MRN’s Executive Director Sam Williams has been doing Parrot conservation in Costa Rica for nearly 10 years!
Let me set the scene. We’re in Punta Islita, and nearly the entire team is gathered together at Lapa Lookout (the Visitor & Education Center at the breeding center). Sam, Pamela and Mario have just finished giving a presentation about the 3-day strategic planning workshop that brought us together this month. This workshop was attended by MRN’s leadership team and managers, but it was decided that even more value could be added to this exercise by including the entire team, so that’s what we’re here to do.
Sam has organized what he refers to as a “speed dating” exercise, with each program leader at their own corner of Lapa Lookout to talk about strategies we came up with for their respective programs (habitat, birds, people). Everyone was granted 5 minutes with each program leader to ask questions, discuss, and share ideas for the strategic plan. Of course, we didn’t split the team up into uniform groups who would go to each leader together, that would be too simple and not MRN’s style. Instead, at the end of each 5-minute session Sam would shout “MOVE!” and the team would scatter, everyone rushing to their next leader before the clock started again. This is the chaotic setting in which I chose to interview Sam about his 10 years in Costa Rica.
The goal of this interview was to introduce you to Dr. Sam Williams, the Executive Director of our organization. He is after all the face of our organization, and to myself and many of my colleagues, he is a big reason why we are here. He’s charismatic, funny, a bit wild, and endlessly devoted to our cause, using these traits to keep us motivated. But as the interview moved from “What’s your favorite parrot species?” to “What are you most proud of in your last 10 years here?” it became clear that not only are we motivated by him, but he is motivated by us. Sam does not see himself as the man on top of the MRN pyramid, he sees himself as just another member of the team, proud to be part of this collective of nature lovers who want to make a positive impact for our planet.
Sam arrived in Costa Rica in January of 2015, nearly 10 years ago. It was his first time in Costa Rica, and naturally it was parrots that brought him here. More specifically, an organization working with parrots called the Ara Project. “I came to check out the project, and I was foolish enough to stay,” he laughed. Sam and his partner in crime Sarah soon joined the Ara Project, with him as its Executive Director, and they set to work to restore populations of Scarlet and Great Green Macaws. The organization was small; releases were happening, but captive breeding wasn’t, and the overall vision for parrot conservation was on a small-scale. With Sam’s arrival, it quickly evolved and expanded. Sam says that most of this growth was done more or less intuitively, with no long-term plan written down. Fortunately, in such a small-scale project, his intuition was what was needed to get the ball rolling. Then the ball went rolling into a different direction, one with a bigger vision of conservation and impact.
“30 seconds!” Sam shouts as I wait for him to tell us about the establishment of MRN. All the conservations around us get louder, as everyone tries to get their point across as quickly as possible.
Macaw Recovery Network was co-founded at the end of 2018 by Sam and Sarah, with a more holistic approach to the conservation of parrots. “We’re of course working with the birds but also working with the habitat to make sure those birds have places to live, and working with communities to safeguard their future. We have a broader, holistic approach that we feel will have the greatest possible impact” he said about MRN’s vision. While MRN started with a larger vision, the size of the organization was still very small, and thus it was guided by intuition, at least in the early days. But now, the organization has matured. We have amazing professionals in leadership positions, all of whom have grown with the organization. “Now we’re drawing from each other’s experience and bringing together our collective knowledge to set the strategies for the next 10 years.” The strategic planning workshop was done through Conservation Standards, a widely recognized method that is considered best practice in conservation. Long-established organizations like the World Wildlife Foundation and the International Crane Foundation also follow the Conservation Standards. This exercise has forced us to really look closely at our work and justify strategies we have taken. A treat for Sam and our team was the realization that we are already doing many of things that we need to do to have an impact, so now we can keep doing them with the assurance that we have been on the right path all along.
“Time’s up! MOVE!” Sam shouts, the team scatters and scrambles to get to their next program leader. He then turns his attention back to me with a big grin on his face. This chaos is what he lives for.
I can’t help but ask, why Macaws? Sam says that they make an excellent flagship species. He has been a life-long parrot enthusiast, his parents let him breed them when he was a kid, even going so far as allowing him to turn their garden into an aviary. “Your first hyper-fixation” I joke with him; he nods and chuckles. But he first saw Macaws in Brazil in their natural habitat in 2002 and was struck by how beautiful and iconic they are. They are hard-to-miss birds and that makes them powerful representatives of their habitats. It’s easy to love them and want to save them, and saving them means we need to save their habitats. This benefits all the biodiversity that co-exists with them, and this is also how we contribute to slowing climate change.
“Speaking of saving habitats, the Sarapiquí Rainforest Reserve just doubled in size,” I say. Sam nods, and I can see that this is something that means a great deal to him. “Establishing the Reserve is a huge step for MRN because it’s a big undertaking to secure rainforest and to do it with the intention of protecting it in the perpetuity,” he says. “The last time I was on the Reserve, just a few weeks ago, I saw this family of spider monkeys…and you know, they’re not parrots so I’m not really that bothered,” this is the humor that keeps us on our toes! “But I really realized that we’ve got this Reserve, so now these animals, these individuals, are safe. They have a secure future because they’re on a reserve. And of course it’s every animal that’s there, and every tree. We’re giving them security, which just feels amazing, and I was bawling my eyes out.” He laughs about this, but what he says echoes what many of my colleagues are feeling about this Reserve. We are still in awe at the opportunity to protect this forest.
“Hold on, I need to move everyone around,” he says before standing up and scattering the team again.
When he sits back down and resets the timer to another 5 minutes, I ask him what he’s most proud of from the last 10 years. He doesn’t hesitate to say that it isn’t just any one thing that he’s proud of, but a cumulation of things that have all come from the people around him. “A tremendous amount of the things I’m proud of have come from the team. And when I say the team I mean the volunteers, the staff, the board of directors, the donors… and I’m really tickled by this because I really love parrots. But my work has evolved to where it’s all about people,” he says.
The team is also what comes to mind when asked about this favorite memory of his time in Costa Rica. Moments like this, when the entire team is together, working incredibly hard for conservation. All contributing in their own unique ways. I share the sentiment, as do my colleagues. It is a treat to work with such a great team, but a great team often comes from a great leader. So I proceed to ask about his leadership style. His response moves me, because once again it isn’t about him at all. “I think one of the things I’m super proud of, with the team and from the team, is the culture that we have in this organization. We look at the values of MRN which include aspiring to be excellent and to have integrity, and we take that seriously.”
Our values also include communication, teamwork, and leadership. Through all these values, we encourage each other to not only be excellent professionally, but the best versions of ourselves as individuals. We have honest conversations that go beyond our work agenda, and I myself have found incredible support through this culture. So I nod and say, “We also take care of each other.”
“Yeah, the support through this last week, just getting everybody together again and seeing that we are not just colleagues. There’s an incredible bond between everyone and that is so special. And we all have this shared desire to have a great impact,” he says.
Carey Wentz
Communications Manager
We’re celebrating 10 years by planting 10,000 trees! Click here to be part of the fun, restoring vital Great Green Macaw habitat in Costa Rica.
The celebration goes live on November 29th, save the date here!