Christine Tam

Christine has over 25 years of experience working in the natural resources management and conservation fields with a specialty in China and Africa. She has a diversity of experience in conservation program planning and implementation, including leading development of strategic plans for nearly 20 conservation areas with the Nature Conservancy in California as a regional conservation planner; managing program planning and implementation across five landscapes in Northwest Yunnan for TNC’s China Program; and coordinating the Stanford-based Natural Capital Project’s efforts to value ecosystem services and integrate those values into decision-making. She has spent over a decade living and working on the African continent, as the Conservation Director of WWF’s Democratic Republic of Congo program and as the Regional Coordinator of WWF’s Coastal East Africa Sustainable Investments Program across Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. Her extensive experience in conservation program management ranges from community-based natural resource management and protected area expansion to green economy policy and addressing the bushmeat trade. She has worked closely with local communities and civil society as well as with government officials and business leaders.

Her extensive conservation experience on-the-ground in both China and Africa has enabled her to engage in the linkages between the two, supporting and guiding conservation across both regions. In particular, she has been engaged for over a decade in sustainability issues in China’s overseas trade and investment in Africa, including large-scale agriculture, infrastructure, extractives, as well as smaller scale timber logging and trade.

She graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. and The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a Masters in Natural Resource Management and Wildlife Ecology.