Isabelle Anatole-Gabriel
Chief of the Europe and North America Unit at the World Heritage Centre since January 2016. She joined the World Heritage Centre in July 2014 as Chief of the Policy and Statutory Meetings Unit, where her tasks included the organization of the First Extraordinary General Assembly and the 20th General Assembly of the State Parties during which the new electoral system of the members of the World Heritage Committee was adopted. She is an Alumna of the Ecole nationale du Patrimoine (a French Grande Ecole); she holds a Ph.D. in History of international heritage (EHESS) and three M.A.degrees, in Museums Studies, Archaeology and History, respectively from the Ecole du Louvre, Paris IV Sorbonne University and EHESS. A curator by training, she was seconded to UNESCO by the Direction des Musées de France from 1988 to 1989 and joined the Organization in 1990. She served as Program Specialist in the Culture Sector, Liaison officer of UNESCO Culture Office in Venice, Secretary of the Plan of Action Drafting Group during the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development (Stockholm 1999), and author and coordinator of ICT issues for the two World Culture Reports. From 2000 to 2013, she was Chief Editor of the Journal MUSEUM International. She also held positions with the Governing Bodies as Secretary of the Culture Commission at the General Conference and the Special Committee of the Executive Board.
Isabel Ayala
She has a degree in Environmental Sciences. She has worked, among other places, for five years in Montsant Natural Park on the project to promote “from Montsant to the table” food products, and has organised conferences related to the agricultural world (organic farming, land recovery) in collaboration with associations and administrations in Priorat. She has also given support to the beginning of the membership process for the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in the Priorat region. She is currently working on the Priorat Land Bank.
Mirene Begiristain Zubillaga
A doctor in economy from the University of the Basque Country, she has been carrying out her teaching and research work at the University of the Basque Country-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU) since 1998. She teaches in the area of Commercialisation and Market Research. During the first years, she developed her research in matters relating to Social Economy and Co-operativism, and in 2002, she started her doctoral thesis entitled Gestión Sostenible de la política de distribución de alimentos agrarios ecológicos: propuesta de un sistema de indicadores agroecológicos. (Sustainable management of the organic agricultural food distribution policy: proposal for a system of agroecological indicators.) Currently, she has two main lines of research: 1) analysis of innovative commercialisation processes promoted for and by family-based farming and consumers; 2) analysis and generation of mechanisms/tools that facilitate the analysis of processes/production projects and/or family-based organic commercialisation (systems of indicators, SPGs, systematisation, etc.). She combines her research work with her everyday tasks, bringing up Lur and Inhar, and with participation and militancy in various agri-ecological initiatives and projects.
Wendy Cruz
She has been working with La Via Campesina for 19 years. She is Honduran, of Garifuna-Lenca ethnicity, and the mother of a daughter and a son. An active militant in the Honduran peasant and feminist movement, with the professional and personal commitment to fight so that the human rights of rural women and women in general are respected. Technical Coordinator of the Women's Hub in La Via Campesina Honduras, with the experience of promoting and accompanying the rights of rural women, on the land, the defence of the territory, the fight against all kinds of violence against country women. She works on the organisational strengthening of the Articulation of Women at a Central American and at a Honduran level, political and ideological training and rights of rural women. She is a facilitator of the advocacy processes for the rights of rural women.
Mina El Mghari-Baida
A higher education teacher at the University Institute for Scientific Research at the Mohamed V University in Rabat, and the holder of a dissertation since March 2004 entitled La ville de Mogador/Essaouira: Histoire et archéologie monumentale (The town of Mogador/Essaouira: history and monumental archaeology), jointly supervised by Harvard University and the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at the Mohamed V University (Rabat). A member of the Board of the Three Cultures Foundation since June 2015, of the CIVVH (International Committee of Historical Towns and Villages), of the executive board of ICOMOS International (2010-2013) and Vice President of ICOMOS Morocco (Rabat), 2006-2013. Winner of the 2006 Book of Morocco Award; chosen in 2007 for the Hebdo Challenge as one of the one hundred most influential women in the Maghreb and awarded a prize in 2009 by the Egyptian Minister of Higher Education on the event of the Jubilee of the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Rabat.
Mercè Folch
El Masroig, 1975. Journalist and scriptwriter. A graduate in Catalan Philology, with a diploma in Audiovisual Communication. She has worked for Ona Catalana, Ràdio Barcelona-Cadena Ser and RAC-1. She currently works for Catalunya Ràdio. On the public radio station, she was in the news department and worked with Joan Barril for six seasons in El Cafè de la República. In the last two seasons, she has jointly presented the programme El Suplement with Ricard Ustrell, a job that she has combined with the in-depth interview programme, Fons d’Armari.
Ferran Mestres
Born in Mataró in 1976, his childhood was closely linked to the Camprodon Valley. Since 2000, he has lived in Priorat where he has tried to overcome his nostalgia for the loss of the countryside and places of his childhood now held together with cement. He has a degree in Geography from the University of Barcelona, with a stay in Utrecht, Holland. He started to work as a farmer in the 2000 grape harvest and has passed through all the wine production phases, in the field, in the winery and selling it. He is currently a member of the Cabassers Co-operative, which cultivates vines, olive trees, almonds and vegetable garden products, for sale as well as for self-consumption. He manages his plot by pasturing animals, such as asses (Rucs de Montsant), goats and poultry, with very little ploughing, seeking the maximum integration of the crops into the dynamics of the nature. He was head of the first Brigade of La Serra de Montsant Natural Park and has cleaned up quite a few kilometres of trails and stony paths as a volunteer, many of which have now been irreversibly damaged by people on motorcycles and mountain bikes. In 2017, he was responsible for carrying out field research into traditional varieties of vegetables and fruit as part of La Serra de Montsant Natural Park cultivated biodiversity programme. He currently works to motivate the Priorat Agricultural Forum.
