H.E. Amb. Juan Mayr Maldonado
Ambassador of Colombia to Germany
H.E. Amb. Juan Mayr Maldonado has been environment Minister in Colombia, President of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and of the Biosecurity Protocol Negotiations, and Board Member of ICRAF (World Agroforestry Center). Ambassador Mayr Maldonado has also served as Vice President and Regional Counselor of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is a member of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on civil society and the Inter-American Development Bank's Blue Ribbon Panel. He is also a member of the National Reconciliation Commission and Advisor for the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator of the United Nations in Colombia, United Nations Development Programme (UNPD), and General Coordinator of the National Committee for Biodiversity and Competitiveness.Ambassador Mayr was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1993,[3] for leading a struggle for protecting biodiversity in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. He lived two years with the Kogi, and founded the Fundación Pro-Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in 1986. In 1994 the Colombian government returned 19,500 hectares of traditional lands to the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada.
On 30 August 2011, President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón appointed Mayr Ambassador of Colombia to Germany during a ceremony at the Palace of Nariño; Ambassador Mayr Maldonado presented his credentials to President Christian Wulff on 19 October 2011 at the Bellevue Palace.
"The Challenges of Cultural Diversity: The Case Study of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta"
A Lecture by Ambassador of Colombia to Germany, H.E. Amb. Juan Mayr Maldonado
International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in Latin America
(Berlin; August 14th, 2013)
