Christian Held

UNIQUE forestry and land use GmbH

Unique is a leading consulting firm for sustainable forestry and agriculture, rural development and natural resource management. Our core competencies are providing technical and economic solutions at the intersection of forestry, agriculture and climate change. We work on multi-year implementation projects and offer advisory services for public and private investment funds. We have more than 20 years of experience providing tailormade support to our clients in tackling technical, organizational and socio-economic challenges in land-use sectors, from project planning through implementation to evaluation. Our clients are development banks, multilateral organizations, ministries, municipalities, associations and the private sector. Unique was established in 1998 and is headquartered in Freiburg, Germany. Offices in Paraguay, Uganda, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan and representatives in Argentina and the UK are strengthening our regional presence. There are also temporary project offices in Colombia, Serbia, Kenya and Ethiopia. In Paraguay, our subsidiary Unique Wood manages more than 15,000 hectares of FSC®-certified forests (natural forests, plantations and silvopastoral systems). Our 60-persons team consists of forestry and agriculture experts, economists, policy experts and social scientists. We also collaborate with a worldwide network of associated experts. Internally, we are organized in four technical divisions (Climate; Agriculture and Rural Development; Forestry Consulting & Timber Economics and Forest Investment), an administrative division and a unit for business development and quality management. Unique is committed to economic, social and ecological sustainability for forests, agriculture and land use. As an act of corporate responsibility, we compensate travel-related carbon dioxide emissions through afforestation programs in Germany and Paraguay. Unique is further certified according to the management norm DIN EN ISO 9001: 2015.