Biography

Gil Serique was born and raised on the banks of the Tapajos River in the municipality of Santarem, Brazil. The 8th child of a village teacher and Jewish merchants. He spent his childhood in close contact with the wonders of the Amazon rainforest. This formative experience forged a bond with nature that he has never relinquished.

 

From 1984-1986, he worked as a tour guide at Varig Airlines' Tropical Hotel Santarem and then as bilingual reservations agent for Varig Airlines on the coast of northeast Brazil (in the city of Maceio, Al). In 1988 he returned to his home town of Santarem, where he organised private and scientific expeditions to the Tapajos River (one of the main tributaries of the Amazon) and then followed that with two years of the same in the Rio Negro area near Manaus, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon. There, Gil worked as a guide for the travel agency associated with Varig's world-famous Tropical Hotel.

 

Returning to Santarem, he organised land and river tours for several cruise ships, including HMS Ocean Princess, Sea Goddess and Stella Solaris. During this time he also worked and guided at the Center for Preservation of Indigenous Art, Culture and Sciences (near Santarem), and worked as naturalist and lecturer on M/S Explorer, M/S Lyubov Orlova and M/S Mercury.

 

From 1994 to the present Gil has guided and organised scientific expeditions to various parts of the Brazilian Amazon. For instance, in 1995 he helped organise and participated in a University of Quebec expedition that studied the ecological impact of mercury use in gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon, and with his late brother, Flavio Serique, participated in the Kota Mama Expedition organised by the Scientific Exporation Society, He is credited the book The Thief at the End of the World by Joe Jackson and was dedicated The Drowning World, by Alan Dean Foster. Recently he contributed to Dr. Greg Grandin's Fordlandia The Rise and fall of Henry Ford's forgotten jungle town.

 

Since 1996 Gil has worked as field director of a research project on Hyacinth Macaws for the Wildlife Conservation Society (founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society). Between September and November 1996 he also helped implement the Amazon Basin's single richest site for wildlife, the Manu Wildlife Center in the Amazon of southern Peru. He also participated on the most watched video in history, "The Earth Song," and has conducted ecotours to various conservation units in Brazil, including Itatiaia National Park (RJ), Iguassu National Park (PR), Quebrangulo and Muruci Reserves (AL), northern and southern Pantanal, and the Mamiraua Ecological Station. Gil Serique is recommended on both Footprints and Lonely Planet guides as well as mentioned in Cruisecritics.

 

Gil is self-taught, having learned fluent English from his extensive guiding experience and from reading novels and rainforest ecology books. He also speaks Spanish and specializes in bird identification and ecology. His effervescent personality and deep understanding of Amazon ecology make him a gracious host and an ideal guide and companion in Amazonian explorations gilserique@gmail.com.