Pax Natura
Meet Our Board Members
Introduction
The Pax Natura Foundation has passionate and dedicated board members from numerous countries, backgrounds and professions. We can honestly say that our trustees are global citizens who deeply believe in the principals and practices that preserve and encourage biodiversity, sustainability and dignity for all, and for this rare, beautiful planet we live on. We are proud of our board, as they authentically and dynamically steer our efforts toward projects of value and in doing work that matters.
Our honorary chairs and trustees are esteemed luminaries and leaders doing pivotal work that inspires humanity.
It is with gratitude that we introduce you to the Pax Natura board.
Honorary Chairs

Dame Jane Goodall
Honorary Chair
Dame Jane Goodall, is a British ethologist, best known for her exceptionally detailed and long-term research on chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania…
Dame Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Goodall D.B.E. (Dame of the British Empire); U.N. Messenger of Peace (UK). Dame Jane Goodall, is a British ethologist, best known for her exceptionally detailed and long-term research on chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. The University of Cambridge in 1965 awarded Jane Goodall a Ph.D. in ethology (the study of animal behavior). She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to continue her research, and establish projects to help improve human communities in the countries where there are the highest concentrations of chimpanzees. In 1991 Dr. Jane Goodall founded Roots and Shoots, a global youth service program, helping young people around the world to become compassionate leaders, and to develop the behaviors and attitudes to be good stewards of the environment. In 2002, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Dr. Goodall to serve as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Dr. Jane Goodall was made a Dame of the British Empire (D.B.E.) on February 20, 2004 during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London, and in 2006, she received the French Legion of Honor, presented by the Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as the UNESCO Gold Medal Award.

Oscar Arias
Honorary Chair
Oscar Arias Sánchez was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 in recognition for his efforts…
Oscar Arias
Former President of Costa Rica; Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1987 (Costa Rica). Oscar Arias Sánchez was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2010. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 in recognition for his efforts to achieve the beginnings of peace during the Central America crisis. He is also the recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. In 2003, Oscar Arias was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court’s Trust Fund for Victims.
Founding Members

Randall Tolpinrud
President, Founding Member
President of the Pax Natura Foundation (USA) and the Bosque Lluvioso Foundation.
Randall Tolpinrud
Randall Tolpinrud is a passionate activist in the environmental protection and sustainability movements and is an innovator in energy and resource-efficient building design. He earned his BA in Philosophy and MA in Philosophy and Environmental Studies from the University of Utah. Randall has instructed at college and professional levels around the world on subjects such as sustainable development, environmental science and ethics, forest conservation, and philosophy. He is the author of Globalization: The Imperative of a New Paradigm, which he presented at the 23rd World Philosophy Congress held in Athens, Greece in 2013. Among other publications, he authored the popular Green Building Consumer Guide for Utah (1989), and Timeless Wisdom (2020), a juxtaposition between the epistemological foundations of Eastern and Western traditions with respect to environmentalism. He is President of Groupwest Corporation, which has earned several awards for its promotion and implementation of energy and resource-efficient building design in residential and commercial development.
Randall is one of the founders and the current President of the Pax Natura and Bosque Lluvioso Foundations. The Pax Natura Foundation works closely with governments and NGO’s in Central America and most recently in Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala, as these countries strive to meet their commitments to achieve carbon neutrality protecting and reclaiming native forests that would otherwise be cleared for non-sustainable agricultural land or urbanization. Randall, along with other Pax Natura Trustees, have represented Costa Rican forest conservation programs at the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), within the Conference of the Parties (COP), and at Carbon Market Conferences throughout the world. (Randall and others explain carbon neutrality and avoided deforestation protocols with respect to climate change in the trailer for the 2020 film, “Peace with Nature in Costa Rica,” on Vimeo and YouTube platforms.
Other Pax Natura Foundation partnerships with Dr. Jane Goodall as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Pax Natura, include sustainable food sovereignty programs in several countries and recognizing those heroes on the front lines of environmental protection worldwide with the prestigious Pax Natura Award.
As Pax Natura Trustee, Randall has been a long-time proponent of addressing the climate catastrophe and will continue to promote numerous programs to help solve this existential threat.

William Connelly
Vice President, Founding Member
Co-founder of the Costa Rica-based Pax Natura Foundation (“Peace with Nature”)…
William Connelly
William Connelly is an architect in private practice in Salt Lake City, the father of five grown children, and an active participant in several civic and environmental causes. As co-founder of the Costa Rica-based Pax Natura Foundation (“Peace with Nature”) he travels frequently on foundation matters, especially those related to climate change, biodiversity preservation and the international carbon markets. Will is passionate about family, the environment, landscapes, history, languages, and travel.

