Jutta Kill is a biologist whose action-oriented research supports social movements in analysing and assessing new tendencies in nature conservation and environmental protection and their impact on communities for whom forests provide home and livelihood. Her research has documented the role of voluntary certification schemes, carbon markets and the new economy of nature in maintaining ecologically unequal trade, and the associated violation of human rights and rights to land and use of peoples’ traditional territories.

Since 2000, she has documented the local impacts of numerous carbon and biodiversity projects, in particular so-called REDD projects that market compensation credits. Combining field investigation with a critical analysis of the theoretical foundation and often-heard arguments in favour of these new conservation instruments, her work has presented why the trade with pollution permits is a false solution to the climate crisis.