Jim Brumm

Jim Brumm served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Mitsubishi Corporation’s US subsidiary and on the board of Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan. He has served and continues to serve on a number of boards involved in bird conservation, indigenous peoples rights, animal welfare, and conservation science. Jim has a deep interest in and commitment to conservation and to indigenous peoples and community rights and development. He currently serves as Chair for Amazon Conservation's Board of Directors.

Eduardo Forno

Eduardo Forno has served as Executive Director of Conservation International Bolivia’s office since 1992, supporting conservation and poverty reduction efforts, protected areas, and sustainable development for both indigenous people as well as municipalities. He has also worked for the World Bank, UNDP, IUCN, and The Nature Conservancy, among others. In addition, he currently serves as Board President for Amazon Conservation sister organization in Bolivia, Conservación Amazónica-ACEAA. A field ecologist, he graduated in biology from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia, where he studied the high Andes and Bolivian savanna butterflies. He currently serves as Vice-Chair for Amazon Conservation's Board of Directors.

Steve Voorhees

Steve Voorhees is a renewable energy entrepreneur. He is currently the CEO and founder of Teichos Energy, a utility-scale solar development company. Prior to starting Teichos Voorhees founded and served as CEO of Ridgeline Energy (an early wind power development company). Before entering the wind and solar energy business, Voorhees invented the patented BikeLid Systems. Voorhees worked as a field engineer for the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory and has a bachelor’s degree in geography from Middlebury College. He currently serves as Treasurer for Amazon Conservation's Board of Directors.

Marie Arana

Marie Arana is a prizewinning author, literary critic, and the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress. Among her numerous books are the memoir and National Book Award Finalist for nonfiction “American Chica,” the highly praised novels “Cellophane” and “Lima Nights,” her biography “Bolívar: American Liberator” (Los Angeles Times Prize 2014; Best Biographies of All Time, Esquire 2022), and a sweeping history of Latin America “Silver, Sword, and Stone” (the American Library Association’s Top Nonfiction Book of 2019). Her most recent book “Latinoland,” a portrait of the largest and least understood minority in America, was published in 2024. Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for Literature in 2020, Marie has been an executive at two publishing houses (Simon & Schuster and Harcourt Brace), a judge for the National Book Awards and Pulitzer Prizes, a Latin America columnist for the New York Times, a media commentator for numerous news outlets, and editor in chief of Book World at the Washington Post. Apart from her service on the Amazon Conservation board, she sits on the boards of PEN/Faulkner, PEN America, the American Writers Museum, and the Board of Governors of Northwestern University. She is president of the Authors Guild Foundation as well as president of the 150-year-old Literary Society of Washington.

Bruce Babbitt

Bruce Babbitt Served as Governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987 and as Secretary of the Interior from 1993 to 2001. He received a BA in geology from the University of Notre Dame, a MSc in geophysics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne which he attended as a Marshall Scholar and a JD from Harvard Law School. He is the Chairman of the Board of the World Wildlife Fund and a fellow of the Blue Moon Fund where he is presently researching infrastructure development issues in the Amazon Basin.

Andy Beck

Andy is a business professional and ecologist working to build sustainable supply chains for tree crops and other non-timber forest products, with a special focus on cooperative modes of production and fair international prices. He has worked with smallholder farmers and gatherers across multiple continents and most recently led sourcing for the chocolate company Hu Kitchen, through and beyond its acquisition by Mondelez International in 2021. Andy holds masters degrees in Forestry and Business and a BA, all from Yale University.

Alfredo Cahuas

Alfredo Cahuas has dedicated the better part of his career to the sustainable infrastructure sector. He is Vice President of Investments & Investor Relations at an investment management firm in San Francisco specializing in renewable energy tax equity investments. His commitment to sustainability was nurtured early on in his native Peru while exploring its arid coastline and rugged Andes with his family. Alfredo came to the United States to study electrical engineering at Lafayette College and later received his MBA in finance and international business from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is a founding member of the Latino Community Foundation’s Latino Giving Circle, a philanthropic organization supporting youth development in the Bay Area.

