Activism Stories
By speaking out for nature, we can protect wild salmon from extinction before it’s too late.
Standing up for the health of lands and waters is part of every Patagonia ambassador’s job description, even when they’re off the clock.
We spoke with fired public lands employees before they were reinstated. Here are their stories.
How Tommy Caldwell is reshaping his love for rock climbing by building relationships with Indigenous stewards of Bears Ears.
In Trump’s second term, environmental lawyers are getting more strategic—and assertive.
Taking responsibility for our supply chain impact means working with our partners, the wider industry, governments and NGOs to address root causes. Here’s how we are working to support the people who make our products.
England’s largest lake is facing an ecological disaster. Through community action, local people are striving to stop the pollution before it’s too late.
Finding the line between safety and adventure is often a delicate question while making first ascents in Slovenian mountains.
I’ve been angry at politicians for as long as I’ve been an activist. Here’s why I still vote.
Will you vote for climate action this November or wait until your own life is at risk?
A year after the worst wildfire in recent history razed the historic town of Lāhainā, the community of West Maui continues to recover and rebuild.
Louisiana community organizer Roishetta Ozane on her fight to stop the biggest fossil fuel expansion on earth and how mutual aid can play a part.
A friendship built between waves becomes a powerful alliance for the protection of surf breaks.
Our next fight against Big Oil is for basic human rights.
Climate and sustainability journalist Yessenia Funes writes to her future child—the one she hopes to have and has been afraid of bringing into our world.
How marine food production and thriving blue ecosystems go hand in hand.
An excerpt from Steven Hawley’s book about dirty dams—and their methane problem.
Even when the demands of a protest are not met, it can have lasting, immeasurable consequences.
Albania’s untamed Vjosa River introduces a new model for global water conservation.
An excerpt from Patagonia’s republished version of A Forest Journey, about what the loss of trees has meant for past life on our planet.
In Southeast Alaska, tribal leaders and local entrepreneurs are helping shape a kelp industry that prioritizes Indigenous values, regenerative practices and a commitment to Alaska Native shareholders.
Francisco “Pacho” Gangotena and his wife opted to challenge the way farming was done in their region and are instead going back to the roots of ancient agriculture.
This morning’s least-bad, bad ruling on climate, and some options President Biden still has.
As we make a transition to renewable sources of energy, let’s not renew the same old mistakes.
Was It Worth It? captures the essence of a life committed to the wild and challenges readers to make certain that their answer to this universal question is yes.
First-generation Vietnamese American Mai Nguyen follows in the footsteps of their agrarian ancestors with a farm that grows numerous types of grains with a no-till, anti-fertilizer regenerative approach.
Why a logging protest has become Canada’s largest act of civil disobedience.
The communities of Cajón del Maipo, in Chile, are seeing their environment be threatened by an unnecessary hydroelectric project.
An Italian town began emptying out. Then its inhabitants turned to renewable energy to save it.
This marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico is one of many biodiversity hotspots in the US that need more federal protection.
An excerpt from Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry.
An interview with Gabo Benoit, trail advocate and mountain-bike mayor of Coyhaique, Chile.
Campaigning for clean air might be a marathon, but progress is finally being made for communities in UK city centers.
Childhood friends, Hayley Talbot and Dan Ross, are determined to save a mighty river.
Not totally relating to some forms of climate activism, Josh Wharton found his own way to contribute.
We’re entering Earth’s sixth mass extinction, but clues about this climate crisis could be right under our feet.
John Murray’s lifelong work to permanently protect the Badger-Two Medicine from oil and gas drilling.
An unlikely community, in the most unlikely location, has become an even more unlikely force for public lands conservation.
The next nine years will be a time of resilience, rebuilding and reinvention.
For 16-year-old Bosnian Ali Sarajlić, living without the free-flowing Neretvica River is unimaginable. That’s why he has joined, and in many ways led, the continuing fight against damming it.
Sheep (and their poop) could help California’s climate-driven wildfires. One couple is ushering in this idea with a small flock and some supportive fire departments.
Ten years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese communities are turning toward citizen-led renewable power.
A wildlife biologist uncovers an unexpected, intersectional legacy of slavery.
In one of the last interviews he gave before he passed away, the writer and conservationist shares his reflections on the past, and the work still to do.
Climate and social justice activists are pushing the clothing industry to take better care of people and the planet.
In 1991 Dirk Vansintjan co-founded Ecopower, a Belgian renewable energy cooperative that now has more than 60,000 members. He has advice on how communities can achieve energy democracy.
Photographer Paolo Pellegrin captured the aftermath of the wildfires that burned through Australia in 2019.
A dead-end dirt road is the start to a new challenge—and a fight to protect South America’s Yosemite.
One woman’s decades-long fight for clean air and environmental justice.
“Castleton Tower has a pulse. We have a pulse. The Earth has a pulse.”
The ups and downs of bringing power to the people in the Chamonix Valley.
Climate policy expert Leah Stokes on how fossil fuel interests undermine American climate policy, and what you can do to stop it.
Snow lovers and professional athletes are mobilizing to elect climate leaders.
If we continue trying to save the world one species at a time we will fail; it is time to redefine our relationship with nature so that we save all of nature.
A reminder of why voting is essential to the protection of our public lands.
Karen Diver of the Fond du Lac Band on how protecting lands and waters can provide solutions to climate change.
Melinda Daniels is huddled under the shelter of her purple tent waiting for the rain to start, which only seems odd when you consider the context: she’s in the middle of a farm on a blindingly sunny day.
Our public lands have tremendous value above and beyond resource extraction. Here’s why they’re worth protecting.
BIKE Magazine contributing editor Michael Ferrentino on our perceived right to ride wherever we want.
In 2008, two little-known farmers, Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer, decided to embrace the principles of permaculture. 12 years later, the success and lessons of Bec Hellouin Farm spark a movement in Europe.
“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’” —Rachel Carson.
A photographer learns what it means to be an ally while on assignment on Gwich’in lands.
To save our home planet we must fall in love with it. What’s holding us back?
