New director at Rainforest Foundation Norway

This Thursday, Tørris Jæger was presented to the staff of Rainforest Foundation Norway. Coming from the position as International Director at the Norwegian Red Cross, he will take up his new position on April 1.

At the Red Cross he has been managing 60 employees in Norway and 130 international employees in 17 countries as well as a budget of NOK 1.4 billion.

He now looks forward to tackling another important task: ending the destruction of the world's rainforests.
- I am happy and proud to become the Director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. The coming decade is critical to save the climate, Jæger says.

- I hope to be able to use my experience from the Red Cross to build Rainforest Foundation Norway into an even more powerful and robust international organisation. One of the reasons I applied for the job in Rainforest Foundation Norway is to be able to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In the Red Cross, I have worked with the consequences of the climate crisis. In Rainforest Foundation Norway, I will work to tackle the most important challenges of our time: the climate and biodiversity crisis and how it affects us globally, but also with those who are directly affected in rainforest countries, Jæger says.

The new director believes that Rainforest Foundation Norway is a key player in its field in Norway, and he plans to build on this experience to strengthen the international efforts of the organisation.

The chair of the board at Rainforest Foundation Norway, Petra Storstein, is confident that they have found the right person to lead and develop the organisation.

- Tørris Jæger has extensive experience from the humanitarian sector and of management and organisational development in an organisation with a strong international presence. This is the kind of expertise Rainforest Foundation Norway will need a lot of in the future, Storstein says.

She emphasises that the board is ambitious on behalf of Rainforest Foundation Norway. She underlines that the goal is for the organisation to grow further and become even stronger in the coming years, in order to play a key role internationally in rainforest protection.

- We all know how urgent this effort is. It's critical in order to protect the human rights of those living in the rainforests, ecological diversity and Earth’s climate, Storstein says.

Storstein emphasises the new Director's significant experience in advocacy work and that he has fronted the Norwegian Red Cross in the media extensively, both in Norway and internationally.

- Tørris is visionary, goal-oriented and clear. This has been important to us in the selection of the right person to fill the role, Storstein says.