Enrico Pironio is a retired official of the European Commission.  He holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural Engineering, Animal Husbandry from the Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux (Belgium). Former principal administrator of the Directorate General for Development in the EU, he has been responsible for Wildlife Conservation projects and programmes funded by the EU during 34 years. The most well known projects he has developed include among many others the ECOFAC Program for Central Africa, the PDRN program in CAR and the Virunga project in DRC. Prior to his assignement at the EU he has worked in the Livestock sector in Morocco, Central African Republic and in the Gambia. As a student at the university he has undertaken studies on the nutrition physiology of the common eland which has resulted in a thesis. A former rugby player, he now lives in the Friuli region, in the north east of Italy.