Mrs Maria RIVERA

Senior Regional Advisor for the Americas, Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

Maria Rivera has 25 years of experience in national and international policy and on the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. She has worked in conservation and sustainable use of wetlands at national government and intergovernmental organizations.  At the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands, she leads global processes as SDGs and synergies with other Multilateral Environmental Agreements, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). At the regional level she advise and support the Contracting Parties on the effective implementation of the Convention in the Americas region. Before joining the Convention Secretariat she worked at the Ramsar regional Centre for Wetlands on the Western Hemisphere in Panama and before that worked at the Ministry of the Environment in Colombia. She has served as a member of the Wetlands Synthesis group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and member for the Ramsar's Scientific and Technical Review Panel.