Raffaele Sindoni Saposhnik

Raffa is a Master of Environmental (MEM) candidate at Yale’s School of the Environment, focusing on ecosystem health, environmental sociology and justice, and regenerative agriculture. He is passionate about understanding the way humans relate with nature, so that he may support pathways for environmental and sociological regeneration after centuries of exploitation, oppression, and extraction. As an important part of his philosophy, Raffa believes that any environmental movements must move in lockstep with strong land-back movements to restore stolen land to America’s First Nations. He currently works in Dr. Justin Farrell’s lab on Western Land & Peoples, where he supports Tribal data-empowerment solutions and researches First Nation involvement in carbon-offsetting markets.  At Yale, Raffa is also a Data Scientist for the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) and an Agroforester for the Yale Sustainable Food Program. In his free time, Raffa teaches meditation, rock climbs, paints watercolor, and plays a six-hole wooden flute.

In a multi-decade effort, California’s largest federally recognized Nation, the Yurok Tribe, has re-possessed more than 57,000 acres of ancestral land, which was made possible, in part, by the Tribe’s participation in California’s carbon offsetting program. Raffaele will be working directly for the Yurok Carbon Projects Team to provide policy recommendations and environmental expertise on forestry strategies, climate change, natural carbon capture, circular economies, silvicultural applications, and more. Through the YCEJ fellowship, Raffaele will support the Yurok’s ongoing efforts to reclaim the Tribe’s remaining land through carbon sequestration.