From August 2005 to January 15, 2007, Mr. Norton served as The Nature Conservancy's Deputy Director of the Asia-Pacific Region, based in Bali, Indonesia and working on marine and terrestrial biodiversity conservation projects in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, China, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Mr. Norton is now Senior Advisor to the USAID – Indonesia Orangutan Conservation Support Project. He is also the President Director of PNC Consulting International.

Dr. Jos S. Pet (Principal Partner and Technical Advisor) has a Ph.D. in tropical fisheries management. Jos was a lecturer and researcher, and worked for various universities and international agencies in the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Jos contributed to the design of marine fisheries research programs in Java, Sulawesi, and Flores and started up the Komodo National Park marine protected area project as the TNC Komodo Project Leader in 1995. As the TNC Coral Triangle Center (CTC) Program Manager Jos lead the CTC team on the implementation of site-based MPA development projects (in Komodo, Wakatobi, Raja Ampat and Derawan), and supported conservation science, training, communications, policy and financing, and program administration, from the center's base in Bali. As a member of the TNC Indonesia senior management team, he worked with the Indonesia program leadership on strategic planning, budgeting, fundraising and marketing. Jos has authored and co-authored numerous scientific papers and reports on issues related mainly to fisheries management and marine conservation. In 2007, Jos and partners founded PNC-I. In the first year of operations, projects that Jos worked on included NGO support contracts (WWF and TNC), environmental impact assessments for ship insurers, eco-tourism projects (representation of a dive and adventure company) and a representative function for the Walton Family Foundation.

Dr. Peter J. Mous (Fisheries and Protected Area Specialist) specializes in fisheries and marine protected area management. Peter's interests are development of management information tools, management planning, ecological and resource use monitoring, quantitative analysis of coastal artisanal fisheries, development of zoning plans, and training of practitioners. Before joining PNCI in August 2007, Peter worked as marine protected area advisor for the World Bank-funded Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program, which is implemented by Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries together with the Ministry of Forestry and the Indonesia Institute of Sciences. Before that, Peter worked as a scientific advisor on marine protected areas and fisheries for The Nature Conservancy in Indonesia, supporting a fast-growing marine conservation program over the period 1998 - 2007. In this capacity, Peter provided technical supervision to marine conservation projects in Komodo, Raja Ampat, Wakatobi, and Derawan. Before moving to Indonesia, Peter worked as a fisheries researcher for Wageningen Agricultural University and the Netherlands Institute of Fisheries Research, where he also conducted his PhD research on the interaction between fish populations, fisheries and fish-eating birds. Peter worked as a lecturer at the International Agricultural Center in The Netherlands, and he conducted fisheries research on Lake Victoria in Tanzania for Leiden University.

Dr. Erik Meijaard (Forest Director) runs the terrestrial branch of PNC International. He has an academic background in tropical ecology and a PhD in biological anthropology. His academic work focuses on the evolutionary history of the mammals of the Malay Archipelago, and trying to understand what that means for their conservation. Since 1992, Erik has worked in Indonesia on a range of different forest conservation programs. His first few years in Indonesia he spent traveling through remote parts of Borneo and Sumatra where he mapped the distribution of orangutans and other large mammals, and developed the first spatial datasets for these species. Subsequently, Erik worked for several international NGOs and research organizations including WWF-Netherlands and the Center for International Forestry Research, where he was instrumental in the development of new conservation strategies and initiatives, including launching the Heart of Borneo idea. From 2004 to 2009, he worked for the Nature Conservancy Indonesia's forest program as its senior scientist and later program manager. At the same time he was also closely involved with developing and implementing USAID-funded orangutan conservation programs, first as chief of party, later as Kalimantan coordinator and conservation strategy planner. Erik brings to PNCI a wealth of experience working with the provate sector, including timber and mining concessions, as well as plantations. His editorial experience with two newsletters, frequent publications in public and scientific fora, and media experience indicate Erik's strength as a very effective communicator on forest conservation and management issues.

Rona Dennis is PNCI's remote sensing and GIS specialist, and takes a lead in private sector collaborations in the forestry division. Rona has an MSc in Environmental Remote Sensing, and has worked in a range of conservation and research projects in Indonesia, Australia, China, Pakistan, and the UK since 1988. Her core expertise is in natural resource monitoring and management, forest and land fires monitoring and assessment, mining and environmental/biodiversity management, and biodiversity conservation in Indonesia. Rona has high-level technical skills in applied remote sensing and GIS, particularly monitoring and assessment of forest cover, and vegetation fires. She also specialized in the delivery of technical training and preparation of training materials for the application of spatial technologies to natural resource management. Rona worked from 1992 to 1997 for on ODA-funded conservation program in West Kalimantan. She then worked as a fire researcher for the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) as permanent staff as well as part-time consultant during a stint in Australia. In Australia she was employed as a fire monitoring and mapping officer for the Cape York Development Association. In 2005, Rona returned to Indonesia, where she worked as the biodiversity specialist for BHP-Billiton. Since joining PNCI in January 2010, her worked has focused on developing best management practices for managing orangutan population in plantations, mining concessions, and natural timber concessions. She also continues to advise BHP-Billiton on the development and implementation of their biodiversity strategy.

D. Gede R. Wiadnya, MSc (Fisheries and Protected Area Specialist) joined PNCI in 2010, and he is a university lecturer and PhD student on fisheries management and marine conservation at Brawijaya University, Malang. Currently, Gede is working on a training course about marine reserves for outreach managers and a syllabus on fisheries management for Indonesian universities. In 2002 – 2004, Gede worked for The Nature Conservancy as community outreach specialist, deputy project leader, and project leader for Komodo National Park. In 2004, Gede moved back to his home town Ubud in Bali, working as a training manager for the The Nature Conservancy's Indonesia Marine Program. During 2004-2009, Gede designed and lead trainings on fisheries and protected areas for local and national government officials, staffers of non-governmental organizations, and university lecturers in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Timor Leste. Trainings include design and management of marine protected areas, population dynamics of exploited fish stocks, fisheries science, resource use monitoring, monitoring of spawning aggregation sites, reef health monitoring, and conservation action planning. In addition, Gede worked with teachers to develop local content curricula on fisheries and protected area management. Gede graduated from Bogor Agriculture University, and got his MSc from Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.