Patricia Arenas González

Patricia has an interdisciplinary background in environmental sciences and policy and is passionate about preventing further ecosystem conversion and degradation in the tropics.

Prior to joining Proforest, she worked as a Forest Programme Officer at WWF Spain where she designed, implemented, and monitored forest landscape restoration projects and coordinated volunteering and outreach activities with project donors and local communities. Before working at WWF, she aided the Global Environment Facility’s Blue Forests Project while interning at GRID-Arendal UNEP Collaborating Centre in Norway. Her passion to actively support forest conservation has led her to participate in research projects in countries such as Chile, where she worked towards the adequate management of Nothofagus antarctica in northern Patagonian degraded forests and in Mexico, where she assessed the mitigation potential of a five-year-old restored mangrove ecosystem in the Biosphere Reserve of Sian Ka’an. She has also led socioecological research workshops in South Africa to determine appropriate conservation strategies whilst improving the livelihoods of three villages within the Limpopo Region.

Patricia holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering with a major in Protected Areas and Species Management and a joint master’s degree in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management (MESPOM) from the University of Manchester (UK), Central European University (Austria) and the University of the Aegean (Greece).