Board of trustees
Meet the experts in charge of building a sustainable future for the trade in wild plants.
Franziska Staubli
Franziska Staubli is the Quality Manager and member of the executive board for bio.inspecta AG, a Swiss company offering audit and certification services for organic products, as well as ISO standards, food safety and other labelling systems. Her previous roles have included Sustainability and Issue Manager at MIGROS, Switzerland's largest retail company, and Head of Quality Management at Delica AG. Franziska has also worked for the Swiss Import Promotion Programme (SIPPO), including on the original development of the FairWild Standard version 1.0. She is currently Chair of the FairWild Board of Trustees.
DANNA LEAMAN
Danna Leaman, PhD, a conservation biologist/ethno-botanist, is an independent consultant affiliated with the Canadian Museum of Nature as a Research Associate. Danna’s research focus is conservation and sustainable use of economically important plants, working with numerous national and international organizations. She is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the FairWild Foundation, a member of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Co-Chair of the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group, and IUCN Red List Authority for medicinal plants. When at home in Canada, she lives in summer in beautiful woods near Perth, Ontario, in winter in the Elk Valley, British Columbia.
STEVEN BROAD
Steven Broad is currently working as an independent consultant on natural resource trade and strategy for sustainability. Prior to this, he was Executive Director of TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, for 25 years. Working for IUCN and TRAFFIC since the mid-1980s, Steven has diverse experience in trade research, regulation support, policy, training and facilitation work, and served as TRAFFIC’s regional director for the ASEAN region, based in Malaysia in the mid-1990s. He has a BSc in Environmental Studies and is a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, a Fellow of WWF UK, a board member of the Marine Aquarium Council and Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Illicit Trade of the World Economic Forum. He also serves as an advisor to the Pew Marine Fellowship Program and the Whitley Awards for Nature Conservation. Steven has been a member of the FairWild Board since 2009.
Elisabeth Rüegg
Elisabeth Rüegg is a co-founder of the IMO Institute for Marketecology, an international agency providing inspection, certification and quality assurance for environmentally-conscious products and standards, including FairWild, where she kept several management positions within the IMO Group until 2012. During this time she performed organic inspections and audits all over the world and was engaged in standard setting and quality management issues. Since 2011, Elisabeth is working as a free-lance expert for various projects and initiatives in the field of organic agriculture, natural resource management and sustainability. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Bio-Foundation Switzerland as vice president, a non-profit organisation with a vision for a sustainable and organic world. Elisabeth is based in Izmir, Turkey with close ties to Switzerland and to her present work place in Ukraine as team leader of the German-Ukrainian Cooperation Organic Agriculture.
Anastasiya timoshyna
Anastasiya Timoshyna is the Senior Programme Coordinator – Sustainable Trade for TRAFFIC, a non-governmental organisation that works globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Anastasiya coordinates TRAFFIC's work around advising governments on developing better regulations to ensure trade is sustainable, developing private sector standards, engaging businesses and facilitating consumer behavioural change. She has fourteen years of experience of working on issues of wildlife trade, most of them with the focus on trade in wild plants. Her work involved projects in China, Viet Nam, Nepal, and Europe, and relevant policy work, including in CBD and CITES contexts. Anastasiya has a background in ecology, environmental policy and corporate environmental management, with MSc/MPhil Degrees in Environmental Science and Policy from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, Master of International Management and Sustainability from Amsterdam Graduate Business School, and Master Degree from Monash University, Australia. She is a Co-Chair of the IUCN/SSC Medicinal Plant Specialist Group, and a member of the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.
Sebastian Pole
Sebastian Pole (Lic OHM, Ayur HC, MAPA, MRCHM, MURHP) practices traditional herbal medicine and is co-founder of Pukka Herbs Ltd. He is passionate about the sustainable supply of organic herbs as well as working with communities to protect both their livelihoods and local ecosystems.
Martin Schneider
Martin Schneider, PhD, is an industry expert in sourcing, field production and wild collection of herbal ingredients. He has a PhD in agricultural science from Justus Liebig University Giessen, focused on crop production of medicinal and aromatic plants. Based near Zürich, Switzerland, Martin is currently working as Traditional Medicinals Inc.’s Specialist in the Strategic Sourcing Group from Europe and Africa. In the past 20 years he has worked for several medicinal plant ingredient companies including Heinrich Klenk GmbH & Co. KG, Anklam Extrakt GmbH, Dixa AG, Frutarom Switzerland Ltd., and Linnea SA. He also worked as a consultant in the natural ingredients sector for Switzerland Global Enterprise and CBI.
gus le breton
Gus Le Breton (africanplanthunter.com) has a 25+ year track record in ethical, biodiversity-friendly natural products-related businesses across Southern Africa. He is the current board chair of the African Baobab Alliance (africanbaobaballiance.org) and the co-founder of FairWild certified operation B'Ayoba in Zimbabwe. His other business interests include Katavi Botanicals, Kaza Natural Oils, and Bio-Innovation Zimbabwe, an innovation hub incubating new business opportunities in Zimbabwe around previously underutilised species. Gus is also a past board president of the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT), and was the founding CEO of PhytoTrade Africa. He is widely recognised internationally as a leading expert in the development of practical and effective Access and Benefit-Sharing mechanisms around the commercial use of biodiversity.