“This whole process of virtual public hearings during a global crisis is an injustice to my community.”
The fish’s struggle for survival is a fight not only for itself but for the health of the planet. An excerpt from Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate.
A bona fide American hemp farmer/entrepreneur shares his stash.
Ways you can keep up the fight for our planet, and feel less alone.
As the world grapples with the effects of the pandemic, climate activists continue to fight for our future.
Feature: Squeaky Wheels, Wild Fish and Carrot Sticks
After a century of conflict on the Columbia between salmon and dams, the fates of these two iconic energy systems are now intertwined.
With oceans getting warmer and more acidic, a group of divers are planting baby corals to restore the dying coral reefs.
Southeast Alaskans are on the front line of the fight to protect the Tongass National Forest from logging.
Jocelyn Torres of Conservation Lands Foundation on the power of grassroots lobbying and voting for public lands.
The Slickrock Trail, in Moab, Utah, is one of the most popular mountain bike rides in the world. Now, under a recent BLM decision, it could also be opening to oil and gas drilling.
She was searching for a role with a nonprofit that takes a nontraditional approach to nature conservation. She found it in her inbox.
Mustafa Santiago Ali talks with Naomi Hollard of Sunrise Movement about the power of cross-class and multiracial movements and the mandate for environmental justice.
While Australia burns, its government is greenlighting oil drilling in the unspoiled Great Australian Bight. But surfers and coastal communities are saying no—and uniting to keep Big Oil out.
Predawn on April 4, 2019. There’s hardly any snow in the mountains. Worst year in recent history, the locals are saying. We’re loading boxes of food onto the ferry, preparing to board the Alaska Marine Highway from Juneau to Haines. “It’s southeast Alaska, you never know,” Ryland Bell says. “It might rain for 90 days…
My family arrived in Ohio from Jamaica in the mid-1970s, during a time of environmental turmoil. The previous decade had brought to light significant issues around the treatment of land and water in the United States. The Cuyahoga River, which flows into Lake Erie, caught fire in 1969 due to excessive oil coating its surface.…
“To change someone’s behavior, there must be rewards,” says Lizzy Plotkin. Her voice is earthy, grounded, easy and full of conviction. Horns honk, people talk, buses drive and a city thrives in the background, but she doesn’t sound like part of the chaos; she is instead superimposed into the scene. We’ve never met in person,…
A round of applause and a hurrah of thanks for President Donald Trump: he’s finally bringing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) the attention it deserves! Last fall, the president announced a number of administrative “rule changes” to the ESA, changes that may sound trivial, but which attack the intent and letter of the law. Trump,…
Three years ago, on December 28, 2016, President Obama used his executive power under the Antiquities Act to establish the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument. This was the first time that tribal sovereign nations allied to petition the president for a national monument designation. The Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute…
A mining company owns the mineral rights to a Colorado mountain. For 42 years, the Red Ladies have been showing up—and dressing up—to keep the mountain wild.
In the Arctic, Gwich’in youth are learning that protecting land means preserving a way of life. On Alaska’s North Slope, where polar bears den and gray wolves howl, protecting the land isn’t about supporting a cause or posting on social media from a protest at city hall. Here, it’s a matter of survival. Jewels Gilbert…
In the 1980s, a group of cyclists in Washington banded together to protect their local trails from illicit activities; 30 years later, that momentum has reshaped the city and preserved a watershed.
It’s fascinating to hear Zaria Forman talk about ice, especially the way that it sounds. She describes the way it rumbles and thunders and cracks, even when you can’t see anything. It crackles and pops like breakfast cereal on high volume. “Ice crispies,” she calls it. “It’s a really beautiful sound.” Polar ice is possibly…
Snow and icy rime break from the porous black volcanic ridgeline crackling beneath my feet. Gale-force updrafts from the gullied ridges below whip the skis and splitboards strapped to our backs. Each gust forces us to step toward the cornice that hangs above the caldera to our right. The temperature drops steadily and our breath…
Hear “climate crisis” and you may picture a skinny polar bear stranded on a fragment of sea ice, bleached coral reefs, burning forests or maybe a world without bees. You’re not wrong: All those things (and more) are sadly unfolding or could be in the coming decades. Even more troubling, however, is that your mental…
Thirteen youth climate activists are taking to the courts to protect the Mississippi River and the people who depend on it for survival. Brent Murcia crosses the lively Mississippi River every day by bridge on his walk to class at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The sunset sometimes paints its gray murky waters a…
Five hundred miles off the Chilean coast, there’s a small island that carries the name of a famous castaway. It’s a stark place surrounded by thriving seas and powerful surf, and when Léa Brassy, Ramón Navarro and Kohl Christensen traveled there to ride waves, they found themselves challenged by its unruly weather and wind. But they also found that the island…
As we look back on a week of climate actions that mobilized more than 7 million people around the world, those of us who took part are asking ourselves: What next? I ask that question of myself, as a concerned citizen, as a father and as a business leader in my role at Patagonia. Between…
Dispatch from the youth-led Climate Strike, the largest ever climate protest in history.
On an incredibly clear, early autumn morning, the aging Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) van bumped along Tioga Pass Road, taking precariously tight turns at an alarming speed. Twelve of us were crammed in the back, chattering and bracing ourselves against the van’s interior walls. When the road was no longer passable for vehicles, we…
Downieville, California was once one of the richest towns in the state, but by the mid-1990s it had gone full bust—until a few local mountain bikers’ began using the local trails to breathe new life into the town, turning the former ghost town into a recreation mecca.
