Our Members:
Meera finds her connection with nature through restoration of degraded lands. She loves the opportunities Forest First has offered her to volunteer and work with communities in Wayanad and Kodagu. She speaks half Latin by uttering scientific names of tree species Forest First is conserving. She finds peace under large canopies of grandmother trees. Converting lands degraded by invasive species into rich biodiversity conservation plots has been her passion. She finds immense happiness in going back to every conservation site to find new evidence of natural regeneration.
Rajesh
P.C. Rajesh is a Mechanical Engineer and a Management graduate. He started his career as a mechanical engineer and then later switched to IT post doing the management education. He has been in the field of process and quality since 2001 and have been part of the quality departments at companies including i-flex, Ernst & Young and Volvo. He is currently working with Volvo India Private Limited. He has been part of many audits and assessments on frameworks including CMMI, ISO, SAS and Six Sigma. Overall, has an experience of close to 15 years in the corporate world.
At Volvo, he was elected as the Chairperson of the CSR and have contributed to initiatives related to environment and education. Have been part of many workshops related to environment and sustenance at Auroville.
Rajesh was part of multiple earth construction workshops and is planning to actively get into propagation of alternate earth constructions.
Rajesh has been into practicing a martial art called Aikido for the past 10 years. In addition to planting trees, his passion is to inculcate the right principles and ethics in kids for a better society and loves to work with kids.
Uma
Uma is a tree-hugger in the true sense. Second to none when it comes to passion towards nature, she lives an exemplary life as far as being conscious about her actions and their impact. She believes in the motto that small things matter the most and are the building blocks for greater good. Professionally an artist, she dreams of a world with unending greenery, free potable water and national parks abound!
Dhandapany
Dhandapany an aspiring natural farmer, now an IT professional, only goal in life is to have good food & water 🙂 Food, which creates lesser impact to self and environment & try to retain the small percentage of water left with us. Believes in smaller self oriented actions and trying to adopt minimalist & localized lifestyle.
Ramanath
A software engineer by profession, passionate about nature. He tries to learn new technologies whenever an opportunity is presented to him. Most of his hobbies are connected with nature like trekking, bird watching, photography. . .
Mayank
Mayank is a wannabe permaculturist who is also a wanderlust. Loves food and found his way to food forests in his quest to stay in health. Has a simple moto, “Live Life Tree Size!” and dreams of a life in the forests all the time.
Sushil
Sushil found his connect to forests and nature through health. Further explorations made him realize Nature and us are the same, we are Nature, we are its part. He is in a quest to bring various aspects of living into practice.
Our Advisors:
Dr. Anil Panolil Chirikandoth
Dr. Anil Panolil Chirikandoth, President , Forest First is a post graduate in Ecology from Salim Ali School of Ecology and holds a PhD in Forest Ecology and Management from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, India. Anil PC is a VCSA approved AFOLU Expert and Technical Expert for VCS- J&N REDD Initiative. He is also a Member of Expert Committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India for developing C&I for sustainable management of plantations in India.
Dr. Anil is engaged in forest research and action for the past eighteen years. His major area of involvement is forest degradation, biodiversity conservation, Non Wood Forest Products and sustenance of forest dependent livelihoods. For the past eight years, he is also engaged in exploring and utilizing climate change mitigation market instruments/mechanisms, both from the compliance and voluntary markets for forest and biodiversity conservation and management. He has worked as Project Scientist in Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), as Senior CDM Consultant in the CDM wing of Federation of Indian Chambers Commerce and Industries (FICCI), New Delhi, as Lead Verifier for Bureau Veritas Certification (BVC, Malaysia) for validating two Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodologies for availing GHG benefits from avoided logging of tropical rainforests. He has also assisted BVC in CDM Forestry validations as a Forestry Expert and as a self employed Consultant for various public, private, community/individuals/organizations for identification and initiation of forest based offsets towards various stages of UNFCCC registration and for meeting voluntary offset standards. Working with the KFRI team as a Consultant, executed 10 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) projects for forest land conversion due to proposed developmental projects. With the KFRI team involved in a consultancy project for testing and developing Criteria and Indicators for sustainable forest management and in various other research projects funded by international and national funding agencies like BCN- USAID- WWF, Mac Arthur- UNESCO, French Institute of Pondicherry, CIFOR, MoEF, etc.
Dr. Anil Panolil Chirikandoth
Dr. Anil Panolil Chirikandoth, President , Forest First is a post graduate in Ecology from Salim Ali School of Ecology and holds a PhD in Forest Ecology and Management from Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, India. Anil PC is a VCSA approved AFOLU Expert and Technical Expert for VCS- J&N REDD Initiative. He is also a Member of Expert Committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India for developing C&I for sustainable management of plantations in India.
Dr. Anil is engaged in forest research and action for the past eighteen years. His major area of involvement is forest degradation, biodiversity conservation, Non Wood Forest Products and sustenance of forest dependent livelihoods. For the past eight years, he is also engaged in exploring and utilizing climate change mitigation market instruments/mechanisms, both from the compliance and voluntary markets for forest and biodiversity conservation and management. He has worked as Project Scientist in Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI), as Senior CDM Consultant in the CDM wing of Federation of Indian Chambers Commerce and Industries (FICCI), New Delhi, as Lead Verifier for Bureau Veritas Certification (BVC, Malaysia) for validating two Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) methodologies for availing GHG benefits from avoided logging of tropical rainforests. He has also assisted BVC in CDM Forestry validations as a Forestry Expert and as a self employed Consultant for various public, private, community/individuals/organizations for identification and initiation of forest based offsets towards various stages of UNFCCC registration and for meeting voluntary offset standards. Working with the KFRI team as a Consultant, executed 10 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) projects for forest land conversion due to proposed developmental projects. With the KFRI team involved in a consultancy project for testing and developing Criteria and Indicators for sustainable forest management and in various other research projects funded by international and national funding agencies like BCN- USAID- WWF, Mac Arthur- UNESCO, French Institute of Pondicherry, CIFOR, MoEF, etc.
Our core team in Waynad:
Our on-the-ground team:
