Graduate of the National Agricultural Institute of Paris-Grignon, General Engineer of Bridges, Water and Forestry, Doctor of Political Science, Gilles Kleitz is President of the Scientific Council of CIRAD, Chairman of the Protected Areas Committee of the French Committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and member of the Advisory Board of the French Southern Territories And Antarctica.
Since 1989 and for more than ten years, Gilles Kletz has worked in South Africa in the field of natural resource management, agriculture and biodiversity conservation, as a researcher and coordinator of conservation projects for the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the international solidarity NGO Gret, CIRAD and the French Fund for the Global Environment (FFEM).
After returning to France in 2002, he organized the wolf and bear management policy at the Ministry of the Environment and then coordinated the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy. From 2009 to 2013, he was project manager and biodiversity resource for the French Development Agency (AFD).
Over the past 20 years, Gil Kleitz has participated in the negotiations of the Conferences of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and contributed as an expert to the Secretariat of the Convention. He was advisor to four ministers, including Minister Delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pascal Canvin, and was particularly involved in the preparation of several draft laws.
In 2014, he was appointed Director of the Guyana Amazon Park and coordinated the French national park collection for two years. After returning to AFD in 2018, he became Director of the Agriculture, Water and Biodiversity Sectors and then Executive Director of Sustainable Development at the agency.
Today, he wants to devote himself entirely to science. Within the IRD, its mandate will continue to focus on the challenges of transforming institutions in a time of major crises in the Anthropocene, especially the crisis of life.
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