Victory in Chile! Community-led Conserva Puchegüín’s successful purchase of Fundo Puchegüín is the future of grassroots conservation and a major win for our home planet.
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.
Inside the efforts to protect Chile’s Cochamó Valley from developers and overtourism.
In Trump’s second term, environmental lawyers are getting more strategic—and assertive.
Wild trout populations in Southwest Montana have collapsed. Save Wild Trout says enough is enough.
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?
After a devastating wildfire, the community of West Maui continues to recover and rebuild.
The first-place essay from a youth writing competition we hosted with the nonprofit Write the World.
In northern Chile, a desert is being scourged by the textile industry. But a resilient community is transforming a reality of waste into opportunity.
After years of trying to fit in with Western trail culture, one runner realizes that what she’s been missing lies in the Colombian mountains of her youth.
Introducing Home Planet Fund, an independent nonprofit that supports local and Indigenous communities who work in concert with nature to stop climate breakdown.
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.
Running Up For Air is not a race. It’s a community, a gathering of friends and a fundraiser for clean-air advocacy.
A trip to Amami Ōshima, Japan, transports Gerry Lopez to a familiar feeling on a distant land.
Since we first learned of the role we play in the spread of microfiber pollution in 2015, Patagonia has actively searched for partners to help end—or at least seriously curtail—the spread of synthetic fiber waste into the air and water. We’ve long been familiar with the microplastics problem—the breakdown of plastic bottles, yogurt cups and…
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.
When the fish stop flourishing, a few local Scots take matters into their own hands, one seagrass bed at a time.
Saving South Korea’s forgotten underwater forests isn’t just a commitment. For Mr. Ji, it’s a calling.
Ramón Navarro joins the Kawésqar community on a journey to protect their ancestral waters in Chilean Patagonia.
An excerpt from Steven Hawley’s book about dirty dams—and their methane problem.
A Patagonia employee celebrates a huge environmental win for his beloved home waters.
Even when the demands of a protest are not met, it can have lasting, immeasurable consequences.
Perfluorinated chemicals, or PFAS, made for great waterproofing but are also a lasting, pervasive threat to our health. That’s why we spent nearly 15 years finding a way to make our gear without them that didn't compromise performance. For Spring 2025 and beyond, all our new styles are made without intentionally added PFAS.
Albania’s untamed Vjosa River introduces a new model for global water conservation.
Footprints Running Camp is as much about finding solutions to the climate crisis as it is about running.
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, a Native skier searches for something deeper than powder on her homelands.
Patagonia and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present a series about knowledge.
Patagonia and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present a series about knowledge.
Patagonia and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present a series about knowledge.
Patagonia and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present a series about knowledge.
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.
Patagonia and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present a series about knowledge.
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.
The supreme court’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.
Shawn Hayes leads a life of devotion. For him, falconry is more than a deep partnership with raptors: it’s his life’s work.
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.
An Italian town began emptying out, so its inhabitants turned to renewable energy to save it.
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.
What’s the secret to a really good pair of jeans? Comics journalist Sarah Mirk tells us what to look for and how to keep them in play longer.
Trail runner and activist Felipe Cancino takes us on a 120 km run through the Maipo River Valley—revealing along the way the impacts of the Alto Maipo hydropower project on the local ecosystem, its communities and traditions; and the threat it poses to the water supply of Santiago’s 7.1 million residents.
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.
When it comes to making more responsible jeans, our work is never done. And, of course, we leave the really dirty work to you.
An interview with Gabo Benoit, trail advocate and mountain-bike mayor of Coyhaique, Chile.
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.
Tough and uncertain, organic cotton farming accounts for less than 1 percent of US cotton production. For this family, that’s why it’s a calling.
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.
The story of our switch to organic cotton starts with a bout of headaches and a trip to the lunar landscape of the San Joaquin Valley’s conventional cotton fields.
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.
Patagonia’s journey toward zero waste and reduced carbon emissions, failed experiments included.
Ten years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese communities are turning toward citizen-led renewable power.
The ups and downs of transitioning power to the people in the Chamonix Valley.
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.
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.
Why we rely on lab tests and data more than ever to make decisions about our products.
What was once a nuisance—overselling environmental gains—now conceals the apparel industry’s role in the climate crisis.
One woman’s decades-long fight for clean air and environmental justice.
Patagonia’s quality rating system is designed with ecological footprint in mind. Here’s why.
