Portuguese born on November 3rd, 1958, António Manuel Pereira de Araújo developed ornithological research applied to conservation, and Protected Areas management at the Portuguese National Parks Authority, for 15 years, and he was coordinator of the national bird ringing center at the Ministry of the Environment until 1996. He joined IUCN Bissau in 1996 to support the establishment of a network of protected areas. There he was at the origin of the Protected Areas Center (NAP), created to support effective MPA management, with a focus on community-based governance and sustainable development. From 1999 to 2014, Antonio was in charge of project coordination, and representative of the International Foundation of Banc d'Arguin in Mauritania. He assumed the role of advisor of PNBA’s national Director on issues related to conservation and ecological monitoring, maritime and terrestrial surveillance, ecotourism, management effectiveness evaluation, sustainable financing, communication and environmental education. Within the scope of his functions, he launched with other donors the creation of BACOMAB, a trust fund established to support the conservation of PNBA and other coastal protected areas in Mauritania. This trust fund is presently fully operational and its route and experience inspired the establishment of Bioguiné trust fund in Guinea-Bissau, also created to support the effective management of the national network of Protected Areas. As a staff member of the MAVA Foundation, based in Senegal between 2015 and 2018, he supported the emergence of a number of environmental NGO in Cabo Verde, presently fully active, and was the manager of an important portfolio of projects accounting for several million euros, focused on biodiversity conservation in West Africa. In 2019 he created an environmental consulting firm “Azul e Verde”,based in Cape Verde to promote sustainable development through the effective and financially sustainable management of protected areas and the conservation of biodiversity. In 2023 became CEO of the largest Private Protected Area in Portugal. Member of the advisory board of Blue Finance https://blue-finance.org/meet-the-team/, president of the board of directors of Fundação Maio Biodiversidade in Cabo Verde, member of the network of regional experts and evaluators of the Blue Action Fund https://www.blueactionfund.org/ member of the Small Islands Initiative network SMILO http://www.smilo-program.org/fr/ , founding member and president of the audit comittee of the Portuguese ornithological Society (SPEA) https://www.spea.pt/ and founding member of the NGO ZERO https://zero.ong/. António is a winner of the BP Conservation Expedition Award in 1994 and the Nature Conservation prize "Quercus" in 1995.