Ruth Metzel works as Global Restoration Lead to drive Conservation International’s ambitious work to realize the massive potential of restoration as a natural climate solution through supporting programs and partnerships around the world. Her work on global portfolios includes driving Conservation International’s technical restoration leadership of the Priceless Planet Coalition, a collaboration with Mastercard and a coalition of 100+ companies, and design of the Global Environment Facility’s Ecosystem Restoration Integrated Program that will scale restoration and improved management practices across 20 countries in partnership with private sector.

Before joining CI in December 2020, Ruth worked for over a decade in Panama to restore tropical dry forest as the Executive Director and co-founder of Fundación Pro Eco Azuero. Throughout that time Ruth worked with a diversity of stakeholders ranging from local communities to national authorities and international donors to inspire action on environmental education, sustainable land management, ecological restoration and reforestation. She has worked with UNEP-DTU, ICRAF, Drawdown, The Forests Dialogue, and the Global Warming Mitigation Project. Ruth holds a Bachelors in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Princeton, and Master of Forestry and an MBA from Yale.

Ruth’s academic research has explored the agriculture-forest interface, how to scale natural climate solutions in commodity-producing landscapes, how we can ensure financial flows for natural climate solutions more effectively and efficiently reach the ground, and the ways in which actors from multiple sectors interact to achieve integrated landscape management objectives.