| Montreal, 7/06/2001 – The Chair of the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC), Ms. Liette Vasseur, is pleased to announce that Mr.Victor Lichtinger, Mexico's Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources, has nominated two new members to the JPAC, Ms. Laura Silvan de Durazo and Mr. Gustavo Alanís-Ortega completing that country's delegation.
Ms. Silvan de Durazo is director of the Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental, A.C. in Tijuana, Baja California, an organization dedicated to strengthening citizen participation in environmental management by means of public information, education and consultation as well as through the formation of local, national, border and international networks. She has long been an advocate of developing an institutional framework guaranteeing public access to information on pollutants, in which connection she participated in developing the Mexican pollutant release and transfer register. She is currently taking part in the coordination of the Proyecto Bioregional de Educación Ambiental (PROBEA) in Baja California and Baja California Sur and is a co-organizer of an annual symposium on border environmental issues. She is a member of the following boards and committees: Pollutant Release and Transfer Register Working Group of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC); Executive Committee, Consejo de Educación Ambiental para Las Californias; Advisory Committee, San Diego-Tijuana Border Initiative; Board of Governors, International Community Foundation; Advisory Committee, Border Environmental Fund of the International Community Foundation; Citizens' Environmental Roundtable on Reform of the Legal System of Baja California.
Mr. Alanís-Ortega is the president of the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Environmental Law Center-CEMDA), a public interest environmental law firm based in Mexico City. He is a lawyer from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where he teaches the environmental law course at the law school and is also co-director of the university's post-graduate diploma program in environmental law and policy. Mr. Alanís-Ortega holds a master's degree in international law from the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, DC. Since May 1994, he has been active as a columnist for Reforma, one of Mexico's most read and influential newspapers. He is a member of the seventh cohort of the Leadership on Environment and Development Program, know as LEAD.
The next JPAC meeting will take place in conjunction with the NACEC Regular Session of Council hosted by Mexico in Guadalajara on 27-29 June 2001.
JPAC is a 15-member, independent, volunteer body that provides advice and public input to Council on any mater within the scope of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.
Documents related to JPAC and its Advice to Council are available on the Commission's web site at <http://www.cec.org/jpac> or upon request to Manon Pepin at the NACEC Secretariat: e-mail: <mpepin@ccemtl.org>, fax: (514) 350-4314 or telephone: (514) 350-4366.
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