Founder Alana Lea has been a voice for rainforests, both temperate and tropical, since 2009.

Born in the Mata Atlântica of Rio de Janeiro, to a British mother and an American father, Alana moved to the USA before her first birthday. She cultivated her passion for the plant kingdom over fifty years: beginning as a landscape designer in Puerto Rico. She then started tropical plant nursery, plant shop and plant maintenance company in Oregon, before devoting fifteen years of focus as reforestation connector for rainforest tree planting projects.

The iGiveTrees crowdfunding campaigns were then launched to gather small gifts from the global public, allowing her to buy organic trees from small rural associations in Brazil, and give them back to the people who live in the rainforests.

Her botanical art has been published in books, magazines and exhibited at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution and Museum of Natural History. Her environmental art has been displayed at the U.N. international Conference of Parties: COP22, COP23, COP24, the Global Climate Action Summit and the Agroforestry World Congress.

BOTANICAL ARTIST

ENVIRONMENTAL ARTIST

SPEAKER

NON-PROFIT

FOUNDING DIRECTOR – iGiveTrees. In 2012 she brought the project to the EarthWays Foundation for nonprofit fiscal sponsorship. In 2017 the project moved to Inquiring Systems Inc for nonprofit fiscal sponsorship until it closed books in June 2025.

FOUNDING DIRECTOR – RainforestECO. Between January and June 2026, fiscal sponsorship with Inquiring Systems Inc was in place once more to develop content for children’s books about the many wonders they can discover in gardens, serving their ability to adapt to the changing climate we are all experiencing.