Mariana Bellot is currently National Coordinator for the Biodiversity Finance Initiative-Mexico, as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program. She has a BA in International Studies and a Master´s Degree on Environmental Policy and Development by the University of Sussex, UK. Ms. Bellot has over 15 years-experience working on a wide range of biodiversity related issues, particularly biodiversity conservation and protected areas, ecosystem services, financing and ecosystem-based adaptation.

Ms. Bellot has worked for several government agencies in Mexico, and was formerly the General Director for Institutional Development and Outreach in the National Commission for Protected Areas. She has been part of the Mexican Delegation to the Convention on Biological Diversity since 2001, and is also member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas and was part of the Second High-Level Panel on Resource Mobilization for Biodiversity under the CBD.