Central Apennines | Rewilding Europe (2023)

Mario Cipollone

Team Leader

Mario Cipollone was born in the Italian city of Pescara on March 18, 1981. He has always been passionate about nature and volunteered with environmental organisations from an early age. In 2008, Mario graduated with a degree in International Political Science. In 2012, after becoming increasingly concerned about the decline of the Marsican brown bear in the Central Apennine region, he co-founded the NGO Salviamo l’Orso (Let’s Save the Bear) with the aim of conserving this critically endangered brown bear subspecies. His commitment to wildlife, the natural environment and conservation of Marsican bears has gained Mario and the organisations to which he belongs widespread recognition, media coverage and grants at both national and international level.

In 2018, Mario became the Rewilding Apennines team leader, where his main tasks include planning and managing actions for the rewilding of ecosystems and trophic chains. His environmental background and passion for wildlife perfectly reflect the philosophy and policies of Rewilding Europe. A grassroots conservationist, Mario is aware that rewilding goals can only be achieved by engaging local communities in the conservation process, raising awareness of the value of biodiversity and natural heritage, and developing nature-based economies.

Angela Tavone

Communications Manager

Born in Boiano (Campobasso, Molise) in 1983, Angela holds a major degree in Communication of nature science, a Master’s degree in Governance of natural protected areas and an international Ph.D. in Management and conservation issues in changing landscapes. During her university career, she gained important experience abroad, such as six months in Vermont (USA) to deepen her Ph.D. research about the management of rural landscape through the local community engagement.

Since 2011, she has been working with the team Rete DNA (Network of National Didactic for Environment) that belongs to CURSA – University Consortium for the Socioeconomic Research and Environment – to develop and implement projects of environmental education and heritage interpretation, training courses for adults and educative programs for children about Biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, especially in natural protected areas.

Fond of Nature since always and strong supporter of volunteering as an important social resource for environmental protection, Angela collaborates with Salviamo l’Orso about the conservation of the Marsican bear. Since 2018, she leads the communications of Rewilding Apennines as the Communications Officer of this organization that is working with Rewilding Europe to make Italy a wilder place, with much more space for wild ecosystems, wildlife and natural processes. In bringing back the variety of life, the aim is exploring new ways for people to enjoy and earn a fair living through the nature connection.

Valerio Reale

Enterprise Manager

Valerio Reale holds a degree in Gastronomic Sciences from the University of Pollenzo and a Master’s degree in Food Security and Human Development at the Faculty of Economics of Roma 3.

In 2009 he began travelling across both developed and developing countries to study different food production paradigms.

In 2015, he moved to Ethiopia to analyse the effect of conventional farming practices on the Karrayu-Oromo communities and the camel milk production chain.

Since 2016 he has been back to Europe and worked in the UK in the food and organic farming industry.

Valerio is a great fan of agroecology and rewilding as a concrete alternative to conventional food and farming practices. From 2020, he is the Enterprise Officer of Rewilding Apennines with the aim of develop a nature-based network of enterprises that can benefit from the rewilding activities in the Central Apennines.

His main passions are people and food.

Donato Pinto

Finance Manager

Donato is a Senior Advisor of STS Capital, a global M&A advisory firm, and a Managing Director of STS Agility, a division of STS Capital focused on restructuring and turnaround mandates. He is also a partner at Pacemakers, a strategy advisory firm that helps clients identify and engage with fintech partners.

Until 2019, Donato was Country Manager, Italy for Link Financial Group, a leading European investor and servicer of performing, semi-performing and non-performing auto loans, residential mortgages, consumer loans, corporate debt and trade receivables.

Before joining Link, Donato co-founded and led Specialty Finance Trust, a specialist investor and servicer of healthcare and public admin receivables.
Prior to that he spent 12 years at General Electric, holding CEO and board level positions for GE Capital and GE Plastics divisions, based in Europe and Asia. He joined GE in 1992 as Business Development and M&A manager for GE Capital Europe. Before joining GE, Donato spent three years at Procter & Gamble Italy as Financial Analyst.

Donato is a non-executive board member of Harvard Business Review Italia. He has also been a member of YPO Int’l since 2003, where he serves as the incumbent Chairman of YPO Gold Italy and as board member of the Executive Committee of YPO Global Financial Services Network.

