Carabias Lillo, Julia

▪ 2002

      In January 2001 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) awarded its 23rd annual J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize to Mexican environmental scientist Julia Carabias Lillo. The WWF commended Carabias for her efforts to promote public participation in the development of environmental policy. During her term as Mexico's secretary of the environment, natural resources, and fisheries, she doubled the size of the nation's protected-area system to more than 6% of the total area of the country and thereby safeguarded such species as the gray whales and pronghorn antelope of Baja California and the manatees and jaguars of Yucatán.

      Carabias was born in 1954 in Mexico City. She gained both undergraduate and master's degrees from the science department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. In 1977 she began teaching at UNAM, and in 1981 she became a full professor of science there, concentrating her research on such subjects as rain forest regeneration, environmental restoration, and the use of natural resources. She served as a member of UNAM's University Council from 1989 to 1993. Among the works she coauthored were Manejo de recursos naturales y pobreza rural (1994), Areas naturales prioritarias para la conservación en la región (1997), and Desarrollo sustentable (1999). She coauthored For Earth's Sake for the UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Brazil in 1992. Carabias entered government service in early 1994 as president of Mexico's National Institute of Ecology. She was a member of the advisory council for the National Conservation Fund and in late 1994 became secretary of the environment, natural resources, and fisheries, a position she held until late 2000.

      In June 2000 she arranged a meeting of officials from Mexico and the U.S. to work on the problem of restoring natural water flows to the Rio Grande, and she also helped create an international task force to deal with a water crisis on the middle section of that river. In addition, she played an important role in enforcing the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. After receiving the WWF prize, Carabias donated the $100,000 cash portion of it to the protection of the Chajul region of southern Mexico's Lacandon forests.

David R. Calhoun

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