Who We Are
Jennifer Castner is Director of The Altai Project. Prior to this she served as Director of the Russia Program at San Francisco-based Pacific Environment. 
There she oversaw an $800,000 annual operating budget, managed a team of five staff, conducted fundraising and reporting, and was responsible for a small grants program to Russian environmental NGOs (averaging $350,000 in grants annually). Prior work history includes work as a Program Coordinator and Vocational Counselor for Russian and Bosnian refugees, Operations Director for Heart to Heart International Children’s Medical Alliance, and Program Associate at American Councils. She lived in Moscow and studied at the Moscow Energy Institute in 1992 and lived and worked in Kiev in 1993. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Russian language and linguistics in 1993 from Bryn Mawr College. She is fluent in Russian and has traveled extensively in Siberia and the Russian Far East, Ukraine, and Europe.
Our Advisory Committee:
- Gary Cook, Baikal Watch/EII in San Francisco, CA
- Susan Cutting, Student Conservation Association in Acworth, NH
- Alyson Ewald, Red Earth Farms in Rutledge, MO
- David Gordon, Pacific Environment in San Francisco, CA
- Bill Pfeiffer, Sacred Earth Network in Petersham, MA
- Enid Schreibman, Center for Safe Energy/EII in Berkeley, CA
We are a project of Earth Island Institute.
Earth Island Institute’s (EII) mission: Life on earth is imperiled by human degradation of the biosphere. Earth Island Institute develops and supports projects that counteract threats to the biological and cultural diversity that sustain the environment. Through education and activism, these projects promote the conservation, preservation, and restoration of the Earth.
EII was founded in 1982 by veteran environmentalist David Brower. It fosters the efforts of creative individuals by providing organizational support in developing projects for the conservation, preservation, and restoration of the global environment. EII provides activists the freedom to develop program ideas, supported by services to help them pursue those ideas, with a minimum of bureaucracy. Earth Island's Project Network consists of more than 30 projects worldwide (see the Project Directory for program and contact information).
Earth Island Institute