Board Members
President: Maui Solomon
Indigenous Rights Lawyer, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Maui Solomon is a Moriori Maori barrister, an indigenous lawyer from Aotearoa New Zealand. He represents a number of tribes in Aotearoa New Zealand, in particular his own Moriori iwi, or tribe, from Rekohu (Chatham Island), an island 800 kms east of. New Zealand. He also represents three tribes: Ngati Kuri, Ngati Wai and Te Rarawa (other counsel represent the remaining three) in relation to the Wai 262 flora and fauna and cultural and intellectual heritage rights claim that's currently being heard by the Waitangi Tribunal.
President-Elect: Andrea Pieroni
Associate Professor, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
Andrea Pieroni is an Italo-German ethnobotanist and Associate Professor at
the first worldwide University of Gastronomic Sciences located in
Pollenzo/Bra, Northern Italy.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine.
His research focuses on food/gastronomic and medical ethnobotany of ethnic
minorities in the Mediterranean and in the Balkan regions and on the
ethnobiology of migrant communities in Europe.
Contact: a.pieroni@unsig.it
Secretary: Leslie Johnson
Associate Professor in the Centre for Work and Community Studies and the Centre for Integrated Studies at Athabasca University, Canada
Leslie Main Johnson is an ethnobiologist and ethnoecologist who works primarily with northern indigenous people in Canada. She is Associate Professor in the Centre for Work and Community Studies and the Centre for Integrated Studies at Athabasca University, a distance learning university, where she teaches ethnobiology and ethnography. Her research interests include ethnoecology, traditional knowledge, ethnobiology, subsistence, and concepts of health and healing among northwestern Canadian First Nations. She lived in northwestern British Columbia in the territory of the Gitksan for 12 years before returning to graduate school in the 1990's, where she earned her MA and PhD at the University of Alberta. She presently has two books on ethnoecology and landscape in press and has published a number of articles on ethnoecology and ethnobiology.
Treasurer: Ina Vandebroek
Research Associate, Institute of Economic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden
Ina Vandebroek is a Belgian ethnobotanist based in New York City. She conducts research on the intersection of ethnobotany, medical anthropology, biocultural diversity, and community health. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of medicinal plant knowledge and use by immigrants from the Dominican Republic in New York City. She is also involved in cultural competency training of medical students and residents to help establish a better dialogue between physicians and their minority patients. She has been working in the Andes and Amazon regions of Bolivia since 1999 in collaboration with local universities and traditional healers. Her current project in Bolivia aims at improving health care in indigenous communities of Yuracaré and Trinitario people in the Bolivian Amazon through workshops with physicians and traditional healers on integrative health care and capacity building in traditional medicine.
Regional Representatives:
Africa: John Tabuti
John Tabuti has conducted a number of ethnobotanical and ecological research projects. His ethnobotanical research has been aimed at identifying plants that are useful for local communities in Uganda. He has followed up on these inventories of medicinal plants with validation of efficacy and safety studies. His ecological research is aimed at establishing conservation statuses of selected plants with the intended output of identifying threatened species that could be domesticated. John has gained some experience in planning and managing research projects, especially in his research fields. His results indicate that indigenous woody species are threatened and that there is need to develop management action plans to slow down loss of these species. Beyond these research activities John is interested in adding value to local plant resources to create opportunities of benefit sharing by identifying markets for priority species.
Americas: Verna Miller
Verna Miller is a member of the Nlakapamux Nation (central interior of British Columbia, Canada). Verna joined the International Society of Ethnobiology in 2006, and participated in the special session at the 10th International Congress of Ethnobiology in Chiang Rai, Thailand, where the text for the ISE Code of Ethics was finalized. Her participation in the ISE is a reflection of her commitment to be a strong voice for Indigenous peoples
Asia: Yih-Ren Lin
Yih-Ren Lin received his Ph.D. in Geography from University College London. As a cultural geographer and ecologist, his research interests are traditional ecological knowledge, participatory action research methodology, and political ecology. He is actively involved in projects of revitalizing Taiwan's indigenous peoples' culture, which include Indigenous peoples’ traditional territory mapping and a community-based digital local knowledge database. Yih-Ren Lin is making a film in collaboration with local Tayal communities. This film is based on Tayal traditional ecological knowledge and will be the first one spoken in Tayal and played by community members in Taiwan. This film won a platinum prize of Remi Award in 2008 Houston Film Festival. It will continue to serve as an empowerment catalyst for indigenous communities on projects related to language revitalization and sustainable development by Lin's team.