Carolyn Hendricks

Carolyn Hendricks., M.D., is a breast cancer medical oncologist in private practice in Bethesda, Maryland. She trained at Johns Hopkins and maintains close ties to the Suburban Cancer Program/Johns Hopkins Medicine, including serving on the hospital board for nine years. She is a former member of the Maryland Commission on Cancer and former chair of the FDA’s National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee. Carolyn is deeply interested in conservation. She developed a love of hawks and owls after attending a raptor workshop in Missoula, Montana in 2005. She is a former member of the board of the American Bird Conservancy and its nominating and audit committees, and a director for NatureServe. She has travelled to Barrow, Alaska for nesting snowy owl monitoring and participated in barn owl box monitoring with Southern Maryland Audubon. She and her husband purchased their property in Bedford County, PA from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 2012 and built a sustainable home on the property. The property is protected by a conservation easement. Carolyn blogs about their green home at hufhausinus.blogspot.com.

Kathleen Goodin

Kathleen is a lifelong conservation biologist who led the effort to collect and manage critical data on the conservation status of biodiversity across the Americas as Vice President for NatureServe. She coordinated the development of international standards for ecological habitat classification and mapping at The Nature Conservancy and NatureServe and led the development of the US Federal Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard. She served on multiple interagency scientific working groups, was a founding member of the board of the National Phenology Network, and has co-authored multiple journal articles. She earned an M.S. in biology from the University of Miami and a B.A.in biology and environmental studies from Macalester College. She trained at Missouri Botanical Garden, The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Resources for the Future. She is a Virginia Master Naturalist and an avid birder and botanizer.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is a lawyer specializing in environmental issues, currently the Leader of the Climate & Energy Global Practice of World Wild Fund for Nature International. As the former Minister of Environment of Peru, he has a long history of supporting conservation in the Amazon. He is an expert in the area of environmental law and policy with special emphasis on issues related to environmental policy and management, at national, regional and local levels. Before his appointment as Minister, he had been the Executive Director of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental SPDA), where is currently a board member. In 2014 and 2015, he was president of the UN Climate Convention’s twentieth conference of the parties (COP 20). Manuel received a Master’s Degree in Business Law from Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), Peru. He is based in the WWF offices in Peru.

Doug Sarno

Doug Sarno serves as the President of Forum Facilitation Group and Principal at The Participation Company (TPC). Doug is recognized throughout the world as an expert in stakeholder participation and group decision-making with over 30 years of experience as a facilitator, strategist, and trainer on a wide range of issues. He regularly supports government agencies, non-profit organizations and stakeholder groups in conducting effective communication, decision-making, dispute resolution, stakeholder participation, collaboration, strategic planning and visioning, leadership, governance, and organizational effectiveness. His extensive work and numerous trainings, articles, reports, and presentations on these topics have resulted in positive changes in the way participatory decision-making is approached worldwide. He was an original designer and a Master Trainer for the week-long International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Certificate Training in Public Participation, which he has taught to thousands of students worldwide. Doug received his MBA from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Virginia. He is also a Master Certified Public Participation Professional (MCP3).

Bishop Sheehan

William Sheehan (“Bishop”) serves as the American Bird Conservancy’s General Counsel and maintains an independent law practice. He was for many years Chair of the Appellate Litigation Practice Group at Goodwin Procter LLP. He served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice and as Deputy General Counsel in the Department of Defense. He received a BA from Yale and JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was Editor in Chief of the Law Review. He was a law clerk to Judge Lumbard on the federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was a member of the Board of the American Bird Conservancy for nine years and is now a member of the Board of the American Bird Conservancy Action Fund and the Montgomery Countryside Alliance. He successfully represented the Fund for Animals in its effort to list the Grizzly Bear as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act.

