College scholarship provides pathway to leadership and global collaboration.
Maria Moreno, a Colombian conservationist with hands-on experience and a passion for empowering locally-led environmental NGOs, is currently studying an MPhil in Conservation Leadership at Lucy Cavendish College.
She received the Lucy Cavendish Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) Scholarship, which has provided her with financial support and enabled her to attend the programme. The scholarship has helped her strengthen her leadership and management skills to continue creating a positive change in conservation, as well as allowing her to interact with other Conservation Leaders from all around the world to share experiences of failures and successes in nature conservation.
Maria is deeply grateful for the opportunity and stresses the need for the continuation of this kind of scholarship programme. She believes scholarships are vital tools in breaking down financial barriers, promoting academic and personal growth, and providing a more diverse, inclusive, and skilled society from a wider perspective.
In addition to her studies, Maria manages a conservation NGO called Fundación Guanacas, tasked with preserving a unique Andean Cloud Forest habitat, home to critically endangered and endemic species such as birds, wildcats, magnolias, orchids and many more. The Fundación Guanacas Reserve is vital for local water cycles as the cloud forest captures, stores, and releases water downstream which promotes water security in neighbouring human communities.
Maria's multifaceted job involves everything from long-term strategic planning to daily operations, as well as project funding. She has spearheaded partnerships with international NGOs to expand the reserve, secured funding for ecotourism projects, and overseen the training of forest rangers. Under her leadership, Fundación Guanacas has also launched restoration and plant propagation projects aimed at nurturing the ecosystem they protect.
She says, “My time at Lucy is empowering and strengthening my leadership skills to use and apply back home in Colombia, as well as giving me access and exposure to different cultures and global perspectives, enhancing my understanding of the world and allowing me to build a network of contacts that are invaluable to my conservation career.
The best thing about being part of the Lucy community is the support and networking opportunities where you can meet and interact with people from really diverse backgrounds, origins and cultures, which makes the stay at college truly interesting and inspiring.”
Image credits: @FundacionGuanacas