I have worked in Latin America for over 30 years, engaging in what often seems the hopeless cause of securing the flourishing of parrot and people. I have done this through war, gunfights, assassinations, and the violent drug and illegal wildlife trades. The costs of these tragedies have been not only loss of life and suffering to those I know and love, but also internalization of these events that contributed to bouts with depression and post traumatic stress disorder. The reward has been living a life of growing awareness of beauty, and acceptance of the world, just as it is. Conservation then, is not war, but a practice of peace, for ourselves as conservationists, and for those we serve.
This hope of peace is not just my story or the story of Latin America, but of all of us. For this reason we at One Earth Conservation have just published my memoir, “Conservation in Time of War.” We offer it to a world where climate change, terrorism, political polarization, and the loss of biodiversity threaten us all, and where a deep understanding that everything is connected in beauty can bring healing and hope. I hope it helps you and yours, and your work.
To get a copy, it is now available on Amazon. We will be offering it as an ebook/kindle edition soon, and hopefully next year in Spanish. We want to get the message out about the harm of the illegal wildlife trade and the hope of conservationists that work to save earth and earth's beings. I invite you then to contribute by getting this book, reading it, and sharing the stories with others. All funds raised from this book will go to help the parrots and people of Latin America.
Here I am in Guatemala in 1994 examining a wild yellow-naped amazon chick