Alain Karsenty, an environmental economist, has been a senior scientist at CIRAD (Montpellier, France) since 1992. His research and expertise area covers the economic instruments for the environment. He has extensive knowledge of land tenure, concessions, forest policies and practices in West & Central Africa and Madagascar, his main fieldwork. As an international consultant for ITTO, the World Bank, the EU, FAO, etc., he participated in several policies and economic reform processes with African national teams. He is the author of dozens of scientific articles and co-authored several books and special issues. He was until recently a member of the scientific board of the French GEF (FFEM), currently a member of the scientific board of the Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme (FNH), of one of the ZOEIN Foundation, and a member of the board of Directors of ATIBT.