Vita de Waal

Biographical Information
"Widely travelled from a very early age, Vita had contact with a wide variety of indigenous cultures and experienced the powerful living approach of a spirituality blended with all aspects of daily life. A prolific networker, she is actively engaged in humanitarian and environmental strategies with a focus on sustainable development, water management and biodiversity, with a specific concern for nomadic populations. She worked for 10 years at the Findhorn Foundation in what was to become one of the first NGOs to create the eco-village concept and that was recently found to have the lowest ecological footprint ever measured in the industrialized world. Workshop leader and international conference coordinator, she lectured at conferences and universities in Europe, the USA and India She is currently Executive Trustee of the Foundation for Gaia (UK), Director of Altea Publishing (UK), Vice-President of the Institute for Planetary Synthesis (IPS), Main Representative to the UN for the Planetary Association for Clean Energy (PACE, Canada), Chair of the United Nations NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns (CSVGC ) and Chair of the Working Group 'Sacred Knowledge and Sacred Sites' (CH). She has recently joined the IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas Specialist Group CSVPA on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas. She joined the Board 1984.

"She was awarded the Accademia dei Georgofili Medal for salvage of rare agricultural texts as a "Mud Angel" during the 1966 Florence floods. "


 * Trustee, Foundation for GAIA