Empowering artisans, conserving forests and strengthening communities in the Peruvian Amazon

Campbell Plowden has spent his life supporting conservation and human dignity.  He completed his undergraduate work in Biology and Environmental Studies at the Univ. of Pennsylvania.  He spent most of the next 13 years working on the “save the whales” campaign with Greenpeace, the Humane Society of the United States and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).  He transitioned to the “save the rainforest” movement in 1985 by founding the Tropical Ecosystem Research and Rescue Alliance (TERRA International) and helped lead the Greenpeace Tropical Forest Campaign through 1992.   He earned a PhD in Ecology from Penn State Univ. in 2001 based on his studies of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) with the Tembé Indians in the Brazilian Amazon.  He did investigations and advocacy work with Amazon Watch and EIA on the Camisea Gas Project in Peru, the tiger bone trade in Indonesia and illegal logging in Honduras.  Dr. Plowden founded the Center for Amazon Community Ecology (CACE) in 2006 to promote forest conservation and sustainable development with forest-based communities in the Amazon region.  The Center conducts research on the ecology and sustainable harvest of NTFPs and helps people from 18 native and campesino communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon to make and market innovative fair-trade handicrafts, improve the management of plants used to make crafts, and empower artisan associations.  Dr. Plowden is a Quaker who has helped facilitate Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshops in both state and federal prisons since 2002 and has integrated AVP principles and techniques into his work with native communities to strengthen their communication, cooperation and conflict resolution skills.  For most of 2020, CACE refocused its efforts to provide food, medicine and other relief supplies to its partner communities in Peru suffering from the COVID pandemic. 

Dr. Campbell Plowden has been working to promote forest conservation of tropical forests and empower its traditional communities for 35 years.  He will briefly describe the causes, consequences and range of approaches to halt deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.  He will then describe how and why the Center for Amazon Community aims to create sustainable livelihoods for families, conserve forests and strengthen traditional communities in the Peruvian Amazon.  Dr. Plowden will share how CACE empowers artisans by helping them to create innovative fair-trade handcrafts, increase the supply of plants used to make crafts, better market their crafts to tourists and wholesale buyers, and improve health, education, cooperation and conservation in their communities. CACE suspended its regular programs between March and November to deliver food and medicines to its partner communities to help them cope with the COVID pandemic.  Dr. Plowden will conclude his talk by presenting three specific ways interested people can support these efforts.