Etienne Coyette is an agricultural engineer in landscape management. After 11 years of experience in Central Africa and Central America, he worked on rural development and natural resources management for a Brussels based organisation, undertaking numerous field missions in Africa, Latin America and Asia. He joined the European Commission in 2004 in its environment service before moving to the external cooperation service in 2011 to work on climate change. He is now working on sustainable agriculture and land governance.