|
 Jim
Barborak
Jim was one of the early pioneers
of the conservation movement in Honduras. As a Peace Corps
Volunteer he participated in the initial expeditions and planning
studies that led to the declaration of the Río Plátano
watershed as a U.N. Man and the Biosphere Reserve and World
Heritage Site. He is also one of the original architects of
the Mesoamaerican Biological Cooridor and Mesoamerican Trail
Initiative.
Jim currently works for Conservation
International, MesoAmerican Programs. His past jobs have included
advisor to the Costa Rican Park Service; regional coordinator
for IUCN and WWF; head of the Wildlands Program at CATIE;
and professor at INCAE and the University for Peace, all in
Costa Rica. He has been a member of the Tropical Science Center
(Costa Rica) and the Wolrd Commission on Protected Areas,
and is an associate of the Center for Protected Area Management
and Training at Colorado State University.
E-mail Jim
Lauri Boxer-Macomber
Lauri served in the Peace Corps as a Natural Resources Volunteer in the Río Plátano Biosphere
Reserve from 1996 through 1998. Together with her local, national and international counterparts, Lauri's work in the Reserve
included the development of environmental education, sea turtle conservation, ecotourism, and small business development programs.
Before serving in the Peace Corps, Lauri volunteered extensively with the Heifer Project International, living and working at the
organization's International Learning and Livestock Centers in Perryville, Arkansas and Rutland, Massachusetts. As an undergraduate,
Lauri was the recipient of an academic research grant that allowed her to study grassroots ecotourism in the Puerto Viejo de Talamanca
region of Costa Rica, and as a graduate and law student, she worked, studied, and travelled in Southeast Asia.
Lauri presently lives in Portland, Maine with Ethan Boxer-Macomber, who also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, and
their two children. Lauri's work in Portland is as an attorney, mediator and facilitator with the law firm of Kelly, Remmel and Zimmerman and as a mother
of two school-age children. She is an active member of the Maine Bar Association and the vice president of a local non-profit board focused on early childhood
education. Her professional and academic interests include alternative dispute resolution, transnational migration, health care law, the interplay between
public policy development and open government, and constitutional issues arising in family law.
Lauri's work and experience in the United States and abroad informs her philosophy regarding international development and her work on the ECOS Board.
She believes that the most effective and sustainable approach to conservation and development programs in rural areas such as the Río Plátano Biosphere
Reserve involves fostering access to education and providing ongoing support and training for local leaders and educators.
Kelly, Remmel and Zimmerman
53 Exchange Street
Portland, Maine, 04112
USA
Tel: 207-775-1020
Fax: 207-773-4895
E-mail Lauri
 Eric
Greenquist
Eric is a senior wildlife
biologist with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau
of Land Management, in Eugene, Oregon. Before beginning his
federal career, Eric earned a B.A. in biology from the University
of Missouri and a M.S. in wildlife ecology from Ohio University,
and served for three years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile.
Between 1995 and 2001 he led work by the Interior Department
to help protect the biological diversity and indigenous peoples
of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve. Working
with local villages, MOPAWI, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the U.S. Peace Corps and the Honduran Government,
Eric and 13 Interior Department specialists accomplished a
variety of local and national initiatives to curb destructive
land uses, and to foster economic development, education,
protection of rare species, habitat restoration, administration
and territorial ordination.
He writes, "My experiences
in the Río Plátano, and my work with the wonderful
people who live there, are among the most rewarding of my
career."
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
P.O. Box 10226
Eugene, OR 97440-2226
USA
Tel: 541-683-6114
Fax: 541-683-6981
E-mail Eric
 Ryan
Moore
Ryan received his B.A. in
Environmental Studies and Geography from the University of
California, Santa Barbara in 1992. Soon after, he entered
the Peace Corps where he served three years in Honduras as
a Natural Resources Sector Volunteer. During his tour he helped
to establish the Ecological Association for the Protection
of Pico Pijol National Park (AECOPIJOL), aided in the development
of that organization, and promulgated many park management
and environmental education activities in and around Pico
Pijol National Park. Ryan spent another year and a half in
Honduras as co-owner of Tropical Butterfly Farm and Gardens
on the north coast near the city of La Ceiba.
