Tania Martinez-Cruz
Tania Martinez-Cruz
Tania Eulalia Martinez-Cruz is an interdisciplinary researcher and an Ëyuujk Indigenous Woman from Mexico. She holds a B.Sc. in Irrigation Engineering from Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, an MSc. in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in social sciences from Wageningen University. She is a Research Associate at the Laboratory of Anthropology of Contemporary Worlds of the Free University of Brussels.
She has 15 years of experience working on issues linked to international development that range from sanitary engineering, irrigation, water management, energy security, food, and nutrition security, ICT4D, agricultural extension, social inclusion, climate action, and politics of knowledge. She has worked with international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the Natural Resources institute of the University of Greenwich, the Centre for International Forestry Research, the International Maize and Wheat and Improvement Centre, the Overseas Development Institute, and Value for Women, among many others.
She uses her research and her experience in the field to advocate for the role of Indigenous Peoples, their knowledge, and practices in tackling global challenges such as water, nutrition, and food security, climate change, as well as the role of Indigenous youth and women as knowledge holders and guardians of the world’s biodiversity.
As part of her advocacy work, she collaborates with Indigenous lead organizations and other multistakeholder Think Tanks that look to transform the current food systems and advocate for the crucial role of Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems; for example, she is a member of the advisory board of the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty and the TMG Think Tank for Sustainability, collaborates with the Expert Group of Agriculture and Food Security of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as an expert on Indigenous Issues, the Global Hub on Indigenous Peoples´ Food Systems, the Coalition on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems that resulted from the UN Food Systems Summit 2021, the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the Collective Indigenous Futures, the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-and Activists from the South, among others.
Also, as part of her advocacy work as an Ëyuujk Indigenous woman and researcher, she promotes the conservation of indigenous knowledge as the key to the biocultural diversity of Indigenous Peoples and tackling global problems. She has presented on these issues in several high political level spaces such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021, COP26, Stockholm+50, the Second Water Process in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, as part of the Water Decade, the World Water Week, the World Biodiversity Forum, and many others.