Europe: Patrick van Damme
Faculty of BioScience Engineerig (formerly Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences)at the University of Gent in Belgium.
Patrick’s personal experience in the broad fields of ethnobiology span some 30 years of research and development (R&D) in Africa, Latin America and Asia. He currently monitors the research work of some 40 PhD students (and on an annual basis, some 15-20 MSc students) who are for the majority involved in ethnobiological-related research. As an ethnobotanist with a wide number of contacts, and research programmes in the field, and as a tropical agronomist by training, Patrick Van Damme can provide useful ideas, links, and strategies for tackling such approaches that would also allow the ISE to bring out our main research interests into the fore. This would include approaches for attracting the interest of policy makers and funding institutions alike, resulting in greater impact of our research in ethnobiology/ethnobotany as well as development of initiatives derived from them.
Global Coalition Director: Sarah Laird
In the field in Cameroon, New York, USA
Sarah Laird is a respected independent ethnoecologist who works closely with People and Plants International (PPI), particularly in Cameroon. PPI is a non-profit organization of ethnoecologists devoted to conservation and the sustainable use of plant resources around the world. By working together with local groups in collaborative partnerships, PPI develops sustainable local solutions to improve the interface between human cultures and natural environments. Through the mentoring and education of future natural scientists in project areas, PPI hopes to see a new generation of practitioners who practice conservation that works for local people whose survival depends on the wise use of their resources. Sarah, like many members of the board, was inspired in he work with the International Society of Ethnobiology by her friendship with colleague Darrell Posey. She is the founder and administrator of the Darrell A. Posey Fellowship Program, and has been instrumental in its development.
ISE Ethics Committee Chair: Kelly Bannister
Director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada
Kelly Bannister is Director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance (www.polisproject.org) and an adjunct professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria (Victoria, B.C., Canada). She has B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Microbiology/Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Ethnobotany/Medicinal Plant Chemistry. She is actively involved in both ethnobotanical field research and policy analysis, and mainly works with First Nations and treaty groups in British Columbia. Her current focus is on ethical and legal issues in research involving biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage, and the potential of moral tools and local governance mechanisms (e.g., codes of ethics, community research protocols) to address power relations and facilitate equitable research practices. She is involved as a Canadian expert on developing Access and Benefit Sharing policy and legislation under the Convention of Biological Diversity. She is also involved in institutional policy development in support of collaborative research between universities, Aboriginal communities, and community non-profit organizations.
Student Representative: Gisella Cruz García
Gisella Cruz García is a Peruvian ethnoecologist. She is PhD candidate of both Social Sciences and Plant Sciences departments at Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands. Her field work, carried out in cooperation with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Philippines), is focused on Isaan biodiversity and conservation of wild food plants in rice landscapes in Northeast Thailand. In 2007 she was awarded the prestigious UNESCO - L’ORÉAL For Young Women in Sciences fellowship (gisella.cruz@wur.nl).
Student Representative: Maria Ruth Martínez-R
M. Ruth Martínez is an ethnobotanist, currently working on her doctoral degree in Environmental and Ecological Anthropology at the University of Georgia. She holds a bachelors’ degree in Agronomy from EARTH University in Costa Rica, where she is from. She has conducted ethnobotanical fieldwork in Mexico, Costa Rica, and recently her doctoral dissertation research in the Amazon in Beni, Bolivia. Her research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and it focuses in the ways in which Tsimane’ children learn ethnobotanical knowledge, and the intergenerational transfer of knowledge. Her professional interests include traditional environmental knowledge, fragile ecosystem management, and market integration (mrmr@uga.edu).
2012 ICE Organizer: Josie Osborne
Josie Osborne is a marine biologist and environmental educator born and raised in coastal British Columbia, Canada and based in Tofino, a community in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, for over ten years. After completing a Masters degree in resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, BC, Canada) she moved to Tofino to work as a fisheries biologist for the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations. Her experiences living in a small coastal community and working closely with the Nuu-chah-nulth people introduced her to ethnozoology, and have helped shape her professional career and volunteer work. Her current interests focus on the role of indigenous cultures in ecological restoration, particular in sea otter recovery. Josie is also an active environmental educator, working for the Tofino Botanical Gardens Foundation and the Raincoast Education Society in Tofino to help increase awareness about the natural and cultural environments of Clayoquot Sound and inspire people to take action to conserve and protect them. Josie is the chair of the Organizing Committee for the 12th International Congress of Ethnobiology in May 2010 in Tofino, Canada.