“Castleton Tower has a pulse. We have a pulse. The Earth has a pulse.”
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.
“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.
This is the story of how Bureo locked arms with Patagonia to keep 71,000 pounds of discarded fishing net waste out of the ocean each year by putting it into our hat brims. Introducing the traceable, 100% recycled NetPlus®.
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.
Ways you can keep up the fight for our planet, and feel less alone.
A bona fide American hemp farmer and entrepreneur shares his stash—a guide to farming hemp with tips for planting, growing, harvesting and processing.
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
Donald Sanderson launched the country’s first mandatory curbside recycling program in Woodbury, New Jersey, in 1980. The recycling landscape has since changed. A lot. Is it still worthwhile?
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.
Can a cotton T-shirt really help stop the climate crisis?
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.…
Understanding human behaviors that lead to overconsumption, and what we might do to transform them.
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,…
The dos and don’ts of visiting Bears Ears National Monument.
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.
Former Navy SEAL Josh Jespersen battles the destruction of wild places he served to protect.
Gwich’in youth play an important role in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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
Why recycled? is a short video that looks at the current global challenges facing the recycling system and why Patagonia is switching to 100% renewable and recycled materials. Through interviews with material designers and industrial ecologists, this film urges us to question our own consumption habits and look at the impact the clothing industry has on people and the planet.
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…
She went to Italy to see how recycled wool is made and discovered that everything has an impact, including recycled.
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…
In a nation known for its massive resource extraction, salmon farming is now bigger than all of Chile’s industries except copper mining.
“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 2019 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…
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. It’s one of many rivers in the Balkans that are under threat by a tidal wave of more than 2,800 new hydropower dam projects. In March 2018, Patagonia joined grassroots groups and regional community activists in Save the Blue…
Our home planet has a deeply disturbing and pervasive problem with plastics. In April, a group of researchers studying the deepest part of the ocean—the Mariana Trench—discovered plastic bags and candy wrappers floating nearly seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Globally, about 450 million metric tons of plastic are produced every year and 9.5 million tons of…
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…
It’s hard not to notice the hype around hemp today. Pick up any lifestyle magazine, enter a pharmacy, talk to a health-food store employee or just the person next to you in yoga class—at some point you’ll learn about its miraculous powers. In particular, near-unbelievable claims swirl around cannabidiol, or CBD, oil derived from hemp:…
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…
Together with industry partners, Patagonia commissioned Ocean Wise’s Plastic Lab to investigate microfibers, the tiny textile particles that shed from garments over their lifetime. The scientists at the Plastic Lab have just completed the first phase of this research project, so we asked them for an update. While plastic debris in the ocean has rightfully…
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…
Behind everything we make is the hard work of a human being—from growing raw materials and weaving fabric to cutting and sewing the finished product. Yet those who work in garment factories—and, globally, more than 60 million people do—have historically been subject to substandard working conditions and unable to report those issues. That’s why, in…
Never Town explores Australia’s remote southern coastlines—and what surfers are willing to do to keep them wild.
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…
This article was first published in 2018. For the most recent information about our participation in the Responsible Wool Standard, visit Our Footprint. In 2015, we made the conscious decision to put a pause on our wool sourcing “until we can assure our customers of a verifiable process that ensures the humane treatment of animals.”…
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. Without any significant landmass to temper its force, it rips across the 40th latitude and slams into the prefab houses that straddle the tiny seaside township of Arthur River where we’re staying. It strains against the windows and coats the logs stacked…
A film about exploring the Great Barrier Reef and how our choices affect the most vulnerable places on Earth.
Nearly two centuries ago, Henry David Thoreau wrote that “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” I first went deep into the forests of northwestern Tasmania in 1973 in an unsuccessful search for the Tasmanian tiger. That wonderful creature is now accepted as extinct, but the takayna / Tarkine remains a stronghold for earth’s next…
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. This time the danger isn’t coming from excessive drought or factories dumping toxic waste—it’s coming from the very hydropower dams that claim to bring us clean, green, renewable energy. The fact is, dams are dirty—and their destructive impact far outweighs their usefulness. In particular, the electricity…
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…
The 35+ year resistance by a group of fisherman, farmers and activists to prevent the construction of a nuclear power plant that would threaten Japan’s Inland Sea.
