Prof. Dr. Riccardo Valentini is a full professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Tuscia, Italy. His expertise concerns the role of land-use changes and forestry in the carbon cycle, biodiversity, and bioenergy. He is also involved, through IPCC and governmental bodies, in policies about the global carbon cycle and the role of land-use changes and forestry. He is the coordinator of several EU projects aiming to understand and quantify the terrestrial carbon budget and greenhouse gases emissions. He is also the coordinator of the EU-Proiect CARBOAFRICA, as well as a Doctor Honoris Causa Faculté Universitaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux, Belgium. He is a Nobel Prize for Peace recipient as a member of the IPCC board. He is the Director of the Impacts Division of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and a Member of the Biogeoscience Committee of the European Research Council.