Carlos Jimenez Freer
Founding Member (Costa Rica)
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Carlos Jimenez Freer is the recipient of multiple awards for his conservation work. He is recognized by the Primatological Society for assisting the longest capuchin monkey study in the world, by U.C.L.A. Biologist Fr. Susan Perry. He received the Pax Natura Foundation special award for his dedication in preserving nature.
Carlos, originally from San Jose, Costa Rica, lived 22 years in the greater Washington, D.C. area from the age of 5, where his father was a diplomat and international lawyer.
While attending Montgomery College in Maryland, Carlos became involved in the music industry. He recorded, managed and helped produce music festivals and concerts; including recording and sound production of the Woodstock Festival of ’69 and the Mar Y Sol Festival in Puerto Rico in ’72.
When Carlos returned to Costa Rica in 1975, he pivoted to a career as a development real estate broker with his emphasis on environmental principles.
Honorary Trustees

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
In Memoriam: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1984 (South Africa)…
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1984 (South Africa)
In 1978 Desmond Tutu accepted an appointment as the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and became a leading spokesperson for the rights of black South Africans. During the 1980s he played an unrivaled role in drawing national and international attention to the iniquities of apartheid. He emphasized nonviolent means of protest and encouraged the application of economic pressure by countries dealing with South Africa. The award of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace to Tutu sent a significant message to South African Pres. P.W. Botha’s administration. In 1985, at the height of the township rebellions in South Africa, Tutu was installed as Johannesburg’s first black Anglican bishop, and in 1986 he was elected the first black archbishop of Cape Town, thus becoming the primate of South Africa’s 1.6 million-member Anglican church. In 1988 Tutu took a position as chancellor of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa. During South Africa’s moves toward democracy in the early 1990s, Desmond Tutu propagated the idea of South Africa as “the Rainbow Nation,” and he continued to comment on events with varying combinations of trenchancy and humor. In 1995 South African Pres. Nelson Mandela appointed Desmond Tutu head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated allegations of human rights abuses during the apartheid era.
Desmond Tutu retired from the primacy in 1996 and became archbishop emeritus. In July 2010 he announced his intention to effectively withdraw from public life in October, though he said he would continue his work with the Elders, a group of international leaders he cofounded in 2007 for the promotion of conflict resolution and problem solving throughout the world. On October 7, 2010—his 79th birthday—he began his retirement.

Edward O Wilson
In Memoriam: University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard…

José Ramos-Horta
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1996 (Timor Leste).

Wade Davis
Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society…
Wade Davis
Wade Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. Named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In recent years his work has taken him to East Africa, Borneo, Nepal, Peru, Polynesia, Tibet, Mali, Benin, Togo, New Guinea, Australia, Colombia, Vanuatu, Mongolia and the high Arctic of Nunuvut and Greenland.
An ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker, Davis holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among fifteen indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986), an international best seller later released by Universal as a motion picture. More about Wade Davis
Trustees

Trent Alvey
Artist and President of Trent Alvey Design (USA)
Trent Alvey
Trent Alvey is an installation and a 2-D artist who describes her work as observing and investigating phenomenon. She is drawn to the transitory nature of things and how to capture the brief moment. She loves watching the movement of grass, clouds, light, and other non-linear occurrences that come into existence only for a moment.
Trent Alvey has exhibited in many significant one-person and group shows, including Out of the Land, which traveled to The National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Toaster Worship, Alvey’s sculptural piece that was included in the national exhibition is now in the permanent collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. Her work is also included in the Salt Lake County Art Collection Springville Museum of Art and Westminster Collage collection and she is a recipient of the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Artist Award (2011) and Distinguished Alumni in the Arts award by Westminster College (2016). Additional accolades include being chosen as one of Utah’s “15 Most Influential Artists” by Artists of Utah, publishers of 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine, and she is included in both editions of the book Artists of Utah by Robert S. Olpin, William C. Seifrit, and Vern Swanson. She is also part of the Utah Artists Project, the J. Willard Marriott Library’s digitized collections of selected Utah artists, also at the University of Utah.

