José María Rey Benayas

President

José María is professor of ecology at the University of Alcalá and doctor from the Autonomous University of Madrid since 1990. His PhD thesis received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award. He did his post-doctorate at Northern Illinois University and at GeoEcoArc Research (United States) with a Fulbright grant. He has been a professor at the University of Alcalá since 1994. His research activity is focused on the restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. He received the 2019 Research Excellence Award from the UAH. He directs the Master’s Program in Ecosystem Restoration. With other colleagues from different countries, he founded the International Foundation for the Restoration of Ecosystems to transfer ecological academic knowledge to society.

Jordi Palau

Jordi is a forest engineer and M.Sc. in Natural Protected Areas. He has worked mainly in the fields of planning and management of natural spaces, biodiversity conservation, management of large domestic and wild herbivores, rural development, ecotourism and environmental education. He actively contributed to the creation of the only three protected areas in Andorra and was co-director of the LIFE project Pyrineu viu, focused on sustainable forest management of mountain forests. In 1996 he co-authored the book “Nature and ecotourism in Andorra: an option for the future”. He has advised some private nature reserves and managed several nature parks and national game reserves. He has visited different spaces in Africa, Eurasia and America, in some of which rewilding projects have been carried out. In 2020 he published with Lynx Edicions the book “Rewilding Iberia. Explorando el potencial de la renaturalización en España”, the first publication that extensively analyzes the science and practice of rewilding in Spain.

Marco Bolognini

Marco is a lawyer specialized in commercial and banking law that graduated in law from the Università di Bologna. He was a partner at Castro, Sueiro & Varela, worked at KPMG and in 2011 later founded MAIO Legal where he currently works. He was president of Globalaw, the International Network of Law Firms between 2017 and 2019, and currently chairs its foundation. In addition to being a lawyer, he is an enthusiast of writing, as a form of reflection. He publishes opinion articles at Expansión economic journal since 2008, and is the author of the Mínima Immoralia Blog.

Mara Zamora Crespo

General Manager

Mara is law graduate from the University of Valladolid with a specialization in the Comprehensive Management Development Program (PIDD) from ESIC Business School. She has spent a good part of her professional career in the field of foundations, with more than 15 years of experience in positions of responsibility. She has also been the academic director for Latin America of an online university and an independent consultant on higher education issues.

Pablo Schapira Pérez

Team Leader

Biologist with a degree from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Pablo specialised in science dissemination after studying a Master in Science Communication at Pompeu Fabra University. However, after a few years, his passion for conservation led him to study a Master in Biodiversity and later, to go as a volunteer to the Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There he was hired by the NGO African Parks as a Conservation Manager and spent more than 11 years in management positions in different National Parks in Ethiopia (Gambella National Park), Benin (Pendjari National Park) and Mozambique (Bazaruto Archipelago National Park).

Lidia Valverde Jiménez

Communications Officer

Lidia holds degrees in Journalism from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Psychology from UNED. She has developed most of her professional career in the communication and marketing fields for non-profit organizations related to economic development, innovation and sports. She has also worked for private companies and has carried out training and consulting projects related to equality and entrepreneurship initiatives.

Basilio Rodríguez García

Enterprise Officer

Basilio is a Technical Forest Engineer graduate from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and has been working in rural development programs for almost 20 years. He has worked in development cooperation in sectors related to forest management, fair trade, organic farming or renewable energy in Latin America, Asia and Africa. In Spain, he has carried out numerous forest management plans for public and private forests, also has cooperated in sustainable forest certification programs and is deeply involved in the development of the resin sector through training, research and consultancy.

Marina Mònico

Rewilding Officer

Biologist specialized in systems ecology and with a Master’s Degree in Biodiversity Management and Conservation (University of Barcelona). Passionate about large mammals, she has spent the last ten years working in different African national parks, always connected to field work in conservation areas, where she implemented monitoring and research programmes on populations of large terrestrial mammals. In addition, she has always worked hand in hand with communities and local governments, as main stakeholders in the role of protecting these species and their habitats.