Maria Belén Páez

Belén Páez (she/her) is an Ecuadorian ecologist with a master's degree in ecosystem approaches for managing the natural environment from the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía, Spain. She is a specialist in Climate Change, the Amazon and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Currently she is Director at Fundación Pachamama, created to protect the Amazon and promote the rights and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. For over 25 years she has led implementation programs based on the economies of forests, ecotourism, renewable energies, the protection and conservation of tropical forests, legal actions and programs in defense of territorial and collective rights and the rights of nature, climate justice and programs dedicated to improving maternal health care.

Recently, she is collaborating with the COBALT institute in actions to incorporate bioregionalism to promote ecosystem transitions, new measurement systems, and adaptive learning for the permanent protection of the Amazon.

Belén also serves as the secretary responsible for the implementation of the strategy of the Bioregional Plan of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative that aims to protect 35 million hectares on the border between Ecuador and Peru in collaboration with 30 Amazonian nationalities.

At the moment she is part of the Board of Directors of Protection International PI in Brussels, the National Environmental Fund of Ecuador FIAS, and is an advisor to several communication platforms and international campaigns for the protection of the Amazon.