Yves Paiz Merino
Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Home country: Guatemala, Yale, environmental studies

I am a Guatemalan agronomist in Natural Resources Management from the National University of “San Carlos de Guatemala”. When I was a teenager, I traveled throughout my country, getting to know its nature and valuing the social dynamic that have been tailoring the land use. Since then I have had a passion for the nature and the use by humans has been a special topic of interest. As a result I started my professional life as a plant ecologist in multidisciplinary teams that participated in three “Rapid Ecological Assessment” –REA- at established or potentially established Protected Areas. This kind of exercises were followed by workshops were the reports of the REA were used as an input to define the management plan of the area with local partners. At this same period I worked as a consultant for The Nature Conservancy –TNC- as part of the team that developed the work plan for a World Bank development and conservation project at the Guatemalan western highlands called “Proyecto MIRNA” using their Ecoregional Planning tool. Later on I was called to work with the National Council for Protected Areas –CONAP-which is the governmental organization in charge of the implementation of policies and the management of the Guatemalan Protected Area System. I was first appointed as the Regional Subdirector of the North Eastern District and then as the Director of the Forest Management Department. During this time I learnt about legislation, policy from the governmental perspective. As Director of the Forest Management Department, I participated with the Guatemalan official delegation that attended the CITES´ 12th Conference of Parties at Santiago de Chile where I was in charge to lead the lobby process and present the successful proposal to enlist at the CITES appendix II the worthy timber species Big Leaf Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). Then I returned to work as consultant for TNC to prepare the work plan to initiate an Ecoregional Planning process at Mesoamerica (from southern Mexico to Panama) prior to initiate the master degree at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies -FES-. As a student at FES I have been actively involved in the student life as part of three Student Interest Groups as Co chair of the Latin American and since this semester of the Tropical Forestry groups and since this semester as treasurer of the Conservation Biology group. During this summer I did my internship at the “Laboratorio de Investigacion en Ecosistemas de Yungas” where I was interested to work in plant and landscape ecology at an academic level rather than a management one in a Latin American context similar to Guatemala.