Mark Ashton
Tropical Forest Restoration & Silviculture
Yale School of the Environment
Yale School of the Environment
The application cycle for the 2025-2026 program is now open!
Tropical Forest Landscapes: Conservation, Restoration, and Sustainable Use
Conserving and restoring the planet’s tropical forest landscapes is essential for addressing many of our pressing environmental and social challenges. These efforts offer critical opportunities to combat climate change, restore ecosystems, protect wildlife, and enhance food security and economic growth. The Tropical Forest Landscapes (TFL) online certificate program, offered by the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) and Yale’s Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI), explores diverse perspectives on managing tropical landscapes through a dynamic online experience.
The program is designed for postgraduate learners with a professional or intellectual interest in tropical forest landscapes with a focus on translating theory into action. Advance your career and achieve results for conservation and livelihoods from anywhere in the world.
Information Sessions
For the Tropical Forest Landscapes Certificate Program
Program Overview
This program is for current and aspiring environmental leaders eager to expand your knowledge and skills, advance your careers, and maximize your impact on tropical conservation and restoration.
The curriculum combines the expertise of Yale faculty and ELTI’s extensive training experience and network throughout the tropics. Courses cover important core concepts, showcase global case studies, and provide practical tools for understanding and managing the social, ecological, and economic aspects of effective conservation and restoration initiatives. Over the 10-month program, you will learn the science and solutions to help you design, implement and monitor effective conservation and restoration initiatives.
Key Learning Outcomes
Identify the building blocks of effective conservation and restoration initiatives and learn how to enhance your plans.
- Expand professional networks and learn alongside a global network of online learners
- Strengthen governance, foster stakeholder dialogue, and improve community engagement in your initiatives.
- Learn how to select, plan, and monitor land-use strategies for sustainable management of tropical forest landscapes
- Evaluate opportunities and tradeoffs across potential sources of funding for conservation and restoration.
- Develop a comprehensive conservation and restoration project, practicing techniques for project planning and applying key concepts to a specific tropical landscape.
Who Should Apply?
Representing 70+ countries and 280+ organizations, participants to date include:
- Professionals from governments, private industries, and nongovernmental organizations
- Staff members from foundations, businesses, and aid agencies
- Academics, lecturers, graduate students, and recent graduates
- Landholders, farmers, ranchers, community organizers, and extension workers
- Other champions of sustainable tropical landscapes
The ELTI program is one of the most comprehensive and complete professional certificate programs I have taken so far. The journey has well-exceeded my expectations. I equally learned a great lot about other communities and management styles around the world from lecturers and fellow participants' posts in the discussion area and during live sessions. Through the Capstone assignment, I was able to see my community from a new angle, full of potential and opportunities for the livelihoods of its members and beyond.”
How it Works
Program Length
10 Months
- July to May
Time Commitment
5 - 8 Hours Per Week
- 2-3 hours watching lectures or reading
- 2-3 hours working on assignments
- 1-2 hours of real-time engagement or peer exchange in weekly live sessions
Workload
Video lectures + readings + assignments + weekly live sessions with online learners
Cost
$7,500
- Scholarships available
- Field course additional
Instruction
Lectures by world-renowned professors and international practitioners
Network
Engage and network with professionals from around the world
ACCESS ONLINE MATERIALS AT ANY TIME
View recorded lectures, case studies, and readings and complete course assignments on a flexible schedule to balance your personal commitments and careers.
RECEIVE SUPPORT FROM DEDICATED MENTORS
Work with mentors who will serve as a support team to guide you every step of the way so you have the resources you need to achieve your learning goals.
PRACTICE SKILLS WITH EXPERT ADVICE
Develop or improve an implementable project and gain the skillsets to make it happen, all with guidance from Yale faculty members and international practitioners.
CONNECT WITH PEOPLE IN REAL-TIME
Communicate weekly in real-time with instructors, peers, and experts to discuss ideas and get feedback.
EXPAND YOUR NETWORK
Meet environmental leaders from around the world with the help of ELTI mentors to make sure that you and your peers stay engaged.
APPLY THEORY TO FIELD PRACTICE
You have the option to attend a weeklong immersion experience at an ELTI field site in the tropics. You will visit demonstration sites, practice skills gained in the online courses, and network with leaders.
Instruction Team
Florencia Montagnini
Agroforestry, Restoration & Biodiversity
Yale School of the Environment
Yale School of the Environment
Amity Doolittle
Social Justice & Natural Resource Management
Yale School of the Environment
Yale School of the Environment
Eva Garen
Social Sciences & Conservation
Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative, Yale School of the Environment
Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative, Yale School of the Environment
Why YSE and ELTI?
Yale University has a long history of excellence. You will gain access to experts, training materials and networks of:
The Yale School of the Environment (YSE) has been at the forefront of bringing science to solutions for over 100 years. We are known for innovative scholarship, practice and impactful engagement that advance solutions for complex natural resource and environmental challenges. Our mission is to lead the world toward a sustainable future with cutting-edge research, teaching and public engagement on society’s evolving and urgent environmental challenges. Our graduates go on to become nationally and internationally recognized environmental leaders.
The Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative at Yale University (ELTI) is a global reference for practical training on tropical conservation and restoration. Our online and field courses integrate the science of YSE with the applied expertise of ELTI’s global network of partners. Our mission is to empower people from all sectors and backgrounds to restore and conserve tropical forest landscapes using strategies that support biodiversity and livelihoods. ELTI participants become innovative leaders who achieve tangible results for people and the environment.
ELTI was created with generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin – www.arcadiafund.org.uk
As a professional working in the policy & research nexus, this is the perfect piece of academic exposure. Your level of commitment can be tailored to your needs - which means for working professionals this can be a great after-work personal development course. In the end, the program exposes you to a wide range of critical skills and theories that are at the forefront of the global biodiversity, climate, and other agendas, which are crucial to understand and thrive in the space.”
