Dave Collins

Dave holds an M.A. in composition and rhetoric and a B.A. in Anthropology. In 2000, after teaching humanities and ESL to university students for a year at the Instituto Technológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey at the campus in Colima, Mexico, Dave started Immersion Adventures, a La Manzanilla-based ecotourism company which is still operating--now as Tierralegre Institute and SUPlaneta (www.suplaneta.com).  Contracts have included the Discovery Channel and Earthwatch Institute.  Dave served as Project Coordinator and Avian Research Director from 2003-2006 for Earthwatch Institute´s Mexican Mangroves and Wildlife program.

In 2005, increasingly frustrated with the insidious burning and littering of plastics (bottles especially), Dave started a PET plastic recycling program in La Manzanilla which still continues today.  By 2007 he was more than convinced of the need for an organization to help protect that natural resources and biodiversity of the ecoregion and community he loves and calls home.  Thus Tierralegre A.C. was founded.  In 2009 he received an award for the environmental work he had done in the community of La Manzanilla from the ejido and the Secretary of the Environment, which signified for him a solid foundation upon which to build Tierralegre.  Dave´s passions--birding, conservation, permaculture and standup paddle boarding--continue to find fertile ground, and water, on the Costalegre where he plans to keep working well into the future.