Speakers

Dr. Tohru Nakashizuka (Toru Asano)

Dr. Vu Tan Phuong

President of the Forest Research and Management Organization

Deputy Director of Science, Post-graduate Training and International Cooperation, Vietnam

Dr. Nakashizuka joined the Forestry Agency in 1985. He is currently the President of theAcademy of Forest Sciences

Forest Research and Management Organization. His previous positions include a professor

He has been working for Vietnam Academy of Forest Sciences since 1994. He obtained ain the Center of Ecological Research, Kyoto University and a professor in the Graduate

Ph.D. in forestry from Vietnam Academy of Forest Sciences in 2012. He has 26 years

School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University. His key research interests include plant ecology,

working experiences in forestry research and management in Vietnam and international

forest ecology and biodiversity.

organizations such as WB, FAO, UNDP, CIFOR, ICRAF for consultancy. Much of his work has been
dedicated to forest policies and governance, forest biomass and carbon stock estimation, REDD-plus, mitigation andMr. Osamu Mizuno Principal Fellow, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)

adaptation to climate change and sustainable forest management.

A Principal Fellow at IGES since 2018. Prior to joining IGES, he worked at the Regional
Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (RRC.AP) at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)Mr. Si Thu Aungin Thailand, the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB)

Watershed Management Division, Forest Department, Ministry of Natural Resources andat the UN headquarters in New York, Global Environment Facility (GEF) in the World Bank,

Environmental Conservation Myanmar

the Ministry of the Environment, Japan (MOEJ) among others.

He holds the master’s degree in Hiroshima University, Japan, He has been working for the ForestDepartment, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation, Republic of theDr. Thomas Hofer Senior Officer, Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission, FAO
He implemented his PhD in the overall Himalayan Region with a special focus on watershedmanagement and highland-lowland linkages. From 1998 to 2017 he was based in FAO

Union of Myanmar since 2008. He has been involved in conducting forest conservation as well assustainable forest management such as the development of REDD-plus Roadmap processes andwatershed management activities in the area of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM).

Headquarters in Rome responsible for FAO’s global program on watershed management,sustainable mountain development and forest hydrology. His portfolio included the technicalsupervision of field projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the coordination ofconceptual and applied research activities and the support to international processes. SinceDr. Takashi Okamoto
Leader, Hillslope Conservation Laboratory, Department of Disaster Prevention, Meteorology, andSeptember 2017 he works in FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok as Senior Forestry Officer,Hydrology, FFPRI.

Coordinator of the Natural Resources Management Group and Secretary of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission.

In 1995, he joined the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI), where heserved as team leader (in charge of risk assessment) before assuming his current position inDr. Manzul Kumar Hazarika Director of the Geoinformatics Center, Asian Institute ofTechnology (AIT)

2019. He has been conducting research on the mechanism and risk assessment of landslides
based on field observations, and received the outstanding performance award on IAEG 10th Asian

He holds a Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Over theRegional Conference in 2015 and the Best Technical Report Award of the Japan Landslide Society in 2016. Since 2020,

past 18 years, Dr. Hazarika has been extensively working in applications of geospatial

he has been engaged in a project on F-DRR in Southeast Asia (Vietnam).

technologies in agriculture, disaster management, and the environment. One of his interests
is disaster management covering multi-hazard risk assessment, emergency mapping anddamage assessment, community-based disaster management, and capacity building.