Ever since Patagonia had an office (and wasn’t just selling gear out of the back of Yvon’s car), we’ve devoted desk space, our free time and a percentage of our sales to protecting wild nature. From our travels, we knew our land, air and water was in real trouble from short-sighted profiteers. Over the years,…
Thirty years ago this month, I published my first book, The End of Nature, which was also the first book for a general audience about what we then called the greenhouse effect. And my main worry was about … nature. In 1989, global warming was still a theoretical crisis—we were right at the edge of…
Everything you need to know about being a nonviolent climate activist
There’s something undeniably cute about kids protesting. They paint their signs—and faces—in primary colors, add some glitter. They smile and laugh as they huddle for selfies. Yet if they seem playful, they’re also serious. The millions of young people who’ve taken to the streets in the last year know that their generation has been dealt…
Klukwan is a village of 90 people in Southeast Alaska that’s home to the Chilkat Indian Village, a federally recognized tribe, on the banks of the Chilkat River 22 miles north of Haines, Alaska. The Chilkat have lived in the Chilkat Valley for over 2,000 years. It’s a land of natural bounty. The braided glacial…
In the last 20 years, the expansion of salmon farming in open-net pens has led to the loss of half the wild salmon population in Norway. On average, 200,000 farmed fish escape from open-net pens and many of them swim up rivers in Norway and breed with wild stocks, contributing to species decline. According to…
If you are interested in exploiting somebody else’s land, you can find convenient ratings tables that tell you the current favorites, ranked by competitive taxes, efficient permitting procedures and certainty around environmental regulations. In other words, if a country has low taxes for the rich, a no-questions-asked permit policy and a generous disregard for the…
The creation of Bears Ears National Monument was something that seemed more inevitable in the summer of 2016. It seems like now it’s one of those things where you’re on one side or the other because after all, I’m writing this book in the Trump years, and no one is getting along or in the…
“Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” —William Ruckelshaus, first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency A coho salmon the size of my pinky drifts quietly in the shade. It’s hardly distinguishable from the sand below. But Marie-France Roy, a professional snowboarder who does volunteer habitat- enhancement work in her hometown…
Patagonia is no stranger to the difficulty of throwing stuff away. We take back 100 percent of the gear you return for recycling through our Worn Wear program. In 2018, we recycled 6,797 pounds of products. But we can’t recycle or repair everything you send us. Some of it was just too well-loved during use…
Krissy Moehl reports from the inaugural takayna ultramarathon “There are no footprints.” Fellow Patagonia ambassador and New Zealand native Grant Guise voiced what I was thinking. Our headlamps and phone lights dimly illuminated the overgrown double-track from Rebecca Road. “If 100 people are starting a race in five minutes, we would see footprints,” he said…
In our 1990 summer catalog we said, “It’s up to us to make sure that children don’t go tree hungry, that they have wild places and opportunities to be in them. Once they do, they will amaze us with their caring. They need not wait to grow up to be involved; part of becoming a…
As the great Aldo Leopold once said, harmony with the land and with wildlife “is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.” Yet here we are: humankind is now the singular driving force behind the potential extinction of more than one million species, according to the…
If your idea of a great summer read is, like a day in the waves, a little escape from it all, this post may not be right for you. Maybe there’s just no escaping the severity of the climate crisis, or maybe we’re just so glad to have time to sit still with any book…
This was the rule of late summer in Montana’s Mission Valley: During the day, the landscape belonged to humans. Tractors worked the fields, and children played carefree in the yards. People swam in shady eddies and picnicked beside the creeks. At night, the bears came out. Stretching in the cooling twilight, the grizzlies left their…
Standing Up Against Industrial Fish Farming That Would Forever Alter A Unique Australian Beachbreak The day we arrived on King Island we drove out to Martha Lavinia Beach, where we stood in the dunes and watched waves running down the beach—long left-handers breaking so fast they were almost impossible to surf. However, Martha Lavinia wasn’t…
The Vjosa River flows 270 kilometers without barriers from the Pindus Mountains to the Adriatic Sea.
Indigenous communities across the United States are increasingly confronted with threats to their sovereignty and to the places they rely on for their culture and way of life. Nowhere is this threat felt more than in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A new short film, Welcome to Gwichyaa Zhee, looks at the Gwich’in people’s work to protect…
On March 15, spirits are high among a group of friends in Washington, D.C. Isra Hirsi, 16, Haven Coleman, 13, and other teen girls sprint to the lawn of the Capitol Building after a morning meeting at a nearby cafe. They laugh as they walk and chant, “Whose planet? Our planet!” They appear to be…
The Trump administration wants to open almost all of America’s coastline to the oil industry, putting our beaches and oceans at serious risk. Fifty years ago, an offshore rig spilled 100,000 barrels of crude oil into California’s Santa Barbara Channel, creating a 35-mile slick that fouled the wave-rich shoreline from Goleta to Ventura. It should…
Glad you asked … and if you aren’t already aware, in December 2017, President Trump issued a proclamation slashing Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 100 miles to the west of Bears Ears, by half. In an unprecedented response, we joined a coalition of Native American and grassroots groups…
Is it possible you’re reading this on The Cleanest Line and it’s the first you’re hearing of Doug Peacock? Is that even possible? Well, if so, you’re in for a real treat. In his latest film, Grizzly Country, Ben Moon creates a portrait of Peacock—a man who’s long been willing to put life and limb…
For 34 days in December and January, the government shutdown not only impaired the livelihoods of 800,000 federal employees, it brought almost the entire federal scientific apparatus to a halt. Worse, there are indicators that the Trump administration willingly took advantage of the shutdown to expedite strategic projects in the oil and gas, mining, and…
We are killing what we love. The vast system of hatcheries and open-water fish farms we’ve built is an expression of our affection for cold-water fish—as food, as recreation, as commercial resource. And yet, despite our best intentions, these human-engineered attempts to make up for resource extraction, development and dam building—to somehow do better than…
Yvon Chouinard shares how our company continues to do what it can to defend the soil, air and water we all depend on—and to confront the greatest threat to our welfare we’ve ever faced.