Clelia Puzzo
Expert in International Relations, with a special focus on international environmental and agricultural policy, with 8 years overall experience in multilateral organizations and 5 years covering the role of program specialist in the Secretariat of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in the headquarters of FAO in Rome, establishing strategic partnerships and providing policy advice for the implementation of the program in new geographic areas, such as Latin America and Europe.
Toni Orensanz
Falset, 1970. Journalist and freelance scriptwriter. He is highly familiar with the Tarragona region and habitually collaborates in diverse media. He has written books, including the historic piece of research L'òmnibus de la mort: parada Falset (2008), the guidebook Priorat: els camins del vi i de l'oli (2010), the novel L'estiu de l'amor (2013) and the narrative journalistic piece El nazi de Siurana (2016).
Sara Pérez
Geneva, 1972. She is a biologist and has study oenology and philosophy. Those who know her also say that she is enthusiastic, inquisitive and entrepreneurial. She directs wine-production projects in organic farming in the Montsant DO and the Priorat DOQ and is passionate about local varieties and ageing wines, the ones that create emotions and that take you back to their origins.
Joan Queralt Álvarez
La Pobla de Massaluca, Terra Alta. He is an Agricultural Technical Engineer specialising in farming from the ESA in Barcelona and an Agronomical Engineer specialising in phytotechnics from the ETSEA in Lleida. He has been the Head of the Priorat Regional Office of the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (DARP) since 1988. Before that he was a special services technician at the Montsià Regional Office of the DARP. He is also a technical member of the Regulating Council of the Priorat Qualified Designation of Origin and of the Regulating Council of the Montsant Designation of Origin.
Joan Reguant
A cultural heritage consultant. President of the Andorran National Committee of ICOMOS. Coordinator, consultant and/or editor of diverse national, international and multinational World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage candidacies. Specialist in cultural landscape management. He was an expert on the Subsidiary Body of Intangible Cultural Heritage for the assessment of candidacies (2011-2013 cycle). Member of the Scientific Committee (2012-2018) for cultural landscape on the World Heritage List Les Causses et les Cévennes, paysage cultural de l’agro-pastoralisme méditerranéen, of the Advisory Board of Andorran Cultural Heritage (2009-2014) and of the editing team of the Andorran Landscape Catalogue (2009). Speaker at the workshops for the application of the European Landscape Convention (Council of Europe). Joint author of various publications on vernacular architecture and cultural heritage. For the last 12 years, he has directed the Priorat-Montsant-Siurana World Heritage Agricultural and Cultural Landscape candidacy.
Isabel Salamaña
Santa Coloma de Farners, 1956. She is a doctor in Geography from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She carries out her research and teaching activity as an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Girona. She specialises in agriculture and rural development, in gender geography and in the planning and organisation of the territory and public spaces. She is a member of the Chair of Geography and Territorial Thinking (UdG), of the Environmental Institute (UdG), the Inter-University Women and Gender Studies Institute (iiEDG) and of the Geography and Gender research group at the UAB and the Environmental and Territorial Analysis and Planning research group at the UdG.
Montserrat Serra i Arenas
Cultural and wine journalist. She habitually writes in the Vilaweb newspaper. In 2017, she founded Vibop publishing house (vibop.cat), where she publishes books that range from the relationship between wine and culture, gastronomy, the landscape, through to collections of poetry and music. She has written the script for some TV documentaries. In 2008, she founded the magazine Papers de Vi, focusing on informing about the Alella Designation of Origin. She organises activities that combine creation with the world of wine: Literature with the Senses, Narrated Taste, Night of the White Raisin.
Roser Vernet
She trained as a philologist, a manager of literary projects and of cultural tourism related to the landscape in the territory. Since its creation in 2007, she has co-ordinated the PRIORITAT Association, made up of people, associations and institutions, that promote the Priorat-Montsant-Siurana, a Mediterranean mosaic, UNESCO World Heritage Agricultural and Cultural Landscape candidacy.
Mireia Vilamala
She has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Barcelona (UB) and a Master’s in Organic Farming from the same university. She specialises in managing natural resources, environmental services and organic farming. She is a technician in natural resource management and rural development at Montsant Natural Park. She is also a technician at Priorat County Council, where she manages the Priorat Land Bank.
Marina Vilaseca
Prades de La Molsosa, 1981. Environmental scientist and ecologist. A founding member of Arada, Creativitat Social SCCL. The co-operative works on processes of local and rural promotion, from creative, joint processes, that may be related to the popular memory, promotion and complex understanding of rurality, through to the design and introduction of social and supportive economic projects. In recent years, she has accompanied the design and creation of co-operatives such as Biolord Co-op, a non-profit rural co-operative.
Cristina Zolle
A graduate in Agronomics from the University of Santiago de Compostela. After graduating, she was awarded grants in various food and plant production research centres. She later worked as a technician for the Xunta of Galicia on two European cooperation projects on land management and the climate change. In 2009, she was given a place in the unit that manages the Galician Land Bank, currently assigned to the Galician Rural Development Agency, and she has been working there since then in various management areas. During this time, she has extended her academic training in matters of land management, geographic information tools and legislation applicable to public administrations.