If there's one thing that's changed about Leeanne Alonso since having her twins, Antonio and Miguel, six years ago, it's that she's no longer as likely to catch snakes with her bare hands. For her boys' sake, she's unwilling to chance a poisonous bite. But work like hers is never entirely risk-free. As an international conservationist, she travels deep into the wilds of countries like Ivory Coast, New Guinea and Nepal—locales so remote that it takes days to reach them by trail or boat, places where the wildlife can be dangerous and the human inhabitants sometimes even more so. "I definitely get more nervous now going on trips," says the Canadian-born 42-year-old, who earned her master's and doctoral degrees at Harvard University under the direction of famed biologist Edward O. Wilson. "Before I had kids, I was fearless." But you could hardly describe Leeanne as fearful now, espe-cially since she visits some of the least stable parts of the world, traveling every three months for a week or more at a time to lead biodiversity assessments. Kidnapping is prevalent enough in Venezuela, for instance, that Leeanne arranges for private transportation whenever she travels there. In 2001, she missed a coup in Africa's Ivory Coast by just two weeks. And during a 2005 outing to Nepal, filmed for Animal Planet, her party was headed off by Maoist rebels demanding payment in exchange for passage.Protecting WildlifeThere's always an element of chance as Leeanne leads teams of scientists into highly sensitive ecosystems where they catalog the native plants and animals, then determine which need protection. But she says she's actually less afraid in nature than in a city. "In a rain forest, nothing wants to hurt you. In a city, there are people who want to rob you," she says. "I never know what people will do, but animals are very predictable."Within a year of their fact-finding missions, Leeanne and her Conservation International colleagues publish reports that they distribute to governments and people who have the power to make conservation decisions and to stop development when necessary. Their nonprofit international environmental organization is the link between research and decision makers, she says: "We aren't just filing reports that will be put in drawers. We're providing the scientific data to justify why places should be protected. The need for their protection is urgent because tropical forests and their species are disappearing at an alarming rate."When Leeanne does put herself in harm's way—motivated by her love of nature and her desire to protect the environment for future generations—her thoughts are with her sons and her husband, Alfonso, 44, a conservation biologist for the Smithsonian Institution. Disconnected from civilization, Leeanne might speak to her family once a week by satellite telephone. Though they've traveled as a family to Belize, Honduras and Australia, the boys have never been with Leeanne on a work trip—it's too dangerous. But she believes these trips are vital to the future of our environment. "The earth is a lot like a working mother," she says. "We often take it for granted. We expect worms will always be aerating the soil to help plants grow, that honeybees will always pollinate our flowers and crops, that we'll always have fresh water and clean air. But this isn't so." Leeanne's love of nature developed as a child when she'd catch snakes, tadpoles and grasshoppers near her home in Grimsby, Ontario. Later, while at Harvard, she did field research on ants that evolved into her work examining and reporting on entire ecosystems. These days, she's grateful she has some help trying to save the planet in Alfonso, who does similar work for the Smithsonian and travels every month to Africa or Peru. The two met while doing research in Costa Rica in 1990. They began dating three years later when they were reintro-duced at a Smithsonian Conservation and Research Center biodiversity assess-ment course. They were engaged within months and married in 1994.Taking TurnsAlfonso credits Leeanne with sorting out their complicated schedules. She maintains a master calendar on a kitchen cabinet door where they can see who's on the road when and whether any upcom-ing trips might conflict with impor-tant family events. On the rare occasions both must travel at the same time, Leeanne's mother comes in from Texas to take care of the twins. Leeanne also has a second calendar on the counter to help figure out what they need to do on a daily basis, like taking the boys to tae kwon do or, for Leeanne, volunteering at their church ESL program. When they're both home, they share the responsibilities for the boys and the house as equally as they can. "It's mostly divided by what we like doing," Alfonso says. Leeanne's day usually begins at about 7:00 a.m., when she gets ready before waking the boys. "The mornings are kind of hectic because they're real sleepers," she says. It's usually Leeanne making the mad dash out the door to get them on the bus by 8:30 a.m. and herself on a bus to the Pentagon Metro station a few minutes later. Afternoons aren't much easier since she arrives home about ten minutes after the boys are dropped off. They usually stay with a neighbor until Leeanne gets there. If she must work late, Alfonso picks up the boys, or she hires a sitter. Wednesdays and Thursdays are somewhat saner since Leeanne can work from home those days. "I try not to worry about all the little things," she says. "My house isn't the cleanest in the world." She and Alfonso trade off cooking dinner, though she goes to Let's Dish with friends once a month to prepare and freeze eight meals. Alfonso almost always does bedtime and bathtime, as well as laundry, which gives Leeanne time to catch up on work—or simply catch her breath. Fearless FoursomeOf course, she naturally feels a bit of guilt about her tight schedule. "I feel like I'm not always involved in the things I could be," she says. "I don't have as much time with the boys to focus on reading, and some days I hardly have any time to focus on them individually." She and Alfonso steal some time together by arranging sleepover swaps with friends who have twin daughters the same age as Antonio and Miguel. They use the opportunity to attend work-related parties or head out to their favorite Latin dance clubs. They also take aerobics classes together every Sunday at a nearby gym, where there's child care for their sons. As a family, the foursome likes to explore the half-acre woods around their Annandale, VA, home, collecting bugs and maintaining a log of birds they spot outside. The boys love hatching monarch butterflies, since that's their dad's area of expertise, and tent caterpillars. Leeanne and Alfonso also reinforce the importance of conservation with the boys by making recycling and composting regular habits in their home. They've even had their backyard accredited as a Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. (Any family wanting to do the same can fill out an application at www.nwf.org/backyard and pay $15 to get recognized for creating a haven for wildlife in your own yard.)Until the boys are old enough to accompany Mom on her explorations in the wild, backyard adventures will have to suffice. "We really try to teach them to respect nature and that all creatures have a right to live," Leeanne says. "I'm probably the only mother around who gives her kids time-outs for squashing ants or spiders."Leeanne's Top Eco-Tips

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