Michael Painter is a Program Officer with the Andes-Amazon team.
Previously, Michael worked with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) for over 17 years. His final position was Director of the Conservation and Quality of Human Life Program, in which he provided support to field programs in identifying and addressing livelihood and governance issues that shape conservation options.
While at WCS, Michael also directed country programs in Bolivia and Peru, as well as WCS’s Amazon program. In those roles, he provided leadership in developing partnerships with indigenous peoples and other local actors to address livelihood and governance issues that were undermining efforts to promote conservation and sustainable use of land, wildlife and forests.
Prior to that, Michael was an advisor to Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and Natural Parks, where he helped design and develop approaches for monitoring community-based natural resource management projects. Michael also worked for 12 years at the Institute for Development Anthropology, a non-profit social science research and education institution, where he developed a Latin American program focused on understanding and addressing social and economic processes that shape how people use land and natural resources.
Michael holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida, based on dissertation research that focused on changing patterns of land use by Aymara farmers and herders in southern Peru.