Tiina Vähänen is the Deputy Director of the Forestry Division of FAO. She oversees the FAO work on climate, biodiversity, restoration, halting deforestation and on forest monitoring and data platforms. She is co-lead of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. In her previous role, she led FAO to work on REDD+ and national forest monitoring. She has worked on international forest and natural resources policy issues at FAO since 2001 and led the organization of the 14th World Forestry Congress in 2015.
She has coordinated FAO’s contributions to UNFCCC, and forestry contributions to the Rio conventions and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests. Ms. Vähänen has M.Sc. in Forestry and Agriculture.