Sandra Gagnon is completing her Ph.D. at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland on environmental governance and conservation policies, with a focus on the participation of local communities in natural resources governance. She has worked on global conservation policy at IUCN and on the social impacts of environmental conventions and conservation policies (her Master thesis addressed CITES relation to sustainable development and livelihoods). She also has experience of biological control of cultural and forest pests (she holds a Master of biology/entomology on that issue), organic agriculture development and evaluation.