Cynthia Barzuna Gutiérrez is the Vice Minister of Water and Ocean Affairs for Costa Rica. She is the former Director General of the National Environmental Technical Secretariat, SETENA. She is an environmental and urban law specialist and has developed in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Environmental Assessment and Territorial Impact Assessment. She participated in the construction of the environmental regulations regarding the general EIA procedures. She has collaborated with the drafting of landscape impact regulations, environmental regulations for Municipalities, master environmental plans for megaprojects, among others.
She was a member of the Peace with Nature territorial and environmental planning committee. She participated in the Regional Urban Plan for the Greater Metropolitan Area in the urban zoning planning. She was part of the intersectoral Committee of SETENA from 2004 to 2007. She was part of the San José Regeneration and Repopulation Commission and has served as an IUCN External Consultant in the drafting of the Central American Code of Ethics in environmental impact assessment. She was Project Director of the Costa Rican Water Association, a non-profit association dedicated to the protection of the comprehensive management of water resources.
She has provided advice on environmental issues to business chambers such as: Real Estate Development Council, Costa Rican Chamber of Construction, Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations (Sustainable Development Commission), Chamber of Agriculture. She participated as an external Consultant of the Inter-American Development Bank, in the project “Reform of the Legal Framework of the Costa Rican Public Administration”.