Juan Mayr's

Member, Board of Trustees
Colombia
Joined April 2006

Juan Mayr's passion for environmental issues started in 1976, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on the northern coast of Colombia. He established a local NGO, Fundación Pro-Sierra, to work with indigenous and peasant communities for environmental protection and indigenous territorial rights. Mayr promoted the concept of shared bioregional management. This led to greater awareness about the Sierra Nevada region and received international recognition: the Dunning Prize, the Goldman Environmental Prize, and the Parker-Gentry Award for Conservation Biology.

Mayr is renowned for promoting decentralization and regionalization of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), where he has served as Vice-President and as Latin American Regional Representative. He was responsible for raising the profile and the decision-making powers of National and Regional Committees, and for establishing IUCN Regional Congresses.

Mayr was appointed Minister for Environment in Colombia in 1998. As Minister, he worked closely with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and participated actively in the reform process; in February 2002 he presided over the Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF) in Cartagena, which proposed measures to strengthen UNEP in the light of outcomes from the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

In 2003, Mayr was selected as a Member of the UN Secretary General's Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Relations; and afterwards was invited to join the Blue Ribbon Panel for environmental policy advice to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He is currently advisor to UNDP in Colombia.

Mayr is a member of the Programme Committee on the ICRAF Board