Heather Arrowood
Heather Arrowood is co-founder and Executive Director of OELO (Organisation Ecologique des Lacs et de l’Ogooué). She’s a wildlife biologist by training, who came to Gabon for a short-term ecotourism project with WCS and then never left. Her Gabonese husband Cyrille says it’s the lake genie that trapped her, but her in-laws like to point out that Cyrille’s traditional healer grandmother specialised in medicine to keep your partner from leaving. Heather insists it’s the vast wilderness and incredible biodiversity (as well as some humans) who have kept her in the Congo Basin Forest for 14 years and she now has Gabonese nationality. She and Cyrille run a biodiversity NGO, OELO, partially funded by its ecotourism site, Tsam Tsam. OELO leads programmes in sustainable fishing and freshwater biodiversity conservation, changing consumer preferences for bushmeat from protected species, environmental education, community forestry, as well as ecotourism. In 2022, OELO was the first Gabonese organisation to win an Equator Prize for their initiative with the lake Oguemoué community, “Our Lake, Our Future.”
Fun fact: Heather has perhaps the only (French) horn in Gabon.
Oelo Gabon
Executive Director
Gabon
https://www.oelogabon.org
