Omaira Bolaños is the Director of the Latin America & Gender Justice Programs at Rights and Resources Initiative.  She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida. Omaira has 25 years of professional experience throughout Latin American working on topics related to Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities’ collective tenure rights, sustainable development, gender justice, watershed management, community forestry, forest policy, community-based conservation, applied research and capacity development. She has developed research on Indigenous Peoples' land rights struggles in the lower Amazon Brazil and Community forestry in Bolivia. In the last ten years, she has worked to strategically prioritize and support the regional afro-descendant movement in consolidating their collective tenure rights. She joined RRI in 2009.