Born in Barcelona in 1966. Miquel Rafa is the Director of Sustainability and Nature at the Foundation Catalunya-La Pedrera, where he works since 1998. Biologist, specialized in nature conservation with an experience of over 30 years working for conservation NGOs in Catalonia and at international level (DEPANA, WWF, IUCN, EUROSITE, UIAA, etc.). President of the Nature Conservation Council of Catalonia and member of the World Commission on Protected Areas (IUICN- WCPA). Has collaborated in numerous radio and TV programmes as a communicator on Nature and travels around the globe. A passionate alpinist, has climbed many peaks in the Pyrenees, Alps, Andes and Himalaya and has also travelled to many natural areas over the world in search of wildlife. The FOUNDATION CATALUNYA- LA PEDRERA is a major institution in Catalonia that works in several areas “to help People to build a better and fairer future”. The Foundation has been re-founded in 2013 and is the owner and maintains a considerable cultural and natural heritage, such as the charismatic and World Heritage building of La Pedrera, a masterpiece of architect Gaudi in Barcelona, or a multicultural centre around the 10th. century Romanesque Monastery of Sant Benet del Bages, not far from Barcelona. On the side of natural heritage and environment, the Foundation is the major land trust in Catalonia and helps protect a network of 25 natural sites, visited by more than 400.000 people per year, and manages two environmental education centres, in the Pyrenees and in the Ebro Delta, the latter included in the Biosphere Reserve “Terres de l’Ebre”.

Alta De Vos is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Alta is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist, focusing on two main research areas: the resilience and transformation of conservation systems, and the development of the social-ecological research theory and methods.

In the case of the former, she uses a wide diversity of mixed- and multi-method approaches, often in transdisciplinary projects and often spatial, to better understand and direct the future of protected areas and other conservation systems, particularly focusing on non-traditional systems with diverse governance approaches and values. With her partners, she works at multiple scales to understand how we can better understand these systems in more generalized, yet still context-specific ways as to inform more fit-for-purpose policy, but also the changes and pathways that are needed to shape equitable resilience of these systems into an uncertain future.

In the case of the latter, she currently directs the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). PECS is a Future Earth core-project (the only one of such programmes based in the global South) that aims to integrate research on the stewardship of social–ecological systems, the services they generate, and the relationships among natural capital, human wellbeing, livelihoods, inequality, and poverty. In this role, she actively engages in building local networks, capacity, and frameworks to address the challenges of our time by doing research for- and with-society, particularly focusing on the implications of such work for research methodology, theory, and policy.