FairWild Governance document
Information on governance processes can be found in our document “Governance of the FairWild Foundation”. This document defines the structure for a period during which the FairWild Foundation’s day-to-day business is developed and managed under the basis of a partnership agreement with TRAFFIC. It incorporates rules for the organisation of the FairWild Board of Trustees, terms of reference for the Executive Officer, and terms of reference for the FairWild Advisory Panel.
FAIRWILD SECRETARIAT
DEBORAH VORHIES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Deborah lead’s on FairWild’s strategic planning and engagement, as well as fundraising and policy relations, and is based in Oxford, UK.
Deborah has previously worked for the United Nations and the World Bank group, and worked at C-level in multiple organisations, including International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), African Wildlife Economy Institute (AWEI).
BRYONY MORGAN, PROGRAMME MANAGER
Bryony coordinates the FairWild Foundation’s work programme, and is based at TRAFFIC International’s office in Cambridge, U.K. She supports the FairWild Board and committees in the running of the Foundation and development of the FairWild Standard and certification scheme.
Bryony previously worked for the World Bank on development and supervision of biodiversity conservation projects in East Asia region. She has also carried out work placements with NGOs in Indonesia and Belize on topics related to sustainable use of biodiversity, and with Kew Gardens' sustainable uses group.
EMILY KING, BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT OFFICER
Emily leads on engaging industry with the FairWild Foundation, and is based at TRAFFIC International’s office in Cambridge, U.K. She works with current and potential FairWild businesses to help them to make the most of their certification, as well as assisting with wider communication around the importance of FairWild.
Emily has many years of experience working at the wildlife trade science/policy interface, especially in relation to CITES trade data and implementation of the European Union timber regulation. Most recently, she has worked with small and medium sized businesses to guide them through measuring, managing and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
FairWild Advisory Panel
In 2017, the FairWild Foundation has established an Advisory Panel in order to provide strategic and technical guidance to the Board of Trustees.
Former Board Members
We would like to recognise the contribution of those who previously served on the FairWild Board:
Bert-Jan Ottens, Director of ProFound – Advisers in Development (2010 – 2019)
Dr. Giridhar Kinhal, ICIMOD and Indian Forest Service (2008 - 2013)
Dr. Rainer Baechi, Institute for Marketecology (2008 - 2010)
Josef Brinckmann, Traditional Medicinals (2008 - 2020)
Klaus Durbeck, Klaus Durbeck Consulting (2008 - 2016)
Mike Brook, Organic Herb Trading (2017 - 2020)
Mildred Steidle, Organic Services GmbH (2011 - 2013)
Susanne Honnef, WWF Germany / TRAFFIC (2008 – 2012)
Ximena Buitrón, Independent consultant and former TRAFFIC / IUCN-Sur staff member (2008 – 2022)
IN MEMORIAM
Klaus Dürbeck
Klaus Dürbeck (d. 16 December 2016) was the Chief Executive of Klaus Dürbeck Consulting, an information centre and consulting agency providing services for natural products industries worldwide. Committed to supporting the needs of entrepreneurs in developing countries, within the wider vision of local industrial processing of non-timber forest products, the organisation is able to offer comprehensive information and technical support thanks to its network of senior experts with diverse global experience.
Klaus worked for UNIDO´s Industrial Utilization of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Programme; advised manufacturers of herbal products; was a Senior Consultant of the Swiss Import Promotion Programme and formerly served as Chairman of Forum Essenzia e.V.
Klaus was Chair of FairWild’s Board of Trustees from founding in 2008, until he passed away in December 2016.
Dr. Rainer Bächi
Dr. Rainer Bächi (d. 10 June 2010) was the Founder and Director of the Institute for Marketecology (IMO), an internationally renowned control body specialising in certification of organic and fair-trade standards. He was an inspirational leader and contributor to organic and biodiversity conservation work worldwide. Within the FairWild Foundation, Rainer was at the core of developing the FairWild Standard for sustainable wild-collection of natural ingredients. With his profound knowledge of the social and ecological context regarding the sustainable use of natural resources, he particularly contributed to the merging of the initially separate ISSC-MAP and FairWild parts into one Standard, as well as driving the innovation behind setting up the FairWild certification system.
Rainer joined FairWild’s Board of Trustees in 2008, and served until his death in June 2010. Please see the obituary notice here.