I am a life-long animal lover, environmentalist and traveler. I grew up around trees in the suburbs and lived in Australia, Brazil and India growing up. I developed my first strong connection to nature hiking and canoeing in the Adirondack Mountain region while attending a summer camp on Lake Champlain. My desire to do environmental work began with the first Earth Day in high school. I went to college in Philadelphia where I studied biology and environmental studies and co-founded the non-profit group Men Organized Against Rape. I moved to Seattle in 1976 where I first worked as a counselor and volunteered with the Open Door Clinic. I got involved with Greenpeace and the save the whales movement in 1977 and spent the next 14 years as an investigator and campaigner to stop commercial whaling. This included living in Japan for two years and visits to lots of other countries. I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1984 and took a break from Greenpeace to work with the Humane Society of the U.S. where I met my wife Yuri. I went back to Greenpeace to continue work on the whale campaign and then started its international tropical forest campaign. After a few years, I realized that I wanted to help local communities develop alternatives to deforestation more than fight big banks. After taking some graduate classes at the Univ. of Maryland, my family moved to State College, PA so I could get a PhD in Ecology. The highlight of this time was living in a native village in the Brazilian Amazon with Yuri and our two young children. I did a few short-term jobs after graduating and started the Center for Amazon Community Ecology in 2006. CACE works with native artisans and campesinos in the Peruvian Amazon to develop and market fair-trade handicrafts and essential oils to create sustainable livelihoods and improve health, education and conservation in their communities.

I have been active in Friends (Quaker) Meetings in Bethesda, MD, State College, PA and Harrisburg, PA for 30 years. I got involved with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) in 2002 and have helped facilitate conflict resolution workshops in US prisons and native communities in Peru. Apart from a few arrests from non-violent environmental protests in the 70's and 80's, my "clean record" has been verified by background checks that allowed me to visit prisons and work with students.

My other passions are photography, international travel, foreign languages, fun games, good drama on TV, and good conversation. I love dogs, cats, and most animals and usually go for one long walk every morning with Ziggy - our rotweiler/hound/Mexican street dog sweetie. Our two cats are Frodo and Sam.

Yuri and I have two adult children. Our daughter is a nurse in North Carolina, and our son is an actor in Thailand.

My eating at home focuses on a sort of paleo diet (meat, fruit, veggies - very few carbs) since this helps me avoid some aches that tend to emerge from a type of arthritis if I eat too many carbs. I will generally eat almost anything available when I travel. My main preference regarding a home stay would be a desire to be in a smoke-free environment.

You can follow some of my travel and mental meanderings on Instagram at @campbellplowden or on Facebook (Campbell Plowden). You can learn more about my organization at www.AmazonEcology.org.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I travel a lot and enjoy meeting and getting to know new people wherever I go. I particularly enjoy learning about different cultures, experiencing new places in nature, and meeting new people and pets.

Interests

• photography
• ecology
• nature
• forests
• brazil
• whales
• japan
• foreign languages
• peru
• amazon rainforest
• fair-trade
• foreign travel
• tropical forests

Music, Movies, and Books

folk music, Celtic music, Green Day, some classic Rock, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Netflix series in Spanish, GMM TV drama series in Thai that include my son.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I chained myself to the harpoon canon of a Peruvian whaling ship. This was part of a Greenpeace action to protest Peruvian whaling. Several months later, Peru dropped its objection to the International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial whaling and has not killed whales since.

Teach, Learn, Share

I am happy to teach and share anything that would be interesting to someone regarding my experiences working as an environmental investigator, environmental campaigner, researching tropical ecology, living and working with indigenous groups in the Amazon, starting an eco-commerce enterprise, or working with inmates. I also love to play games, play live music (although my repertoire on the guitar is rather limited), and good conversation. I tend to be pretty busy during week days so my best social time tends to be later at night. I like to learn about what passions people have.

What I Can Share with Hosts

As mentioned above, I believe I am best able to share stories with hosts. I am also a decent photographer so I am happy to take and share photos of people, pets and places. I am often traveling with a collection of Amazon handicrafts to sell and can offer a small piece as a thanks for my stay.

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Uruguay

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, Peru, United States