STAGE 1 \ WEBINAR 
CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND BIOCULTURAL HERITAGE. 
Concepts and open questions.

a.abreu@unesco.org António Abreu is a biologist with a Marine Biology PhDC. He is the UNESCO Director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences and Secretary of the Man and Biosphere Programmeat UNESCO Headquarters, Paris. Before joining UNESCO, he was researcher and manager of the UNESCO Chair in Biodiversity and Conservation for Sustainable Development and of the Functional Ecology Centre of the University of Coimbra and Vice-President of the UNESCO MaBInternational Coordination Council. He has extensive experience as an environmental specialist in conservation, biodiversity, marine ecology, protected areas, environmental impact assessment, and environmental management. He was Regional Director of the Environment of the Regional Government of Madeira between 2000 and 2007. He was previously Director of the Municipal Museum of Funchal (Natural History), the Marine Biology Station of Funchal, and Vice-President of the Madeira Science and Technology Park. At the socio-professional level, he was President of the Association of Biologists between 2008 and 2014 and President of the European Countries Biologists Association. He has extensive international work experience, having worked for the past 25 years for UNESCO, UNDP, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, IFAD, and other agencies and governments in different countries in Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. In particular, regarding the MAB Programme and Biosphere Reserves, he previously worked at UNESCO as a Programme Specialist in the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences and was a member of the National MAB Committee of Portugal and coordinates the CPLP MAB network of Portuguese-speaking countries Biosphere Reserves and the project Biosphere Reserves, sustainable territories, resilient communities and was Vice-Chair of the Bureau of the MAB Programme International Coordination Council. He was Vice President of the European Network of Environment Councils, representing the Portuguese National Council for Environment and Sustainable Development.

Berta de Sancristóbal is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, one of France’s leading research institutions, where she specialised in contemporary political philosophy. She has worked at UNESCO since 2006, mainly in the Culture Sector. Berta was one of the editors of the UNESCO World Report: Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue (2009) and served for eight years in the Secretariat of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. She played an instrumental role in developing capacity-building strategies for Member States and supported the implementation of the Convention in regions such as West and Central Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her work also included monitoring the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund, and coordinating the development of a results framework for the Convention. In 2017, Berta joined the Secretariat of the 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions as coordinator of the UNESCO Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals. This programme focuses on artistic freedom, the protection of artists’ rights and the preferential treatment (a commitment by developed countries to artists, cultural professionals and cultural goods and services from developing countries). She later headed the Statutory Meetings and Research Unit and oversaw key publications, including the UNESCO Global Report Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity: Addressing Culture as a Public Good (2022). Since 2022, Berta has been Head of the Europe and North America Unit at the World Heritage Centre. She is responsible for monitoring the state of conservation of nearly half of the world’s World Heritage sites and has led the development of the 2024-2031 Europe and North America World Heritage Regional Action Plan. She has also contributed to the production of key technical documents such as the Guidance for Wind Energy Projects in a World Heritage Context (2023).

Victoria Reyes-García (PhD in Anthropology, 2001, University of Florida) is ICREA Research Professor at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) since 2006. Her research centers on Indigenous and local knowledge systems and their contributions to addressing contemporary environmental challenges, including biodiversity loss and climate change. From 1999 to 2004, she lived among the Tsimane’, an Indigenous group in the Bolivian Amazon, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in diverse settings, including Spain, India, Mexico, Cameroon, Indonesia, and Senegal. She leads the Laboratory for the Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems in a Global World (LASEG), a research group analyzing the impacts of global change on social-ecological systems (http://www.laseg.cat/en). Reyes-García has authored or co-authored about 300 peer-reviewed articles, co-edited three books, and supervised 25 PhD students. Her research has been supported by major funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the European Research Council (ERC). From 2010 to 2015, she directed an ERC Starting Grant exploring the relationships between biological and cultural diversity through a cross-cultural lens. In 2017, she secured an ERC Consolidator Grant to examine how Indigenous and local knowledge can inform research on climate change impacts. She has actively contributed to international policy efforts, such as the IPBES Global and Transformative Change Assessments, the IPBES-IPCC report, and the UNESCO’s Network for Earth. Her work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Narcís Monturiol Medal for scientific merit (2020), election as an international member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2021), and membership in the French Academy of Agriculture (2022). She was member of the Expert group that elaborated the “Guidance note on living heritage and climate action” for the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage” and of the Expert group for Knowledge Systems to the International Co-Sponsored Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change (ICOMOS & ICSM CHC).

Inge Liekens is an interdisciplinary researcher and practitioner working at the interface of science and public policy. She has a Master in Commercial Sciences, Master in Human ecology and a Bachelor in Biotechnology. She joined VITO, Belgium in 2003 where she has contributed to research on several national and international projects in the field of assessment of environmental costs and benefits with a particular emphasis on the socio-economic valuation of ecosystem services (CBA Sigmaplan, Aquamoney, ECOPLAN, ESMERALDA…) and use of it in socio-economic impact assessments and Cost benefit analysis. Knowledge collected through these projects is translated in webbased tools like Natuurwaardeverkenner and Klimaatportaal. She conducted several workshops, interviews, surveys and choice experiments in order to map user requirements and stakeholder preferences. She did choice experiments to look into the value people attach to recreational aspects of green areas and the socio-economic value attached to heritage. Before joining VITO, she worked as a consultant in risk- and environmental communication. She helped Flemish administrations in communicating to different stakeholder groups on different environmental issues.