PPI Associates

PPI Associates are individuals who direct, co-direct, or are closely involved with one or more of PPI's programs but who are not members of the Steering Committee.  Like Steering Committee members, Associates have demonstrated a long-term commitment to particular issues and have either worked extensively with PPI in the past or have been involved at the Affiliate level.  Associates allow PPI to broaden and strengthen its scope and impact, providing a sound basis for institutional growth.

Didier Lacaze (Ecuador) is a consultant and practitioner specializing in Amazonian traditional medicine, shamanism and medicinal plants. He has over twenty-five years of experience working with regional and national indigenous federations in Amazonian Peru and Ecuador on indigenous health care programs. He currently runs Florasana, a small family-based enterprise in Puyo (Ecuador), cultivating medicinal plants and preparing an assortment of herbal products. Florasana also supports a program for the promotion of traditional medicine (PROMETRA) among indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon.  For more details on Didier's work with PROMETRA, click here.  For a selected list of Didier's publications, click here. To view some of Didier's videos with PROMETRA, click here.

Citlalli Lopez  is an anthropologist working with CITRO, the Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales, a research center at the  University of Veracruz, Mexico.  A PPI Program Associate, Citlalli has helped to develop the Knowledge Exchange Program from its inception and is responsible for monitoring and evaluating PPI's Returning Results outputs and practices. Citlalli edited the "Riches of the Forest Series", the first CIFOR publication written for broader audiences, and is currently working with  NGOs, research centers and communities on socio-cultural and natural resource management issues in Mexico, mainly key species used for handicraft production.  For a list of Lopez's publications, click here.

For the last two decades, Daniela Peluso, has worked in lowland South America, mostly with the Ese Eja communities in the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon, in close collaboration with native federations in various local efforts focusing on community development, gender relations, video training, social organization, ethnogenesis and indigenous urbanization.  As a long-time associate of PPI, working in numerous initiatives relating to the Knowledge Exchange and Cultural Landscapes and Resource Rights programs, her work ultimately addresses broader indigenous issues of health, territory and sovereignty.  Daniela received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent.  For a list of her recent publications, click here.