Frank van Veen is a Professor of Ecology & Conservation at the University of Exeter, England, with a background in biology and specifically population and community ecology. Much of Frank van Veen’s current work is interdisciplinary and focused on tropical peatlands in Indonesia. In their natural state, these ecosystems harbor high biodiversity and store huge quantities of carbon, but deforestation and degradation turn them into major sources of carbon emissions, and they become prone to wildfires with wide-spread health and economic impacts. Frank van Veen also leads an interdisciplinary UK/Indonesian consortium that aims to fill natural and social-science knowledge gaps to support Indonesian governmental and non-governmental partners in their aims to restore vast areas of degraded peatland in the context of sustainable economic development.