Lea Schwad

As part of the team Lea is the youngest member of the Surf and Nature Alliance. With a background in architecture and urban planning, she now focuses on spatial planning and sustainable development with a focal point on coastal areas. After her degree at the Technical University RWTH Aachen, Lea studies the European Master Transforming City Regions. Her projects focus on issues of spatial, environmental and heritage planning and management, conservation, and protection of different cultures as well as nature and climate change as a mayor threat in present times.

Her studies and research work take place all over the world and range from the local scale in cooperation with neighbourhoods and its people, through the urban and environmental space of cities, to the regional and transnational level. Currently, she won the Innovative Thinker Fellowship of the Belmont Forum funded international research–innovation consortium IFWEN about the Nature of Cities and Post Covid-19 development.

Growing up in a village in Germany, Lea spent most of her days outdoors and has a strong connection to nature and the freedom it brings along. Her relationship with the ocean roots in Punta de Lobos (Chile) where she started surfing and has been doing it ever since. She has worked along the coasts of Chile, Rapa Nui and Spain, increasing and embodying a passion for the ocean with her heart and soul. Seeing the constant destruction for political, touristic and economic reasons she wants to change the indifference towards the marine environment and dedicates herself to its protection.