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…
We started developing our social responsibility program in the mid-1990s, working side by side with factory partners. In 2001, we became a founding member of the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit that works to improve working conditions worldwide. With over a decade of close focus on our cut-and-sew factories, in 2011, we moved one link…
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…
For almost 20 years since the “organic” certification first passed, there has been a debate surrounding growing methods. Some foods are grown in soil, and others are grown hydroponically in large buildings and under lights. There is a reason for both growing methods, but it is important that they be labeled differently. Since the 1920s…
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. 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…
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…
Working closely with Rodale Institute, Dr. Bronner’s and other key allies, we created Regenerative Organic Certification to establish a new, high bar for regenerative organic agriculture. The certification is the result of a lively and cooperative effort among a coalition of change-makers, brands, farmers, ranchers, nonprofits and scientists, all with a clear goal: to pave…
Forest and river restoration work fueled by a love for wild salmon.
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…
When I was ten years old, I was a hyperactive kid who had problems staying focused for a long period of time. One day I was sitting in class at primary school, listening to a subject that didn’t really interest me. Bored, I started playing with the scissors that I found in my school bag.…
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, dating back to the early 1900s when President Teddy Roosevelt pioneered our current system. Disagreements have often centered on the balance between energy or resource development and protecting wild places for recreation and wildlife. At Patagonia, we’ve fought for…
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…
Addressing the shedding of microfibers from synthetic garments continues to be a top priority for us at Patagonia. We know there are a lot of contributing factors to microplastic pollution, and we have been learning all we can about the release of fibers from our garments. Patagonia has commissioned two research projects on microplastics—one through…
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 donation of parkland to the Government of Chile, the largest land donation in history from a private entity to a country. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, with great generosity, committed an additional nine million acres of federally owned land…
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…
Over the past few months, the business environment has changed dramatically. I’m not talking about trade policy or tax reform, but rather the heightened moral and ethical uncertainty many business leaders now feel at a time when the foundations of our democracy are challenged. New injustices seem to arise almost every day, demanding we speak…
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…
We’re happy to welcome Stonyfield to the B Corp community. When Patagonia was young we felt kinship mostly with companies in the outdoor industry and our friends who worked there. Two companies we admired in the then unfamiliar territory of food included Ben & Jerry’s and Stonyfield, which grew out of an organic farming school…
As I step into MAS Active-Leisureline, a Fair Trade Certified factory that makes Patagonia products near Colombo, Sri Lanka, the first thing that confronts my senses is the sound. Row after row of clamorous cutting and sewing machinery is being operated by a few hundred workers, all dressed in bright green uniforms and working under…
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. The loss of healthy numbers of salmon returning up the Columbia and Snake Rivers to our traditional lands in Idaho and Oregon, where we have fished and hunted for generations,…
In June 2016, we provided a comprehensive update on Patagonia’s work to investigate the emerging issue of ocean pollution from tiny fibers, which often originate from synthetic textiles (such as nylon, acrylic or polyester) that are used in products available to consumers around the world. Research about microplastics pollution is just starting to emerge among…
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. For the photo direction, we wanted to highlight life in the Refuge from the perspectives of both the Gwich’in people, for whom the Arctic’s coastal plain is sacred land, as well as the wildlife. Selecting a photographer to work with on the…
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…
https://vimeo.com/195015181/8ac09bbe3a In recent years, we’ve seen a boom in production and sales of organic foods worldwide. The global organic food market is expected to grow by 16 percent between 2015 and 2020, a faster rate than conventionally-grown foods. This seems like good news—but in truth, organic farming makes up just a tiny fraction of the global…
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 working on the frontlines to protect our air, water and soil for future generations, we heard from many of our customers calling it a “fundraiser for the earth.” We’re humbled to report the…
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. Every tear, stain and duct tape patch proves the bond that can develop between a person and their gear. Our Worn Wear repair program helps keep your well-loved clothes in action longer and provides an easy way to recycle Patagonia garments when…
“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…
You may be familiar with the “Fair Trade Certified” symbol and its assurance that some of the money spent on a bag of coffee or bar of chocolate goes directly to its producers and stays in their community. Patagonia, in partnership with Fair Trade USA, now makes clothes that provide the same benefit. The program…
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. Opponents say that the effects of climate change on food sources, in addition to their famously slow reproductive rate, coupled with a trophy…
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…
Note: As of March 2017, Red Pine Land and Livestock is not a Patagonia supplier and their wool is not in our products. Over the past 10 months, we have been working diligently to develop a new wool supply chain that reflects high, and verifiable, standards for both animal welfare and land management. We’ve now reached…
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…
Much has been written about the effects of plastic on the marine environment, from the Texas-sized Great Pacific garbage patch, to bottles expelled from cruise ships washed up on the beach, to “ghost” nets and weirs abandoned by factory-sized trawlers, and more. A new report on marine plastics was presented at the World Economic Forum earlier…
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…
Industrial hemp is a crop that has the potential to lower the environmental impacts of textile production, empower small-scale farmers and create jobs in a wide variety of industries. Two non-profit groups, Fibershed and Growing Warriors, are working to reintroduce industrial hemp into Kentucky—and eventually U.S. agriculture.
