I met Liliana Madrigal and her husband, Dr. Mark Plotkin, at an environmental grant makers’ conference in 2001. With my background in anthropology and my work with an environmental foundation, I had been interested in the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) for some time. Liliana, Mark and I became fast friends, sharing our passion for the Amazon and the traditional cultures of its people. I began supporting ACT as a consultant, experiencing firsthand the extraordinary way that their work is accomplished.

 

Liliana Madrigal has spent her life working in the conservation field. Serving as the Nature Conservancy’s Director in Costa Rica, her native land, she oversaw the Parks Campaign which established most of the protected areas in that country. In 1987 she helped found Conservation International, becoming its Director of Southern Central America.