Alexandria Villaseñor is a 13-year-old climate justice activist and one of three lead organizers, together with Isra Hirsi and Haven Coleman, of US Youth Climate Strike. She is part of a global movement of students who are striking from school to protest inaction on climate change. The global Youth Climate Strike is taking place on March…
As gorgeous as the Grand Canyon is to look upon, its greatest gifts may not be visual. “On any given evening in summer, but most notably in late June, there comes a moment just after the sun has disappeared behind the rimrock, and just before the darkness has tumbled down the walls, when the bottom…
When you lose your trout stream to climate change, where do you go to find yourself? It was late September and the creek ran clear and low out of the West Elks in southwestern Colorado. My favorite time of year: Through the V of the ravine upstream I could see the shoulders of Mount Gunnison…
In March 2018, using nothing more than a Facebook page and a rudimentary website, a 33-year-old Argentine-American biologist named Esteban Servat launched a protest that has mobilized tens of thousands of people in Argentina. Servat published a secret Argentine government study of the environmental effects of fracking in the mountainous region of Mendoza, a report…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers…
When we move through the forest in winter, we’re often left wonderstruck by snow-shrouded trees bent and morphed from years of wear in silent solitude. Their depth of character becomes evident as we weave ourselves into their lives and ecosystems. But we often tell our stories and not theirs. Our new film Treeline follows skiers and…
Quietly, patiently, trees endure. They are the oldest living beings we come to know during our time on earth, living bridges into our planet’s expansive past. Treeline is a film celebrating the forests on which our species has always depended—and around which some skiers and snowboarders etch their entire lives. Follow a group of snow-seekers,…
Based on last year’s irresponsible tax cut, Patagonia will owe less in taxes this year—$10 million less, in fact. Instead of putting the money back into our business, we’re responding by putting $10 million back into the planet. Our home planet needs it more than we do. Our home planet is facing its greatest crisis because…
For almost 40 years, Patagonia has supported grassroots efforts aimed at defending our air, water, soil and wild places. But in this time of unprecedented threats, it’s often hard to know where to start. We launched Patagonia Action Works in 2017 to connect individuals directly with our grassroots grantees—to make it that much easier to…
One spring day earlier this year, Willie Grayeyes, a Diné (Navajo) elder with a serious mustache and white hair tied in a traditional bun, stopped to pick up his mail at the post office. Among the usual assortment of bills and catalogs, he found an envelope from the local government of San Juan County, Utah.…
For decades, protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from development was one thing many Republicans and Democrats in Washington could agree upon. One of the last truly wild places on Earth, the refuge is a stunning, unmatched wilderness where the Porcupine caribou calve in the spring, the Beaufort Sea polar bears den in the winter…
On a Wednesday in August, I drove three hours from the Bay Area to Mariposa, California, on the doorstep of Yosemite National Park. For me, this is typically a drive of mounting anticipation—of stoke. Cresting Altamont Pass on Interstate 580, crossing the Central Valley, what I felt instead was dread. The sky, clotted with smoke…
Not so very long ago, Republican Senate candidate Matt Rosendale sounded like he’d be right at home as a member of the Bundy family. “The U.S. Constitution clearly defines the purpose for the federal government to retain land for post offices, batteries and things like that,” Rosendale said during the 2014 Republican congressional primary, echoing the family…
The Massacre Rim towers 1,000 feet above Long Valley in the vast reaches of northwestern Nevada. As with most hikes in this part of the world, getting to the top requires picking out an unmarked route, being flexible and overcoming obstacles. Halfway up, after skirting yet another talus field, sharp chirping barks alert you to…
Arcilio Sepulveda used to hunt pumas for a living. Today he’s a key member of the Tompkins Conservation wildlife recovery program, helping to protect an expanding population of mountain lions in Patagonia National Park in Chile. Formerly a “leonero,” a lion killer who lived on a huge estancia that raised sheep and cattle, Arcilio was…
A climber describes her passion for the wildness of the world. My brother’s cheeks smooshed against the blue velour seat and his mouth hung slightly ajar. His gangly legs stretched from door to door, covering the back bench of our family Buick. On the floor, parallel, I fidgeted over the hump dividing passenger and driver…
What can I say about Cochamó that hasn’t already been said of a thousand other places before? It’s beautiful, it’s magical, it’s special? How about this: We haven’t messed it up yet. There are lots of beautiful, magical, special places in the world. What we humans tend to do when we find one is exploit…
It’s spring in the wetlands of Iberá, and two young jaguar cubs appear filled with trepidation and curiosity as they follow their mother, Tania, into the water for their first swim. Aramí, which means “little sky” in the native Guaraní language, and Mbareté, or “strong,” are the first cubs born in Tompkins Conservation’s Jaguar Experimental…
So far in this young century, few wildlife conservation issues have galvanized more Americans than whether or not Western state governments ought to allow grizzly bears to be hunted again. On Monday, September 24, 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen in Missoula, Montana, resolved the matter for the foreseeable future. In a 48-page decision,…
Activism and the feminine spirit unite to save Europe’s last wild rivers. Mornings in Fojnica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, bring a harmony of Franciscan monastery bells and the broadcast of Fajr prayer, the valley draped in fog and wood smoke. As the fog lifts, hills speckled with the first yellows of fall appear, sloping gently to the creeks and…
If the present status-quo of soil loss, carbon pollution and planetary warming continue, we’re looking at just 60 more harvests before we can no longer grow 95 percent of the food we humans rely upon to live. At the same time, the way to prevent this calamity is at hand: regenerative organic agriculture. This is…
When you hear the term “tree hugger,” what—or who—do you see? What image, or images, pop into your head? It likely starts with the vague idea of folks who are often—and perhaps overly—passionate about protecting nature. But then, if you expand it, what do they look like? Is it a man or a woman? Are…
Depending on how you look at it, California’s most beloved wildlands are either under siege or experiencing a wellspring of support. In the current political atmosphere, bursting with assaults on bedrock environmental laws and protected public lands, it seems particularly important to recognize and spread the word about whatever pockets of optimism and progress you…
Our company is proud to be part of the growing movement of Certified B Corporations. These companies practice “stakeholder capitalism”: They identify their most deeply held social and environmental values, then abide by them, honoring their responsibilities to their employees, customers, suppliers and communities—as well as to the financial health of their investors. In the…
The mottled splotches of dark brown and grey that dot the back of the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog let it transform into a lichen-covered rock, a shadow on a stream bed or a leaf on the forest floor. Not being noticed is a handy trait when you are the food-chain equivalent of an energy bar—and…
The start of a Bristol Bay fishing season is always an enervating mix of excitement and uncertainty, but for the past decade-plus, a larger uncertainty has loomed: the proposed, but still theoretical, Pebble Mine, a massive open pit mine that would sit near the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s river systems and potentially pose an existential…
American Whitewater, a small but scrappy nonprofit, has learned the first step toward protecting a beloved river is to help make waves. If you flip through early issues of the American Whitewater Journal, published quarterly by the nonprofit American Whitewater since its founding in 1954, you’ll discover several things. One is that boaters in the…
So, I have been asked to write my story, my connection to country and my feelings regarding the country into which I was born, takayna. I’m not much of a writer. I tell stories in my own way and share my culture in ways I hope helps others understand; not just understand me but understand…
Bosnia? Isn’t that one of those war-stricken, ex-Yugoslavia states? Hmm, I don’t know much about it but it doesn’t sound too tempting. That’s what I thought when Patagonia sales rep Christof Menz contacted me in early 2016 with the idea to make a fly fishing film about the Una, a river that flows through Bosnia…
Building cultural bridges through a shared love of wild rivers and folk music.
