Ms. Yolanda Kakabadse Navarro

Ms. Yolanda Kakabadse Navarro is Executive President of Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano. Previously she was President of IUCN, the World Conservation Union. She is a member of the Board of the World Resources Institute, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the Ford Foundation. In addition Ms. Kakabadse serves as advisor to the President of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and is a member of the Advisory Board of INBio. Her nexus with the environmental conservation movement officially began in 1979, when she was appointed Executive Director of Fundación Natura in Quito, where she worked until 1990. Ms. Kakabadse helped Fundación Natura become one of Latin America's most important environmental NGOs in Ecuador. Since 1990 and until 1992, Ms Kakabadse coordinated the participation of civil society organizations in the United Nations Conference for Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1993 she founded Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano, NGO where she acts as Executive President. In August 1998 she was appointed Minister of Environment for the Republic of Ecuador, position she held until January 2000. She served on the Board of Directors of the World Wide Fund International from 1995 to 1997. Ms. Kakabadse has received numerous awards including the Insignia of the National Order for Merit as a Commissioned Officer for the Republic of Ecuador, the Global 500 Award of the United Nations Environment Program, and the Golden Ark Order, bestowed by Prince Bernard of The Netherlands. She currently lives in Quito, Ecuador.