In 2022, Rainforest Action Network and the global forest protection movement lost one of our most impactful and admired champions. Lafcadio Cortesi was a brilliant and effective campaigner, cut from an old school cloth where earnestness and face-to-face relationships built the trust that was the pathway to changing hearts and minds.
In memory of Lafcadio and his incredible contributions to forests around the globe, RAN is launching The Lafcadio Fund. On June 22, in conjunction with World Rainforest Day, RAN announced The Lafcadio Fund as a new giving option through our Community Action Grants Program.
All funds raised through The Lafcadio Fund will go to support activists working on Rainforest Protection in Indonesia through The Samdhana Institute, which he co founded in 2003 to help invigorate a ‘cultural revival’ of activists and artists dedicated to preserving the richness of the natural, cultural, and spiritual diversity of Indonesia.
About Lafcadio
Lafcadio was an enormously effective conservationist and community organizer who had an impact everywhere he worked. His considerable strength was drawn directly from his passion for the work. He always saw the best in people and viewed our adversaries not as enemies but as misguided actors who needed to be brought around to see the light.
In Lafcadio’s eyes, everyone was always just one compelling, heartfelt argument away from doing the right thing. Lafcadio played a major role in bringing RAN’s focus to Indonesia. His many years spent on RAN’s forest team left an outsized legacy that continues to fundamentally influence the work we do together today.
In addition to being a colleague and mentor for many of us, Laf remained a dear personal friend to many who are still at RAN. Lafcadio was irrepressibly gregarious and professionally prolific, and he left behind a vast international network of allies and collaborators who were touched by his contagious enthusiasm for life and his deep commitment to healthy forests and the communities whose lives and livelihoods were tied to them.
Laf was equally at home on the floor of a hut in a remote Sumatran village as he was across the table from decision makers in a corporate boardroom — but never so much as on a dancefloor, wherever one could be found. Laf was an electric bolt of a human being. His bellowing laugh was a signature trait, and he radiated pure ‘joie de vivre’ — adventurous, charismatic, playful, and cheerful in even the most unlikely circumstances. He was also just about the most fun person ever to be around. From all of us who had the pleasure: Terima kasih pak Laf. You are legend.
