Naoya FURUTA

Before Nao Furuta was appointed as coordinator of IUCN Japan Liaison Office in July 2015, he has been working on global policy on biodiversity particularly on Convention on Biological Diversity process at IUCN Japan Project Office since 2009 with a particular focus on business engagement on the CBD process. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, he has also been actively promoting the role of protected areas for Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction and Nature-based Solutions in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. He has also been teaching at Taisho University in Tokyo since 2015 on these topics.  Nao Furuta started his carrier as a policy researcher at Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) in Tokyo where he worked with various government ministries and private sector in the field of environmental issues. In 2000, he was seconded to IUCN HQ as the first Japanese staff in IUCN secretariat where he worked on business engagement on biodiversity. After returning back to Japan in 2011, he started to work on various international projects funded by JICA and other donors in Latin America and Asia in the field of climate change and biodiversity. He studied agricultural biology and forest governance at University of Tokyo and holds a master degree in agricultural science. He speaks fluent English and Japanese.