From tsunami recovery to shaping international climate frameworks, 2025 YSE Distinguished Alumni Award winner Susan Braatz ’80 MFS has dedicated her career to linking science, policy, and community action to build resilient forests worldwide.
When the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami devastated communities across Indonesia, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka, damaging tens of thousands of hectares of coastal forests, Susan Braatz ’80 MFS coordinated the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) regional forestry program for early rehabilitation.
““Susan led the UN effort to restore severely damaged coastal forests and launch tree planting efforts to support local communities whose farms and livelihoods had been devastated,” recalled Doug McGuire ’87 MSc, a colleague at FAO. “Her efforts and perseverance throughout this assignment, while facing severe logistical challenges and difficult working conditions, led to immediate relief for communities and laid the groundwork for long-term ecosystem recovery.”
The experience is just one example of the breadth and impact of Braatz’s 35-year career advancing sustainable forestry, climate resilience, and international forest policy. This year’s YSE Distinguished Alumni Award honors not only her remarkable achievements and leadership, but also her enduring influence on the field and on the next generation of environmental leaders.
“A driving force in my professional career was always to approach issues from a wide perspective,” Braatz said.
At FAO, she provided technical support for more than 80 agroforestry and community forestry projects worldwide, working to ensure collaboration on land management. She also established FAO’s urban forestry program, which continues to influence sustainable city planning globally. Later, as senior forest policy advisor at the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) Secretariat, she guided policy development on sustainable forest management and supported related multi-agency efforts. As FAO’s Senior Officer for Forests and Climate Change, she was heavily involved in efforts that led to the development and adoption of REDD+ in UNFCCC, the convention’s climate change mitigation framework for forests. She also developed tools to help countries increase forest-centered climate change adaptation measures.
Sometimes change is driven from the bottom up, and sometimes from the top down. But you need both working together.”
Braatz’s leadership style combines an understanding of field realities with a nuanced grasp of international policy, Mcguire noted.
“Her field experience and years of technical support in forestry and land use allowed her to provide policy advice at national and international levels that always took into consideration the realities of local communities and forestry practice on the ground,” Mcguire said.
Surprisingly, a high school project on streams — not trees — was what first sparked her interest in the environment. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in ecology and environmental biology from Smith College. A year at the University of Edinburgh exposed her to practical silviculture and forestry and inspired her to pursue a Master of Forest Science at YSE. As part of her master’s studies, she worked as a research assistant at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest for three Ph.D. students who were supervised by F. Herbert Bormann, the renowned plant ecologist who discovered acid rain in the Northeast and who taught at YSE from 1966-1993.
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“Terrestrial Ecosystems was the course at Yale that had the most impact on me,” Braatz recalled. “It was field-based and hands-on. It taught me to observe, analyze, and consider the wide range of factors involved in natural resource management.”
Over the years, Braatz has focused on bridging the gap between high-level international forest policy and on-the-ground realities.
“Sometimes change is driven from the bottom up, and sometimes from the top down. But you need both working together,” she said.
Beyond her professional roles, Braatz remains engaged in environmental conservation at the local level as a board trustee for the New Suffolk Waterfront Fund, a New York- based nonprofit that oversees waterfront land. Her decades of service reflect a consistent commitment to linking global knowledge with local action.
Braatz advises the next generation of climate leaders to gain broad exposure, practical experience, and a thorough understanding of policy and science.
“Expose yourself to as many factors of environmental management as possible. You have to get things technically right, but you absolutely need policy buy-in,” she said.