Doug Anderson
Pacific Commercial Properties
Doug Anderson
Douglas Anderson has been a businessman in the real estate industry for nearly 30 years. His business expertise includes masterplanning and development implementation for larger scale resorts, business parks and commercial developments across the USA and two provinces in Canada. His business endeavors include founding of the seventh larger private equity funds in America ROC Fund/BridgeIPG Fund. He serves as Chairman/Founder of a golf and winter sports ski holding company with operations in 4 major east coast markets and British Columbia Canada. He oversees operations of his various private real estate companies. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors for several federally insured community banking institutions. He granted one of the largest conservation easements in the United States on 14,000 acre development to maintain open space and the preservation of flora and fauna. Mr. Anderson has served in various community foundations and Board of Directors throughout his professional career. He has traveled extensively worldwide for business and non profit work to contribute his expertise in the non profit area as well as land and building development areas towards preserving and enhancing the environment. He earned a BS undergraduate degree in Consumer Studies with emphasis in Architecture as an undergraduate at the University of Utah. Mr. Anderson subsequently earned his Masters in Business Administration. He also attended a three year OPM Program a post graduate business education at Harvard Business School in Boston. Mr. Anderson is an avid skier and outdoor enthusiast.

Jordan Anderson
Cultivator, Solaris Farms LLC (USA)
Jordan Anderson
Jordan Anderson specializes in interpersonal skills, working in and managing teams for research and analysis. His eye for detail adds to the thoroughness and efficiency of any organization. He combines numerous business skills with computer literacy and a strong commitment to sustainable development. He Graduated in 2016 from the University of Puget Sound with a major in Sociology/Anthropology and a minor in Ceramic Art. Jordan represents the next generation of leaders committed to the principle that economic development and environmental conservation are not only compatible but are necessarily conjoined.

Ana Báez
Pres., Conservacion Consultores (Costa Rica)
Ana Báez
Ana Báez has over three decades of experience working as a consultant. She currently serves as President of Turismo & Conservación Consultores, S.A., a company committed to providing technical assistance and support to ensure the success of private and public initiatives in forty-three countries. She has served as a consultant to many international organizations such as the International Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, World Wildlife Fund, World Trade Organization, and USAID. Ana has been a key note speaker at many conferences around the world and has worked as a professor and program leader for the World Tourism Organization – Themis Foundation, American University, Stanford University, Florida State University, University for Peace, among others. In addition, Ana has worked as a Deputy Director of the National Museum of Costa Rica, Director of the first Ecotourism Master of Science Program, Dean of the Tourism Faculty at ULACIT in Costa Rica, and as Director of the First Ecotourism Central America Program. She received a BS in Biology from the University of Costa Rica, and obtained a MS in Museum Studies from University of Leicester, England. Her philosophy of work is summarized in her company’s slogan: “We are interested in the success of your company and the health of the planet”.

Wm. Hugh Bollinger, Ph.D.
President, Pandora (USA)
Wm. Hugh Bollinger, Ph.D.
Hugh has served multiple national and international organizations as an advisor. He was a founding trustee for the Center for Plant Conservation and served the CPC for 15 years and currently serves as a trustee for Pax Natura along with renowned international conservationists including Jane Goodall among others. PAX saved a mountain rainforest reserve in Costa Rica. Until 2013, Hugh served as a member and then chairman, of the American Alpine Club’s Research Grants Committee. He was a panel member on two National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) panels and a USAID project manager in Sri Lanka and Kenya on forest restoration. Recently, he served as a consultant to The Leonardo, an arts/science/learning center in Utah. One project utilized new media technologies to showcase digital learning for career development. Hugh was also an original Sundance Film Festival volunteer, supports the acoustic music community, breeds plants as a long-term hobby, and is involved with Utah’s Tibetan community.
Hugh holds a PhD in mountain ecology and an MS in bio-geography from the University of Colorado and a BA in environmental science from the University of California Santa Barbara. He has traveled and worked extensively in Asia, Central America, Europe, Australia, and Africa on environmental matters. He has published feature articles in Science Magazine and the Congressional Quarterly.

