I have been living in Peru since 1995 and carry out projects for the organization Fauna Forever to research biodiversity, protect tropical forests, provide environmental education and develop local communities. My focus is on the rainforests of the Madre de Dios region in the south-east of the country. I previously completed a PhD in Biology at the University of East Anglia, an MRes at the University of York and a BSc at the University of Edinburgh.

My joining Wilderness International was definitely a happy coincidence – in the right place at the right time, with the right people committed to preserving wild nature. A Peruvian friend introduced me to Fabian Mühlberger in 2018. Fabian and David MacDonald then accompanied me to the Peruvian Tambopata rainforest to photograph the wildlife of the Amazon and to explore the potential for conservation projects in the region. It is always fun for me to show environmentally conscious people this corner of the Amazon, because the sheer diversity of animal and plant species never ceases to take people's breath away. I was very pleased that Fabian and David were no exceptions. 

I believe in community conservation because it takes a lot of minds and skills to properly implement processes in this area. That's why we soon started talking about WI's conservation goals. It quickly became clear that WI's strategy of preserving wilderness areas with high biodiversity would fit very well into the local socio-ecological context, and soon enough, I began to actively support the WI team in establishing a permanent presence in the Peruvian Amazon. Today, I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WI-Peru and lead the process of evaluating and subsequently sourcing suitable land for long-term conservation measures in Peru.