Expedition Leaders

Lloyd Esler is a teacher of history and botany who lives in Invercargill in the far south of New Zealand. He takes a keen interest in New Zealand's flora, especially its ferns, seaweeds, alpine habitats, and lowland forests. He has written and illustrated several booklets on New Zealand plants and has explored New Zealand's best botanical sites from north to south, including Stewart Island. He has introduced the endemic flora of New Zealand to many interested groups.

Daniel Winkler is a consultant and researcher who focuses on conservation and development issues in Tibet. Daniel has a B.A. and M.A. in geography with a concentration on Asia, specifically Tibet and western China. Daniel has been a scientific adviser on BBC and National Geographic programs on extreme living conditions in Tibet. His consulting assignments have included sustainable harvesting, community forestry development, nursery and reforestation projects. Daniel is the President and co-founder of Chindak, a charity for the preservation of Tibetan Culture.

Dr. Peggy Stern has been living and working in Latin America for 25 years, primarily in Peru and Ecuador. She has worked in the field of basic and applied ecological research, including forest dynamics, natural resource & park management, biodiversity conservation, and land use planning throughout Latin America. Her work has been funded by WWF, the American Bamboo Society, Conservation International, US-AID, and many others. Her research and conservation work has taken her to most of the habitats in western South America. She is a popular leader of trips in Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Easter Island.

Ted Elliman holds Master's degrees from Antioch University/New England Graduate School and the Yale School of Forestry and has a varied background in the environmental field. He lived in China where he was engaged as a forest researcher for the Yunnan Branch of the Chinese Academy Sciences and the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden. Ted has also worked for ten years as a plant ecologist in the U.S. doing rare plant surveys, plant community studies, and conservation planning for the National Park Service on the Appalachian Trail and the Boston Harbor Islands. Ted is the Vegetation Management Coordinator for the New England Wild Flower Society. He is a popular leader of Backroads China Expeditions in Yunnan Province.

Dr. Victor Kuzevanov leads our botanic explorations of Kamchatka and Lake Baikal, Russia. Victor is the Director of the Irkutsk Botanic Garden in Siberia and has conducted research on many of the endangered plants of the region. He has created a seed and gene bank of local plants, and is currently developing a long range expansion plan for the Garden. Victor has an outgoing and engaging personality that has made him a very popular leader of our Lake Baikal Expeditions since 1994. He has also led several groups to Kamchatka since 2001.

Mark Walters is a classicist and naturalist with two M.A.degrees from Cambridge University. Mark lives in Naples where he consults on a number of environmental issues, writes for a number of publications, and edits and translates scientific papers for the University of Naples for publication into English. Mark leads our botanic trips around the Mediterranean with an eye trained for archaeological sites and how plants were used throughout history.