Deen Chatterjee Ph.D.
Faculty affiliate at Oxford Consortium for Human Rights, Oxford University
Deen Chaterjee Ph.D.
Deen Chatterjee is a faculty affiliate at Oxford Consortium for Human Rights at the Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict at Oxford University. He was Senior Fellow in the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah until 2020. Earlier, he was Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City and a philosophy faculty at the University of Utah.
Chatterjee has taught at the University of Washington, The New School, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Shipboard Education, and held faculty fellowships at Harvard University, the U.S. Naval Academy, University of Oregon, and the University of Colorado.
His books include Ethics and Foreign Intervention, with Don E. Scheid (Cambridge, 2003); The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (Cambridge, 2004); Democracy in a Global World: Human Rights and Political Participation in the 21st Century (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008); and The Ethics of Preventive War (Cambridge, 2013).
Chatterjee is the Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Global Justice (Springer, 2011) and the Series Editor of Studies in Global Justice (Springer), with 22 volumes published to date.
He is a member of the editorial advisory board of several leading journals, including Journal of Global Ethics; Journal of Social Philosophy; and Carnegie Council’s flagship journal Ethics & International Affairs.
Chatterjee and the noted film producer/director Trent Harris have jointly made a documentary film, shot on location, on the plight of child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

Forrest Cuch - Ute Tribe
Former Director of Indian Affairs, State of Utah (USA)
Forrest Cuch - Ute Tribe
Forrest S. Cuch is an enrolled member of the Ute Indian Tribe. He was born in 1951 and raised on the Uintah and Ouray Ute Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah. In 1973, he graduated from Westminster College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the Behavioral Sciences. During his 38 year career, Forrest has held many challenging jobs beginning as education director for the Ute Indian Tribe. He has also served as tribal planner/administrator for an eastern tribe and social studies department head and teacher for his alma mater, Wasatch Academy, Mt. Pleasant, Utah. Forrest was executive director, Utah Division of Indian Affairs. During this time, he published, A History of Utah’s American Indians, Utah State University Press, 2000. He has served on numerous boards including as a trustee representing American Indians on the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games; trustee for Swaner Preserve; and Salt Lake City based Pax Natura. Forrest played a key role in the PBS/KUED sponsored curriculum project entitled; We Shall Remain, which features a video series of the histories of the Utah tribes with accompanying materials. In 2012, he served as CEO for the Ute Tribe’s business enterprises. Forrest is Co-Founder of Rising American Indian Nations (RAIN), an Indian operated non-profit organization established to empower American Indian people. Throughout his career, he has worked to call attention to the ancient presence of American Indian people in the intermountain west, and he has worked with other American Indian leaders in and out of state to address many critical issues facing all American Indians. He currently is engaged in working with spiritual leaders through the Western Hemisphere to usher in the new shift in feminine conscious known of as the New Earth and calling attention to Climate Change and Harm to Mother Earth.

Donna Dinsdale
Integrative Health and Wellness Pratitioner
Donna Dinsdale
Donna Dinsdale is committed to and passionate about assisting individuals in optimizing their health and wellness, and empowering them to live a life full of vitality, ease, joy and boundless possibilities. Donna has been in private practice for over twenty-five years. She offers sessions in mind-body therapy, Ayurveda, meditation, and integrative health coaching, in order to help one renew the body, awaken the mind, and discover the body’s natural healing abilities. Donna finds herself at home among many peoples and in many places around the globe. She has traveled extensively, learning from great educators and scholars in India, Nepal, Costa Rica, Japan, Greece, United Kingdom and beyond. One of her most memorable experiences has been teaching the young children of the Garden Of Peace School in South India. For the past two and a half decades, Donna has practiced and studied with great Buddhist masters from Nepal, India and the United States. She has taught meditation in Buddhist centers, Christian churches, private settings, and the University of Utah. Throughout the years, Donna has enjoyed the process of developing and teaching a wide range of health and wellness courses, ranging from mindfulness meditation to weight management.
Donna earned her Bachelor of Science in Anthropology, Biology and Secondary Education from the University of Utah. She has also studied at Duke Integrative Medicine at Duke University, California College of Ayurveda, and Utah College of Massage Therapy. Early on in her professional career, she taught high school biology and health education to high-risk and disadvantaged students in Utah public schools for ten years. As a teacher, Donna not only imparted to her students a rich understanding of how biological systems function, but she strived to help them develop imagination in, and curiosity and empathy for, the natural world and its living organisms.
In her spare time, Donna enjoys playing harp, reading historical biographies, trekking in the Himalayas, and hanging out with her husband and her dog Lily among the trees in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains.

