Jasmin Guadalupe AGUILAR (1952-2009)

Biography

1952-2009

Jasmin Aguilar (LEAD Mexico Cohort 4) was a principal national consultant for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for a program of sustainable development in a rural area of Mexico City. In collaboration with the local city government, the program she worked to create better alternatives for the peasant communities that contribute to maintenance of the environmental services necessary for the city. For six years, she coordinated program 'Peasant Management of Natural Resources' in the State of Guerrero in the south of Mexico, carried out by a grassroots peasant organization called Zanzekan Tinemi and the NGO Environmental Studies Group (GEA), which she helped to found in 1977. She worked for more than 20 years in indigenous rural areas of Mexico, conducting research and implementing projects of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.

Ms. Aguilar had a master's degree in rural development and a bachelor's degree in agronomical engineering from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. She participated in several national and international conferences and published articles on sustainable and rural development. She was a member of international networks such as RIAD (Interamerican Network for Agriculture and Democracy); a member of the Directive Board of the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry, a civil society consortium to promote sustainable forestry and certification of good forestry management; and a member of the Steering Committee of the Participatory Group of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex University, UK. For several years, worked to introduce the environmental dimension within the Mexican agricultural and rural policy, and she lobbied in the Mexican Congress to help put forward the Law of Rural Sustainable Development.

This biography was last updated on October 26, 2009