Climber and conservationist Brady Robinson joins us for our fourth episode of Last Wild Places. Brady worked for 11 years as the executive director of the Access Fund, a non-profit rock climbing advocacy group that works to keep climbing areas open in the United States. He was founding chair of the Outdoor Alliance, a powerful coalition of outdoor organizations for protecting public lands, and he was a former executive director of the Conservation Alliance, which mobilizes the resources of American businesses to support organizations that defend and restore wildlands.

He also has a long connection to Chile and Patagonia. In 2001, he set up an Outward Bound program there; he has worked for Tompkins Conservation, coordinating their international fundraising and strategic planning efforts in the region; and he is currently the director of philanthropy at the Freyja Foundation (www.freyjafoundation.org), which among their international projects have conservation initiatives in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia.

Brady shares with us insights from his experiences leading outdoor and conservation organizations, we discuss the outdoor recreation community and its role in conservation success, and we hear about an historic international campaign launched in May 2024 that seeks to raise US$78 million to purchase and protect a massive 133,000-hectare wilderness area in Cochamó, Chilean Patagonia.

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Published in print and digital since 2011, Patagon Journal is a bilingual magazine in English and Spanish about Patagonia and the world’s last wild places. Head to our website - patagonjournal.com - where you can find our magazine and read our online articles. To subscribe, support our work through our special premium membership program, or buy back issues, merch and more, visit our online store at patagonstore.com

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The founder and president of the Global Penguin Society (www.globalpenguinsociety.org), Pablo García Borboroglu joins us for our third episode of Last Wild Places. Pablo's conservation efforts have helped protect 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of marine and land habitat for penguins worldwide, including the massive Patagonia Azul (Blue Patagonia) UNESCO biosphere reserve in his home country of Argentina that protects the world's largest colony of Magellanic penguins. He is also a marine biologist for Argentina’s National Research Council and a professor for the University of Washington, and has coordinated the development of eight management plans for protected areas in Chile and Argentina. His large body of work over the past three decades won him the 2023 Indianapolis Prize, the world's top award for animal conservation.

Pablo talks to us about how the human connection with penguins helps the wider conservation movement; the major threats facing different penguins species today; and the activism, scientific and educational endeavors his organization are making to protect marine environments.

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Published in print and digital since 2011, Patagon Journal is a bilingual magazine in English and Spanish about Patagonia and the world’s last wild places. Head to our website - patagonjournal.com - where you can find our magazine and read our online articles. To subscribe, support our work through our special premium membership program, or buy back issues, merch and more, visit our online store at patagonstore.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second episode of Last Wild Places, our guest is Leon McCarron (www.leonmccarron.com), an adventurer, author, journalist and trail designer from Northern Ireland. A practitioner of “slow travel” and long expeditions, among his adventures he has cycled from New York to Hong Kong, traveled through Patagonia on horseback, and walked across China and Mongolia. He has written three books about his journeys, as well as made films for the BBC and National Geographic. His most recent book “'Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilisation,” spotlights the threats to and richness of the historic Tigris River of Iraq. He is also co-founder of the Zagros Mountain Trail in the Kurdistan Region, where he has been based since 2017.

Our conversation crosses continents, as we dig into Leon’s incredible career so far; threats to rivers from Patagonia to Iraq; the future of the Middle East in a water crisis; and how his adventures have personally impacted his perspective on wild places and society.

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Published in print and digital since 2011, Patagon Journal is a bilingual magazine in English and Spanish about Patagonia and the world’s last wild places. Head to our website - patagonjournal.com - where you can find our magazine and read our online articles. To subscribe, support our work through our special premium membership program, or buy back issues, merch and more, visit our online store at patagonstore.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.