Ms. Romero de Campero has worked as a journalist for three decades, beginning her career as a reporter and ultimately rising to become Director of Presencia newspaper (1989-2005). She has served as President of the Forum of Women Journalists, the Association of Journalists of La Paz, and the National Press Association. She has also been President of the International Federation of Newspapers. She is a recipient of the National Journalism Award and was a member of the jury for the Agencia EFE’s Rey de España award. Between 1998 and 2003, Ms. Romero Campero served as Ombudsman (Defensora del Pueblo) of Bolivia. She has written several books, among them a novel titled "Cables Cruzados" (“Crossed Wires”) set in an international news agency. Currently, she is director of the UNIR Foundation, which promotes initiatives aimed at enhancing dialogue, conflict management, interculturality, and information. To advance its efforts on this last front, the Foundation operates a National Media Observatory in coordination with 13 universities.

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Carlos Ulanovsky (Argentina)

A journalist and writer, Mr. Ulanovsky is the co-host of La radio en blanco y negro (Radio Mitre, AM 790, Mondays through Fridays, 9:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m.) and a cultural and feature columnist for Radio Portátil (Rock and Pop, FM 95.9, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.). He also contributes as a feature reporter and columnist for the Opinion Page of La Nación newspaper. Mr. Ulanovsky has been a professional journalist since 1963 and worked continuously in radio since 1969. He has written five books on the history of radio, television, and the press in Argentina, in addition to numerous essays and short stories. Between 1974-76 and 1977-83, he lived in Mexico, where he worked for El Universal, Proceso, Unomasuno, and Televisa, among other media outlets. In 2002, Mr. Uloanovsky was a member of the radio jury for the FNPI+Cemex New Journalism Award.

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Faride Zerán (Chile)

Journalist Faride Zerán received her degree from the University of Chile, where she currently serves as chair of the university’s school of journalism. Between 2000 and 2004, she sat on Chile’s National Television Board (Directorio de Televisión Nacional de Chile), whose six members are appointed by the President of the Republic and ratified by the Senate. Through October 2005, Ms. Zerán was the director (and founder) of Rocinante, a cultural magazine with national and international circulation. She is the author of several books, including: “O el asilo contra la opresión” (Or Asylum Against Oppression”) (1991); “La Guerrilla Literaria. Huidobro, De Rokha, Neruda” (Literary Guerrillas: Huidobro, De Rokha, Neruda“) (1992); “Al pie de la letra. Entrevistas de Fin de Siglo” (“Verbatim: Interviews at the Close of the Century”) (1995); and “Desacatos al Desencanto. Ideas para cambiar de Milenio” (“Challenging Disenchantment: Ideas to Transform the Millennium”) (1997). In 2003, Ms. Zerán was a member of the jury for the FNPI-Cemex New Journalism Award and is herself a recipient a number of awards, among them the José Martí award for Latin American journalism, Chile’s National Council for the Promotion of Books and Reading award, and the Chilean Association of Book Publishers and Book Sellers award.

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Javier Marsiglia (Uruguay)

Mr. Marsiglia, holds a BA in Social Work anda a degree in Social Planning from ILPES-CEPAL (Santiago, Chile). He is currently completing a Master’s degree in Local Development at the National University of San Martín (Argentina) and the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is the Director of the Institute for Local Development Studies (Instituto de Estudios del Desarrollo Local y Regional – IDEL) at the Catholic University of Uruguay (UCU). He has worked in the field of local development for 20 years, researching, teaching, and tracking related initiatives.

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Joao Jose Fernandez (Portugal)

Holding a BA in Theology and Humanities from the Catholic University of Portugal, Mr. Fernández has served as executive director of Oikos-Cooperation and Development since 2004. From 1994 through 2004, he was the NGO’s project and program manager in Angola, Mozambique, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Honduras, among other countries. He is an advisor to the National Environmental and Sustainable Development Council, an independent national consultative body in Portugal engaged in promoting participation by different social, cultural, and economic actors, with a view to forging consensus on the formulation of environmental and sustainable development policies.

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María Teresa Ronderos (Colombia)

An independent journalist, Ms. Ronderos has published articles throughout Latin America. She is a columnist for Semana.com. and president of Colombia’s Foundation for Press Freedom (Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa). She is a political scientist by training, with a Master’s degree in Political Science from Syracuse University (United States) and a specialization in journalism from the same institution. She has worked in print journalism, serving as the political editor for El Tiempo and editor of Semana magazine, among others. She has also worked in television as the director of the Buenos Días Colombia news program and the weekly news show Testimonio. In 1996, she was awarded a Knight Fellowship for a one-year study program at Stanford University. She is the recipient of the Rey de España Award and was named a regional finalist on two occasions to the Ipys-Tilac Award for her investigative work into a corruption case (2004 and 2005). Ms. Ronderos has published several books, including “Retratos del Poder” (“Profiles of Power”), an examination of Colombia’s leading political actors and civil war. She has taught at the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation (Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano – FNPI) since 1999.

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Miguel Martí (Costa Rica)

Miguel Martí is today a consultant in Strategic Communications for GrupoNueva and its affiliate companies. Through June 2006, he served as Vice-President for Corporate Communications at GrupoNueva, a position he assumed in December 2000. He was Regional Director for Latin America for Porter Novelli International, the world’s third largest strategic communications consulting firm. A graduate in Philosophy and Journalism, Mr. Martí spent 20 years as a correspondent for several international news agencies, including Radio Francia, Radio Nederland, and Inter Press Service (IPS). He also worked as a columnist for La República and El Financiero in Costa Rica, and was founder and president of "Hombres de Maíz," a Central American magazine devoted to human development issues.

