Caril Ridley has been referred to as an internationalist. Her work has brought people and cultures together while planning communities, establishing businesses and creating social and environmental resources globally. She has risen to presidency of organizations designed for the betterment of humanity and was elected to public office serving the needs of people as well as her beloved natural environment. The breadth of her work has taken her to more than fifty countries and her passions have crossed the lives of thousands.

Caril founded the Palawan Environmental and Marine Studies Center (PEMS) focusing attention on issues of cultural and environmental exploitation along the South China and Sulu Seas. Her international projects have addressed such issues as reef cyaniding, dynamiting, sand-theft to illegal coastal logging as well the effects of aqua-culture within some of the most pristine regions of the world. Her work with environmental and cultural foundations have spanned more than fifty countries often working with the more primitive and less fortunate. Her accomplishments in the United States have created therapeutic communities serving a thousand otherwise homeless people while building parks and recreational resources networking individuals with their communities and with their natural environments. Her vision has included panning an urban trail system crisscrossing the central Puget Sound in Washington State and designing a Cultural Center for southeast Alaska, now under development.

As an adventurer Caril has climbed mountains and run rivers worldwide, trained with the US Olympic white water kayak slalom team (1972) and became the first person to run the origin of the Amazon, Coustou’s Amazon Expedition, (84), she also was the first person to hang glide in India, Daily Tej (74) and elected Commissioner of Parks and Recreation in Washington State, KPMPD (03) designed a Trans Puget Sound Trail System criss-crossing central Puget Sound (02).

Caril’s work with the peace movement, with outdoor recreation, with global environmental interests and tourism has been inspired by practitioners like Mr. Howard Welsh, Dr. Willi Unsoeld and Dr. Simon Priest.

co-authored: Kayaking around the Key Peninsula (03).