Bio

Michele Tunga Robson

Business Development Leader and Conservationist.

Michele is best known for her pioneering conservation work with the critically endangered Cross River gorillas in Central West Africa. In the remote rainforests of Cameroon, she captured the first-ever nocturnal footage of these elusive great apes—once believed to be extinct. This landmark footage, presented at the CMS Conference in Uganda in 2019, offered compelling evidence that fewer than 300 of these gorillas—the rarest and largest of the great apes—had adapted to forage at night to avoid human hunters. This behavior may help explain why the species had remained undetected for so long.

Combining her expertise in strategic marketing, digital technologies, and business development, Michele supports innovative, nature-based solutions to address the climate and biodiversity crises. She co-authored a groundbreaking scientific paper that introduced a new way to value wild animals—recognizing their role in carbon cycling and ecosystem services. This work marked a paradigm shift, positioning the carbon services of wildlife within financial markets. By incorporating these services into carbon offset mechanisms, Michele’s work offers a powerful tool to close the biodiversity financing gap—creating equitable, climate-positive, and nature-positive outcomes. This pioneering research has opened a new era in conservation, revealing the critical role wild animals play in mitigating the climate crisis and attracting support from a growing number of financial institutions worldwide.

With a strong background in partnership development and stakeholder engagement, Michele advocates for regenerative, people-centered strategies that deliver lasting conservation impact. She is also an experienced public speaker, mentor, and trainer, with decades of work across both European and global markets.

Over the course of a 30-year career in business development and policy negotiation, Michele has worked across multiple sectors, including conservation, agriculture, marine ecosystems, and land management. In Cameroon, she helped implement sustainable business practices and built rural capacity by pioneering the integration of digital technologies in remote communities.

She played a key role in enforcing new hunting bans for critically endangered species, working closely with tribal leaders, local communities, and law enforcement. She has also contributed to international efforts to combat wildlife trafficking, developing cutting-edge digital methodologies in collaboration with government agencies.

A passionate conservationist, Michele takes a holistic approach to her work, placing both environmental and social outcomes at the center of every initiative. She serves on the board of several non-profit organizations and was part of a leading scientific team that developed a unique valuation framework for nature-based carbon services. Her expertise in ethical business practices, strategic negotiation, and conservation finance continues to drive her commitment to a more sustainable and equitable future for people and planet.

She was part of a small founding team that launched Ecoflix the first non for profit global streaming platform launched in 2021, dedicated to environmental and nature programming, where 100% of the subscription fees support conservation and environmental charities. She is the Co Founder of The Humanity Channel a new digital streaming platform that plans to launch in 2026, which hopes to pioneer unity and regeneration across our planet.