Greta Francesca Iori

Greta Francesca Iori is an Ethiopian-Italian wildlife crime and conservation adviser to various African Governments, International Organisations and NGOs with extensive experience in trying to bring an end to the illegal wildlife trade across the Horn of Africa, resolve human-wildlife conflict, better understand the gendered dynamics of communities and organized criminal networks while encouraging more sustainable and inclusive conservation models across the continent. Passionately advocating against historical patterns of accumulation and dispossession in rural communities, especially women and girls, Greta stands firm in hoping to break barriers and move away from dominant and often ineffective conservation structures and instead cultivate scalable systems which dismantle deeply engrained forms of spatial and spiritual injustice for both people and wildlife. In an age of climate collapse, she believes restoring gender balance, ownership, and the sacred values attached to the living and spiritual worlds can help redefine how we map our sense of belonging, responsibility, and kinship to place, ancestors, one another, and the many species we share the planet with. Her work is rooted in championing cross-sectoral, inter-governmental and trans-boundary collaboration and solution-oriented conflict mediation in nurturing human-wildlife coexistence. Heading the Elephant Protection Initiative Foundation’s (EPIF)’s program development and Human-Elephant Conflict work across 21 African Member states and between Africa and Asia, she hopes to continue to champion compassionate and nuanced systems change including the vital dialogues and collaboration required to enable socio-environmentally just and climate resilient future for all living things.