Phil Emmi
Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning and Geography, University of Utah (USA)
Phil Emmi, Ph.D.
Phil holds degrees in Economics and in Urban and Regional Planning from Harvard and UNC/Chapel Hill. When professionally active, he was a member of the American Planning Association, the European Housing Network and the System Dynamics Society. He has published in national and international peer-reviewed journals on urban systems models, seismic risk assessment, opportunity and mobility in housing and labor markets, coastal zone management, planning theory, the politics of planning, environmental policy and ecological economics. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile, a Senior Fulbright Fellow in Spain, a frequent Research Fellow at the Swedish National Institute for Building Research, a Lowell Bennion Community Service Professor in Utah, an NSF grant recipient, and a lecturer at numerous national and international academic venues. At the University of Utah, he was the founding director of the Urban Planning Program. He organized and directed an interdisciplinary program in the adaptive management of environmental systems and was instrumental in the development of a digital cartographic laboratory. Both wide and varied, his teaching interests included planning theory, planning practice, urban processes, urban energy systems, system dynamics, resilience thinking and human values development. He serves on the board of the Quaker Institute for the Future, convened the Quaker Earthcare Witness’ United Nations Working Group, and served as a visiting fellow in Washington DC with the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Steve Estes
Executive Director Pax Natura Foundation (USA)
Steve Estes
Steve Estes has worked in the internet industry since the year 2000. He started an internet company dedicated to empowering non-profit organizations on the internet. He has designed and managed web pages for U.S. Senate candidates, Utah Senate and House of Representative Candidates, and various national and international non-profit web sites. Steve also works as a Business System Specialist for a fortune 500 company. He was educated at the University of Utah.

Francisco Grau
Entrepreneur (Costa Rica)
Francisco Grau
Francisco Grau is a social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to find practical sustainable solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges. In 2010 with a group of friends, he established a successful farmers’ market called “Green Fair” where local organic farmers, food artisans, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, artists, activists and a big conscious community gathers every Saturday morning to live the life they love. The proposal is a “Market taken care off with values of sustainability and wellbeing” where you can find “food with names and surnames” and buy an “optimal basket for you, optimal for your community and optimal for Mother Earth”.
After studying at Schumacher College the Ma. Economics for Transition, Francisco is exploring “The power of celebration to promote new paradigm economics” as complimentary way of doing activism.

David T. Ives
Executive Director Albert Schweitzer Institute (USA)
David T. Ives
Executive Director, The Albert Schweitzer Institute
https://www.qu.edu/on-campus/institutes-centers/albert-schweitzer-institute.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu8WL31Ivcs&index=15&list=PL86D493901EC0B855
~Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Philosophy, Latin American Studies, and International Culture Quinnipiac University
~2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
~Senior Advisor, World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates’ Permanent Secretariat
~Chairman of the USA Board of Directors for the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress
~Member, Board of Directors, Centers of Compassion for Children
~Election Monitor for the Carter Center, Venezuela, 2004; Nicaragua, 2006
~Peace Corps Volunteer (Promoted School Gardens and Nutrition), San Jose, Costa Rica, 1980-1982

Denise Lynch
Founder, Clear Mind Institute (USA)
Denise Lynch
Denise Lynch is the founder of Clear Mind Institute, owner of Utah School of Hypnotherapy and Vice-President of Snap Synapse, a consulting company specializing in Organizational Learning and Development.Her work emphasizes the use of personal practices to promote inner-sustainability, and a lifestyle that promotes environmental sustainability so we can leave the world a better place than we found it. By designing products and trainings for behavioral change, Denise believes there can be improvement in the integrity and capability of our collective communities to take right action toward preserving the health and dignity of all beings, plus restoring and preserving our/their habitats.

Rodrigo Gamez Lobo, Ph.D.
Director General, INBio (Costa Rica)
Rodrigo Gamez Lobo, Ph.D.
Bio coming soon…

Diego Alonso Gutierrez
Consultant (Costa Rica)
Digo Alonso Gutierrez
A Costa Rican educated in Costa Rica and the US. Graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Concentrations in Peace & Conflict Studies and International Studies of Latin America. Played NCAA Division 1 Tennis. Worked in a family owned Italian restaurant chain, financial and service industry. Interested in alternative and holistic healing.