Donato is a member of the Virtual Advisory Board, a network of global non-executive directors and senior advisors. He is also a mentor at the Techstars and YPO A+ start-up acceleration programmes and holds an MBA and a MSc in chemical engineering.

Fabrizio Cordischi

Field Operations Manager

Fabrizio was born in 1982 in Avezzano, in Abruzzo, the main town of Marsica area, situated between the Sirente Velino Regional Park and the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park. He got a PhD in Industrial Chemical at the University of Bologna and he has always been frequenting the mountain under different perspectives.

Fabrizio is a “coornata” guide of the Sirente Velino Regional Park and an environmental hiking guide of Abruzzo. Since 2016 he accompanies tourists and nature lovers to discover the natural beauties of the Central Apennines. Fond of wildlife and nature photography from years, he is committed as volunteer in actions of environmental protection and, with Salviamo l’Orso, for the conservation of the Marsican brown bear.

Since 2019 Fabrizio is the Field Officer of Rewilding Apennines, carrying out field activities for rewilding environment and nature conservation, wildlife monitoring and enhancing the coexistence between humans and large carnivores.

Dara Brodey

Volunteer Coordinator

Dara is an Italian and American citizen born and bred in the province of Milan, in the North of Italy. She earned an Msc Development Studies from SOAS university, London and studied French and Hindi during her Bachelor’s in Culture and Language Mediation at Milan’s State University.

She always cultivated a variety of interests, and while she worked at different jobs, she found it enriching to volunteer for several non-for-profit organisations, that are active in the fields of social welfare, immigration, education, arts and culture, in Italy, Ireland, UK and Pakistan.

A volunteering opportunity in conservation was precisely what made her chose to live in a place where she can work in contact with nature and develop her interest in. ecology, plants and animals.

Dara now lives in a small village in the central Apennines and coordinates the volunteers’ activities for Rewilding Apennines: she is delighted to share her love for nature and contribute to the education of students and young people coming from all over the world to work for conservation.

Jan-Niklas Trei

GIS Analyst

Born on 17 May 1994, in the city of Goettingen, Germany, Jan has always been passionate about biology and nature conservation issues. In 2019 he completed a bachelor’s degree in biodiversity and ecology – his thesis covered the predation of cattle by Persian leopards in northern Iran, with the aim of promoting greater coexistence with local farmers. He is now studying in the Master of International Nature Conservation programme at the universities of Goettingen and Lincoln, New Zealand.

Enrica Calò

Communications Officer

Born on 1995 in Lecce, Enrica is passionate about horses and wildlife.

Since 2011, she is a wildlife rescue volunteer at the Rescue Center of homeotherm wildlife of Puglia Region, sited in the National Natural History Museum of Salento. In the last 12 years she contributed to rescuing and rehabilitating mostly wild mammals and birds of prey.

She holds a Master degree in Science and Management of Nature at the University of Bologna. Her thesis focuses on the landscape of fear and the analysis of human disturbance on wild ungulates at the Grimsö research area in Sweden. During her master she spent three months at the Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple-Use Landscapes of Central Europe in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany).

Enrica spent a year as National Civic Service volunteer leading guided tours at the National Natural History Museum of Salento among other activities. This expedience ignited her passion for communicating science and conservation.

Speaking of nature and passions, her areas of interest are wildlife-human coexistence and conflicts, apex predators’ conservation and wildlife education.

Bérénice Guinel

Enterprise Officer

Born and raised in Paris, Berenice first studied Economics & Business, obtaining a Master degree at Sciences Po Paris, and then worked in varied places (San Francisco, Hong Kong, Paris). She then decided to dedicate herself to nature conservation and studied it from a human sciences perspective, earning the Master degree ‘Forest, Nature and Society’ at Agro Paris Tech.

Mountain lover who marvels at the living world, Berenice tries to act concretely towards a world more inclusive of all living beings. While working at different jobs, she has always been volunteering in various environmental associations and agroecological farms, attempting to raise awareness in many different ways.

