Alana Lea is a voice for the rainforest. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Alana moved to the United States as soon as she could walk, and only learned that she emerged from the most diverse and endangered rainforest on earth, as an adult.
She instinctively cultivated a passion for the plant kingdom as a horticulturalist for more than thirty years, while later telling its stories as a botanical artist. In addition to the creation of Tropiflora, a tropical nursery business, these years yielded exhibits of her botanical watercolors and digital collages at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution and Museum of Natural History.
She is the Founder of the Rainforest ECObank project.
Ian Scanlan is an adventurer at heart, searching out the limits of human endeavor. Originally from Victoria, BC, Canada, he has a degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry as well as having been a member of the national triathlon team in Canada, competing for many years in Ironman events throughout the world. He has spent years exploring the highest places on earth as a high altitude mountaineer and skier in the Himalaya, Alaska, South America, Europe and Africa. In 2003 he spent six months in a quest to climb Mt. Everest without the use of bottled oxygen – and walked the whole way in from the ocean.
Ian has been an international airline pilot for the past 15 years, flying aircraft ranging from the DC-3 to the Boeing 747-400, and is currently employed by Delta Airlines. During the downturn in the airline industry following the events of September 11, 2001, Ian was laid off from Delta along with 1,500 other pilots and seized this as an opportunity to discover the Amazon and its communities.
Today, Ian allies with Rainforest ECOBank through his companies, Turiya Amazonia and Amazon Acai Ltda to develop a new generation of business in the Atlantic Rainforest. His ideas are firmly rooted in social justice, education and community capacity building as tools towards the environmental preservation of an ecosystem, which is of global significance.
He has lived in Brazil for the past four years and speaks Portuguese fluently.
BOARD OF ADVISORS
USA
Lynne Twist – Co-Founder of The Pachamama Alliance
Caroline MacDougall- Founder of Teeccino
BRAZIL
Maria Amalia Fontoura de Souza – Executive Director of CASA
has founded and helped to grow several non-profit organizations of diverse scope in the past 24 years. Her interest today is to support donors and social investors —individuals and companies— to develop solid programs of financial and capacity building support for community based and non-profit groups in Latin America.
She consults worldwide for companies such as the AVEDA Corporation. Her assignment with AVEDA started in 2002 with an evaluation of their partnership with an Amazonian Indian tribe from which they source some organically grown dyes for their cosmetics. Currently, she liaises between AVEDA and Brazilian institutions.
Marcelo Michelsohn – Former Executive Director of Serra Acima
a Brazilian NGO funded by the World Bank, Petrobras and the Brazilian government that works to preserve and restore the Atlantic Rainforest through sustainable development initiatives. Marcelo worked for 8 years at ABN AMRO Bank in São Paulo, Amsterdam and Chicago implementing the bank’s sustainability strategy and structures and also working as a social and environmental risk analyst advising the bank’s credit committee on the risks of financing its global clients.
He has a BA in Psychology and an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice from the University of Bath (UK).
