Elena is an environmental scholar, researcher, and practitioner focusing on civil society engagement, environmental ethics, forest governance, and international environmental agreements. She received her PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2014, completing her doctoral thesis on the comparative history of forest protection policies in Canada, Norway, and New Zealand. Since then, Elena has worked as the coordinator of a civil society and environmental development project, “The Amur Coalition for Participatory Governance over Natural Resources,” managed by the Far Eastern branch of WWF Russia and funded by the European Union. Elena has worked directly with rural communities that rely on forest resources for their subsistence and income: forest beekeepers, Aboriginal communities, rural youth groups, and others living in the most forested region of the Russian Far East. She has learned unique human stories from them of personal resilience, care for the forests, and courage in fighting against illegal logging in the region at an industrial scale. While at the RCC, she integrated these stories into her writing to analyze the transformative potential of local leadership and values for a more resilient society and environment.