BERTA MEDRANO

Founder and Director of the Gaia Association of El Salvador, an architect with a postgraduate degree in landscape analysis and territorial planning, specializing in executive and managerial leadership, management of biological corridors, protected natural areas (PNAs), biosphere reserves, women's leadership in conservation, and local development with a gender perspective.
She has extensive and solid experience of more than 20 years in ecosystem, biodiversity, and landscape conservation processes with a multi-level approach (community, national, trinational, and regional). She provides facilitation and training on issues related to the green agenda and environmental education and culture. She is a researcher in the fields of protected natural areas, gender, biodiversity, and landscapes. She facilitates empowerment and organizing processes for women (rural and cross-border), children, and youth. She also specializes in territorial defense with a gender and rights perspective and multi-level political advocacy. She also has experience in managing, leading, and implementing multi-stakeholder, women's, and multi-level networks, and participates in local, national, and regional public policymaking processes.
Speaker and lecturer at at least 30 national and international conferences related to: Protected Natural Areas, Biological Corridors, biosphere reserves, women and conservation, women and the environment, water, environmental education, climate change, among others.
Specialist in the following conventions and treaties: CCAD operational framework, SICA, Trifinio Treaty-CTPT-Trifinio Strategic Plan. As well as the framework conventions: Biological Diversity, Climate Change, Protected Areas, UNESCO-MaB, and CITES. Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC); Montecristo Trinational Biological Corridor (MBTC); and Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (TFBR).
Member of the Women's Nucleus, Coordination Coordinator, national liaison for El Salvador of the Latin American and Caribbean Women in Conservation Network. Active member of the Women in Conservation Caucus. She is a member of the Defense and Management Committee of the Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve, the Management Committee of the Montecristo Trinational Biological Corridor, and the Women's Network of the Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve.
As part of her duties as Executive Director of GAIA, she has been appointed as a liaison for various multi-level platforms and networks, where she has held the following positions:
Coordinator of the Coordinating Council of the Defense and Management Committee of the Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve, El Salvador (2016 to 2021).
President of the Management Committee of the Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (2012-2016).
President of the Advisory Committee of the Trinational Commission of the Trifinio Plan (CCPT) (2012-2016).
President and Coordinator of the Alliance for the Conservation of the Trifinio Region (2009-2015)
Coordinator of the Mesoamerican Network for Conservation on Private Lands (2006-2009)
Member of the National Liaison Committee of the Montecristo Trinational Biological Corridor (CBTM) (2016-2020)