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, which among their international projects have conservation initiatives in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia.

 

Brady shares with us insights from his experiences leading outdoors and conservation organizations, we discuss the outdoors 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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