Julia Urrunaga

Julia Urrunaga is the Peru Director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international NGO where she works on exposing forest crime, amplifying local peoples’ voices, and promoting new policy measures to help eliminate illegally sourced timber and forest products from global markets and shift demand towards legal and sustainable products.

With EIA, Julia was the lead author of “The Laundering Machine,” a groundbreaking report that uncovered and documented widespread and corrupt illegal logging operations in Peru that threaten the Peruvian Amazon and local communities, with the United States as the main destination of this high value illegally logged timber. The conclusions of the report as well as the data gathered and analyzed for the first time during this investigation have been the basis for ongoing official investigations in both countries. Most recently, Julia’s work with EIA has expanded to investigate the deforestation of natural forests generated by the emerging oil palm plantations in Peru.

Previously, Julia worked for 14 years as an investigative journalist specialized on corruption issues, activity for which she received several national and international journalism awards, including the Inter American Press Association and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Fundación para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano.

Julia holds a Master's degree in International Relations and a Diploma in Sustainable Development from Yale University – where she focused on governance, transparency and participation issues – and a Communications bachelor’s degree from the Universidad de Lima.

Julia will attend Parallel B1 Voluntary efforts to remove deforestation from supply chains.