Yongjun Zhao studied social anthropology and environment and society at the University of Natal (now KwaZulu Natal) and the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is project manager and researcher at the Centre for Development Studies, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He now manages a land policy reform project focusing on tenure security and land title registration. He was the governance adviser to the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and an executive director of an NGO in China for several years. As a development practitioner and researcher, he has extensive experience in rural governance and development, community forestry, integrated water resources management, community-based nature conservation, land reform, climate change and civil society development in China, South Africa and Vietnam.