Our people

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: matt.bovelander@indufor-ap.com

Matt Bovelander, Senior Consultant Bio Solutions, holds an MSc (first class honours) from the University of Auckland and a Graduate Diploma in Business (Management) from Massey University.

Matt Bovelander has worked for many years in forest industry consulting bringing a wealth of experience-based solutions to a broad range of client challenges from Asia to West Africa and the Americas. Typical assignments include market research, feedstock assessment, technology evaluation, due diligence and project feasibility assessment for a wide range of clients covering forest industry investors, lenders, project developers and trading houses.

Specifically, Mr Bovelander’s Bio Solutions focus has concentrated primarily on biomass (e.g. wood chips, wood pellets and EFB pellets) for energy generation as well as agricultural feedstocks for biofuels (e.g. oil palm and jatropha for biodiesel and sugar cane for bioethanol). More recently Mr Bovelander has been involved in biomass assessments in support of bio-based economies, biomass price forecasting for utilities and evaluating the viability of short-rotation woody crops for biomass production in South East Asia.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: chaplin.chan@indufor-ap.com

Chaplin Chan strengthens the team with his expertise in land cover change detection, working with remote sensing products. With a strong IT background, he is responsible for the development of customised processing routines within a GIS and remote sensing environment using cloud-computing (and local) platforms. He has extensive experience mapping temporal changes across forested landscapes. Chaplin has played a pivotal role in managing the capture and integration of various (airborne and space-borne) datasets to improve resource management decisions. He has extensive project experience throughout Oceania, Asia, and North and South America. Chaplin gained his BSc double major in Geography and Computer Science (2010) and a BSc (Hons) in Geography, specialising in GIS and remote sensing (2011) from Auckland University, New Zealand. He is fluent in English and Cantonese.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: callum.haward@indufor-ap.com

Callum Haward gained experience in spatial analysis from his background in biosciences and geography, using GIS across a variety of environments to investigate landcover change and vegetation distribution.

At Indufor, he works closely alongside the team to coordinate projects encompassing GIS mapping and data analytics.

Callum completed his BSc in June 2023, with a dissertation focussed on determining how significantly the resolution of remotely sensed data impacts the classification accuracy of mangrove forests in Guyana, South America. Callum holds a BSc in Natural Sciences from Durham University, England (2023), where he specialised in Biosciences and Geography.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: andrew.holdaway@indufor-ap.com

Andrew Holdaway has a background in remote sensing and GIS, with experience in the monitoring of natural features using a range of optical data. With a background in coastal geomorphology, he has an interest in applying emerging geospatial technologies and techniques. Andrew’s recent research has focused on large-scale change detection with Landsat data using Google Earth Engine, gaining an MSc (first class honours) in 2018 from the University of Auckland.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: bill.lu@indufor-ap.com

Bill Lu, Senior Consultant and General Manager, China Operations, is certified as a Senior Advisor in International Business, Beijing (2000). He additionally holds a Master of Arts of English Literature and Tourism Management, Nankai University, China (1988).

His expertise includes timberland investment and management advisory services, strategic planning and execution for both Western investors in China and Chinese investors overseas; project management of large forest inventory and appraisal projects in China; best forest management practices; fibre supply analysis, forest product and market analysis, forest management information system (FMIS), forest inventory, and forest resource due diligence and assessment. . He oversees new business and market development in China, including Hong Kong. He has a good knowledge of China's forest industry, its policies, investment environment, and practices. He is also involved in development of procedures for assessment and valuation of Chinese forest resources. He has worked in Oceania, North America, South America and Southeast Asia. He is fluent in Mandarin and English.

Mr Lu is a registered forestry consultant of New Zealand Forestry Institute.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: abdullah.madawi@indufor-ap.com

Abdullah Madawi has a background in applied mathematics and geophysics completing his MSc in 2019. He works in the Resource Monitoring team at Indufor, utilising his proficiency in programming and analysing large datasets within local and cloud-based environments. Abdullah's MSc research investigated the temporal and spatial variability of Antarctic Bottom Water pathways using a Lagrangian particle tracking tool.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: indufor@induforgroup.com

André Neumann has a Bachelor of Forestry Science (Hons) from the University of Canterbury (1983) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business from Massey University.

