About Annamiticus
Annamiticus is named in memory of the extinct Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus. The Javan rhino tragedy made us more determined than ever to inform and educate the public about endangered species, illegal wildlife trade, and wildlife crime.
Annamiticus in action: Check out our newsletter The Annamiticus Quarterly.
What we do:
Annamiticus is dedicated to educating the public about endangered species of wildlife, illegal and/or unsustainable trade in endangered species, and wildlife crime. We utilize field visits, presentations, blogging, podcasts, web videos, film, social media, and collaborations to make a difference.
Your support helps us:
- Produce high-impact educational content;
- Build the digital communications capacity of our partners in the field;
- Promote a greater understanding of the threats to endangered species by undertaking field visits to regions where threats to endangered species are unusually high and under-reported;
- Increase the capacity of our national and international colleagues and partners at critical events, including CITES meetings of the Conference of the Parties (CoP).
Check out our Projects page and our newsletter The Annamiticus Quarterly to see our work.
Connect with us:
- Annamiticus on Facebook and Twitter.
- Saving Rhinos on Facebook and Twitter
- Project Pangolin on Facebook and Twitter
- Behind the Schemes on iTunes — Facebook — Twitter
- You can also visit our contact page for email and snail mail.
Annamiticus is organized and operated for educational purposes within the meaning of the Internal Revenue Service Code section 501(c)(3).
Board of Directors
Rhishja Cota-Larson, Founder, Executive Director, Editor
Because people need to know. That’s why.
“Because people need to know. That’s why.” — Rhishja Cota-Larson
Rhishja is the Founder and Executive Director of Annamiticus. She is the Editor of the blogs Annamiticus, Rhino Horn is Not Medicine and Project Pangolin, host of Behind the Schemes, and Producer for the upcoming documentary The Price. She is the author of Murder, Myths & Medicine and a writer for the environmental news blog Planetsave. Rhishja was also a guest blogger on National Geographic’s NatGeo News Watch (Rhino horn: All myth, no medicine) and a contributor on the Jeff Corwin Connect Citizen Blog.
It all started as a side project in 2007, when Rhishja created the Saving Rhinos educational website. By 2009, Saving Rhinos had become a full-time endeavor. Rhishja combined her passion with her previous experience in marketing and design to grow Saving Rhinos into one of the most comprehensive online resources about the illegal rhino horn trade, with more than 600 articles on the Rhino Horn is Not Medicine blog. In 2011, Rhishja published her first book, Murder, Myths & Medicine. That same year, she launched the Project Pangolin blog, which contains dozens of curated news stories about pangolin seizures and arrests, along with research and information about pangolins and the pangolin trade. In 2012, Rhishja founded Annamiticus, a nonprofit organization which provides educational information to the public about endangered species of wildlife, unsustainable and/or illegal trade of wildlife, and wildlife crime.
She is a Stanford Certified Project Manager (Stanford Center for Professional Development, Stanford University) and received her BA degree in Government from California State University, Sacramento.
Rhishja has assisted TRAFFIC Southeast Asia with public awareness campaigns, and provided research to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and other organizations.
Andrew Larson, Co-Founder
Andrew Larson is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) with an MBA in Marketing from Wake Forest University.
Andrew Larson is an avid birder whose love of the environment started with childhood summers spent camping at Lower Sysladobsis Lake in Maine.
He grew up on the East Coast of the United States, where his love of the environment started with childhood summers spent camping at Lower Sysladobsis Lake in Maine. After graduate school, Andrew followed his favorite band, the Grateful Dead, around the country until 1995. Andrew enjoys live music, birding, travel, and cooking.
Melinda MacInnis
Melinda MacInnis is the founder of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, a new educational nonprofit that specializes in producing, supporting, and disseminating educational environmental videos.
Melinda MacInnis is the founder of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and Executive Producer/Director of The Price documentary.
She is a longtime inner-city educator whose short video The Rhino Wars has been downloaded in over 100 countries worldwide. Her first feature length documentary, The Price, examines the yet unknowable cost of the massive biodiversity loss facing our planet today – a loss powerfully symbolized in the human-caused extinction threat to some of our world’s most beloved creatures. Melinda also works for the USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a groundbreaking program that helps thousands of inner-city youth access higher education. She was born and raised in Southern California and has a B.A. from Berkeley and a M.A. in creative writing from C.U. Boulder.
Quyen Vu
Quyen Vu is the founder of Education for Nature-Vietnam (ENV), Vietnam’s first non-governmental organization focused on the conservation of wildlife and the environment.
Quyen Vu is the founder of Education for Nature-Vietnam (ENV), Vietnam’s first non-governmental organization focused on the conservation of wildlife and the environment.
Since its inception in 2000, ENV has conducted more than 70 environmental education and communication training programs for teachers, community stakeholder groups and staff from national parks and protected areas throughout Vietnam. ENV has also trained educators from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. ENV’s Wildlife Crime Unit (WCU) was established in 2005 to facilitate and motivate public involvement in efforts to combat wildlife trade, and administers a public toll-free national hotline for reporting wildlife crimes.
Andrew Kern
Andrew is a practicing attorney with a keen interest in wildlife and environmental issues.
He has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York, and a Law Degree from The Baylor School of Law in Texas.
