Once in a Lifetime Tour: Introduction

Dianne Aigaki is an artist, grant writer and advocate for the Tibetan culture in exile. She has lived in Dharamsala, India (the major Tibetan refugee community in exile) for eleven years, working as a volunteer for various non-profit organizations and Tibetan exile government departments, training individuals and groups to write solid plans and fund-raising proposals and helping to develop adult education and community garden projects. She was Coordinator of the Gyudmed Tantric Monastery Compassion Tours in the United States, traveling with the Gyudmed monks while they were in the States in 2000 and 2001.

In 2004, 2006 and 2007, she spent two months traveling in Eastern Tibet and sketching and painting botanical illustrations of flora growing at 11,-000 - 17,000 feet altitude. She is a member of WINGS Worldquest (supporting women explorers), the Society of Women Geographers (the premier organization of women explorers in the world), Rotary International, the American Society of Botanical Artists, and the Guild of Asian Botanical Artists.

Aku Tsega lives in Oh Szang Village and has worked with Dianne for the last two summers, arranging for expeditions into the hills and mountains of Kham. He is knowledgeable about the location of plants, their medicinal uses, and is a tireless plant seeker and assistant. He speaks no English, but is excellent at charades!

Ethnobotanist, specializing in environmental education -- has extensive publications, in particular in popularized literature, about the problem of useful plants and their relationships, historically and geographically, with human beings. In the Alps, West Africa, and Paraguay he has worked on the medicinal plant traditions for 10 years, managing ethnobotanical applied projects.

Curator at the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens (CJB) of the City of Geneva – Switzerland.

Head of Public Relations and Environmental Education Dept and Useful Plants Collection.

Responsible for editing the popularized publications of the CJB. He is the initiator and the officer in charge for the scientific and artistic exhibitions held in Geneva’s Botanical Garden (La plante compagne ; Cap au Sud ; Ambiguë, la relation plante – insecte ; Biodiversité(s) ; Réagir, un avenir pour notre planète ; Edelweiss ; etc.)

Participates in the academic integrated teaching of the CJB at the University of Geneva and EPFL (Polytechnicum of Lausanne) in applied botany and ethnobotany.

Member of IUCN Commissions (Medicinal plants and Ecosystems); Scientific College of the CREPA (Regional Center for the Studies of Alpine Populations); Head Comitee of SPHN (Academic Society for Physic and Natural History); and official Commission « Schools and Museums » (state and city of Geneva).

Scientific head of the cooperation program based on sustainable development and held by the Geneva’s Botanical Conservatory in South America and West Africa. He has collaborated on the creation of new Environmental Educational Centers in Asuncion (Paraguay), Dakar (Senegal), La Paz (Bolivie) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and ethnobotanical gardens (Dakar, La Paz, Asuncion, Paraïba). Lives in Collex - Geneva, Switzerland

Vice-President of the Ethnobotany and Conservation of PS Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Formerly chief botanist for Latin America at Arlington Virginia's Nature Conservancy, as well as the Chief Operating Officer of Shaman Pharmaceuticals (2000-2002).

Has also worked as a research associate for the Committee on Managing Global Genetic Resources at the National Academy of Sciences, and was a doctoral fellow at The New York Botanical Garden's Institute of Economic Botany.

Extensive publications list of articles and scientific research on medicinal plants, ethnobotany, phytomedicine, traditional healers, conservation and tropical medicinal plant, biodiversity, and sustainable harvesting of plant medicines.

Focus on indigenous knowledge of plant medicines and integration into contemporary medicinal treatment modalities.

His ethnobotanical research experience covers countries as Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Indonesia, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala.