John Carter was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He enlisted in the US Army on a Ranger contract and ended up serving as Senior Scout on a six man reconnaissance team in the Long Range Surveillance Detachment – 101^st Airborne Division, providing vital services for the Rockefellers in Desert Storm, including securing their oil assets and serving as a medical Guinea pig through being forced to take unknown pills and wearing arm monitors on missions, not to mention the 16 shots he had to take in 5 minutes before heading to the sandbox.

John met and ended up marrying a Brazilian woman. Courted by his father-in-law to move to Brazil to manage a truly off-grid family ranch in the Amazon frontier. In 2011 the Botanical Research Institute of Texas awarded John their prestigious “International Award of Excellence in Conservation”.

He has listened to me speak about Brazil and the ongoing brawl for control there between good versus evil. Brazilians have experienced horrific inflation before, to that extent their habits were permanently forged culturally in response, even to this day 30 years later. Now they are getting sucked into the carbon finance trap…with their lands as collateral.

Additionally, John has written that “In 1996, my wife and I moved to the southern Brazilian Amazon to live on a 21,500-acre cattle ranch in the Mato Grosso frontier. Located eighteen hours from the nearest hospital by truck on horrific roads and trails, we lived off the grid with power provided by a diesel generator for four hours a day and water from a spring pumped uphill by a water wheel to our headquarters. We raised our own beef and chicken and maintained a massive garden to feed fifteen people who lived there year-round. Most rewarding of all was learning about the medicinal plants the surrounding forest provided in abundance. The local cowboys and pioneers knew a lot, but it was not until we met the Indians in the Xingu region that we really understood the brilliance of their diet and natural pharmacy.”

Today he is a cattle rancher and conservationist who started the Brazilian rainforest conservation organization, Aliança da Terra that now manages over 14 million acreas of amazonian land, as well as their ranches in Texas, Mato Grosso and Paraná and say “Don’t fear. Fight with Truth”

He’s been on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2013 and did a Ted Talk in 2011 on conservation just to mention a few views of his work.  I’m honored that he has joined us.

SOURCES:

Website: https://en.aliancadaterra.org/

David Letterman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QCp9L7GJEY

The Texas Chainsaw Stopper: https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/destinations/south-america/texas-chainsaw-stopper/