Our Story
Our story began in the mid-1990s when Fauna Forever's founders were tasked by the Peruvian government with monitoring the benefits and impacts of ecotourism development on rainforest wildlife in and around what is now the Tambopata National Reserve and Bahuaja Sonene National Park, two important protected areas in the Madre de Dios region of Peru. Based on the concerns of the Peruvian National Parks Authority (SERNANP) regarding the potential effects of a fast-growing ecotourism sector on the integrity of wildlife communities at the time, we pulled together a team of Peruvian, British, and North American wildlife specialists, raised funding from donor organisations around the world, and with the help of a few motivated volunteers and student interns, set about studying this particular issue. The work culminated in a series of articles, thesis publications, and local presentations showcasing our results and main conclusions - that ecotourism on its own generated very few wildlife impacts at the time and indeed could be regarded as a strong motivating force for forest and wildlife conservation in the Madre de Dios region of Peru.
Since then, growing the wildlife dataset both longitudinally (over a greater span of time) and horizontally (over a greater area), and the importance that this could have for understanding truly long-term changes in wild nature, given the growing threats from environmental degradation and climate change, has motivated the team to deepen the scope of research to include a broader range of species, forest types and land-use categories, as well as economic and social variables. In addition, the team ambitiously increased the remit of activities to include community-based projects (in recognition of the importance that native and mestizo communities play as good stewards of healthy forests), as well as environmental education projects, collaborative projects with public and private landowners and other non-profit organisations, and general conservation advocacy and information sharing. We are now strong believers that forest conservation can bring equal or greater levels of prosperity to local people as compared with land-use practices that destroy forest, especially when one also considers the long-term harmful effects on human health that rapid, unplanned, and unregulated forest clearance can bring.
The importance of volunteers and interns has grown over the years as we have recognized the value that they provide in helping our environmental and socio-economic research and conservation efforts become more efficient. As a consequence, we now manage arguably the largest and longest-running volunteer and internship program in the Madre de Dios region, taking in eager learners from over 30 different countries. In addition, a proportion of the profits donated by the ecotourism ventures that our partner organisations are involved in, provide a way for tourists to indirectly support our projects. Together, these programs and ecotourism-based income have reduced our reliance on external grants to support our work, as was mostly the case in the past, with the added benefit of a more constant stream of funds flowing to our projects.
Our Mission
Our mission is to build a world where nature conservation and sustainability thinking are cornerstones of a society's development and wellbeing, resulting in a healthy and prosperous Planet Earth for everyone.
Our Values
Our values as an organisation and those that drive the work of our staff can be summarised in the following words:
INTEGRITY - LOCAL - DIVERSITY -
KNOWLEDGE - COLLABORATION -
SUSTAINABILITY - EDUCATION -
FAIRNESS - OPENNESS
Our Guiding Principles
(1) To understand how nature works in a hyper-diverse ecosystem such as a tropical forest, we need good questions and careful, standardised observation of multiple variables over long periods of time and a good understanding of how to analyse the data. Experiments can be very useful for understanding some types of interactions or responses. The positions we take will be based on sound, objective and professional analysis and high standards of research.
(2) As tropical research, conservation, and sustainability practitioners, we work cooperatively with individuals and groups, with non-profit and for-profit organisations and busineses, and with local and national government bodies committed to maintaining healthy ecosystems, healthy cultures, and healthy rural and urban economies.
(3) To help rural largely forest-based communities conserve their indigenous knowledge and to leverage this knowledge for the benefit of these communities in an increasingly competitive world which tends to undervalue this knowledge, thus helping to fight injustice and healing the wounds of the past.
(4) We use our knowledge of environmental, socio-cultural, and economic systems to help design and implement solutions to society’s problems and to help nudge society onto a more sustainable development path.
(5) We are open, honest and accountable in our relationships with everyone we work with, and with each other.
(6) We are politically non-partisan and non-sectarian (non-religious) in our work.
Our research, education, collaboration and conservation efforts are now spread over more than 70 locations across three of Peru’s regions: Madre de Dios, Cusco, and Puno. With offices in the cities of Cusco and Puerto Maldonado, we are well placed and eager to spread our ideas and contribute to efforts to understand and conserve wild nature while contributing to the improvement of local livelihoods.
Meet The Team
Chris Kirkby
Co-founder, Board President, Executive Director,
Principal Investigator
Chris is a team builder with a lifelong passion for science, nature conservation, and sustainability. He is very focused on finding pragmatic solutions to the age-old problems of environmental degradation, poverty, and low education standards in developing countries. He has a PhD in Biology from the University of East Anglia, an MRes in Ecology and Environmental Management from the University of York, and a BSc in Ecology from the University of Edinburgh. He is member of the Oversight Committee of the Tambopata National Reserve and has been an environmental consultant to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conservation International, Amazon Conservation Association, and is currently CEO at Wilderness International Peru. Chris has been working in the Peruvian Amazon for 25 years and enjoys travelling, hiking, bird watching, and photography. Chris is British, is married, has two daughters and a cat, and divides his time between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado, Peru.
Chris Ketola
Head Field Research Coordinator
Chris has extensive biological research, wildlife handling, and environmental outreach experience having worked for many years in zoos, animal rescue centres, and volunteer-based research initiatives, mainly in Canada. He has worked for organisations such as the Ontario Specialized Species Centre, Bird Studies Canada, Toronto Region Conservation Authority, and Ontario Bioblitz. He is specialized in herpetofauna, birds, bats, environmental education and volunteer management. He first came to Peru in 2017, when he was an intern on Fauna Forever’s bird research team. His biological knowledge and skills were duly spotted and he was asked to return to help lead herpetofauna and raptor research projects in 2018. Chris is Canadian, and when he is not in the field he enjoy watching sports, sci-fi and fantasy.
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Sandra Felipa Luna
Co-founder, Secretary of the Board, Media Coordinator, Cusco Office Administrator
Sandra is a communications and resilience specialist, and advocate for sustainable living, gender equality, community inclusion, ecotourism development, and environmental education. She has a BA in Journalism from the Jaime Bausate & Mesa School of Journalism and has worked as a television and radio reporter, producer and director of radio programs, communications consultant, environmental education consultant, in addition to various project management and administration positions. With over twenty years of experience working in Lima, Cusco, and Puerto Maldonado, she brings a can-do mentality to the team and helps everyone understand the importance of pragmatic thinking and communication when it comes to getting things done in Peru. She enjoys reading, travelling, interior design, gardening, and bringing up kids. Sandra is Peruvian, she is married, has two daughters, and lives in Cusco, Peru.