Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias
Advisory Committee
Dr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias is Associate Professor at the University of Brasilia’s Department of Ecology (initially at the Forestry Department beginning in 1981), where he has supervised Master’s and Ph.D. students, and a senior advisor on biodiversity policies for the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment. He previously held various positions in the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment since 1991, including Research Director of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), Director for Biodiversity Conservation since 1999 and National Secretary for Biodiversity and Forests from 2010 to early 2012 at the Ministry of the Environment. Braulio was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) from February 2012 to February 2017 where he played a key role to promote the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. Earlier, besides his role at the University of Brasilia and at the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, he was Research Leader and Division Chief of the Ecological Research Station of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), where he worked since 1978 and until 2011. Outside of the government he has been a member and president of the NGO Pro-Nature Foundation (FUNATURA) and has coordinated the establishment of the Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (FUNBIO), where he later represented the Ministry of the Environment in its Governing Council. A graduate of the University of Brasilia with a Bachelor’s in biological sciences (1975) with a Ph.D. in zoology from Edinburgh University (1981), Braulio has published extensively and has been an active member of several national committees and councils dealing with biodiversity, most notably the Brazilian National Biodiversity Committee (CONABIO), which he coordinated from 2003 to 2011, the Brazilian National Council for Genetic Resources Administration (CGEN), which he established and coordinated in 2002 and again from 2010 to early 2012, the Brazilian National Technical Committee for Biosafety (CTNBio), where he represented the Ministry of the Environment from 1999 to 2001 dealing with environmental impacts of GMOs, and the Governing Council of the National Environment Fund (FNMA). Since 1994 and until early 2012, he coordinated the Brazilian National Biodiversity Program, the National Biodiversity Projects – PROBIO I & II (with GEF/World Bank support), the Brazilian National Biodiversity Strategy Project (with GEF/UNDP support), and coordinated the elaboration of the first four Brazilian National Biological Diversity Reports to the CBD. Braulio has been a national leader and global champion on protected areas, threatened species conservation, ecosystem and biodiversity monitoring and information, forest conservation, fire ecology in savannas, pollination research and management, biodiversity for food and nutrition, biodiversity and health interlinkages, biodiversity and climate change interlinkages, biodiversity mainstreaming across economic sectors and engagement of the business sector in the biodiversity agenda.