About

I am an ecologist and a founder of the rain forest conservation movement.  I started Focus Tours in 1981, in Brazil, to use tourism for environmental education and to raise funds for community conservation work, long before the term “ecotourism” become popular.

I started the Focus Conservation Fund to help raise funds to create the privately held Jaguar Ecological Reserve, helping a local jaugar hunter turn to a conservationist, earning money instead with ecotourism, showing jaguars to tourists.
I have decades of experience developing communities for ecotourism, and opened my consultant and development office, SCDC – Sustainable Community Development & Conservation in 2001. Most of my work is in creating and directing community ecotourism projects as well as other forms of development in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Most of my work is now in Brazil, the number one country for mega biodiversty worldwide.