Advisory Committee
Selena Ahmed
Selena is an Associate Professor in Sustainable Food Systems at Montana State University. Since 2003, she has studied indigenous food production and consumption systems, and health, in diverse environments, developing case studies to explore complex human environment relations. Her primary area of expertise is the tea agro-forests of China's Yunnan Province, but she has also conducted research in India, Morocco, Venezuela, Belize, the Dominican Republic, and the USA. ResearchGate
Joaquín Carrizosa
Coordinator of WWF-Colombia Amazon program, Joaquín received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Kent (UK) in 2015. He has worked for many years in the Colombian Amazon on issues relating to indigenous rights, land use planning, community-based biodiversity monitoring, and conservation strategies. Much of his work has focused in the Putumayo, a region scarred by drug-related, political and structural violence linked to the economies of cocaine, oil and neoliberal policies in Colombia. He is currently in charge of designing projects with local communities and public institutions, fundraising, and monitoring conservation and social governance initiatives.
Alan Hamilton
Alan is a botanist with an academic specialization in the environmental history of East Africa, and more than 30 years experience working in global plant conservation. His current interests are in developing an ecosystem-based approach to plant conservation, helping his town (Godalming, Surrey) adapt to anticipated climate change, and applying ethnobotany to conservation and sustainable development goals in Uganda and China. In 2020, he has published a revised edition of the Field Guide to the Forest Trees, co-authored with Dr James Kalema of Makerere Department, Uganda, which includes 1104 tree names in 21 local languages. He has also published a two-way Luganda-English dictionary, that also contains vocabulary relating to culturally important plant uses. Alan is currently working with Prof Pei Shengji on ecosystem-based plant conservation. ResearchGate
Elysa Hammond
Elysa is an ecologist working at the organic nutrition company, Clif Bar & Company, located in Berkeley, California. She is founder of the company's sustainability program and oversees company efforts to reduce its environmental impact. Elysa is the editor of the Clif Bar Moving Toward Sustainability newsletter and serves as an advisor to the Clif Bar Family Foundation environmental grant program. She is part of the National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions Council, dealing with issues relating to climate change. She has conducted research on traditional agricultural systems in Peru and Indonesia.
Daniela Peluso
For the last three decades, Daniela has worked in lowland South America, mostly with the Ese Eja communities in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon. Her work focuses on personhood, relatedness, gender relations, informal and environmental service economies, ethnogenesis and indigenous urbanization. Daniela is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent. She serves on the board of the Society of Lowland South American Anthropology (SALSA) and The Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. ResearchGate
Chuck Peters
Currently retired and enjoying life as a letterpress printer, Chuck's life work as a forester and plant ecologist was dedicated to the study of ecology, use and management of tropical forest resources. Most of his research was carried out in close collaboration with local community groups. He conducted long-term field research in the Peruvian Amazon, Papua New Guinea, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Mexico, and directed community forestry projects in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Uganda, Cameroon, Myanmar and Vietnam. For Chuck's latest book click here.
Silvia Purata
Silvia is an ecologist, supporting communities to sustainably manage their forest resources and conserve Mexico’s rich cultural and biological diversity. Together with Chuck Peters and other People and Plants colleagues, she developed a sustainable management plan for the wood used to carve the famous “alebrijes” handicrafts from Oaxaca. She has also worked in the community forest, or ejido, Veinte de Noviembre, in Campeche, and in the cloud forests surrounding Xalapa, helping to diversify income from forests by developing activities such as wood handicrafts and native bee honey production.
Louis Putzel
A partner of Ka’awaloa Trail Farm in Captain Cook, Hawaii, Louis’ main interest is people-centered restoration of productive landscapes, through traditional and innovative practices based on ecological succession. He has researched topics including smallholder forest management, logging and the timber trade, forest restoration, and natural resources policy, largely in Peruvian Amazonia, central Africa, and China. He is now a farmer and freelance researcher, and remains an associate of CIFOR, where he was based for over seven years. ResearchGate