A Yale program that aims to restore tropical forests and the
livelihoods that depend on them has received a six-year, $5.5
million grant by the Arcadia Fund to continue its work in Latin
America and Southeast Asia. The Environmental Leadership &
Training Initiative (ELTI) for Biodiversity Conservation in
Tropical Forest Regions trains environmental managers and local
decision-makers to support conservation efforts where forests
have been cleared and exploited in Borneo, Brazil, Colombia,
Panama, the Philippines and Sumatra. “With Arcadia’s renewed
support, ELTI will continue to empower and inspire conservation
leaders in the tropics to restore and conserve forests and
biodiversity in transformed landscapes,” said Mark Ashton,
ELTI’s principal investigator and a professor of forest ecology
at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Yale has
directed the program in collaboration with the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute and the National University of
Singapore since 2006. The Arcadia Fund gr