In 2022, she came to Abruzzo for 6 months to research the coexistence model between bears and humans for her thesis. While volunteering for Rewilding Apennines, she felt aligned with their approach to rewilding. With a strong anthropological approach, she is now working as an Enterprise Officer, supporting the human dimension of coexistence, notably organizing Rewilding Experiences with local stakeholders. A large part of her job is also dedicated to field actions, contributing to wildlife monitoring and coexistence practices.

Giulia Pace

Finance and Administration Officer

Giulia was born in Pescara, on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Since she was a little girl, she has found the source of her well-being in direct contact with nature, plants and animals.

She has a BSc in Economy and Administration of Enterprises and an MSc in Economy and Commerce at Gabriele D’Annunzio University of Pescara. During her university career she spent a period of study abroad, in Germany. This experience was very precious for her personal growth and an opportunity to learn foreign languages.

Her love for nature led her to spend much of her time in the mountains of her region, where she got in touch with the association Salviamo l’Orso: she became a member and a volunteer, contributing to several environmental conservation actions.

Since 2021, she is a board member of the association Stazione Ornitologica Abruzzese (Ornithological Station of Abruzzo) and takes part in conservation and monitoring projects targeting habitats and endangered species.

In 2022, Giulia became a member of the Rewilding Apennines team, as the Finance and Administration Officer. She takes to heart the mission of the organization to make Europe a wilder place, starting from her beloved Central Apennines – turning her passion into her job.

Julien Leboucher

Field Officer

Julien was born on June 29th, 1988 at Mont Saint Martin in France, and shortly after, when he was less than 1 year old, moved to Raiano, a small town in Abruzzo. Since his childhood, he has been fascinated by the mountains and the wild nature of these places.

Julien is an environmental hiking guide in the region. Through his job he aims at spreading knowledge and respect for the natural heritage of the central Apennines to tourists and visitors.

For many years, he has been a volunteer and member of Salviamo l’Orso, an environmental NGO that works for the protection of Marsican brown bears; he also collaborates with the team of Rewilding Apennines as an Assistant to the Bear Ambassador. The Marsican brown bear is a species he is really fond of and he considers it as the symbol of the Apennine wilderness. He believes these animals need to be defended and protected through concrete actions, reinforcing the viability and the safety of wildlife corridors and improving human-bear relations.

Nicolò Borgianni

Vulture field officer

Nicolò was born at Tivoli in 1988. In 2016 he graduated with a MSc in Biodiversity and Management of Ecosystems at the University of Rome 3 with a thesis about two autochthonous snakes’ populations in the case of presence of the American bullfrog.

In 2017 he collaborated with the Bavarian Forest National Park to study the populations of Eurasian lynx and ungulates by using camera traps. In 2018 he worked with the Monti Simbruini Regional Park at the monitoring of Apennines wolf, Marsican brown bear and ungulates.

Since 2019 he has been working at the Monti Simbruini Regional Park as project manager of the Reptile Project of the Park, by monitoring the reptile species of the territory and by carrying out dissemination initiatives in order to sensitize local communities about their ecological importance.

Fond of nature and photography, Nicolò has been working as environmental guide since years. He strongly believes that educating the general public to the natural processes is fundamental to guarantee the future coexistence between man and nature and the biodiversity conservation.

Pietrantonio Costrini

Bear Ambassador

Pietrantonio Costrini was born in Avezzano (L’Aquila province) in 1977. He graduated with a degree in Natural Sciences and Biology and worked for three years at the Department of Vegetable Genetics at the University of Bologna. Here he achieved a master of science degree in Applied Vegetable Genetics.

From 2011 to 2014, Pietrantonio worked as a freelance consultant, collaborating with WWF Italy on the European project “Life Arctos”, working on the distribution and installation of wildlife damage-prevention measures, focusing on those caused by the Marsican brown bear.

Currently, he collaborates with Salviamo l’Orso NGO and he works as a Bear Ambassador for Rewilding Apennines. Pietrantonio’s knowledge for bear conservation and wildlife-human conflict resolution means he is able to work towards the coexistence of local communities and wildlife in the Central Apennines.

Pietrantonio has always been fond of the natural world and believes that only through proactive engagement is it possible for future generations to inherit a healthier planet; a planet with balanced and well-managed ecological processes and reduced human consumerism.