Julia Miranda Londoño is a Law graduate from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana with postgraduate studies in Environmental Law from Universidad Externado de Colombia. She has also worked as litigating attorney and environmental law lecturer at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
She has ample experience and knowledge of environmental topics, transcendental to Colombia as a mega diverse country. She was chief of the Environmental Management Consulting Office of Bogota’s Instituto de Desarrrollo Urbano (IDU). Subsequently, as General Director of the city’s Departamento Técnico Administrativo del Medio Ambiente (today Secretaría Distrital de Ambiente), she faced many challenges in urban environmental matters such as the creation of the Capital District’s Environmental Management Plan and the inclusion of environmental topics in the city’s Land Management Plan. In this position, she strengthened control and surveillance of industrial activities while also promoting clean production and business improvement programs. She also contributed to the consolidation of the Main Ecological Structure of Bogota, as a conservation strategy in urban ecosystems.
Since 2004, Julia Miranda Londoño has been Director General of National Natural Parks of Colombia, a government entity in charge of the administration and management of the System of National Natural Parks, which currently has 59 Protected Areas, and she is also responsible for the coordination of the System of National Protected Areas. To this date, institutional efforts have been oriented towards the construction of the entity’s Strategic Plan to 2019, in the creation of new protected areas in the System and in the implementation of social participation strategies in conservation policy in order to include indigenous, Afro-Colombian and farmers communities in the processes of conservation. She has represented the country in various international events on the topic of national parks and other protected areas, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). She is currently also South America Regional Vice-president of the World Commission on Protected Areas.
In 2012, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) presented her with the Fred Packard Award for her outstanding contribution to protected areas. She also received the top recognition given by the Ministry of Defense to a civilian for exceptional work and service towards conservation and protection of the natural and cultural heritage of Colombians.
She was chosen among the 30 leaders, in the 2014 Best Leaders of Colombia Award given by Semana magazine and the Fundación Liderazgo y Demorcacia, whose work in the arena of the public, the community, the local, regional, national and international contributed to the development of Colombian society during that year. Within this group, she was also awarded the statuette to the top 10 leaders along with Nairo Quintana, Shakira Mebarack, Claudia López, Maurice Armitage, Clara López, Elsa Noguera, Rafael Pardo, el padre Cyrillus Swinne and Nacho Gómez.
