Ramsar Bureau welcomes four new staff members
Four new staff members have joined the Ramsar secretariat in Gland, Switzerland, over the past month. The two new Regional Coordinators are Ms Margarita Astrálaga of Colombia, for the Americas, and Dr Tobias Salathé of Switzerland, for Europe. Two new interns are Ms Flor de Maria Salvador Perez of Peru, for the Americas and Alexander Belokurov of the Russian Federation, for Europe.
[l-to-r: Alexander Belokurov, Flor de Maria Salvador Perez, Secretary General Delmar Blasco,
Margarita Astrálaga, Tobias Salathé. Photo: D. Peck]
Regional Coordinator for the Americas
Ms Margarita Astrálaga, a citizen of Colombia, received her B.Sc in Biology and M.A. in Regional Planning and Development from Los Andes University in Bogotá, with additional studies in environmental management at the Water Quality Institute in Denmark. She served for eight years as Chief of Division in the Environment Department of INDERENA (Instituto Nacional de los Recursos Naturales y del Medio Ambiente) in Colombia, then for six years as a Programme Officer with UNEP in Nairobi; following that she served as Head of the Capacity Building Unit with CITES in Geneva, and then as a consultant for UNEP, the Inter-American Bank and the World Bank, and the Argentine Secretary of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development. She replaces Montserrat Carbonell, who has left the Bureau to join Ducks Unlimited, Inc., in Tennessee, USA.
Regional Coordinator for Europe
Dr Tobias Salathé, a Swiss national from Bâle, took his MSc. and PhD from Basle University and has worked with ICBP (now BirdLife International) and DG XI of the European Commission, among other posts, and most recently with the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat in Arles, France, which has long been a Ramsar partner and is presently one of the three secretariat units for the MedWet/Com administered by the Ramsar Bureau. Dr Salathé speaks and writes all of the Ramsar languages and German as well, and has authored a large number and variety of research reports and other publications. He replaces Tim Jones, who left the Bureau in mid-summer 1999.
Ramsar Intern for the Americas (Assistant to the Regional Coordinator for the Americas)
Ms Flor de Maria Salvador Perez, from Peru, has a bachelor of science degree in Botanical Science from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, and is currently in progress on her Master’s degree in Tropical Botany in the same university. She is also presently a collaborator in the university’s Laboratorio de Dicotiledóneas, Departamento de Botánica, Museo de Historia Natural. Ms Salvador will be assisting Ms Margarita Astrálaga, the secretariat’s new Regional Coordinator for the Americas, and replaces Ms Carmen Elena Padilla Velasco, who was Intern for the Neotropics during 1998-1999.
Ramsar Intern for Europe (Assistant to the Regional Coordinator for Europe
Mr Alexander ("Sasha") Belokurov from the Russian Federation has a Master of Science degree in Physics and Engineering from Moscow State Technical University and a Master of Environmental Management from the European Postgraduate Course in Environmental Management at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has already served as an Intern at Wetlands International-AEME in Wageningen and was most recently head of the Laboratory "Environmental Information and GIS" in the State Institute for Applied Ecology in Moscow. He replaces Ms Anett Zellei of Hungary.
