Secretariat

The function of the Secretariat is to administer activities under guidance from the advisory committee and to provide input into readiness needs from Forum participants. The Woods Hole Research Center served as the Forum Secretariat at its founding in 2008 until 2010 at which time the Secretariat transitioned to the Brazilian-based Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). Since its inception, the Secretariat was designed to transition to a southern institution to allow for developing country representatives to take leadership in designing and implementing REDD and to better reflect needs and perspectives of developing country participants in REDD readiness.

The Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) is one of the principal nonprofit and non-governmental research and policy institutes in the Amazon and in Brazil. Created in 1995, IPAM has 70 full-time staff members distributed among its headquarters in Belém (Pará) and offices in Santarém and Altamira (Pará), Rio Branco (Acre), Canarana (Mato Grosso) and Brasília (DF). IPAM’s work focuses on “Science and Education for Environmentally Healthy and Socially Just Tropical Forests.”

More information about IPAM is available at their website: www.ipam.org.br