Dr. Buntoon Srethasirote
Dr. Buntoon Srethasirote is the Director of the Good Governance for Social Development and Environment Institute, a Thailand-based research entity with expertise in multilateral environmental agreements and environmental policies. He oversees research projects and undertakes the role of a researcher in the areas of climate change, biodiversity, community rights, and social reform.
Dr. Buntoon works at various levels to facilitate reforms of environmental and social development policies. In regard to policy formulation, he is currently in charge of integrating the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the national-level policy writing, planning, and implementation, as a member of Thailand’s National Committee on Sustainable Development.
He also works with academics and civil society in developing a set of localized indicators for Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Plan that is in line with the SDGs and other relevant international indicators.
During 2014-2015, Dr. Buntoon was a member of the Constitutional Drafting Commission where he engaged with various stakeholders in substantive debates and multi-level consultation. Previously, he had experience as an advisor to several ministers in the fields of science and environment.
Dr. Anak Pattanavibool
The country’s noted wildlife conservationist and pioneer of the SMART Patrol System, Dr. Anak Pattanavibool in his retirement is still teaching and training future generations of wildlife conservation scientists as a special lecturer at the departments of Conservation and Forest Biology, at Kasetsart University’s Faculty of Forestry.
Dr. Anak has engaged extensively in wildlife conservation and research in Thailand for more than 30 years. His conservation career started at the Royal Forestry Department’s Wildlife Conservation Division (now under the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation), serving there as a superintendent of wildlife sanctuaries in Southern and Northern Thailand after graduating in Wildlife Management from Kasetsart University.
Dr. Anak then received a USAID scholarship to continue his graduate degree at Oregon State University, where he obtained an MS in Wildlife Science in 1993, before coming back for a brief stint as a wildlife biologist. He went abroad again to pursue his PhD in Geography (BioGeography) at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada.
Following his PhD, Dr. Anak returned to Thailand and worked as a wildlife biologist with the Western Forest Complex Ecosystem Management Project to map distributions of large mammals and birds until the project ended. He then moved on to teach biology and conservation at the Department of Biology, at Mahidol University’s Faculty of Science.
In October 2004, Dr. Anak started working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), serving as its country program director, liaising with governments and universities to strengthen wildlife conservation and research in Thailand.
During 2013-2016, he took up a full-time position as a lecturer at the Department of Conservation, Kasetsart University’s Faculty of Forestry. In mid-2016, Dr. Anak returned to his full-time role of running the WCS Thailand Office until his retirement on July 1, 2023.
Following his extensive experience in forest and wildlife conservation, Dr. Anak has been invited and appointed by governments in an advisory role. He was a member of several national committees concerning forest and wildlife conservation, including the National Forest Policy Board, where he still serves as a member.
Mr. Sompoch Maneerat
Mr. Sompoch Maneerat is currently an advisor to the Director-General of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), whom he assists in reforming its administrative systems, including integrated protected area management. He is also a consultant to non-governmental organisations advocating natural resource conservation.
During his years in civil service, Mr. Sompoch served as the first chief of Thung Yai Naresuan (East) Wildlife Sanctuary and then the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the country’s first Natural World Heritage Site. He extensively applied a multidisciplinary work approach and integrated protected area management to wildlife and forest management there, gaining extensive firsthand experience in this field and becoming one of the country’s foremost strategists in integrated protected area management.
With his many years of experience in integrated protected area management as well as policy and strategy formulation, he was assigned to take responsibility for reform work of the department at the Public Sector Development Group, serving as its director before his retirement last year. During his time at the department, Mr. Sompoch also helped the department with communications and public relations and served as its spokesperson.
During 2004-2006, Mr. Sompoch also worked with non-governmental organisations as an assistant project manager of the Ecological Western Forest Complex Management Program and a deputy project manager of the Joint Management of Protected Areas.
Dr. Rosalia (Lia) Sciortino Sumaryono
Dr. Rosalia (Lia) Sciortino Sumaryono is a cultural anthropologist and development sociologist by training, earned her master and doctorate at the Vrije Universities, Amsterdam with honors. Currently, she is Associate Professor at the Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), Mahidol University and Visiting Professor at the Master and PhD in International Development Studies (MAIDS/GRID), Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.
She also founded and directs the Foundation for Southeast Asian Studies and its core activity SEA Junction, a public venue for interaction and cross-learning on Southeast Asia. (www.seajunction.org)
Previously, Dr. Sciortino was IDRC Regional Director for Southeast and East Asia in Singapore (2010-2014), Senior Adviser for the Health Program to the Australian Agency for International Development in Indonesia (2009-2010), and Founding Regional Director for Asia of the Rockefeller Foundation (2000-2007) establishing during her tenure the Foundation’s Southeast Asia Office in Bangkok. Prior to that, she was a program officer for Gender, Health and Human Development at the Indonesia and Philippines offices of the Ford Foundation from 1993 to 2000.
Dr. Sciortino acts as a consultant for international and regional organizations, most recently (2012-2020) as Senior Social Development and Health Advisor to Empowering Indonesian Women for Poverty Reduction Program (MAMPU), a joint initiative of the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
She is as an adviser for academic and international development institutions, including as member of the UNFPA Global Advisory Council and is a member of scientific and institutional boards. In November 2017, she received a medal by the Vietnamese Association of Social Sciences for her contribution to social sciences in Vietnam.
She fluently speaks Italian, English, Indonesian and Dutch and has published widely on development issues in Southeast Asia, in particular philanthropy, international development, regional integration in the Greater Mekong Sub-region and ASEAN, poverty and vulnerability, social protection, migration, gender, social health, sexual and reproductive health. (www.rosaliasciortino.com)
Mr. Wasant Techawongtham
Mr. Wasant Techawongtham worked at the Bangkok Post in various capacities, including features reporter, news reporter, weekend features editor, and deputy news editor.
His last position was as acting news editor. While currently in retirement, he continues to have a keen interest in journalism, occasionally working odd jobs as a freelance writer, editor, and translator.
EDITOR
Piyaporn Wongruang
Piyaporn Wongruang is the Founder and Editor of Bangkok Tribune Online News Agency (bkktribune.com), Thailand’s first media social enterprise.
She has been an environmental journalist for over 20 years, working in various positions, including senior journalist and news editor at Thailand’s leading English newspapers, such as the Bangkok Post, the Bangkok Post Sunday, Spectrum magazine, and The Nation.
Over her decades-long career, she has won prestigious regional and international grants and awards, including from the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Journalism Fund, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), the World Conference of Science Journalists, UNFCCC’s Climate Change Reporting (An Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (Com+)), Columbia University’s Covering Globalization Reporting, the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ), Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Inter Press Service, the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, and others.
In 2014, she was the first journalist in the country who won double honours from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA): Excellence in Reporting on the Environment for her series “Blood in the Forest” and Honorable Mention in Investigative Reporting for “Ramkhamhaeng Rampage”.