Activism Stories
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…
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…
There is something intensely visceral and awe-inspiring about the Chuitna Watershed. Deep pools teeming with wild Pacific salmon pervade the vast landscape. Oversized tracks from grizzlies and moose are omnipresent, creating an eerie feeling as you navigate through fields of fireweed. And the spirit of the native Tyonek people, who have called this land home…
“EXPECT ANOTHER ROUND OF STORM-FORCE WINDS, WITH HURRICANE-FORCE GUSTS POSSIBLE, ESPECIALLY IN THE VICINITY OF CAPE BLANCO. THIS WILL BE A VERY STRONG STORM. MARITIME AND COASTAL INTERESTS SHOULD TAKE ALL PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY TO PRESERVE LIFE AND PROPERTY.” By dawn, the damage was done—downed trees, flooding, thousands without power. The swell was huge and ripped…
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.
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…
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…
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…
Punta de Lobos is awarded World Surfing Reserve status—an all too rare conservation success story.
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…
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…
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…
A primera vista, el río Klamath en el Pacífico Noroeste de los Estados Unidos y el Río Baker en la Patagonia chilena, América del Sur, parecen no tener ninguna conexión. Separados por más de 17.000 kilómetros de distancia, sus aguas drenan cuencas que son drásticamente diferentes. El primero, comienza en un desierto de artemisa para…
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…
“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.…
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.…
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…
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…
One of the most powerful scenes in Damnation is where a way of life going back over 15,000 years is suddenly brought to an end due to the construction of a dam. When the Dalles dam was built on the Columbia River it submerged Celilo Falls and took the salmon with it, forever changing the…
As Americans, regardless of our descent, we share as our greatest inheritance, both material and spiritual, the gift of our federal public lands. Most of us can readily name a piece of ground sacred to us as individuals that belongs to every soul in the country: Yosemite, the Everglades, Acadia, Hot Springs, Shenandoah, Yellowstone, the…
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…
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,…
Patagonia has supported the work of Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters through grant funding, our employee environmental internship program, retail store events, product donations and an invitation to attend the 2015 Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference. You can read our past coverage on The Cleanest Line here and here. To learn…
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…
This is the second installment from our man on the ground in Paris for the UN Conference on Climate Change, Santa Barbara Independent Editor-at-Large, Ethan Stewart. Catch up with part 1 if you missed it. Above: 350.org founder, Bill McKibben (glasses and Red Sox hat), joins an impromptu protest in Le Bourget towards the end of the…
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. Stories about the area are plentiful, but I want to tell you a different story—a story about beauty, diversity and uniqueness, and an imminent…
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…