Hi! My name is Marius von Essen - thank you for coming to my website!

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California in Los Angeles. I am interested in how governance approaches at the subnational scale can help to reduce deforestation and degradation in the tropics, while improving the livelihoods of the people who live in and depend on these ecosystems.

In my free time, I enjoy taking pictures of our natural and urban environments, documenting life in the cities and wild spaces around the world.