Carlos Wiese

Carlos Wiese is a lawyer, director, and legal advisor for the General Secretariat and the Board of Directors for ALIDE, a development banking entity in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is also on the Board of Directors for the French Alliance of Lima, an organization dedicated to teaching the French language and disseminating French culture. Carlos also serves on the board of our sister organization in Peru, sharing his experience in the design of legal and financial structures that contribute to social development and the care and conservation of the environment. He obtained his Law degree from the Catholic University of Peru and his specialty in Finance from the ESAN Graduate School of Business Administration.

Andrew Wilcox

Andrew is part of Unilever’s Business Operations Sustainability Team and collaborates with Unilever team members and strategic external partners to develop and implement technologies that are innovative while remaining appropriate for specific geographies and commodities. He is helping to advance Unilever’s roll out of a planetary-scale geospatial platform to reimagine the future of sustainable sourcing. Andrew’s previous experience includes a combination of technical formation in forest management, remote sensing and geospatial analysis, and extensive experience living and working with rural and indigenous communities. He holds a M.F. from the Yale School of Forestry, a M.A. in Sustainability from Wake Forest University and a B.A. in Economics and History from Amherst College.

Adrian Forsyth

Adrian Forsyth is one of North America’s finest writers on the subject of natural history and has authored nine books. With a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Harvard University, during his career he has carried out extensive fieldwork, and served as a university professor and professional conservationist. Beyond his distinguished service to Amazon Conservation as a Co-Founder, with 21 years on the Board of Directors (including 18 as Board Chair), Adrian has pursued a prolific career in conservation, co-founding the Andes-Amazon Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; and Osa Conservation in Costa Rica. In turn, he has also served as Vice President of Blue Moon Fund, the Director of Biodiversity at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and Vice President at Conservation International.

Enrique Ortiz

Enrique, the Co-Founder of the Amazon Conservation, is one of Peru’s most respected conservationists, having established one of the first environmental groups in Peru (APECO). A Peruvian native, he has excellent scientific credentials as an authority on rainforest management and has worked with major groups such as Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Blue Moon Fund, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He is currently the Senior Program Director for the Andes Amazon Fund. In addition, he currently serves as Board President for Amazon Conservation's sister organization in Peru, Conservación Amazónica-ACCA. He was featured in the documentary film Amazon Gold that bears witness to the destruction of the rainforest due to illegal gold mining along the Madre de Dios River in Peru.

Sarah DuPont

Sarah DuPont is pursuing her lifelong dedication to education and to the protection of the planet. She has been the recipient of the Charlottesville Village Award, the Dorothy Corwin Spirit of Life Award, the Global Syndicate Humanitarian Award and Worldwide Children’s Foundation of New York’s Humanitarian Award. Sarah is President and Founder of the Amazon Aid Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes greater awareness and increased scientific knowledge of the Amazon to people and cultures worldwide, and is the producer of the documentary film Amazon Gold, a journey that bears witness to the destruction of the rainforest due to illegal gold mining along the Madre de Dios River in Peru.

Kathy Ruttenberg

Kathy Ruttenberg is a ceramic sculptor and lifelong animal lover and conservationist, she received her BFA with Honors from the School of Visual Arts in New York, after which she continued with graduate courses overseas focused on painting. She exhibited her work widely and won an honorable mention in 1980 for her animated film in the Varna International Film Festival. Since 1998, after a course at Greenwich House Pottery, Kathy has focused on the ceramic medium. She soon moved her studio to upstate New York, where she could draw from her greatest sources of inspiration: nature and wildlife. Kathy’s sculptures, which play on the exchange between the human and animal kingdom, have been exhibited in prestigious galleries and museums throughout the world. Kathy’s work is part of the collections of The Tisch Children’s Zoo in Central Park, N.Y., the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, Brazil, as well as the WOCEF in Icheon, Korea. Her work has been featured in a variety of major ceramics publications. At present, Kathy works and resides, with her family of animals in upstate New York. At this critical moment, her intention is that her relationship with conservation deepens with time.