Mozambique Team Leads
All operations are managed and run by local staff. FFMOZ has paid particular attention to female empowerment and has been able to recruit women to lead operations. FFMOZ counts on about 20 colleagues, including a series of BSc Forestry Engineers.
Key management staff members have been sent from Mozambique to Brazil to learn from leading forestry firms on how to prepare, plant, and nurture seedlings and young forests. Staff from Brazil have been traveling to Mozambique to complement and oversee gearing up of operations.
Fernancia Cariorio
Administration Manager
Naftal Boa
Operations Manager
Hélder Domingos Francisco
Land Preparation Supervisor
Margarida Samuel Meneses
Planting Supervisor
Fernância Cariório is an environmental and forest-resource specialist with a degree in Forestry Engineering and additional training in QGIS spatial analytics. She currently serves as Planning Manager at Fazenda Floresta Moçambique, where she oversees operational planning, logistics, team coordination, and performance monitoring. Her previous experience includes field research, agro-project planning, and independent entrepreneurial work. She is skilled in GIS tools, environmental management, and biological pest-control research.
Naftal Boa is an agriculture and environment protection professional with extensive experience in project development, field inspection and farm-level management. With training in environmental management, agro-livestock production and agriculture, he has held roles in production, irrigation systems installation, pesticide application and technical assistance across multiple organizations. At Fazenda Floresta Moçambique he overseas all machinery and general operations.
Hélder Francisco is a lecturer and field coordinator with academic training in disaster-risk management, agro-livestock engineering and human-resource administration. His professional background spans teaching at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and ISCED, and agricultural extension work, along with experience in research design and GIS tools. At Fazenda Floresta Moçambique he overseas land preparation and irrigation, and he has been trained in agricultural drone spraying.
Margarida Meneses is a professional trained in agro-industrial sciences, with secondary and middle-level studies completed in Salamanga. She has gained hands-on experience through internships at the Instituto Agro-Industrial de Salamanga and the NGO VIDA, where she also participated in youth development and capacity-building programs. She is fluent in Portuguese, with working ability in English and Changana. At Fazenda Floresta Moçambique she overseas planting and quality control.
External Consultants
Local management but strong and experienced support from global experts based in Brazil and South Africa.
Dr Diana Rietz
Diana Rietz is a South African soil scientist and forestry specialist with deep experience in plantation systems and long-term site productivity. She holds a PhD focusing on the effects of compaction and residue management in commercial forestry plantations in KwaZulu-Natal. She has worked with organisations such as the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR) and currently serves as a consultant with LandMax Consulting, where she advises on land-use planning, soil health, and forestry operations.
Paul Viero
Paul Viero is a South African forestry specialist with extensive experience at Mondi, particularly in plantation management and seedling establishment in KwaZulu-Natal. He worked for the ICFR for 8 years doing eucalyptus re-establishment research working under Dr. Keith Little. He has collaborated with research partners like FABI and contributed to applied studies on eucalypt planting methods and early-growth performance, combining strong field experience with solid technical insight.
