LAFCADIO CORTESI

CORTESI--Lafcadio Alexander Lafcadio Cortesi, 60, beloved husband, son, father, brother, and friend, and a dedicated international campaigner for a better environment, died suddenly and peacefully in his sleep on Sunday, March 13, 2022 at his home in Berkeley, CA. He was born on September 14, 1961 to Alexandra Fuller Cortesi and Alexander Cochrane Cortesi in Portsmouth, NH. His name was inspired by the writer Lafcadio Hearn. This proved prophetic: like Hearn, Lafcadio traveled the world, bridging east and west. He grew up in Manhattan in a loving family and attended Collegiate School. He graduated from Milton Academy in 1979, and, in 1983, from Reed College, where he majored in Anthropology. At the age of 16, he flew alone to Kathmandu and joined an Earth Watch team studying Temple Monkeys. Lafcadio met Jo Ann Welsch at Reed. A dear friend noted at the time that "the two of you were deeply fiercely in love. You sparkled in one another's company." They spent the next forty years together, marrying in New York City on February 18, 1989, and raising their two daughters in the Bay Area. Lafcadio was an enormously effective conservationist and community organizer who had an impact on every continent, developing special expertise in Canada, Indonesia, and the wider Pacific. Beginning in 1985, Lafcadio lived and worked in Indonesia with Volunteers in Asia on community development before joining Greenpeace in 1987, where he led efforts to support local communities in their struggles to end deforestation in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He also played a leadership role in Greenpeace's Pacific Campaign: a half- dozen catalytic actions defending forests, climate, fisheries, and coral reefs, as well as other important efforts throughout the Pacific region. At Stand.Earth, he was a director of Boreal Markets, fighting logging in thousands of square miles of the most ecologically and culturally important forests in western Canada. He had an important influence on companies that derived raw materials from the Canadian forests, altering the policies and buying practices of major office supply companies such as Staples. From 2008 to 2019, Lafcadio was director of Asia programs at the Rainforest Action Network, leading efforts to force paper buyers to shift to sustainable, human rights- based policies. Most recently he was a senior corporate campaigner at Canopy Planet, a Canadian NGO, where he led efforts to change policies at major consumer fashion and packaging brands. Lafcadio is most remembered for his passion and genius for bringing disparate groups together, navigating diverse cultures, and building consensus among people from different backgrounds - all with compassion, patience, and joy. His persistence and sincerity, combined with his booming voice and endearing and charismatic personality, made him an effective collaborator and friend among local communities, activists, allies, and even adversaries around the world. One friend noted after his death that "There are many forests standing in the world today that wouldn't be there without his efforts and charm." Lafcadio was a master gardener and an excellent chef, offering elaborate meals for his family, friends, visitors, and strangers alike. He collected indigenous Papua New Guinean and Indonesian art and textiles, and was an ebullient fan of live music, dancing, and the Grateful Dead. Lafcadio was a leader in and inspiration for a group of lifelong friends who worked and lived closely together for nearly three decades in the "Kampung" located in the Bay Area. He served on the Board of Directors of the Karuna Foundation, the Dutch Foundation for Ecological Cooperation, and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership. In addition to his wife, Jo Anne, he is survived by his daughters Arianna and Zephania, his mother, Alexandra Anderson, his siblings Genevieve Morgan, Vanessa Cortesi, Oscar Anderson, Zan and Ian Jacobus, and Sinclair Smith, his stepmothers Lale Armstrong and Wendy Mackenzie, his mother-in-law, Rev. Kay Welsch, and his many relatives-in-law, nieces, nephews and extended family. He will be deeply missed by the thousands of people whose lives he touched, and by the international sustainability movement he helped to inspire and build.