Global Forest Coalition (GFC) members, allies, friends, colleagues, and supporters, we write to you today with exciting news, welcoming the coalition’s new policy director, Wolfgang Kuhlmann.
Wolfgang, a former GFC Board Member, brings with him over 20 years of experience in forestry policy and advocacy. He joins GFC in this key strategic role following the departure of the coalition’s co-founder and longstanding director, Simone Lovera, who left earlier this year to take up a new challenge.
On behalf of the GFC staff and members, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Simone for her years of work and dedication to build GFC into the force it is today and we wish her all the best in her new endeavours. Facing the future, we extend a big and warm welcome to Wolfgang as the new policy director. In solidarity, our collective struggle continues.
A message from GFC Policy Director Wolfgang Kuhlmann:
“I’m very happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to support the work of GFC as the new policy director. Over the years, I’ve been following GFC’s activities closely, and it was very inspiring to cooperate with several of its members in campaigns and projects. Having studied biology, I have worked extensively on many forest policy issues for more than 20 years. This includes exposing false solutions to climate change, such as REDD+, carbon trading, so-called nature-based solutions or land grabbing for timber plantations. In 2005, I was appointed as director of the German NGO ARA and have since been an active partner in NGO networks at the national level (in Germany), at the European as well as international levels, closely following the intergovernmental negotiations on climate, forests and biodiversity. In 2020, I joined the Board of the Global Forest Coalition. Additionally, I have worked as a consultant on issues related to forest policy and development aid for the Environmental Paper Network, a research institute of the German protestant church and a newly established bio-economy think tank. Fundraising for ARA’s campaigns, as well as projects developed in cooperation with local partners, has been an important part of my old job – and I regard it as one of the main tasks in my new role. I’m looking forward to being part of this coalition – and I hope I can do my share to make it even better.”
