The Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) is a joint program of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), whose mission is to enhance environmental management and leadership capacity in the Neotropics and tropical Asia by offering capacity-building and networking opportunities to individuals whose decisions and actions influence the management of forests in working landscapes. Through applied, field-based courses, workshops and conferences, ELTI serves as an honest-broker of knowledge, allowing decision-makers and practitioners from diverse sectors of society to explore the technical, social, economic, policy and political dimensions of a variety of strategies employed to conserve forests, restore degraded lands and reduce major threats and impacts to forest ecosystems. ELTI also provides additional professional development opportunities to alumni from its training events with the intention of supporting and motivating them to put into practice what they have learned, thus closing the gap that oftentimes exists between capacity-building and conservation action.