José “Pepe” Alvarez, 50, was once a friar in the Order of St Augustine in Spain. Disgruntled with city life, he moved from Madrid to the Peruvian Amazon 25 years ago. He now works in the isolated town of Iquitos at the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute, helping to protect the forest and its wildlife. He is an expert in identifying birds from their songs and has discovered five new species. In 2006 he won the Parker/Gentry award for conservation biology from The Field Museum of Chicago.

Since my youth, I’ve always wanted to make the world a better place. In Spain I joined the Order of St Augustine but I felt directionless and didn’t like city life in Madrid. I was spending two hours each day on public transport, surrounded by unhappy faces. So, 25 years ago, I moved to the Peruvian Amazon, somewhere that had fascinated me since childhood.