Please Note: While monthly meetings are usually on Tuesdays, this meeting is on Thursday 2/16 to not interfere with Valentine’s Day activities! Register HERE

Deforestation is at the center of some of the planet’s most urgent crises: increasingly intense natural disasters, unprecedented species loss, and an epidemic of violence against indigenous communities, the forests’ best protectors. There is no way to address the climate crisis without protecting the world’s last standing forests.  This meeting will dig deep and present global, city-wide, and neighborhood perspectives on this topic from experts and activists. Protecting the forests has political, financial, and consumer implications that impact everyone’s life. The evening will address relevant legislation, financial investments, and specific choices you can make to impact this crisis.  

Jeff Conant - Friends of the Earth. Jeff directs FOE's international forests program, which protects forests and the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the economic drivers of forest destruction. Jeff travels the world for FOE, witnessing and documenting the impacts of deforestation firsthand, building strategic campaigns, and shaping policy in support of tropical forests and their communities from Brazil to Indonesia.

Sergio Moncada Leia - Forests for All NYC.  Sergio is an environmental planner and project manager with 15+ years of experience with conservation and sustainability projects and now manages Forest for All NYC, a coalition that seeks to equitably increase the 7-million tree canopy cover throughout NYC’s five boroughs.

Joan Reutershan - Friends of Fort Greene Park.  Joan is a member of 350Brooklyn and Friends of Fort Greene Park, a community group opposed to the NYC Parks Department's plan to cut down a mature tree canopy in the northwest corner of the Park.