As part of ELTI’s Tropical Forest Landscapes online certificate program, Roland Widmer completed a capstone project focused on the future of a community-based sustainable development initiative that supported local peoples and protected hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest across the Brazilian Amazon.

Brazil is a long way from his native Switzerland, but Widmer has often made an outsized impact in his career. He has spent time in Brazil with the World Resources Institute and SITAWI Finance for Good, and now supports Fairtrade in the design and implementation of regenerative sustainable agriculture programs in Africa, Asia, and South America, coordinating a portfolio of programs that include sustainable and ethical cocoa and coffee production.

Widmer joined the ELTI program, he says, to bolster his project management acumen and help protect ecosystems and the living beings that inhabit them — skills that can help deliver impactful sustainability initiatives at scale.

“The ELTI certificate course was instrumental in strengthening my ability to co-design and implement conservation and sustainable development initiatives,” says Widmer. “The experience honed key skills needed to successfully lead transformative multi-stakeholder initiatives that can help entire landscapes thrive.”