2025 Landscape Practitioner Award
Dr. Fausto Sarmiento
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Dr. Fausto Sarmiento
Dr. Fausto Sarmiento, Full Professor of Mountain Science, in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, was awarded the 2025 Distinguished Landscape Practitioner Award by the North American Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE-NA) at the annual meeting in North Carolina, Raliegh, USA, April 13-17th. This honor is bestowed to individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to the applications of landscape ecology principles to real-world problems. Demonstrated by nearly 30 years of devoted scholarship to neotropical cultural and natural mountain landscapes, Dr. Sarmiento has made substantial contributions to the field of mountain geography, biogeography, cultural landscapes, ecological legacies, ethnoecology, and biocultural diversity heritage conservation. Dr. Sarmiento is an editor of the book series “Montology” and has published several foundational montology research articles on the interaction of human-environment dimensions for high elevation forest landscapes – resulting in shifting paradigms on policy and management decisions for these sensitive environments including the Andean flanks. Dr. Sarmiento was the author or editor of 10 books on topics ranging from The Laws of Ecology and Critical Biogeography of the Northern Andean Highlands to Indigenous Revival and the Conservation of Sacred Natural Sites in the Americas. Sarmiento’s books are also written in Spanish thereby extending the reach of landscape ecology to Spanish-speaking regions. Notably, Dr. Sarmiento has provided a Spanish adaptation of Zev Naveh and Arthur Lieberman’s classic 1984 textbook “Landscape Ecology and Applications” published in 2002 for Latin American students and practitioners. Dr. Sarmiento has made considerable high value contributions to the World Commission of Protected Areas (WCPA) as part of the Mountain Executive of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). While advising on conservation and development issues linked to Tropical Montane Cloud Forests (TMCF’s), Dr. Sarmiento helped establish the Cultural Landscape Specialist Group at the WCPA. Dr. Sarmiento contributions helped establish the UNESCO-sponsored “Spiritual Landscape of Imbabura” in Ecuador – now a UNESCO Global GeoPark – and assisted the World Heritage Center to declare World Heritage Sites including the Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila in Mexico and the Coffee Cultural Landscape in Colombia. In addition, Dr. Sarmiento has dedicated his service to professional societies, including serving twice as a Chair of the Mountain Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), the President of the Andean Mountains Association (AMA), the Co-Chair of the Latin American and Caribbean Mountain Research and Innovation Network (LACMONT), re-elected Chair of the Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union (IGU), and is a Steering Committee Member of the United Nations University (UNU) International Program Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) for the socioecological production landscape and seascapes (SEPLS) and other effective conservation measures (OECMs). For more information about Dr. Sarmiento, please visit the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory website and his ResearchGate profile. |