Conservation in Time of War: A Transformational Journey through Beauty and Tragedy

Have you ever asked how you can both save yourself and the world despite overwhelming odds? With parrot extinction looming, "Conservation in Time of War" shares one woman's willingness to risk everything to protect this beautiful earth. Arriving in a war zone with many casualties, young veterinarian LoraKim Joyner lands in Guatemala during the 1980s, eager to follow her dream to save endangered parrots, the most vulnerable group of all birds. Striving to establish one of the first large-scale parrot conservation projects in Latin America, she is inter-rupted by the violent realities of Central America reeling from the impacts of the Cold War and the United States' business and foreign policy interests. After years of abysmal nest success rates due to poachers stealing chicks for the illegal wildlife trade, her spirit is broken when bulldozers tear down her beloved parrot nest trees. She returns to the United States feeling she has lost everything. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, LoraKim undertakes a journey of self-discovery. While studying to become a minister, grace steps in and she finds the tools necessary to embrace the beautiful and the tragic, and gains some inner peace. After 15 years LoraKim returns to front-line conservation in Latin America, where she discovers more devastation, violence, and loss, yet she isn't deterred. Sustained by a deep understanding that everything is connected in beauty, she offers healing and hope to the parrots and people of Latin America, and to a world where climate change, terrorism, political polarization, and loss of biodiversity threaten us all.