As luck would have it, I was born into one of those families that has a healthy addiction: fishing. When asked, “When did you start fishing?” I have no answer. It’s always been there. Like most fly anglers, I cut my teeth on conventional gear, throwing artificials while sitting in my grandfather’s or father’s lap.…
Thumping along a frozen river by snowmachine, I’m winding my way into the heart of the Brooks Range in Northern Alaska. Riding snowmachines is a surprisingly busy activity, weight constantly shifting, eyes staring hard into the flat light, and today my decadent wrapping of goose down and full-face helmet with a heated visor—armor against the…
When I was a kid, the Connecticut River was my Yukon. I spent many days working alongside the river or canoeing its islands and backwaters in search of crabs, snapper, blues, ducks and alewives—amazing silvery fish that brave the depths of the Atlantic to feed and grow and then return to these meandering brooks to…
The wind at the edge of the world comes in clean and cold.
You know, it’s strange, you grow up as a kid in Australia and you see all these photos of the Great Barrier Reef and you hear all about it, and you feel you have some understanding or knowledge about the reef, but until you actually go up there and see it firsthand you can’t ever…
Nearly two centuries ago, Henry David Thoreau wrote that “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Here in Greater Yellowstone it’s been a long winter, but a few signs of spring are coming, including grizzly bears emerging from their dens. I just saw reports from Yellowstone National Park that a couple of male grizzly bears, the first to emerge, were out and about and looking for their first meal in months.…
Europe’s last remaining wild rivers are at grave risk.
In December of 2017, the president illegally reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by nearly two million acres. Despite overwhelming support from the majority of Americans, nearly three million of whom spoke up during a public comment period in favor of protecting our national monuments, the president invoked terms like “heritage,” “respect,” “glorious…
As you have hopefully heard, January 29, 2018 was a historic day for Chile. On a cool, windy afternoon, we welcomed President Michelle Bachelet to Patagonia Park headquarters to sign the decrees creating Pumalín National Park – Douglas R. Tompkins and Patagonia National Park, solidifying the donation pledge we both signed in March 2017. “The…
This February, Patagonia announced the launch of Patagonia Action Works to a packed house in Santa Monica, California. It isn’t easy to pack a house in Los Angeles, with the traffic and long distances many people have to travel on a busy Friday night. But this wasn’t your average event. The lineup included some of…
Fly fishing guide Ansil Saunders recalls his time in the boat with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“After dinner, the round-faced, quirky old professor pulled his necklace out of his shirt,” says Sea of Miracles director, Dan Malloy. “It was a small clay flute shaped like a football. He announced that he would be performing an old Japanese protest song. The room went silent. He closed his eyes and started to play.” The…
Besides a lighthouse, a dirt trail and a few small structures, Isla De Todos Santos is almost completely undeveloped. The only permanent resident is the lighthouse keeper, who greeted us in Spanish as we approached after stepping ashore on a bright October morning. Those who choose to live in solitude fascinate me and I wanted…
Realizing our own shortcomings when it comes to being more inclusive.
As we sat on the tailgate of the truck, our frozen breath swirling under the light of a headlamp, we heard the first distant thud of rubber on dirt. The approaching runner was still a mile away, but you can hear just about anything that happens in the dense stillness of 2 a.m. in the…
This was a big year for activism. And we showed up in a big way. We took to the streets in record numbers. We got the word out with our signs and posts and videos. We flooded the inboxes and voicemails of elected officials at all levels of government. We petitioned, boycotted and divested. We…
Experiencing places myself is the ultimate chance for imprinting the reality of them in my mind. Living for a year on a remote atoll in the Pacific allowed me to witness the seawater level rising and its consequences. Yet picturing what’s happening far across the world remains abstract for me. That’s why I wanted to…
“Americans have voiced overwhelming support for protecting the Arctic Refuge, and the fight is far from over. If we destroy the Arctic Refuge today, we will never get that wild, unspoiled wilderness back.” —Rose Marcario, President and CEO of Patagonia On December 20, Congress passed the tax bill that included a measure authorizing oil leasing…
December 19, 2017 Rob Bishop Chairman U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources 1324 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Chairman Bishop and the House Committee on Natural Resources, I find it disingenuous that after unethically using taxpayers’ resources to call us liars, you would ask me to testify in front of…
At first glimpse, the Klamath River in the United States’ Pacific Northwest and the Río Baker in Chilean Patagonia, South America, seem to have nothing in common. Separated by more than 10,000 miles, their waters drain basins that are drastically different. One river begins in a sagebrush desert before weaving through rugged conifer-lined canyons; the…
Yesterday, the president didn’t just reduce the boundaries of your public lands. He revoked two national monuments. No president has ever done that before. It is widely unpopular and unprecedented. It is also illegal, and Patagonia will be challenging his action in court. The president also lied. Here is a fact-check of his speech: TRUMP: And…
The year 2017 is a special one for the Białowieża. After over 20 years of campaigning for protection of this unique forest in Poland, with some small successes along the way, the situation has taken a dramatic turn. The last primeval forest of lowland Europe—a UNESCO World Heritage site, a captivating wilderness and home to…
Looking back on the USDA meeting in Jacksonville, I am left with anger, grief and a sense of urgency that we keep moving forward. The meeting of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) was an historical turning point for the National Organic Program (NOP). It was a watershed moment. “All of the organic philosophy is…
The High Court of Australia has drawn a line in the sand against laws which curb the right of the people to peaceful protest. Last week it struck down the Tasmanian Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Act 2014 aimed at stopping people from protesting effectively against potentially harmful business activities, such as forests being logged. The…
Amidst all of the commotion, the subtle shift would have been easy to miss. Behind me in the waters off the coast of Washington’s Bainbridge Island, an armada of activists were blaring air horns and chanting, “Protect Our Sound!” This flotilla of commercial fishing vessels, recreational boats, kayaks, canoes, SUPs and even a jet ski…
Punta de Lobos is awarded World Surfing Reserve status—an all too rare conservation success story.
