During our award ceremony at the EUROPARC Conference in France, we were able to award the Alfred Toepfer Medal again, the first time since 2019! The award was presented to Puri Canals from Spain.

Puri Canals represents the commitment to nature conservation through scientific knowledge and activism. Her work has been carried out on a local, national and international scale. Her drive for marine conservation, particularly in the Mediterranean, is outstanding.

Her social commitment to environmental issues and especially to nature conservation is evident in her frontline activist CV: President of DEPANA (association created in 1976 for the defence of Catalonia’s natural heritage), vice-president of IUCN (2005). Currently, she is president of MedPAN, the Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas Network, which aims to facilitate exchanges between Mediterranean marine protected areas in order to improve the efficiency of their management. Additionally, she is the Associate Professor of Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

Moreover, she was the team leader of the EU project “Transatlantic partnership for MPAs” (2016-2019) and in particular coordinator of the twinning of networks of MPA managers. She is currently the team leader of the EU Ocean Governance project (2021-2023) that is related to cooperation between networks of MPA managers, resilience, marine mammals, restoration in South-East Asia.

An impressive CV, well-deserving of this recognition.