The Board of Trustees of the Biodiversity Foundation, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, has approved the creation of an Advisory Council as a consultative and advisory body regarding the programming and execution of the Foundation’s activities.

The Board of Trustees of the Biodiversity Foundation, chaired by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Federico Ramos, has approved the creation of an Advisory Council as a consultative and advisory body regarding the programming and execution of the Foundation’s activities.

The Advisory Council is made up of 15 professionals from various sectors, related to their aims and principles of action.

The members of the Board participate in their personal capacity, based on their merits and professional career, and do not represent the entity or company in which they work. Their functions will be consultation and advice, and they carry out their activity on a voluntary basis.

As representatives of the field of science and knowledge, Carlos Duarte, a researcher linked to oceanography and limnology; Fernando Valladares, a biologist focused on the ecology of natural systems affected or threatened by global change; Juan Luis Arsuaga, palaeontologist and Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research; and José Luis de Miguel, a physicist, whose career is linked to the General Foundation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

In the environmental field, the Advisory Council will be made up of Achim Steiner, economist, currently Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, specialist in economic development, territorial planning and environmental policies; Jeremy Wates, with a long career in the Aarhus Convention and currently Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB); Lynda Mansson, an economist who is active in the European Environment Donor Group, currently Director General of the MAVA Foundation; Víctor Viñuales, sociologist, co-founder and Executive Director of Ecology and Development (ECODES); and Xavier Pastor, marine biologist, Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Oceana in Europe.

In the economic field, the following will be members of the Advisory Board: Antonio Abril, an official of the State Lawyers Corps, currently linked to Inditex, where he is Secretary of the Board of Directors and its Executive Committee, Director and General Secretary; Valentín Alfaya, Director of Quality and Environment at the Ferrovial Group, has a PhD in Biology dedicated to the construction, infrastructure and services sector; Alicia Torrego, a physicist who directs the organization of the National Congress of the Environment (CONAMA); and Luis Rivera, Director of the José Manuel Entrecanales Foundation, for innovation in sustainability.

Finally, two members specialized in the field of communication have been appointed, Juan Luis Cano, journalist, President of the Gomaespuma Foundation, which works on early childhood education programs for children living in situations of social and family precariousness in Nicaragua and Sri Lanka; and Carmen Bieger, Executive Director of the Antena 3 Foundation, a jurist linked to the field of communication in different organizations.