He completed his M.S. degree
at the University of Idaho in the Department of Resource Recreation
and Tourism in 2004. His interests are international protected
area management (especially the contributions local, grassroots
environmental organizations make to protected area management),
ecotourism, and public participation in natural resource decision-making.
His M.S. thesis addressed the concept of co-management as
an approach to managing natural resources.
Most recenly he has focused his career on greening the built environment. He is currently
a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Technical Specialist, Green Rater, and (soon to be) HERS Rater for Environmental Dynamics, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
8000 Harrisonburg Ct. NW
Albuquerque, NM 87120
USA
Tel: 505-890-2740
E-mail Ryan
 Osvaldo
Munguia
Osvaldo
was born and raised in La Mosquitia. After finishing elementary
school in Brus Laguna he went to Tegucigalpa for secondary
schooling. He has done studies on Forestry at ESNACIFOR the
Honduran national school of forestry, and Community Economic
Development at New Hampshire College. At present he is a part-time
scholar at The Oxford Center for Mission Studies. He is a
co-founder of MOPAWI, a non-profit NGO dedicated to the integration
of human development and conservation of nature in La Mosquitia,
and has served as Executive Director for the last 12 years.
In 1988 he participated in a 14-day expedition through the
Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve to document the
advancing deforestation by the encroaching agricultural frontier.
He also participated in a similar 12-day expedition the following
year on the Río Patuca. These two expeditions were
crucial to land rights claims for the indigenous communities
in the Mosquitia region. His dissertation concerns the transition
from subsistence to sustainable livelihoods in the Río
Plátano Biosphere Reserve.
MOPAWI
Apdo 2175
64 B 2a Calle, Tres Caminos
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, C. A.
Tel/Fax: 504-235 8659
E-mail Osvaldo
 Erik
Nielsen
Erik has worked in Central
America as a Peace Corps Volunteer and a consultant to a non-governmental
conservation and development organization (TNC?). He spent
almost four years working in protected area management with
local communities of mestizo and indigenous populations. He
has continued to support conservation efforts in the region
by serving on advisory boards for ECOS partner MOPAWI, a regional
conservation/sustainable development NGO. He received his
master’s degree in international development policy
from Rutgers State University of New Jersey (in 1994) and
is currently completing his Ph.D. at the University of Idaho.
His research focuses on participatory planning processes in
community-based conservation projects in the Río Plátano
and Sierra de las Minas biosphere reserves. He has also worked
as a private consultant with Foster Wheeler Environmental
Corporation. In that role he worked to design and implement
social assessments, natural resource surveys and sustainable
forest management programs including his lead role in the
socioeconomic analysis of the Lower Snake River Salmon Recovery
Study.
Erik’s experiences working
and living with the people of the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve
have served as a powerful reminder of human resiliency and
our shared global humanity. These experiences were and continue
to be the strong motivation to work with local communities
to meet the critical long-term need of investing in the educational
capital of the region. Erik is currently Assistant Professor
in the Department of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Resources
at Northern Arizona University.
900 N. Switzer Canyon Dr.,
#210
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
USA
E-mail Erik
Karen
Steer
Karen is the Program Coordinator
for the Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership with
Sustainable Northwest, a regional sustainable development
NGO based out of Portland, Oregon. Sustainable Northwest increases
the capacity of local entrepreneurs to successfully develop
and market sustainable products and services, leading to creation
of conservation-based businesses. Karen has also held positions
with the Wilderness Society, the National Park Service Social
Science Program, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’
community impact assessment for the Lower Snake River Juvenile
Salmon Migration Recovery Feasibility Study. Karen is a returned
Peace Corps Volunteer from Honduras, where she served for
three years as a Protected Areas consultant including a year
working in the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve.
Karen holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Allegheny
College and a Masters degree in Social Ecology from Yale School
of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Sustainable Northwest
620 SW Main, Suite 112
Portland, OR 97205
Tel: 503-221-6911
E-mail Karen
|
