Carolina Torres
Manager of the Deep Ocean Project
Carolina Torres is an environmental lawyer with broad expertise in environmental law, governance, and international environmental policy. She joined the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) in 2025 as Manager of the Deep Ocean Project, where she leads efforts to advance applied scientific research and strengthen ocean governance across the Eastern Tropical Pacific.
Carolina’s career bridges law, science, and international cooperation. She has worked with Island Conservation, Aguilar Castillo Love, and the Galápagos National Park Directorate, and has represented organizations in high-level multilateral forums such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Her contributions have helped shape global policy on synthetic biology, invasive species, and protected areas.
She has a solid track record in the administrative management of high-impact projects and fostering collaboration among governments, communities, and institutional partners to advance shared conservation goals. Her work focuses on building effective legal and institutional frameworks to address critical environmental challenges.
Carolina firmly believes in the role of science, technology and innovation as key tools for shaping public policy and addressing critical conservation challenges, through collaborative solutions that protect and restore ecosystems worldwide for next generations.
Carolina's programs
Ocean
Deep-ocean Exploration & ConservationThe Eastern Tropical Pacific conceals extraordinary, vast deep-ocean ecosystems, plunging from oceanic islands to depths of 3,800 meter, most of which remain largely unexplored, presenting real challenges for effective protection and management. Despite their significance, these ecosystems are poorly understood and subject to persistent threats, including overfishing, climate change, pollution, and the prospect for deep-sea mining.