Claudia Maricusa Agraz Hernández (Professor and Research of Coastal restauration and conservation coastal ecosystem, EPOMEX Institute UAC).
Claudia Maricusa Agraz Hernandez, has 25 years in teaching and research, she was the first woman in Mexico to present a doctoral thesis on restoration, in 1999 (Summa Cum Laude mention), she is one of the few women in Mexico with knowledge of the subject. Her trajectory of more than 20 years in ecological restoration work promotes the active participation of women in the fundamental human right established in the Mexican Constitution.
She has conducted relevant research to define strategies for mangrove conservation, management and restoration and has generated fundamental information on ecosystem distribution and changes, implementation of management programs, mitigation measures and ecological recovery. She is one of the pioneers in promoting pilot research projects for the generation and innovation of techniques and methods, developing large-scale projects on the topic of integral ecological restoration of mangrove ecosystems in Mexico, as well as in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, France, Africa and the United States. She has contributed to diminishing the generation gap and gender inequality with the transfer of technology to civil society organizations and local communities, for which in 2017 she was recognized with the Gulf Gardian Award. In 2018, she received the National Forestry Merit Award in the category of Restoration: In 2021, she was a speaker at the commemorative Webinar of the World Environment Day: "The decade of Ecosystem Restoration", that same year she enters the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, and currently, she belongs to the National System of Researchers Level I. He has developed more than 56 national and international research projects on environmental restoration, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in mangroves, which has consolidated the Coastal Wetlands Laboratory with emphasis on Mangrove Ecosystems and experimental laboratory (http://humedalescosterosepomex.com/ES/index.html). These projects have significantly benefited rural communities, providing productive alternatives in the conservation of natural resources. Since 2007, he has actively participated in graduate programs with PNPC, through protocols, theses and as syntheses of undergraduate and graduate degree exams in more than ten institutes and universities in Mexico, Costa Rica and Africa. He participates as a referee in scientific articles in indexed journals (Journal of Coastal Research, Continental Shelf Research, Rural Societies, Production and Environment-UAM). He has published scientific articles and a book chapter, included in JCR, SCOPUS, BIOSIS, SPRINGER, LATINDEX, SciELO, where in some of these have participated as co-authors former graduate students. Internationally, the transfers of the technology developed by Dr. Agraz stand out with restoration projects in Costa Rica and Benin, Africa, from 2017 to date, thanks to the Fonds Francais pour l'Environment Mondial, and which have been recognized by the Coordination Pour La Recherche et le Developpment en Environment and the Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica. The impact and national and international recognition has been expressed in invited and keynote presentations in Colombia, Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, France, Kenya, Togo, Benin.

Environmental restoration models with a social focus: Mexico, Costa Rica and Africa
Although mangroves are considered one of the most productive ecosystems in the world and irreplaceable because they fulfill ecological functions of economic and social importance, a reduction of 23% has been reported worldwide, and in some regions of the world there are losses of between 50% and 80%. This is attributed to various anthropogenic activities and climatic variation, which together have caused changes in the hydrological pattern, affecting the physical and chemical conditions of the soil and interstitial wa