Episode 3: Patagonia’s Rick Ridgeway Talks Rewilding, Climate Change, and Activist Companies
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Patagonia Vice President of Environmental Initiatives Rick Ridgeway. Photo: Jeff Johnson
Rick Ridgeway is a mountaineer and adventurer, who during his career has also been an environmentalist, writer, filmmaker and businessman. Ridgeway has climbed new routes and explored little-known regions on six continents. He was part of the 1978 team that were the first Americans to summit K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. Since 2005 he has overseen environmental affairs at the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, which has long been a supporter of groups like The Rewilding Institute.
He has authored six books and dozens of magazine articles, and produced or directed many documentary films.
During his explorations Ridgeway witnessed the degradations of the wildlands that had come to define his life: he saw firsthand remote grasslands in Patagonia turned to tourist cities, and the glaciers on Kilimanjaro disappear. He also witnessed the wildlife that inhabited those wildlands decline, and in the mid-’90s he began a series of journeys that allowed him to communicate, through books and films, what was happening to these formerly wild regions. –Wikipedia
Today I talk with Rick about conservation initiatives and activism in which Patagonia is taking part or leading, what it means to be an “activist company,” and how listeners can continue to help make sure companies are in business for the right reasons.
Podcast Topics:
- Activist companies
- Rewilding
- Bears Ears
- 3 pillars of climate change focus
- Patagonia’s global activism and initiatives
Bonus: Get to know more about Rick Ridgeway
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.