Mara Rojas es Doctora en Economía (2011) en la Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS). Es Asistente de Docencia en Desarrollo Económico en la misma institución y colabora con los cursos de postgrado en Macroeconomía y Crecimiento Económico en la UNS y el Programa de Postgraduación del Banco Central de Guatemala. Desde el 2006 y hasta el 2013 fue becaria doctoral y postdoctoral del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). Sus investigaciones se centran en la relación entre capital humano, capital social, instituciones y desarrollo, tópicos en los cuales ha publicado varios artículos académicos. Actualmente, la Dra. Rojas es parte del grupos argentino de COMET-LA y, paralelamente, del proyecto Sensing the Americas' Freshwater Ecosystem Risk (SAFER - IAI).

Silvia London is PhD in Economics from the Universidad Nacional del Sur and is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the same university. Dr. London is an Independent Researcher of CONICET (IIESS). Her areas of interest are: Development and Economic Growth, Environment and Development, Institutional Analysis, and the Role of Education in Economic Development. Dr. London is the head of the PIP-CONICET project: Growth and Development Traps in Latin America, and of the PGI project The Role of Health and Education in the Economic Development. In addition to her participation in the COMET project she is also member of the SAFER project (funded by IAI).

María Andrea Huamantinco Cisneros is Guide of Tourism (2001), Licenciate in Geography (2007) and PhD in Geography (2012) from Universidad Nacional del Sur (Bahía Blanca, Argentina). Her research is orientated to the study of the effects of the climate variability over the coastal morphology and climate comfort associated to urbanized coastal environments. Presently, she works on the impact of extreme events in coastal zones. She received doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships awarded by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (CONICET) and she works at Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía (IADO). She teached the course "Beach dynamics and coastal monitoring" in Villa Gesell, Ostende and Claromecó coastal cities. She is part of the argentine research group of COMET-LA project.

Facundo Scordo is Licenciate in Environmental Science (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and Technician in Agricultural Production (Escuela Técnica de Producción Agropecuaria, Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS)). He worked in environmental management in the private industry until 2013. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Geography in the Departamento de Geografía y Turismo (UNS). The research is directed by Drs. Gerardo M. E. Perillo and M. Cintia Piccolo, and funded by a fellowship from the COMET-LA and SAFER projects. His workplace is the Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. In the COMET-LA project is a student fellow interested in climate change, social perception and community resource management.

M. Luján Bustos is PhD in Geography (2012) at the Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS). Her studies focus on morphological changes of sandy beaches and coastal integrated management associated to urbanized areas. She works at Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía and received doctoral (2007-2012) and currently postdoctoral fellowships from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). She is a teaching assistant "Introducción a la Oceanografía" at UNS and teached the course "Dynamics of beaches and coastal monitoring" for rangers of Pehuén Co-Monte Hermoso and environmental groups in the towns of Ostende, Villa Gesell and Claromecó. Within the Argentine group of COMET-LA project she is the contact person besides doing the research for the project.

The experience of COMET-LA in North-South cooperation in research was presented in an event in the framework of the Strategic Policy Dialogue between countries of both shores of the Mediterranean hosted by the French Ministry of Education and Research, the 11th of June in Paris. This 5+5 policy dialogue gathers to the following countries: Spain, France, Italy, Malta and Portugal as European partners, and Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya as African ones.

COMET-LA Project Coordinator, María del Mar Delgado, presented the experience of joint collaboration between researchers and local communities of European and Latin American countries and the learnt lessons that could be useful to foster the research cooperation between the North-South Mediterranean countries. Research institution representatives from the different countries also explored the collaboration options in Horizon 2020.

COMET-LA was invited to be part of the debate on the role of Europe as a global actor. The workshop, organised by the European Commission and FLASH-IT project, was hosted in Brussels on 5th June. It gathered scientists and policy makers to present the research developed with EU support in different regional areas, such as the Mediterranean, Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia-Pacific and to analyse the main future research and policy challenges.

COMET-LA participated in the session: The EU's relations with the wider world - sustainable governance of natural resources in the framework of EU-LAC relations. The Project Coordinator, María del Mar Delgado, highlighted the outstanding stock of natural resources of Latin America and the role they play in the global Planet equilibrium and in addressing global challenges such as climate change, food production, CO2 sequestration, water harvesting, etc.

She also underlined the need of new governance models that recognise the role that local communities, as first direct managers of natural resources, play and can play in halting degradation and fostering sustainable management models. However, these communities face important dilemmas like preserving natural resources or extracting them to solve their household needs. The lack of recognition of environmental costs makes to pay the cost of sustainability to those who offer, and not to those that demand and enjoy it!

CeiA3 Press Office

Special correspondants of the Deustsche Welle in Brussels interviewed our project coordinator about the future of the community based management of the natural resources in Latin America. In the link, the entire info. 

Is photography one of your hobbies? Do you know the environment of your area in depth?

You are invited to take part in the COMET-LA Photo Competition. The purpose of this contest is to raise public awareness about the importance of taking care of the environment. This will be done by informing the population about the socio-ecologic systems of COMET-LA study cases, their problems, and the good practices carried out by the following communities: Santiago Comaltepec, in Mexico; the Community Councils of the Black Communities of the Upper and Lower Dagua, and of the Lower Calima, in Colombia; and the estuary of Bahía Blanca, including Pehuen Co and Monte Hermoso, in Argentina.

This competition is open to all photographers – both professionals and amateurs – living in these territories or who may be somehow linked to them. Entry is free, and the photographs may be submitted until the 10th of June, 2014, always accompanied by the attached entry form. Both digital photographs and paper photographs will be accepted.

Each participant must submit a series of three pictures, related to the following topics: the characteristics of the socio-ecologic system of your community, the problems affecting the socio-ecologic system where you live, or what your community is doing to fight against these problems.

Prizes
The photos submitted to the competition will be exhibited during the visit of the COMET-LA international team to Comaltepec, Buenaventura and Bahía Blanca, during the last days of June and the first days of July, when the winners will be made public.
10 photographic series will be selected per country. The winners will receive a diploma and their photographs will be exhibited in Mexico, clearly stating the names of the authors, during the final COMET-LA conference, to be held at the end of 2014. The photographs will also be published in the www.comet-la.eu

Furthermore, the winners of the first prize from each country will be awarded a reflex camera Canon EOS 1100D.
The photographs will be kept by the relevant communities and will be incorporated to their collection of photographs. The authors shall authorize the relevant communities and COMET-LA to use their photographs for non commercial purposes.

Access the contest terms and download the entry form for each country: Mexico – Colombia – Argentina.