André’s experience in the forestry and wood products sector spans all aspects of the industry. He has expertise in due diligence teams, domestic and international log markets, sawmill benchmarking, forest resource management and modeling.

He has particular strengths in the sawmilling and panels sectors.

André has worked extensively in both New Zealand and Australia, as well as in Japan, Taiwan, China, the United States, Indonesia, Korea, Brazil, Uruguay, Malaysia (Sabah) and the Solomon Islands.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: indufor@induforgroup.com

Melissa Nicol, Senior Consultant to Indufor Asia Pacific, has a Bachelor of Forestry Science (Hons) from the University of Canterbury. Melissa has over 10 years of consulting experience in valuations, acquisitions and disposals and project management. She has forestry assessment expertise gained from a New Zealand-based large forestry and wood processing corporate. Her responsibilities included resource analysis and valuation, business strategy, and mergers and acquisition work in both forests and processing facilities. Melissa’s work has also encompassed financial decision support and Information Services relationship management involving contract negotiations with customers and vendors. She has worked extensively in New Zealand and Australia as well as in China.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: david.nicoll@indufor-ap.com

David Nicoll, Senior Consultant Forest Resources, holds a Bachelor of Forestry Science from the Australian National University (1996).

David has more than 20 years’ experience in forestry management, initially with Australia's pine plantation estates and then Indonesia's fast-growing hardwood estates. David's tropical forestry expertise covers planning and management of planted forest systems, from community to industrial scales, and a range of crops including fast-growing hardwoods, teak, sago palm, and agroforestry systems. David has broad experiences working with large corporates, consulting firms, and donor agency projects in these climes, over a period of 15 years. A significant component of David's experience is with business feasibility (quantitative resource assessment, operational feasibility and financial viability) for start-up forestry projects, often in remote locations, and then leading teams through the challenging business start-up phases. These experiences also encompassed community and government engagement processes, regulatory compliance, and policy interpretation.

David has international experience across Australia, New Zealand, SE Asia, China plus some limited project work in Mozambique. David is now based in New Zealand but retains a strong interest to resolve the decline of peatland forests in Indonesia, and cares deeply about the associated impacts on the surrounding communities and peatland biota.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: rosa.rivaspalma@indufor-ap.com

Ms Rivas Palma, Senior Consultant, Forestry and Climate Change, holds a PhD in Forest Environmental and Social Valuation (2008) and a Master’s degree in Forestry Science (MForSc distinction) (2000) from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand). Rosa’s expertise is in the provision of technical and policy advice on climate change issues as related to Land-Use Change and the Forestry sector. This includes greenhouse gas inventories and projections. Rosa is a qualified UNFCCC inventory expert reviewer. She has professional working experience in Asia, New Zealand, Africa and South America. Rosa is fluent in Spanish and English.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: tim.ross@indufor-ap.com

Mr Ross holds an MSc Degree (Forest Science) and a BSc Degree (Forest Science) from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He has recently joined the Indufor team in Auckland and comes with 15-years of industry experience. He has a strong background in Forest Planning, GIS and Research in both pine sawtimber and Eucalypt sawtimber and pole plantations in South Africa and East Africa. Prior to joining Indufor, Tim was the Group Head of Planning for an integrated East African forestry company and managed the Planning and Research teams in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: kevin.tao@indufor-ap.com

With a solid forestry background, Kevin Tao has a wealth of experience across a range of disciplines including resource inventory, forest modeling and analysis, harvest planning, transportation networks and resource mapping using GIS and remote sensing. He applies this knowledge to forest valuation and due diligence projects throughout South America, Oceania and Asia. Kevin received his Bachelor of Forestry Engineering degree from Canterbury University, New Zealand (2011). He is fluent in Mandarin and English.

Location: New Zealand

Position: Experts

Email: chen.yang@indufor-ap.com

Proficient in the field of GIS and environmental management, Chen Yang specialises in deriving and interpreting information from spatial data and satellite imagery. His expertise lies in data integration, land use mapping, land cover mapping, LiDAR data analysis to validate and update plantation information systems - a key forest valuation and due diligence input. Chen has experience in Oceania, Asia and South America and has been involved in valuations and FMIS development projects in China. He was awarded his Bachelor of Forestry Science from the University of Canterbury (2008), New Zealand and a Postgraduate Diploma of Environmental Science (2013) from Auckland University, New Zealand. He is fluent in Mandarin and English.