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Our team
In addition to our invaluable partners in the field in Haiti, India and Mexico, Forest Commons is currently comprised of two principal coordinators, several volunteers, occasional interns, and our Board of Directors. We thank everyone involved for their important contributions and commitment.
Board of Directors
Caroline Zaoui
Caroline is co-founder and scientific director at Novobiom, focusing on upscaling bioremediation approaches involving microorganisms to provide industry with nature-based and environmentally-friendly cleanup solutions for contaminated waste, soil & water. Dedicated to regenerative initiatives, the mitigation of climate change, bio-inspiration/biomimicry and all things microbial, Caroline became president of Forest Commons in 2021 after a 10+ year term of our former president Philippe Desbrosses.
Chloé Lequette
Designer, biomimicry expert, illustrator. An active member of Biomimicry Europa since 2013, Chloé has served as coordinator of the Chokogou Project (Haiti) and designer for Forest Commons between 2015 and 2018. Chloé is currently employed by our longterm partner organisation, Ceebios, and continues to lend us her numerous talents and invaluable expertise in her role of Secretary and volunteer of Forest Commons.
François Plessis
Coordinator, translator, interpreter. François joined Forest Commons in 2019 as Treasurer and volunteer. He especially lends his expertise to administering steering meetings and to general programme organisation and administration. François is particularly passionate about cultures, agroforestry and reflections surrounding population self-sufficiency.
Coordinators
Daniel Rodary
Ecologist, biomimicry expert, permaculturist. Daniel joined Biomimicry Europa in 2009 and was part of the founding team of Forest Commons (then called Arbres Sauveurs) in 2010. Daniel coordinated the India Project and has continued to coordinate the Chokogou Project in Haiti since its launch. As a former resident of Southern India, Daniel is also involved in the implementation of reforestation and environmental restauration projects there as part of a local permaculture project, as well as the Deep Adaptation movement both in India and in France.
Lauren Salm
Lauren joined Biomimicry Europa and Forest Commons in 2016 and has since designed and continues to coordinate the Mexico project launched in 2018. Lauren lived in the Yucatan Peninsula for over three years prior to moving to France in 2018, where she discovered the multiple (yet little-known) advantages of the Mayanut tree. In addition to her work with Forest Commons, Lauren is a fine art painter and trainee in Arts-Based Perceptual Ecology. She firmly believes in the intersection of nature and culture, as well as the arts for helping to galvanise interest around important issues, such as the preservation of the natural environment and the integration of indigenous wisdom into sustainable environmental management.
Longterm Volunteers
Hugo Bachellier
A graduate of Urban Systems Engineering and passionate about biomimicry, Hugo created in 2016 the student association “Mycellium” at the University of Technology of Compiègne to help disseminate this approach. Convinced by the opportunities provided by biomimicry for a meaningful ecological transition, he joined the Ceebios team in 2017 to support the structuring and wider deployment of the concept in French territories. A path that led him to join and support the Forêts Communes team in 2021.
Léa Garreau
Léa conducted an internship at Forêts Communes in 2021 as part of her last year of study in the Engineering-Natural Environment Management track at AgroParisTech. She was since hired by INRAE-Avignon in a new programme studying how participatory approaches can contribute to the resilience of agroforestry systems. She will continue to collaborate with us on a voluntary basis when her schedule allows.
Thomas Idas
Biologist by training, Thomas later became an educator-mediator in community education specialising in agroecology and permaculture. Passionate by nature in all its forms, Thomas discovered Forest Commons and our efforts towards biomimetic food forests in 2020 during his training as an Agroecological Educator with the NGO Terre&Humanism. Thomas subsequently decided to continue longer-term to help us develop our activities in Europe. Thomas particularly aims to help expand the pedagogical and educative aspects of our work, and accordingly address one of his main concerns:
« What Earth will we leave for our Children and what Children will we leave to our Earth? »