Prior to joining theIDLgroup, Richard worked for Fauna & Flora International in Vietnam and Cambodia where he worked on various initiatives defining participatory and community-based resource use and conservation arrangements with ethnic minority groups living inside and on the boundary of globally important biodiversity conservation areas.

In addition to developing business opportunities for theIDLgroup in the region, Richard is also an environment and natural resource specialist in his own right and has completed a variety of short-term contracts for a range of clients including CARE, FFI, GTZ, Oxfam GB and UNDP/GEF.  Much of this work has focused on community-based systems of conservation and natural resource management.  However, Richard’s participatory skills and understanding of sustainable livelihoods have allowed him to evolve into a broader consultant who’s recent consultancies have included the design of monitoring systems for, and evaluation of, disaster risk reduction projects influenced by climate change adaptation and mitigation.  His last assignment was as a Team Leader for the evaluation of a project aiming to strengthen civil society for greater social inclusion in natural resource management. Richard has a working knowledge of French, and can speak Vietnamese as well as basic Japanese.