Madhu Sarin
Madhu Sarin is the President on the Executive Committee (EC) of Vasundhara. Since the early 1980s, she has worked on rural development planning centered on democratic decentralisation of natural resource management, participatory and sustainable forest management and gender justice and women’s empowerment, combining grass roots work with advocacy for policy changes at the state and national levels. Madhu Sarin has written extensively on urban, rural, environmental and gender justice issues with papers published in both international and national books and journals. She has also served on several committees appointed by the Government of India and task forces of the Planning Commission. She is a member of the drafting committee and Technical Support Group appointed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, for the Tribal and Forest Dwellers (Forest Rights) Bill. She is also actively associated with the National Campaign for Survival and Dignity. In addition to being on the governing board of several NGOs in India, such as Viksat, AKRSP and Sutra, she also serves on the boards of Regional Community Forestry Training Center (Bangkok) and IIED, UK. Madhu has been a member of Vasundhara’s EC from 1995, and has also been actively undertaking research in Orissa from early 1990s. She has extensive understanding of issues relating to forests, tribal land rights, and forest governance in Orissa; and provides extensive advisory inputs to Vasundhara’s interventions.

Neera M. Singh
Neera Singh is a founder-member and is currently functioning as Vice-President on the Executive Committee (EC) of Vasundhara. She has been engaged for several years with community forestry issues in Orissa; and has experience of research on self-initiated community forestry initiatives, gender and equity issues, and of policy advocacy and networking around forest based livelihood issues. She is pursuing a Ph.D. degree with the Michigan State University, USA and is currently at an advanced stage of her dissertation research on community forestry federations in Orissa. 

S. K. Pattanaik
Mr. S.K. Pattanaik is a social activist and a researcher working on social issues in Orissa for the last 17 years.

Manoj Pattanaik
Dr. Manoj Pattanaik is currently Director, Center for Forestry and Governance, has been working on Natural Resource Management especially Forestry and Livelihood issues in Orissa for around 15 years. He has worked extensively on Community Forestry issues and networking of CFM groups. He has also wide experiences on water related issues. He is a founding member of Regional Centre for Development Cooperation. He has published several papers on his work and has also worked on a book on Community Forest Management in Orissa, supported by OXFAM (India). He has done his Doctorate in Social Work from Women's Studies Research Centre, Berhampur University. 

Dr. Angana Chatterji
Angana Chatterji is the Associate Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. With over 17 years of work experience on development issues in India and abroad, she has been active in research and action on issues of community forestry, public lands reform and communalism in Orissa. She specializes in the areas of social change, environmental management, livelihood, development planning and policy assessment, gender and social rights, applied and action research. Published extensively, she also serves on the Board of Directors of Earth Island Institute and International Rivers Network., and has been associated with the Asia Forest Network, University of California as the Director of Research.  Angana came on board in January 2005.

Ashish Kothari
Ashish Kothari is a founder-member of Kalpavriksh, an environmental action group, based at Pune. Ashish has extensive experience with conservation and livelihood issues in India. He coordinated the Technical and Policy Core Group, constituted to formulate India’s National Bio-diversity and Conservation Strategies. He is also a member of the expert group involved in drafting the Indian Biological Diversity Bill and the National Wildlife action plan; and is a member of the expert commissions of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). He is also actively associated with the people’s movement like “Narmada Bachao Andolan”. He has extensive publications on Environment and Development issues.

Prasant Mohanty
Prasant Mohanty is functioning as the Assistant Director of Vasundhara. He has been engaged for many years on institutional issues relating to community forestry and sustainable livelihood interventions. He is leading the Community Empowerment Initiatives (Ranpur) team. His expertise lies in facilitating and strengthening community forestry federation, strengthening forest based livelihood options for marginalized poor and sustainable agriculture practices. He is also involved in visual documentation of community development initiatives. His academic portfolio includes Masters degree in Development Planning and Administration from University of Pune  Prior to this, he worked with alternative education and watershed approaches.

Y.Giri Rao
Y. Giri Rao is leading the thematic team-conservation and Livelihood within Vasundhara and is one of the senior members of Vasundhara, he joined in 1995. Prior to this he worked with Gram Vikas, Mohuda for five years. He has a number of years of experience of working with communities at grass roots on education, health and marketing the rural products. Having a highly inquisitive mind, he was initially involved in research on institutional issues and was also actively associated with Orissa Jungle Manch, a state level federation formed for advocating forestry issues in Orissa. Of late he is more into policy research and advocacy on conservation and livelihood issues, alliance building and media advocacy. Along with being a Treasurer of Vasundhara he is also the staff representative in Executive Committee