Joint Public Advisory Committee
The Joint Public Advisory Committee is composed of nine citizens, three from each country (Canada, Mexico and the United States). Together, they advise the Council on a wide array of environmental issues within the scope of the Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.
Members
Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin
Canada
Chief executive officer for Nukik Corporation
Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin
Chief executive officer for Nukik Corporation
Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin is a seasoned executive with over 15 years of proven leadership in the natural resources and energy sectors. As the Chief Executive Officer of Nukik Corporation, she is advancing significant infrastructure development in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut, spearheading the adoption of large-scale renewable energy and broadband connectivity. Her strategic oversight of the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link in particular — a multi-billion-dollar initiative— is positioned to unlock immense value for both the region and Canada. Thanks to this expertise in financial modelling, project approval, and large-scale infrastructure execution, the company is driving impactful change in the Canadian Arctic.
Previously, as President and CEO of WaterPower Canada, Anne-Raphaëlle led the national association representing Canada’s largest electricity sector. She significantly expanded revenue, successfully launched the first national industry conference and trade show, and grew the membership base, enhancing the organization's visibility and influence across the sector.
Anne-Raphaëlle’s background also includes a role as Environmental and Social Impacts Management Specialist at Hatch Ltd., where she worked on energy and mining projects. She excels in navigating complex, multi-stakeholder environments, securing strategic partnerships, and driving consensus across regional, provincial, and federal levels. Recognized as a thought leader, Anne-Raphaëlle is frequently quoted in national media and serves on several boards of directors.
In 2019, Anne-Raphaëlle became a Governor in Council Appointee to the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), where she promotes sustainable development and ecosystem protection across Canada, the US, and Mexico. She was reappointed in 2022 for a four-year term by the federal government.
Anne-Raphaëlle holds a degree in Business Administration from the Université de Nantes (France), Civil Law and Common Law degrees from the University of Ottawa, and a Master’s in Environmental and Natural Resources Management from Dalhousie University. She also earned an Executive Certificate in Corporate Sustainability from the Yale School of Management in 2021. Fluent in French, English, and Spanish, she is certified in Project Planning and Controls.
Elizabeth Whitsitt
Canada
Associate Professor at University of Calgary
Elizabeth Whitsitt
Associate Professor at University of Calgary
Professor Elizabeth Whitsitt has been engaged in a variety of issues in the area of international law, particularly international economic law. Her research interests include the unifying role of adjudication in global economic governance, and the relationship between international economic law and the regulation of natural resources, energy, environment and human rights.
Professor Whitsitt teaches various courses in international law and dispute resolution at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law. Professor Whitsitt received her LLM in international legal studies from New York University and completed her PhD in 2017. Her PhD research focused on the intersection of trade law and investment arbitration. More specifically, her work considered the role that adjudicators play in the continuing conversation about the relationship between the international trade and international investment law regimes and the extent to which these regimes are uniting through the process of adjudication. Professor Whitsitt has published and presented extensively in the areas of international trade and investment law. She is also the recipient of a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, a Killam Memorial Scholarship and the Marc Lalonde Prize for Excellence in International and Commercial Arbitration.
Professor Whitsitt is a member of the Law Society of Alberta, the Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL), the American Society of International Law (ASIL), and the European Society of International Law (ESIL).
Professor Whitsitt is also an appointee to Canada’s roster for NAFTA Chapter 19 Binational Panels.
Mexico’s representative on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
Luis Alfonso Argüelles Suárez
Mexico’s representative on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
An agricultural engineer specializing in forests and a graduate of the Chapingo Autonoma University, Luis Alfonso Argüelles Suárez is currently Mexico’s representative on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a position he has occupied since 2014. From 1995 to 1997, he sat on the FSC’s Board of Directors.
Between 1981 and 1986, he worked at the then National Forestry Research Institute, now known as the National Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research Institute (Inifap). After serving as a researcher commissioned by a pilot Quintana Roo forestry project as the Mexican counterpart of a Mexico-Germany cooperation agreement, he served as forestry advisor on a forestry management project in Quintana Roo under the aegis of a Mexico-UK cooperation agreement. For ten years, he was Technical Director of the Quintana Roo Association of Ejido Forestry Producers. He has also been an advisor to the National Union of Community Forestry Organizations (Unofoc), a consultant with the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) on a forestry policy project in Ecuador and a consultant with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru. Argüelles Suárez is a founding member of Trópica Rural Latinoamericana, an organization which has executed projects for the MacArthur Foundation, the WWF and Corredor Mesoamericano-México.
