Andy Drumm

Andy is a sustainable tourism specialist with over 20 years of experience developing and implementing strategies to maximize tourism’s contribution to the conservation of nature and indigenous culture around the world, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

He lived in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands for 11 years before moving to Washington DC in 1998 to work as Senior Ecotourism Specialist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). He created and ran an award-winning ecotourism business in Ecuador for many years and has developed strategies to improve tourism management and the financial sustainability of protected area systems. He created The Acción Amazonia and Conservation in Action Foundations to support his collaborations with Amazon indigenous communities in defense of their cultural and territorial integrity. This work led in 2010 to the creation of a 100,000 acre Huaorani rainforest conservation area in the headwaters of the Amazon.

He represented TNC on the World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Initiative programme developed by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. He has ample experience of providing technical assistance and capacity building to local and national governments, national park systems, tourism businesses and NGOs developing technical capacities in many aspects of sustainable tourism management and development including community based tourism initiatives, impact management, financial sustainability and business planning. Andy has worked in a variety of roles in documentary and film productions in the Amazon and Galapagos, highlighting environmental issues.

Andy has produced many studies, articles and publications on ecotourism and sustainable tourism including manuals which have been translated into several languages. His most recent, on the Threshold of Sustainability for Tourism in Protected Areas has been published by TNC, USAID, US Forest Service and the Convention on Biodiversity. Andy is fluent in Spanish and French; he is an experienced Scuba Divemaster. He is a charter member and former Advisory Board member of The International Ecotourism Society and has been a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society since 1990.