Victoria LICHTSCHEIN

I am an Argentine biologist. In the early years of my career, I was a marine scientific researcher and worked mainly on whales, dolphins and penguins in my country. Later, I entered the national government and was Head of the Wildlife Agency, Secretariat for Natural Resources and Human Environment (currently Undersecretary for Environment and Sustainable Development) for 10 years (1992-2002) and Coordinator of Biodiversity Conservation in the same Ministry from 2002 to 2009.

In these capacities, I attended numerous international meetings and was involved in negotiations in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) among other international environmental agreements, especially in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), having attended many meetings of the Conference of the Parties, the Animals Committee and the Standing Committee, in which I represented Central, South America and the Caribbean region from 1994 to 2000 (attendance of meetings 34th to 43rd of the SC). I participated in the Convention on Biological Diversity, having attended numerous meetings of the Conference of the Parties and of the different convention bodies and working groups.

From 2016 to 2018, I acted as Director of International Relationships at the Ministry for Environment and Sustainable Development. I am a member of the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi), IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) and the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) since its inception (2012 to date). I am also a member of the Snake Specialist Group (SSC/SSC/IUCN), former Boa & Python Specialist Group (BPSG/SSC/IUCN), of which I was also the executive secretary (2018-2020).

I retired from the government in 2020 and I am currently the Acting Executive Director at Fundación Biodiversidad Argentina (April 2020 to date).