Cessia Esther Chuc Uc
Mexico
Cessia Esther Chuc Uc
A social anthropologist out of Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán and a doctoral candidate in Mesoamerican Studies fromUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cessia Esther Chuc Uc is a professor and researcher at Universidad Autónoma de Campeche. Her current research work focuses on the use of honey and wax from the beeswax from the stingless bee (Melipona beechii), encompassing honey’s symbolic, ritual, medicinal and nutritional significance.
Originally from a Mayan family of artisans, she overcame her social disadvantages and began to work in fields of knowledge that have been validated by her tireless efforts to rescue and create awareness of her millennial roots. Her career and professional endeavors were recognized by Unesco in October 2010 as part of the “Indigenous Women: Life Stories” initiative. An author of numerous studies on aspects of Mayan culture, such as thought, language, current farming rituals and traditional crafts, Chuc Uc has also written books to teach the Mayan language. More recently, she is noted for her bilingual (Mayan-Spanish) stories in which she uses the Mayan narrative on the elements of nature as a strategy to teach children to respect and value their natural and cultural heritage.
Esteban Escamilla Prado
Mexico
Research professor at the Eastern University Regional Center (CRUO)
Esteban Escamilla Prado
Research professor at the Eastern University Regional Center (CRUO)
An agricultural engineer with an MA and PhD in tropical agroecosystems from the College of Postgraduates, Esteban Escamilla Prado’s doctoral dissertation concerned the study of organic coffee quality in Mexico. Since 1987, he has been a research professor at the Eastern University Regional Center (CRUO) of the Autonomous University of Chapingo (UACh), in Huatusco, Veracruz. Formerly the director of CRUO, he is currently research director at the National Center for Coffee Research, Innovation and Technological Development (Cenacafé). Aside from his research and teaching responsibilities, he dedicates part of his time to training and outreach work, teaching courses and offering certificate programs on comprehensive sustainable coffee cultivation, organic agriculture, biodiversity, sustainable land use, and agroforestry. Having ample experience in coffee cultivation, his research includes a range of topics: plant genetic resources, genetic improvement, coffee growing systems and technologies, economic diversification, edible insects, and worm farming. He has directed and advised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations. He has also published numerous books, articles and manuals, as well as presented many papers in local, national and international events.
Throughout his professional career, Escamilla Prado has participated in diverse activities related to comprehensive sustainable coffee cultivation in Mexico and various coffee-producing countries in Central and South America, with a focus on training and advising small scale and Indigenous producer cooperatives on organic production, fair trade and quality control. As an organic coffee producer himself, he is a founding member of the “Catuai Amarillo” cooperative and the Federation of High Mountains Specialty Coffees (Incafesam), social enterprises that export organic coffee to the United States and Europe. Moreover, he is a member and current president of the Steering Committee of the Mexican Certification Authority for Ecological Products and Processes (Certimex). He is a former mayor of Chocamán, Veracruz, his place of residence. Since 2019, he has collaborated with the Sowing Life program of the Mexican government’s Ministry of Welfare as an agroforestry and sustainable coffee cultivation expert.
William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow, Stanford University
Felicia Marcus
William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow, Stanford University
Felicia Marcus is the William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program, an attorney, consultant, and member of the Water Policy Group. She most recently served as Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, implementing laws regarding drinking water, water quality, and state’s water rights, hearing regional board water quality appeals, settling disputes, and providing financial assistance to communities to upgrade water infrastructure.
Before her appointment to the Water Board, Marcus served in positions in government, the nonprofit and private sector. In government, she served as the Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Region during the Clinton Administration, where she was known for her work bringing unlikely allies together for environmental progress and for making the agency more responsive to the communities it serves, particularly Indian Tribes, communities of color, local government, and agricultural and business interests. Preceding her work at the EPA, Marcus served as the President of the Board of Public Works for the City of Los Angeles, presiding over the department through a time of great change and challenge, including numerous emergency response situations (including flood, earthquake and riots).
