Beto Veríssimo is a senior research and co-founder of Imazon, an NGO think-and-do tank based in the Brazilian Amazon and founded in 1990. He holds a Master’a degree in Ecology from The Pennsylvania State University (USA) and graduate degree in Agriculture Engineer from the Federal Rural University of the Brazilian Amazon. He has published more than 170 scientific and technical articles and 25 books on conservation, natural resources management and public policies. His work has helped created about 25 million hectares of Conservation Units in the Brazilian Amazon and support forest management for more than 7 million hectares. In the last years he has worked on different strategies to reduce the level of deforestation and forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon. He is also an AVINA Fellow and Ashoka Senior Fellow. In 2010 Beto received the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2014 he was selected among the top 100 most influential people in Brazil by the Época Magazine. In 2015 he received the Globo Newspaper Brazilian Award on sustainability
