Cristián Flores Fernández
Visiting Fellow, CAS Research Group “The Institutional Architecture for a 1.5 °C World”
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Law
Cristián Flores Fernández works with Prof. Dr. Tobias Krüger in the Hydrology and Society research group of the Department of Geography and IRI THESys. His PhD project studies the transformations and uncertainties that brine extraction for lithium and potassium mining generates in the socio-natural metabolism of the salt flats of northern Chile. From an interdisciplinary perspective and methodology, the project seeks to investigate the socio-environmental impacts of such extraction and the processes that shape the flow of water and knowledge within the intercultural territories of the Atacama and Maricunga salt flats.
Cristián Flores Fernández is a lawyer and holds a degree in Social and Legal Sciences from the University of Chile and a Master in Risk and Resource Governance from the University of Heidelberg. He worked for six years as a lawyer at the Chilean State Defence Council and then as legal advisor for water, energy and transport infrastructure projects for public and privates bodies. He has also worked as a director and researcher in international and Chilean environmental NGOs and in UNEP and FONDECYT research projects on ecosystem services and socio-ecological and mining conflicts in the Norte Grande of Chile.
He is a member of Prof. Dr. Ann-Katrin Kaufhold’s and Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Veil’s CAS Research Group “The Institutional Architecture for a 1.5 °C World”.