Back in 2006, Patagonia hosted a social event in its downtown Denver retail store in conjunction with the Fly Fishing Retailer trade show. At the event, a colleague and I addressed the attendees about an emerging threat to the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay. Later that evening, I met a young…
I’m not a scientist. But I am a fisherman of more than 70 years, and I’ve seen firsthand that of the myriad threats facing cold-water fish all over the world, global warming is the most dire. Water all over the planet is heating up in response to climate change, and our cold-water fish are in…
As Americans, regardless of our descent, we share as our greatest inheritance, both material and spiritual, the gift of our federal public lands.
Through the years I’ve talked to Bruce Hill on the phone more times than I can count, often at odd hours, about subjects big and small. Recipes for teriyaki sauce and salmon caviar. Conservation campaign strategies. Guitar techniques. Family. Personal issues and challenges. For so many reasons it’s been a steady comfort in my life…
About five minutes from where I live, there is a small village called Tapia de Casariego. The waves at Tapia are not world-class, but they can get very good on the right conditions. Tapia is also very significant in Spanish surfing history, being one of the birthplaces of surfing in this country. Most of the…
“We were so hungry, we licked the margarine wrappers.” In the summer of 1975, my father and his two brothers loaded into an old truck and headed for Alaska, a fabled land for a teenage troupe of New England climbers. A mentor had shown them a faded photograph of the remote Arrigetch Peaks, in the…
For British Columbia’s timber barons, the forests of Vancouver Island were too rich to resist: giant spruce, fir and red cedar trees that fetched top dollar on the open market. On the island’s remote and rain-soaked Pacific coast, mechanized logging kicked into high gear in the 1950s and continued through the decades that followed. “Before…
The rivers in the Balkan region are in danger of being damaged by inappropriate river engineering. Of particular concern is the Vjosa in Albania, the last big wild river in Europe outside Russia. From a scientific point of view, the Vjosa is of high value since nowhere else in Europe can one still study the…
I’ve recently returned from a whirlwind trip, visiting four states in the Southwest and then off to Washington, D.C. to participate in a week of action on behalf of the Gwich’in Nation, all in the name of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its fragile Coastal Plain, located in the northeast corner of Alaska.…
As I wake, I become aware of the shovel-scraping-asphalt croak of a blue heron, or the brilliant complex cascading song of the winter wren, or the yammering calls of the kingfisher being chased by an accipiter. In the fall a flock of kinglets, moving through the trees and shrubs surrounding our camp, deliver their pure,…
Debates over how America’s public lands should be managed are as old as the system itself.
How to talk to people and the alchemy of transforming “no” into “yes.”
I break trail for my companions, pushing through snow and curtains of my own misty breath, both aglow with starlight. We left warmth and merriment in Big Spring Brook Hut where the rest of our group is gathered. Only three of us pushed on after the 11-mile ski from the northern entrance of Katahdin Woods…
An excerpt from the book Family Business by Malinda Chouinard and Jennifer Ridgeway.
The Secretary of the Interior arrived in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument midday on May 10, 2017. He came to perform an “assessment” of the monument—to see whether the current boundaries overstepped their task of protecting natural and cultural resources and spurring economic growth. It was raining, windy and cold, but hundreds of locals gathered at…
The stakes were high and the odds were long. A wild Alaskan paradise, a frontier community and a tribe of Alaska Natives hung in the balance, their fates inextricably linked to the colossal coalfield beneath the headwaters of the Chuitna River and the coal barons who owned it. Unfortunately, for Sam Weis, the fight to…
In March, we celebrated the incredible accomplishment of Kris and Doug Tompkins: a one million acre pledged do…
Australian democracy is facing a serious problem: New anti-protest laws in states around the country that are designed to advance the interests of resource companies over the rights of the community and the environment. And that’s just the start. In April 2014, near the headwaters of the Richmond River at Bentley, thousands of people unified…
May 4, 2017 Secretary Ryan Zinke Department of the Interior 1849 C Street, N.W. Washington DC 20240 Dear Secretary Zinke, As Secretary of the Interior, you hold the solemn responsibility to steward America’s public lands and waters on behalf of the American people who own them. Our public lands, including the National Monuments you are…
As a snowboarder who spends more than 200 days in the mountains each year, I’ve developed an intimate relationship with the sacred spaces I call home and I’m in the unique and unfortunate position of seeing the impacts of climate change firsthand. I’ve witnessed a drastic change in snow and weather trends. Our world is…
There is something refreshingly uncluttered about the debate swirling around hydropower in Bhutan. India will finance the megadams through grants and loans, then pay Bhutan for the power the dams generate—supposedly providing revenue to the Bhutanese people for decades into the future. To a cash-poor country like Bhutan that’s a mighty enticing offer. Sugar-coat the…
Lelu Island and the adjacent underwater region known as Flora Bank lie at the mouth of the Skeena River, one of North America’s great salmon superhighways. Flora Bank contains the highest abundances (25 times more) of juvenile salmon compared with all other sampled habitat in the Skeena River estuary. It is considered the most critical…
American politicians have always been obsessed with running government “like a business.” They promise to make bureaucracies leaner and let the free market fix all our problems. Well, if America’s public lands were a business, shareholders would be shocked by the gross negligence of some of their top executives. Every American citizen owns stock in…
The National Park Service describes Yellowstone as a “mountain wildland, home to grizzly bears, wolves, and herds of bison and elk, the park is the core of one of the last, nearly intact, natural ecosystems in the Earth’s temperate zone.” Despite Yellowstone’s gift of refuge to recovering species, two species in particular are facing increasing…
I never understood the power of love for the place you call home until the sage-sloped trails, sweet-smelling ponderosa forests and rocky rivers my husband and I visit daily were targeted for mineral extraction by a Canadian mining company. These are the places we frequent to re-connect with each other and to live a life…
Salmon have sustained the Nimiipuu people since time began for us. Nimiipuu means “the people” and is one amongst many names the Nez Perce call themselves.