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Marcos Sá Correa (Brasil)

Although a historian by training, Mr. Sá Correa has pursued a career in journalism and photography, working for Brazilian print media outlets such as Jornal do Brasil (where he was chief editor between 1985 and 1991) and O Dia (where he served as director). He was the editor of Época magazine’s Rio de Janeiro office and held positions as a reporter, editor, and columnist for Veja magazine. Since 2000, Mr. Sá Correa has devoted himself to creating and editing Internet journalism sites. In 2004, he launched O Eco, a website specialized in covering environmental issues. He is the author of eight books, four on the environment. Currently, he writes a weekly environmental column for O Estado de São Paulo and serves as editor for Piauí magazine, whose first issue is scheduled for release in October of this year.

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Nila Velázquez (Ecuador)

Ms. Valásquez is currently the director of El Universo Foundation and a columnist for the same newspaper. She has served as editor of El Telégrafo’s Sunday magazine (the country’s oldest newspaper) and directed a half-hour news program for Ecuavisa (an Ecuadorian network). She has been an assistant editor of the magazine HOGAR and a columnist for Vistazo. She is a two-time winner of Ecuador’s National Union of Journalists’ Award in the Television category. She is the author of “Etica para todos” (“Ethics for All”), “Ética de la comunicación y el periodismo” (“The Ethics of Communications and Journalism”), as well as “Desafíos éticos en el Ecuador de hoy” (“Ethical Challenges in Modern-Day Ecuador) and “El derecho a la información” (“The right to Information”). She has also served as Vice-President of Santiago Catholic University of Guayaquil.

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Pedro Arrojo (España)

Born in Madrid in 1951, Mr. Arrojo is a PhD in Physical Sciences from the University of Zaragoza and a Full Tenured Professor in the university’s Economics Analysis Department. Over the past 15 years, his research has focused on the “Economics of Water,” and his work has been published in several books, including "La gestión del agua de riego" (“Irrigation Water Management”) (1997), "El embalse de Itoiz, la razón o el poder" (“The Itniz Reservoir: Logic or Power”) (1997), "La gestión del agua en España y California” (“Water Management in Spain and California”) (1997), and “El Plan Hidrológico Nacional: una cita frustrada con la historia” (“The National Water Plan: An Broken Date with History”) (2003). As the president of the first Iberian Congresses on Water Planning and Management (Zaragoza-1998; Oporto-2000), Mr. Arrojo edited “El agua a debate desde la Universidad: hacia una Nueva Cultura del Agua” (“Water under Debate from the University Corridors: Toward a New Water Culture”) and “Una cita Europea con la Nueva Cultura del Agua: La Directiva Marco” (“Europe’s Date with the New Water Culture: The Framework Directive”). In recent years, he has headed an interdisciplinary team at the New Water Culture Foundation charged with advising the European Commission on the debate regarding Spain’s National Water Plan. He is a member of the Water Council of the Cuenca del Ebro (Consejo del Agua de la Cuenca del Ebro), a member of the MAB – UNESCO committee, a member of the Scientific Committee at the World Congress of the International Water Resources Association – IWRA (Madrid-2003), and he presides over the New Water Culture Foundation, which organizes the Iberian Congresses on Water Planning and Management with the support of 70 Universities in Spain and Portugal. Mr. Arrojo recently received the prestigious 2003 Goldman Environment Prize for Europe.

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Ricardo Uceda (Perú)

A journalist since 1974, Mr. Uceda has worked as a reporter, editor, and managing editor for several newspapers and magazines. He has served as the director of the weekly Sí and head of the Investigative Division of El Comercio newspaper. From 1994 to 2000, he spearheaded the most important investigative efforts in Peruvian journalism, including discovery of the Colina group, Peru’s military death squad unit in the 1990’s, and revelations concerning one million forged signatures in the tainted 2000 election cycle. In 1994, Mr. Uceda received the Press Freedom Award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. In 1999, the International Press Institute (IPI) honored him as one of its 50 Heroes of Press Freedom between 1950 and 2000. In 2000, Columbia University bestowed the Maria Moors Cabot Award on Mr. Uceda. In 2004, he published the bestseller “Muerte en el Pentagonito” (“Death in the Little Pentagon”) (Planeta), an exhaustive investigation into the atrocities committed by the Peruvian military and subversive groups between 1983 and 1993. Currently, he is director of Peru’s Press and Society Institute (Instituto Prensa y Sociedad –IPYS).

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Sheila Abed (Paraguay)

Ms. Abed is Executive Director and founder of Paraguay’s Institute for Economics and Environmental Law (Instituto de Economía y Derecho Ambiental – IDEA). She has extensive and varied experience as an attorney in environmental law. IDEA works with lawmakers, judicial and fiscal authorities, and as a permanent advisor to both houses of Paraguay’s legislature, including the committee on natural resources and the environment. She was recently chosen to serve as president of the Committee on International Environmental Law of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN).

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AVINA staff that accompanied the Judges

Geraldinho Vieira (Brasil): Director of Communications

Ricardo Corredor (Colombia): Communications Manager

Lilly Roth (Argentina): Communications Manager

Diana Castro (Colombia): Project Analyst, AVINA's Representation in Bogota