Helena Gonçalves

Helena Gonçalves

Specialist in Land Use and Sustainable Agriculture

Helena is an environmental manager and has a master’s degree in Applied Ecology from the Luiz de Queiroz School of Agriculture, at the University of São Paulo (Esalq/USP). After graduation and during her master’s degree, she worked on the evaluation of payment mechanisms for environmental services and the management of water resources. Since 2012, she has worked in the socioenvironmental area and, since 2014, she has been mainly dedicated to the sustainability of production chains and food systems. Helena has worked and developed projects in the most diverse chains (from agricultural commodities to products of socio-biodiversity and community forestry management) and in all the regions of the country. As a consultant, she has worked with verifications and adaptation to standards of sustainability and certification, analysis, and the construction and implementation of strategies for sustainability in these chains . She has also been involved in initiatives focused on the strengthening of socio-biodiversity chains and grassroots organizations, participatory planning, traceability tools and incentives for good social practices, and the reduction of deforestation and forest restoration. She also has experience with third-party evaluations of socioenvironmental projects, especially jurisdictional climate strategies. In 2017, she was a Fellow of the Community Solutions Program, at the U.S. Department of State.