I was lucky to grow up in the valley of the Haute-Durance, located in the Hautes-Alpes not far from Briançon and the border to Italy. Home was a wild and protected area where my parents introduced me to the joys of mountain trails, skiing on beautiful slopes through evergreens and climbing on pristine cliffs. Later…
As we were set to publish today’s post arguing that America needs a strong EPA—not only to protect the environment but also for the economy—we were halted by headlines describing President Trump paving the way anew for approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. This bad news further shows the Trump administration’s willingness…
“The real conflict of the beach is not between sea and shore […] but between Man and Nature. On the beach, Nature has achieved a dynamic equilibrium that is alien to Man and his static sense of equilibrium. Once a line has been established, whether it be a shoreline or a property line, Man unreasonably…
On a bouncy flight north over an eastern section of the Brooks Range, I press my cheek against the glass to get a better view down to the teeming mass of caribou moving through the valley directly beneath the plane. It’s a hot day just after the summer solstice. Slowly we spiral down to parallel…
British Columbia doesn’t need another ski resort, especially one in the middle of the wild Purcell Mountains.
Every year, millions of people visit public lands in Utah to climb, hike, ski, hunt and a heck of a lot more. I’ve skied, climbed and fished the wild streams of wild Utah for years. The American people own these lands—and Utah reaps the rewards. Every year, outdoor recreation in Utah drives $12 billion in…
There is an old Mongolian legend about a hard, long winter that trapped a massive, living taimen in the ice. Starving villagers survived the winter only by eating chunks of flesh hacked from the taimen’s back. In the spring, the ice melted, and the great taimen climbed up out of the river and ate the…
It’s cold. The snow hasn’t come yet but it’s really, really cold. I’m in my long johns, getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth (and shivering) in the front seat of the borrowed van we drove from California. Saxon and I are talking through the action we attended earlier today, when we notice a bright…
It is with great pride and excitement that we are sharing The Super Salmon with the world—a little movie about the Su and the spotlight it’s been in these last few years. From the first screening in Talkeetna a year ago, to the dozens more that have followed across Alaska, the Lower 48, Canada, and…
Last week, federal agencies responsible for stewardship of America’s public lands did the right thing: they took a hard look at science and public opinion and made a sober decision to protect Minnesota’s iconic Boundary Waters from a sulfide-ore copper mining project by denying the renewal of two mineral leases. The proposed mining location is…
This fall, we dedicated our late-November catalog to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
You have to hand it to them. It was a wildly creative and successful bait and switch—perhaps the biggest con ever played on the once wild west. The terms were simple. The public would okay the construction of fish-killing dams and other habitat destroying activities. In exchange, the government would use taxpayer money to produce…
Today, we’re happy to share an excerpt from Douglas Chadwick’s new book, Tracking Gobi Grizzlies: Surviving Beyond the Back of Beyond, published by Patagonia Books. The following story appears in chapter nine, Big Bawa. We set out later in the morning in two vans, one to get water from the pool at the Suujiin Bulag…
Patagonia customers love the outdoors, and there’s no better way to make sure that America’s public lands and waters remain wild for our kids and grandkids than by supporting organizations that work hard to keep them that way. That’s why Alaska Wilderness League is proud to be a Patagonia grant recipient, as we work together…
At Patagonia, we believe making great products, earning a profit and protecting our planet are not mutually exclusive objectives. That’s why, in 2013, we launched an investment fund to help like-minded start-ups on a similar mission. Today, we’re announcing a new name for the fund: Tin Shed Ventures (formally $20 Million & Change). We will…
Last week, when we announced we’d give 100 percent of our global retail and online Black Friday sales directly to grassroots nonprofits.
For over 20 years, the Ktunaxa Nation has opposed the Jumbo Glacier Resort development proposed in Qat’muk, core territory of the Ktunaxa Nation and home to the grizzly bear spirit. Patagonia recognizes and affirms the Ktunaxa Nation’s responsibility to protect Qat’muk and the grizzly bear spirit through the Qat’muk Declaration, which outlines the spiritual significance…
We’re just days from Black Friday, one of the biggest consumer shopping days of the year in America. And as people think generously about family and friends, we also want to help our customers show love to the planet, which badly needs a gift or two (and still gets coal every year). This year Patagonia…
A thousand feet below my perch on the cliffs, I see movement on the glacier. I raise my telephoto lens and watch as an animal runs across the blue ice, jumping over crevasses. It doesn’t slow when the glacier gets steeper, it digs its claws in, climbs around the bergschrund and into the cliffs toward…
Why defending our air, soil and water has never been more important than it is on this morning.
On Election Day, we close up shop to urge everyone to vote the environment.
At Patagonia, we think the most beautiful product is really designed by you.
