An Indonesianist for over two decades, Bart has an extensive track record covering all disciplines of sustainability (prosperity, people & planet). He is endorsed as Quality Panel Member by the High Conservation Value Network and the High Carbon Stock Approach, as independent trainer by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil and as Certification Coach by The Borneo Initiative. He is co-founder of KAYON (each tree matters) and Technical Adviser with the Orangutan Land Trust.
Bart cooperated with various enterprises as an associate and a freelancer, including Control Union Certifications, Double Helix Tracking Technologies, Gaia Commoditas, Global Forest Watch, the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute, Scientific Certification Services, the Tropical Forest Foundation Indonesia and the Zoological Society of London. He currently supports KAYON, a start-up initiative piloting a ransom-a-tree approach to (tropical) rainforest conservation.
About two years ago I ran my own, self-imposed, social experiment… one I don’t encourage anyone to repeat: I joined several anti-oil-palm groups on Facebook. Not being much of an anti-anything myself this was my ‘here be dragons’ moment; my personal blank space on the map to explore. I meant to learn more about the global concerns over oil palm and to add some local context to these concerns. But the thunder of dragons I expected to find was but a mass of petty minds, whipped into a frenzy of prejudice through selective posts by a few super brands. It quickly became – quite literally – too depressing to continue.