In the non-profit world, she was the Western Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and prior to that the Executive Vice-president and Chief Operating Officer of the Trust for Public Land. Marcus also has an extensive background as a private sector and public interest lawyer, as well as a community organizer, most notably as a founder and general counsel to Heal the Bay. She has served as the director of litigation for Public Counsel, a public interest law firm; an associate at the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson; a visiting fellow at the Center for Law in the Public Interest; a law clerk to the Honorable Harry Pregerson (9th Circuit Court of Appeals); and legislative assistant to Congressman Anthony C. Beilenson in Washington, DC.
In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from Harvard College, and Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law and studied at Hong Kong University on a Rotary Fellowship.
Octaviana V. Trujillo
United States
Professor at Northern Arizona University
Octaviana V. Trujillo
Professor at Northern Arizona University
Octaviana V. Trujillo (Yaqui), Ph.D., is the 2023 chair of the CEC's Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), having been first appointed as a member of JPAC by US President Barack Obama in 2015. She is founding Chair and Professor Emerita in the Department of Applied Indigenous Studies at Northern Arizona University and the former chairwoman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona. She has spent her career advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and developing educational courses, initiatives, and programs to support Tribal Nation Building and Indigenous communities, especially with regard to sustaining Indigenous languages, cultures and lifeways, and working with Indigenous youth.
She is a current Soros Equality Fellow and the 2021 American Educational Research Association, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Research awardee for outstanding scholarship. She is also an advisory board member to Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras, whose mission is to affirm the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their right to self-determination, their collective human and civil rights, the rights of sovereignty and the protection of sacred sites, and their right to free and unrestricted movement across international borders. Trujillo also served as an active national member of the American Friends Service Committee and Farmworker Justice, working to foster community-based resources for promoting social justice.
Her extensive international experience as researcher, mediator, and advisor on the topics of human and Indigenous rights includes participation in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and serving on the EPA Governmental Advisory Committee, which helps to shape US policies that are intended to improve environmental and health conditions in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and the Global Diversity Foundation, which promotes agricultural, biological, and cultural diversity around the world through research, training and social action.
Robert W. Varney
United States
President of Normandeau Associates
Robert W. Varney
President of Normandeau Associates
Considered one of the nation’s most experienced and respected environmental leaders, Robert Varney is a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) New England Regional Administrator, who currently is President of Normandeau Associates, a science-based environmental firm with eighteen offices in 12 states. He was the longest-serving regional administrator and top environmental official in New England and is credited with instituting many innovative approaches and policy initiatives that have served as national models. Prior to EPA, Mr. Varney was one of the nation’s longest-serving state environmental commissioners, appointed by three Governors of both political parties.
Bob is nationally recognized for his efforts on global climate change; energy efficiency and renewables; homeland security and preparedness; clean air, clean water and safe drinking water; superfund and brownfields cleanup and redevelopment; environmental justice and healthy communities; restoration of rivers, lakes and coastal areas; strong and consistent enforcement and compliance assistance; strengthening partnerships; and improved agency management and performance.
Mr. Varney has chaired the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), State/EPA Superfund Policy Forum, Federal Ozone Transport Commission (OTC), Governmental Advisory Committee to the US Representative to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment, New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission and New England Governors Conference Environment Committee. He also was a member of EPA’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council and currently serves on the NH Board of Trustees for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the CEC Joint Public Advisory Committee (US, Mexico, Canada). Bob is the recipient of numerous environmental awards such as the EPA Lifetime Achievement Award, NE Water Works Association’s John H. Chafee Award, Environmental Business Council of NE’s Paul Keough Award and the ECOS Founder’s Award.
Advice to Council
To inform its recommendations, JPAC engages the public in open forums that bring together experts on North America’s most pressing environmental issues. JPAC subsequently submits its recommendations to Council in the form of an Advice.
Featured Public Consultation
Reaching Horizon 2030 – An Environmental Outlook for North American Cooperation
Deadline: January 24, 2025
The CEC is seeking comments and suggestions from people across North America on the implementation of the CEC’s “Reaching Horizon 2030: An Environmental Outlook for North American Cooperation” initiative. The goal of the Reaching Horizon 2030 (H-2030) initiative is to advance strategic efforts to support North America's contribution to global climate and biodiversity goals, particularly in the face of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. H-2030 will explore emerging environmental and climate challenges facing the region from now until 2030 and beyond, offering an environmental outlook that will guide future cooperation across North America. This consultation invites people to share insights and recommendations on how the CEC can effectively address key environmental issues through its strategies, programs, and partnerships. Your participation is critical in shaping actions that will help North America achieve its climate, biodiversity, and pollution reduction goals.