Elizabeth Katherine Gamarra
World Rotary Peace Fellow
Elizabeth Katherine Gamarra
Elizabeth Katherine Gamarra, TEDx speaker, former Fulbrighter at Instituto Empresa (IE) University in Madrid Spain and current World Rotary Peace Fellow at the International Christian University in Japan is a human right entrepreneur focused on sustainability, peace, and indigenous efforts. She finished her graduate studies at the age of 19 permitting her to work with Amnesty International, the Center of Migration and Refugee Integration at the University of Utah, the Academic Council of the United Nations, Global Peacebuilding of Japan, and GOL, her own NGO focused on POC educational empowerment. Elizabeth’s expertise in her respected field is in social work, global women’s health and substance use disorder treatment with refugee and indigenous communities in North and South America. She is a recipient of several national awards including the Martin Luther King Drum Major Award and the Young Philanthropy Award – inspiring her to launch the project of “On the Road Japan” a workshop series initiative focused on bringing peace, sustainability, and nature at a greater level with youth around the world.

Alana Metcalf
Entrepreneur (USA)
Alana Metcalf
Alana Metcalf is an independent professional who is passionate about projects with particular focus on providing impact solutions for sustainability and philanthropy. She has experience in both for-profit and non-profit sectors, as well as various specialized industries using green technology.
Alana’s degree in in the health sciences and is an active community member. Alana is honored to serve as a member of the board of trustees for PAX Natura Foundation, dedicated to the protection of rain forests and bio-diversity. She contributes to Salt Lake’s medical community as a health science advocate through the University of Utah as well as supports several environmental and humanitarian foundations. She resides in Salt Lake City with her amazing family and has lived and traveled extensively throughout the world.

Federico Munoz
Biologist and Naturalist (Costa Rica)
Federico Munoz
Coautor at Anfibios y Reptiles de Costa Rica

Robert Newman, Ph.D.
President And Director Of The National Humanities Center (USA)
Robert Newman, Ph.D.
Robert D. Newman assumed office as the sixth president and director of the National Humanities Center on July 1, 2015. He was previously Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Utah where he also served as Associate Vice President for Interdisciplinary Studies, Special Advisor to the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of English. He also has held faculty appointments at the University of South Carolina, where he was Chair of the Department of English, Texas A&M University, and the College of William and Mary.
Dr. Newman’s scholarship has focused on twentieth-century literature and culture and narrative theory. He has published six books, two of which have been nominated for major national awards, along with numerous articles, reviews, and poems; and has received awards not only for his scholarship but for his institutional leadership and teaching. He also serves as General Editor of the “Cultural Frames, Framing Culture” series published by University of Virginia Press.
Since assuming leadership of the National Humanities Center, Dr. Newman’s work has been dedicated to broadening the Center’s scholarly mission, its educational outreach, and on public engagement and national advocacy for the humanities.

José Ramos-Horta Ph.D
Former President of East Timor, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize (East Timor)
José Ramos-Horta Ph.D
José Manuel Ramos-Horta GCL AC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ ˈʁɐ̃muz ˈɔɾtɐ]; born 26 December 1949) is an East Timorese politician. He is currently the United Nations‘ special Representative and Head of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS). He was appointed to this position on 2 January 2013. Previously, he was special envoy to fellow Lusophone country, Guinea-Bissau, and was the President of East Timor from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012, the second since independence from Indonesia. He is a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize and a former prime minister, having served from 2006 until his inauguration as president after winning the 2007 East Timorese presidential election.[1] As a founder and former member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), Ramos-Horta served as the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the years of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). While he has continued to work with FRETILIN, Ramos-Horta resigned from the party in 1988, becoming an independent politician.[2]
After East Timor achieved independence in 2002, Ramos-Horta was appointed as the country’s first foreign minister. He served in this position until his resignation on 25 June 2006, amidst political turmoil. On 26 June, following the resignation of prime minister Mari Alkatiri, Ramos-Horta was appointed acting prime minister by then-president Xanana Gusmão. Two weeks later, on 10 July 2006, he was sworn in as the second prime minister of East Timor. On 11 February 2008, Ramos-Horta was injured when he was shot during an assassination attempt.

Dennis Sizemore
Founder, Round River Conservation (USA)
Dennis Sizemore
Dennis Sizemore’s conservation work began over 40 years ago following around grizzly bears while earning his MS in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Montana. His experiences on four continents include law enforcement, fundraising, community engagement, education, and research. As co-founder of Round River Conservation Studies, Dennis has served as its executive director since its inception in 1991. Dennis is a former President of The Wildlands Project and currently also serves as vice president of the Taku-Atlin Conservancy.

