designers and educators from research and development centers for carbon-constrained lifestyles. Gaia Education supports the delivery programmes in 55 countries, taking place in settings ranging from tribal and traditional communities to intentional ecovillages, and from urban slum to universities and R&D centres. Since 2010 May East has developed a series of Project-Based Learning activities supporting indigenous and migrant communities and their traditions to survive in rapidly changing environments while enhancing their opportunities to become the designers of their desired future. The projects promote integrated approaches to land management for healthier soils, nutritional yields and enhanced climate resilience. May was included three years in a row (2011, 2012, 2013) in the 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders list, devised and produced by Ken Hickson, Chairman/CEO of Sustain Ability Showcase Asia and ABC Carbon. The list recognises 100 people around the world who have provided leadership in the field of sustainability. May East received in 2019 the Women of the Decade in Sustainability & Leadership Award presented by the Women Economic Forum and All Ladies League. Spatial Planner 2000 - present A UNITAR Fellow she has an MSc in Spatial Planning with specialisation in integrated approaches for the regeneration of abandoned towns in southern Italy, which makes the case for the reactivation of abandoned settlements, the so-called ghost towns in southern Europe, as an alternative housing solution that comes with embedded collective memory and offers ‘locally adaptable, culturally rooted’ opportunities for communities. She has contributed a chapter of her findings to the book From Conflict to Inclusion in Housing: Interaction of Communities, Residents and Activists. May is one of the co-founders of the Global Ecovillage Network and has lived for 15 years in the Findhorn Ecovillage where she established a new strand of Education for Sustainable Development offered to numerous university and school groups as well as by professional organisations and municipalities worldwide. May supported placing ecovillages in the UN agenda by weaving institutional and technical alliances with UNESCO, UNITAR, UN-Habitat and ECOSOC. She is also co-founder and mentor of the ‘eco-bairros’ – eco-neighbourhoods movement in Brazil. She was an active Transition Town trainer since 2008, conducting trainings in China, Thailand, Israel, Portugal, Brazil, India, Senegal, Italy, Chile and UK, and facilitating participatory scenario planning, back-casting and climate change awareness raising activities with fragile and marginalised communities. As a spatial planner she investigates and promotes the revisited role of women in urban design