Consultation

The View from Chikala Hill: Birds, Butterflies, and People in Southern Malawi

July 2016. I was back in southern Malawi as team leader for a small, biodiversity-related component of the Shire River Basin Management Program, a large project funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Government of Malawi’s Ministry of
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Mapping Mahogany on the Border with Belize

January 2016. In my mind mahogany is one of nature’s wonders, one of the most beautiful woods in the world. Maybe that’s because my dad decided to use mahogany paneling in my bedroom when he was building the house where
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Laudato Si’: The Pope’s Encyclical on Care for Our Common Home

September 2015. Pope Francis’s visit to Washington, DC, this week motivated me to speed up my reading of his lengthy and weighty encyclical on climate change, ecology, and humans and nature, “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home.” The document
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Dreaming of Whales in the Desert

April 2015. Winter has lingered on and on here near Washington, DC, and spring has been slow and reluctant. The National Cherry Blossom Festival is scheduled to end before the cherry blossoms even reach their peak bloom this year. And
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Mukura Forest Calling

September 2014. “Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?” Serge, my Rwandan consulting team member, was trying to call our contact at Mukura  Forest, the District Forestry Officer, on his cell phone.  We were driving up a rough rural road through
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Ukrainian Spring

March 2014. Almost exactly three years ago, in March, 2011, serendipity handed me the opportunity to lead a biodiversity conservation assessment for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Ukraine, and I worked with a team of exceptional Ukrainian consultants.
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Monkey Business in Oregon

August 10th, 2012. Learning about John Muir’s obsession – it probably deserves to be called that – with the ancient tree family Araucariaceae, and especially Araucaria araucana, the “Monkey Puzzle Tree,” I became very interested in Muir’s story and in
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Conserving Watershed Forests in Sierra Leone’s Western Area Peninsula

The Freetown Peninsula is one of the only parts of coastal Africa, and the only place in West Africa, where mountains meet the coast.  When Portuguese explorer Pedro de Cintra sailed past this coast in 1462 he imagined he saw
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A Pilgrimage to the Monarch Butterfly Overwintering Refuges in Michoacán, México

On cold, grey, winter days in January and February a bright memory sometimes flutters into my mind, and I’m off on a daydream of a trip to see overwintering monarch butterflies in their mountain refuges in México in 2004, now
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Forests, Firewood, and “Low Emissions Development” in Serbia

10 December,2011 After a week of rushing from meeting to meeting in Belgrade, talking with government officials, scientists, and non-governmental organizations about the country’s plans for using renewable energy, using energy more efficiently, managing forests, and integrating economically and politically
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