“There is no business on a dead planet,” David Brower said in 1986. Business doesn’t live in a vacuum, but in an interconnected world. Any business that has not come to terms with the fact of our interconnectedness to the natural world and our own health and well-being is asleep at the wheel. We need…
Editor’s note: Tommy Caldwell appeared in a video for social media, Matty Van Biene hosted a letter-writing party, Josh Ewing works for a nonprofit group—the ways to help Bears Ears are many but the time to act is now. The Bears Ears Coalition is seeking permanent protection for this magical region in southeastern Utah, and the…
I am writing to announce the donation of 375,000 acres to the Argentine government to create the new Iberá National Park in Argentina, and to ask you to join with me to celebrate Kris Tompkins and her team’s remarkable achievement. Their donation is contiguous to the 1,375,000-acre Iberá Provincial Park, which together now create the…
In the wake of the decision by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the grizzly, the three states around Yellowstone have announced their intentions to sponsor trophy hunting of the bear.
In the United States, only 60 percent of eligible citizens bothered to vote in the last presidential election. Of those, many voted only for president and left the rest of the ballot blank. #VoteOurPlanet Register to vote, sign up for election reminders, become involved at your local level and share this message with your friends.…
A pipeline traversing the heart of the Great Lakes was intended to last 50 years. It’s 64.
How one group put the lessons from Tools for Grassroots Activists into practice.
Quotes by Arnaud Petit and Stéphanie Bodet, Luka Krajnc and Jon Bracey Patagonia Europe has been supporting the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign through grants and communication efforts over the past year. Our first story introduced you to the rivers of the Balkan Peninsula and the absurd number of dam projects (2,700+) threatening…
Time was short. It was Wednesday afternoon when my boss talked to his boss who finally gave us the green light to book a Friday flight to Salt Lake City. Then it was a crack of dawn departure from Reno to SLC, where I met Jared, Patagonia’s Social Media Producer who flew in from Ventura,…
After a long day of travel through pristine lakes and dense forest, we make our main camp on Long Island Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I grew up in a different Long Island, the one outside New York City, a densely populated suburb where at night I lay on the blacktop of…
There’s no place on Earth like southeastern Utah’s Bears Ears region. From world-class crack climbing at Indian Creek, biking singletrack in the Abajo Mountains, backpacking in Grand Gulch to floating the San Juan River, adventure abounds here. But it’s not just valuable for climbing and biking. Home to more than 100,000 archaeological sites, it is…
I couldn’t feel my feet. We had crossed the frigid river too many times to count, and locating a passable route along the narrow canyon floor required scrambling, crashing through willows and crisscrossing the river over and over again. We’d covered a mere six miles in three hours, and I began to think we’d bitten…
World-Class Outdoor Recreation in the Pacific Northwest To protect a place, you have to know it. You have to explore it and love it. Just a two-three hour drive from Seattle, the Olympic Mountains tower over the Puget Sound. The Olympic Peninsula is an incredible place to explore with some of the largest trees on…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans in March to remove Endangered Species Act protections from the Yellowstone grizzly bear. Patagonia along with many other environmental NGOs and over 110,000 people have already voiced their opposition to delisting Yellowstone grizzly bears during the public comment period that ended May 10th. With grizzly bears still under threat, we…
“Jo diga ne Pocem! Jo diga ne Pocem!” The rallying cry repeated as anti-dam protestors, activists, kayakers and local people from the Vjosa River valley marched through the Albanian capital of Tirana on Friday, May 20th. Translation: “No dams in Pocem!” This protest, the final event of the 35-day Balkan Rivers Tour, marked the delivery…
TAKE ACTION! Help protect Bears Ears in southeastern Utah. Ask President Obama to use his authority under the Antiquities Act to create the Bears Ears National Monument. Sign the petition In southeastern Utah, a battle has been brewing between conservationists, recreationalists and resource extractionists. The pressure on all sides has increased as the stakes grow higher.…
“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. ” – Edward Abbey Scale is a hard thing to get a handle on. We pour over maps to try to understand a landscape. Better yet, sometimes we get to fly over it, circling the valleys and mountains to get a real lay of the land.…
Most people have never heard of the Owyhee Canyonlands, let alone pulled over to visit. On a map of Oregon, it’s that mostly blank expanse in the southeastern corner of the state near the Idaho/Nevada border—a place most would call nowhere. Rome, Burns and Jordan Valley are the nearest towns of any note. The Malheur…
The house I grew up in was full of art from the Canadian Arctic. From soapstone carvings to caribou tufting and Ted Harrison paintings, my parents had brought it with them when they moved south from their home in Yellowknife on the northern shores of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. But among all…
The Foz-Tua dam is being built just metres away from the Alto Douro Wine Region, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Both of my kids love their science classes in school, and Skyla often mentions wanting to be a marine biologist when she grows up. So when the field biologists from the Wild Fish Conservancy invited us to participate in some beach-seine sampling, as part of their project to assess juvenile salmon habitat around Puget Sound, we jumped…
Patagonia has supported the work of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters through grant funding.
The Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe is known for its Mediterranean beaches, past wars, corruption, ethnic conflicts and, to insiders, Slivovitz and ćevapi—the plum schnapps and traditional minced-meat dish of the region.
Led by Patagonia and Kinaʻole Capital Partners, LLC, a first-of-its-kind group of five certified B-Corporations have come together to create a $35 million tax equity fund that will make the benefits of solar power available to more than a thousand U.S. households. The new fund uses state and federal tax credits to direct Patagonia’s tax…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced its plans to remove Endangered Species Act protections from the Yellowstone grizzly bear. Patagonia along with many other environmental NGOs and citizens are taking a stand against this ruling and demanding continued protections for this iconic population of grizzly bears in our Nation’s first National Park. Grizzly…
When I first moved to Los Angeles, my friends took me on a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. I had never been in a desert landscape and had no idea what to expect. I thought I’d find it boring. But I can only describe that first trip as a spiritual experience. I’d been meditating for years in some…
For over twenty years, Patagonia has organized a Tools Conference, where experts provide practical training to help make activists more effective. Now Patagonia has captured Tools’ best wisdom and advice into a book, Patagonia Tools for Grassroots Activists: Best Practices for Success in the Environmental Movement, creating a resource for any organization hoping to hone core…
