The Lookfar Podcast: Voices from the Wild

Dr. Iroro Tanshi and Dr. Benneth Obitte, co-founders and directors of the Small Mammal Conservation Organisation (SMACON), join Marlies Quirino and Lucia Guaita on The Lookfar Podcast: Voices from the Wild. Iroro and Benneth are notable for their contributions to bats conservation and ecological research in Nigeria.

Their interdisciplinary approach combines ecological research, conservation efforts, improvement of local livelihoods, and local (and regional) capacity building to promote the long-term sustainability of the Guinean Forests of West Africa. Bats are nature’s unsung heroes—pollinators, pest controllers, and ecosystem stabilizers. Yet, they often have a bad reputation.

We will learn why that is and why it is unfounded. Join us in this fascinating discussion with Iroro and Benneth.

Wain Collen, co-founder and executive director of Fundación Aliados in Ecuador, joins Scott Stone, Marlies Quirino, and Lucia Guaita on The Lookfar Podcast: Voices from the Wild. Aliados’s work is centered on four pillars – practicing regenerative agriculture, incubating bioeconomy initiatives, connecting to responsible markets, and creating new ecological value. Aliados just launched the Center for Bioeconomy with eleven indigenous and local community organizations, spearheading an innovative investment hub in the Ecuadorian Amazon to scale resilient community-led businesses. A fascinating discussion with Wain about Aliados' remarkable work. Available on all major podcast platforms. Just search Lookfar and you'll find it! 

Sara Lara and Isabella Cortes join us on the Lookfar Podcast to talk about how they are striving to break down barriers at grassroots levels in Colombia preventing rural and indigenous women from becoming conservationists through their work with ⁠⁠Women for Conservation⁠⁠⁠ (W4C), founded by Sara and now run by her daughter Isabella, and ⁠Fundación ProAves⁠⁠, now run by Sara. In a wide ranging conversation, we talk about how helping women to become park rangers in remote protected areas and providing accessible reproductive healthcare to rural communities supports inclusive conservation and how this has been a life-changer for thousands of girls and women. Available on all major podcast platforms. Just search Lookfar and you'll find it!

We talk with Daniel Aristizabal of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) about his work protecting isolated indigenous peoples in Colombia. These are indigenous communities that, sometimes centuries ago, decided to withdraw and avoid contact with the outside world, which Daniel describes both as a defense strategy and an act of rebellion. Protecting the rights of indigenous peoples is never easy, and here ACT faces the exceptional challenge of having to do so without contacting the communities it seeks to protect. Available on all major podcast platforms. Just search Lookfar and you'll find it!

The intrepid team at the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve (GCBR) in the Western Cape in South Africa joins Marlies Quirino and Scott Stone of Lookfar Conservation for an in-person discussion about community-level conservation work done at a landscape scale. The 3.2 million hectares of the GCBR, declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2015, is a living laboratory for complex conservation and restoration initiatives in a region where three global biodiversity converge: the Fynbos, the Succulent Karoo, and the Maputoland-Tongoland-Albany. It's no substitute for an authentic South African braai, but a fascinating and inspiring discussion nonetheless! 

Luís Paulo Ferraz and Carlos Ruiz of the Associação Mico-Leāo-Dourado (AMLD) join Marlies Quirino and Scott Stone of Lookfar Conservation to talk about protecting and restoring the habitat of the endangered Golden Lion Tamarin – a small monkey found only in surviving fragments of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Luís Paulo and Carlos talk about how AMLD’s work is driven by local communities, sparking social entrepreneurship throughout the region – such as the organic farm and bed and breakfast Fazenda dos Cordeiros and women-led tree nursery businesses that supply seedlings for hundreds of native tree species to AMLD and other NGOs, including recent Lookfar Podcast guests Nicholas and Raquel Locke of REGUA.

Nicholas and Raquel Locke of the Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu (REGUA), located in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, join us on the Lookfar Podcast for an in-person discussion with Scott Stone and Marlies Quirino of Lookfar Conservation. We talk about REGUA’s efforts to connect and protect the highly biodiverse forests of the Guapiaçu Valley, just a few hours drive from Rio de Janeiro, and the many ways in which restoring forests helps create sustainable economic opportunities for surrounding communities.

Rafaela Nicola and Gaston Fulquet of Wetlands International join us this month on the Lookfar Podcast. We talk about the many threats facing the world’s great wetlands and how Wetlands International’s community-centric efforts seek to combat those threats, working collaboratively with regional and local governments, civil society, and the private sector. Rafaela also shares insights from partnering with the Kadiweu indigenous communities in the Pantanal in Brazil, and Gaston details his work in the Parana Basin in Argentina. A fascinating and hopeful discussion as we kick of "Season 2" of the Lookfar Podcast.

Paul Rice joins us on the Lookfar Podcast this week. Back in 1998, Paul founded Fair Trade USA and serves as its president and CEO. Paul shares with us his first introduction to fair trade when working with farmers in the mountains of Nicaragua in the 1980s. We then delve into Fair Trade today, with nearly one million farmers and workers from 62 countries selling products into the United States under the Fair Trade Certified label, generating $846 million in premiums that’s helped to provide much needed housing, education, health care, and other benefits to local communities. And we look ahead at the future of Fair Trade and the powerful role socially and environmentally conscious businesses can play in building a more sustainable world.