News from the CEPA e-mail list

Ramsar's new Senior Regional Advisor for the Americas (01/03/07)

Good morning everyone:

The Secretariat is pleased to announce that María Rivera from Colombia has been selected as the next Senior Regional Advisor for the Americas, succeeding Margarita Astrálaga who will shortly take up the duties of Director of the IUCN Mediterranean Coordination Centre in Málaga, Spain.

In recent years María has contributed to the implementation of the Convention in the Neotropics, both in her position as Technical Officer at CREHO, the Ramsar regional initiative office in Panamá, and before that in her work at the Ministry of the Environment in Colombia. María received a Bachelors degree in Biology and Chemistry from the Universidad Libre de Colombia, and a Masters in Natural Resources Management from the Ezequiel Zamora National University, Venezuela. She has also both organized and participated in courses in wetland management, notably at the RIZA Institute for Inland Water Management in the Netherlands, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Ducks Unlimited. María has served as a member of the Wetlands Synthesis group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and since 2006 has been the member for the Neotropics of Ramsar's Scientific and Technical Review Panel.

The Ramsar Secretariat looks forward to welcoming María in May 2007.

http://ramsar.org/wn/w.n.staff_maria.htm

Best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat

********************************************************

Sandra Hails, CEPA Programme Officer
Ramsar Convention Secretariat
Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 999 0176; Fax: +41 22 999 0169
E-mail: hails@ramsar.org
Web Site: http://ramsar.org
CEPA mini-Web site: http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm

**********************************************************