Maria Teresa Vargas
Maria Teresa Vargas was raised on a farm in the buffer zone of Bolivia’s mega-diverse Amboró National Park. Working with mayors from 80 municipalities, she has convinced half a million water users to sign agreements with 28,000 upstream landowners to conserve 700,000 hectares of water-producing forests. These conservation deals—“Watershared”—are in return for development projects such as drip irrigation, fruit and honey production, and improved cattle management. Maria Teresa is now helping transfer this reciprocity-based forest/water conservation model to municipalities in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Maria Teresa has master’s degrees in international relations and forestry from Yale University.
Email: mteresavargas@naturabolivia.org
