Board of Directors

Curtis Bernard is a Director on the CBF Board of Directors. He is the acting Chairman of the Protected Areas Trust (Guyana) and has been a Trustee, nominated by the Major Donors to the Trust, since 2018. He is Conservation International Guyana’s Executive Director and has been involved in environmental management at technical, middle, and senior management levels for more than two decades. Curtis has extensive experience in practical application of spatial planning and Geographic Information Systems in conservation management and planning and has worked extensively supporting maintenance of Guyana’s biodiversity and ecosystems. He played key roles in the processes for the identification and revision of priority areas for conservation in the Guiana Shield and participated significantly in the processes leading to the establishment of the Kanuku Mountains Protected Area and the Kanashen Community Conservation Area. He has engaged on initiatives related to extractives and the environment in Guyana, Suriname and Liberia and has extensive experience working with indigenous people. He is experienced with application of the mitigation hierarchy, and design of biodiversity offsets, including participation in the assessment of potential impacts of the planned upgrade to the Georgetown to Lethem Road on biodiversity and ecosystem services, including carbon storage, and the recommendation of mitigation measures. He holds a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Guyana.