Isaac Tolpinrud
Naturalist and Guide (USA)
Isaac Tolpinrud
As a Naturalist and Guide for decades on the Colorado and Green Rivers in Wyoming, Utah and Arizona, Isaac Tolpinrud has extensive knowledge on the geology and anthropology of the canyons of the American West and has inspired many people to continue efforts to preserve this country’s natural wonders. A licensed EMT and guide, he has participated in rescue operations on some of the great river systems in North and South America. His affiliations revolve around international efforts to protect and preserve wild places for future generations. Issac is a gifted artist – His pottery creations are always a favorite with his family and friends during the holidays.

Steven Tolpinrud
Agroecologist (USA)
Steven Tolpinrud
Stephen is passionate about agrarian issues, especially one’s that intersect with social and ecological justice. He has worked on a number of projects in Latin America to promote agroecology as a social movement, and counterweight to (neo)colonialism. At present, he is helping to promote indigenous and food sovereignty in the highlands of Guatemala with the guidance and help of the local Mayan community. Stephen holds a Masters of Arts from American University and the University for Peace in International Relations and Sustainable Development. He also obtained a certificate in Agroecology at the University of California Santa Cruz, which focuses on social and ecological justice within agriculture. He is a proud enrolled member of the Chickasaw tribe.

Jimena Gárate González de la Vega
Fashion Designer, Founder of Valeta (México)
Jimena Gárate
Jimena is a sustainable fashion designer and founder of the brand Veleta. She completed her BA in Fashion and Textile Design at CENTRO de Diseño, Cine y Television in Mexico City. After graduating, she worked four years as a costume designer at Televisa, Desierto Films, and Kuter in Mexico and had the opportunity to work in Japan and Israel. In 2019, she joined at Fashion Revolution Mexico as the coordinator of the Student Ambassador program for two years. In 2020 she decided to go back to her thesis collection and established Veleta, her brand of upcycled accessories and clothes made out of sails, parachutes, wetsuits, fabric leftovers, rubber, and more. That same year she joined the global team of RadioNatura podcast where she continues her work. In 2022, she won an 8-month residency at Laguna, a collaborative space for Mexican entrepreneur designers, where she designed pieces to rethink waste with the Laguna community and created furniture that revalue what is considered waste. In 2023, the short film Sweatshop Girl where she did the costume design got selected at Sundance Film Festival. Today, she is still dedicated to create awareness on the waste issue with Veleta.

María Gárate
Social, Environmental Activist, NGO Fundraiser (México)
María Gárate
María Garate is a social and environmental activist, mainly focused as an NGO fundraiser. From a very young age, she followed her passion motivated to serve others and became involved in different international organization such as Make a Wish, Colonias de Vacaciones I.A.P, Casa Gandhi Chiapas, World Hands, and Save the Children Mexico, which gave her a complete understanding of the situation in which millions of mexican live and the importance of the organization’s role in generating positive changes. In 2017, she joined Save the Children Mexico as part of the fundraising team for two years. Afterwards, she became involved in Sea Shepherd Mexico as an activist to fight for the oceans and seas. From 2019-2021 she worked as the director of a mexican organization “De Mano a Mano AC”, whose mission is the reconstruction of houses demolished by the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City. She is part of Radio Natura podcast sponsored by The Pax Natura Foundation that has interviewed people all around the world solving different worldwide issues. Currently, she works in an energy consulting company as head of the administration department.

Federico Gutierrez, M.A.
In Memoriam: Founding Pax Natura Trustee (Costa Rica)

Randal Longstroth
In Memoriam: Pax Natura Trustee

Betty Williams
In Memoriam: 1976 Nobel Peace Prize (UK)
Betty Williams
Betty Williams (born 22 May 1943, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a co-recipient with Mairead Corrigan of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work as a cofounder of Community of Peace People, an organisation dedicated to promoting a peaceful resolution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Williams heads the Global Children’s Foundation and is the President of the World Centre of Compassion for Children International. She is also the Chair of Institute for Asian Democracy in Washington D.C. and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nova Southeastern University. She lectures widely on topics of peace, education, inter-cultural and inter-faith understanding, anti-extremism, and children’s rights.
Williams is a founding member of the Nobel Laureate Summit, which has taken place annually since 2000.[1]
In 2006, Williams became a founder of the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with Nobel Peace Laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Jody Williams and Rigoberta Menchu Tum. These six women representing North and South America, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, bring together their experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality. It is the goal of the Nobel Women’s Initiative to help strengthen work being done in support of women’s rights around the world. Williams also is a member of PeaceJam.