Tony Rinaudo

Rinaudo is the subject of a 2022 documentary by German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff called 'The Forest Maker'. which was shown at the Film Without Borders film festival in Bad Saarow Germany 2022.

Since 1999 he has worked for World Vision Australia in several roles, initially as a Program Officer and now as Principal Climate Action Advisor.

Since joining World Vision Australia in 1999, Rinaudo initiated and/or oversaw important land regeneration projects, worldwide. Serving now as Principal Climate Action Advisor, he promotes forestry and agro-forestry initiatives globally within the World Vision partnership, and beyond, for example in East Timor and Ethiopia.

Following University and Bible College, Rinaudo served initially at a Farm School/Preparatory Bible College in Maradi, Niger and later in the Maradi Integrated Development Project with the Sudan Interior Mission, now known as SIM from 1981 to 1999.

Rinaudo served as an agriculturalist and missionary with 'Serving in Mission' in Niger Republic from 1981 to 1999. There, he oversaw long-term rural development and periodic, large-scale relief programs. In this Sahel region of Niger, where tree-planting efforts were failing, he "discovered root systems remained alive underground, even in the harshest, desert-like landscapes. To encourage the 'underground forest' to grow into trees, he just needed to prune and manage the tree shoots. He inspired farmers to carry on this work over the years. Rinaudo's pioneering technique is called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, or FMNR." The FMNR website describes the technique as a "low-cost land restoration technique used to combat poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers by increasing food and timber production and resilience to climate extremes". He consequently earned the nickname "the Forest Maker". At the UN's global climate talks in Katowice, Poland, in 2018, it was recognised that "6M hectares of land have been regenerated under [Rinaudo's] FMNR, totalling 240M trees [and that] the reforestation of the landscape can be seen on satellite images from space".

Anthony Thomas (Tony) Rinaudo AM (born 19 January 1957) is an Australian agriculturalist and missionary.