Aurelio Ramos joined Audubon in December of 2019 as senior vice president for Audubon Americas. In that role he oversees the program, its international partnerships, and conservation teams working throughout Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The Audubon Americas program has four strategies: Protected Areas, Working Lands, Coastal Resilience, and Building a Constituency for Birds.
Prior to joining Audubon, Ramos worked for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for more than 16 years. At TNC, he led pioneering conservation strategies through incentive-based financing across the Andean landscapes of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. He spearheaded the development of the “water fund” model for conservation projects that improve water quality and quantity. The water funds initiative won the Rockefeller Foundation Century Innovation Award in 2013 and the P4G Award in Water Security in 2019. There are now more than 35 water funds globally.
Before The Nature Conservancy, Ramos worked with the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the BioTrade Initiative of the United Nations Conference of Trade and Commerce (UNCTAD), and the Humboldt Biological Research Institute. He led the structuring of the BioTrade Program in Colombia and directly supported its expansion in numerous countries in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Ramos holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colombia’s Universidad de Los Andes and a master’s degree in environmental economics and natural resources from the University of Maryland and Universidad de Los Andes.
