Research Coordinator, Andean Forest Program
Manuel Peralvo is a researcher at the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion (CONDESAN). He is a geographer and holds an MA from the Universiy of Texas at Austin (Geography and the Environment Department) and has 20 years of experience in the study of coupled human-environmental systems in the Andean region. His main areas of interest are related to the integration of GIScience and social science tools to support natural resource governance at different scales. He has coordinated research and intervention projects aimed at strengthening decision making to attain sustainability goals and also he has promoted academic discussions about the challenges and potential benefits for coupled social – environmental observation platforms at landscapes scales in mountain areas. He currently coordinates the research component of a regional Andean Forest Program financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented in the seven countries of the Andean arc. The main goal of the Program is to validate and promote sustainable landscape and forest management practices to strengthen the resilience of local social-environmental systems.