Liza Grandia, President
(B.A. Yale University, summa cum laude and with honors in Women's Studies) is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently writing about the impacts of globalization upon the agrarian situation of the Q'eqchi' Maya in Guatemala and Belize. Liza began working as a volunteer with ProPetén in 1993 and 1995; in 1997, Liza returned to Peten to create an integrated health, population, and environment program with ProPetén that established family planning services for more than half a million people living in this area of northern Guatemala. With Liza, ProPetén began other innovative projects in organic agriculture, medicinal plants and other programs to link health and environment in a local context. With more than six years of field experience in this region, Liza speaks both Spanish and Q'eqchi' Maya fluently. Liza joined ProPeten's board as a founding member in 2002. She served as the board's Secretary from May 2002-May 2003 and its President from June 2003 to the present.

Dr. Norman B. Schwartz, Vice President
Social anthropologist
Current position - University of Delaware; Emeritus
Newark, Delaware USA 19716
Resume:
BA in philosophy from College of the City of New York;
MA and Phd from Univeristy of Pennsylvania (Phd awarded 1968).

After teaching at Middlebury College in Vermont, joined the Dept. of Anthorpology at the University of Delaware in 1968, where I taught until 30 June 2005.

Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. Co-founder and editor (until 2005) of "The Delaware Review of Latin American Studies (DeRLAS)" a refereed scholarly electronic journal. [www.udel.edu/LASP/DeRLAS.html]

I have been visiting Peten, Guatemala since 1960 and have been associated with ProPeten since its initiation in 1991. Although Peten is the main focus for my research and applied anthropology work, I also have done research in western Belize and central Panama. Publication include two books on Peten, and co-author of three other monographs. In addition there are about sixty essays, mostly published in technical journals, and thirty book reviews for technical journals. I have also produced over thrity technical reports for various organizations.

I have consulted with several organizations and universities, including Conservation International, Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, NASA,US AID. University of Maine and Auburn University.

Ing. Carlos Asturias, Secretary
(civil engineer) is one of ProPeten's founding board members. He has a life time of distinguished public service in Petén, serving as the first director of the Petén branch of the University of San Carlos (Centro Universitario del Petén, CUDEP) in 1987. Then in 1991, he was appointed as Petén's governor and his adminstration played an important role in the establishment of the Maya Biosphere Reserve. He writes a newspaper column in La Hora and is outspokenly against deforestation, corruption, narcotrafficking, and other problems threatening conservation of Guatemala's natural resources.

Estuardo Castellanos, Treasurer
a native of Flores, also a lawyer, is director of the World Bank Cadastral (land survey) project in Petén.

Ana Luisa Cordova, Member at Large
is a well-known environmental lawyer based in Guatemala City, but with years of experience with Peten conservation policy issues. She is currently on-leave from the board because she was selected by Guatemalan President Berger to head the national park service, CONAP.

Edgar Bernales, Member at Large
is a GIS mapping expert and owner of Peten's first and largest internet and computer business.