Paul F. Torrence is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, USA. His career spanned 30 years at the US National Institutes of Health where he was a Section Chief and then 8 years at Northern Arizona University where he was department Chair for 3 years. He has published more than 200 papers and edited 4 books in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. He now lives in Williams, Oregon where he is a small organic farmer also involved in forest and watershed restoration. His passion for nature was fed and deepened by extensive hiking, backpacking, and mountaineering on five continents. Volunteer activities in conservation have included organizing US Congressional advocacy/lobbying campaigns for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, member of the Maryland governor’s Endangered Species Taskforce, and consultant and witness for the plaintiffs in Navajo Nation et al vs. US Forest Service et al, a case likely headed for the US Supreme Court.
paul@amazonfundinternational.org


Fred Opdam, initiator and chairman. A graphic designer/art director who has developed an interest in the preservation of nature in the Amazon region. He visited the rainforests in the Americas, Africa and Asia various times. Fred was the iniator and chairman of the foundation "Help Marc van Roosmalen", assisting the Brazilian primatologist of Dutch origine, when he found himself in jail, accused of "biopiracy".
fred@amazonfund.eu


Erik Jongejan is a retired biologist with experience in travelling the rainforest from Asia and South America. He was a teacher trainer in the Netherlands and Aruba (Caribbean) and writer of schoolbooks in Science and Environmental education. He guided groups in all parts of the world during ecological excursions. He was the chairman of the Dutch Teacher Society for Science teachers. He founded the first Field Studies Council in the Netherlands. He was the chairman of different nature organisations. Now he is involved in nature conservation of the rainforests, specially of South America, like Cuyabeno in Ecuador, Suriname, Brazil and parts of Indonesia.
erik@amazonfund.eu


John Smit is entomologist working for the European Invertebrate Survey – the Netherlands. It was these insects that astonished me as a child through their diversity and up till now they never cease to amaze me with their diversity, both in appearance as well as in biology and ecology. Which in itself is not surprising for it is undisputedly the most diverse group of organisms in our world. In 2003 I first met another highly diverse area: the Peruvian rainforest, one of the areas with the highest biodiversity in the world. In that year I guided my first trip with Dutch students to Peru with the Dutch foundation Biodiversity and Education (stichting BEE). Since then I have guided several tours with them to Peru. The main goal of this foundation, of which I am a board member, is to create awareness for the biodiversity in the world and the rapid decline thereof. One way of achieving this is to organize two educational trips to Peru per year and another by funding several projects in Peru on biodiversity and or education. Trough the foundation Amazon Fund I hope to contribute in another way to the preservation of the biodiversity in tropical Amazonia.
john@amazonfund.eu

ADVISOR COUNSIL

Marcelle Edwards worked for the Canadien organisation Cuso in Rurrenabaque for 3,5 years. She studied the micro and macro economy in relation to the environment in the Rurrenabaque area. For several communities she implemented waterfilters. She wrote the plan for the interior of the interpretation centre of the Bioshere Pilon Lajas in Rurrenabaque. Before she has implemented several successful conservation projects in South Africa


Stan Rosholt is a humanitarian entrepreneur employed in Bolivia by the Chiquitano Forest Conservation Foundation. In FCBC we are focused on developing resource mapping with local actors and helping them find through a series of workshops reasonable approaches for them to manage their natural resources in sustainable ways. Currently he is concerned with a project to make available drinking-water to two-hundred communities in eastern Bolivia. It’s a formidable challenge and I look forward to collaborating with the Amazon Fund in search of integrated solutions and programs that can help save our forests.


Jan Kaiser is the founder (in 1971) of I.D.A., Amsterdam, a non-profit organisation, which has as main aim the provision of essential drugs in developing countries at affordable prices. He also initiated the building of pharmaceutical factories and stores in Africa and Asia. Until 2003, he had leading position in similar organisations. For over fifteen years, he also has been secretary and chairman of the Foundation AAP, an organisation, which takes care of confiscated primates and other mammals.


Klaus Braunert is the founder of the German organisation SIMBIOSIS - Mensch und Natur (People and Nature). From a rustic lodge in Piso Firme, Bolivia, he assists local villagers in the improvement of drinking water facilities. Klaus is also engaged in various nature conservation projects.
k.braunert@promonte.de


Daniel Manzaneda lives in Rurrenabaque, a town in the Bolivian Amazonia, close to the Madidi National Park and the Pilón Lajas Indigenous Land and Biosphere Reserve. He worked as a lawyer of the local indigenous people and now he runs a tourism company and an internet cafe working also with native people with tourism and handycrafts. He has a Master degree in Natural Resource Management (University of Goettingen, Germany), the fieldwork of his studies was made at the Yaminahua Machinery Indigenous land about the dependence of two communities on Brazil nuts. He believes that sustainable activities like tourism, harvesting of NTFP (Non Timber Forests Products) and many others can provide a good income to the people in Amazonia and at the same time conserve the tropical forests that are of global importance.


Maribel Añez lives in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, but many times I travel to remote places in the Oriente de Bolivia, because of my work of now almost ten years with the German association, SIMBIOSIS -Mensch u. Natur e.V.: "Seeing the senseless and uncontrolled destruction of my forests and wildlife in my country motivates me to work in the field of nature conservation."