Jessica Hidalgo Florindez

Jessica Hidalgo has been the director of the Por la Pesca project of the Marine Governance Program of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law since 2022.

Jessica is a lawyer by profession and holds a Master’s degree in Intellectual Property and Competition Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. She has more than 25 years of experience directing forestry and conservation programs and evaluating environmental policies and regulations, especially in the Amazon region. She has extensive experience leading complex USAID regional programs for regional and bilateral missions in Latin America, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. She has been director of USAID’s regional projects “Promotion of Best Socio-Environmental Practices in the Amazon Region” between September 2018 and May 2020, and “Support Unit for the Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon (ICAA) I and II” between 2006 and 2016.

As director of the USAID Best Socio-Environmental Practices Project, she led a multidisciplinary team in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, with project offices in Colombia and Peru, establishing partnerships with business associations, private companies, and national and local indigenous organizations, and involving the public sector to promote the adoption of best social and environmental business practices in extractive activities and infrastructure projects.

As director of the ICAA I and II Support Unit, she provided overall management and technical direction to multidisciplinary teams, project offices in Ecuador and Peru, and local teams in Colombia and Bolivia, ensuring quality performance and effective and integrated implementation in the region and alignment with the regional and bilateral programming of USAID missions. She also established positive relationships with USAID missions and more than 60 local, national, and international conservation organizations, the private sector, and governments throughout the Amazon region with the aim of strengthening the conservation of the Amazon biome, and managed a successful $4 million grant program.

Previously, she worked for 18 years at SPDA designing and implementing forestry projects, promoting sustainable forest management, strengthening the country’s forestry institutions, and working on industry and trade projects.

As director of Por la Pesca, which aims to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and promote responsible fishing practices in the artisanal sector in Peru and Ecuador, she leads the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the project, and the alliance formed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), WildAid, Future of Fish, REDES-SP, Pro Delphinus, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

Email: jhidalgo@spda.org.pe