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.…
This past week Greenpeace leaked 248 pages of negotiating texts and internal position papers that reveal a deep rift among the 28 European governments, the European Union and the U.S., involved in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The Greenpeace report has caused an uproar here in Europe, including an announcement of opposition…
“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…
How can we solve the climate crisis? The answer may exist beneath our feet, in the soil. Carbon is a finite resource that moves through soils, oceans, food, fibers and the atmosphere—and ancient carbon is fossilized in Earth’s core. There is no more carbon entering or leaving Earth—we are simply seeing the effects of having…
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…
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, 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…
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…
Watch Chuitna – More Than Salmon On The Line. After a successful run on the film tour circuit and dozens of local screenings, we’re thrilled to share this short film with you for free. Video: Trip Jennings Stop a Massive Open-Pit Coal Strip Mine on the Chuitna River Please join the fight and help Judy, Larry, Terry…
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…
In the days since our friend and mentor Doug Tompkins lost his life in a kayaking incident, we have experienced an outpouring of condolences from thousands of people around the world. The sense of loss from people who never knew Doug, but did know his work, is palpable. A few days ago, at the headquarters…
Full disclosure. As the executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, I’m slightly biased when it comes to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Alaska Wilderness League exists today with the mission to “lead the effort to preserve wild lands and waters in Alaska by engaging citizens and decision makers with a courageous, constant, victorious voice…
For the past month, the entire world has been focused on Paris. First, an act of pure and peace shattering barbarism brought the City of Lights directly into focus in the hearts and minds of all of us just two weeks before Thanksgiving. And then, with the hurt still raw and hemorrhaging in worldwide waves…
This holiday season, I have an early New Year’s resolution for the sake of Planet Earth: let’s all become radical environmentalists. This sounds like a big leap—but it’s not. All you need is a sewing kit and a set of repair instructions. As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet…
Ken Yager is a man who understands the value of volunteerism. He approaches his work with the belief, creativity and passionate toil of a big wall climber. It’s an apt metaphor as he’s climbed El Capitan dozens of times. Along with his wife Schree and two children, he lives in El Portal, located three and…
By Rose Marcario, Patagonia CEO Now that full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has finally been made public, we can say unequivocally that we oppose it, as it advances the interests of big business at the expense of the environment, workers, consumers, communities and small businesses. This confirms our previous fears (here and here)…
Today, President Obama did the right thing and put a final stop to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline would have connected the tar sands oil fields in Canada to a massive refinery and port complex near Houston, Texas. But people across North America on both sides of the border said “No” to…
For 24 years, residents of the Kootenays in British Columbia, Canada, have been largely opposed to a proposed year-round ski resort in the heart of the Central Purcell Mountains—a region that encompasses both cherished alpine backcountry and critical core grizzly bear habitat. At the time this story was going to print, the provincial government had…
Jasmin Caton and Leah Evans both live and work in southeastern British Columbia: Caton as a ski guide and co-owner of Valhalla Mountain Touring; Evans as founder and director of the freeski program Girls Do Ski in Revelstoke. Caton has been skiing the backcountry since she was a child, while Evans comes from a hard-charging,…
On Saturday October 3, 2015, over 300 people—fishermen, Native Americans, farmers, orca lovers, business owners, students, salmon advocates, kayakers, and conservationists—took to the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington, a short distance from the Lower Granite Dam. Together, this diverse group formed the “Free the Snake Flotilla.” They were a representative slice of the movement…
If you didn’t look close you just might miss it, and we do. Gazing across the Columbia River Basin into the morning light on the Purcell Mountains, we pass right by the Radium Hot Springs municipal offices. It’s not difficult to do here, where human presence is a mere asterisk on the seemingly infinite word…
Editor’s note: Today we’re happy to share an excerpt from Living & Breathing: 20 Years of Patagonia in New York City, a commemorative book about our double-decade relationship with the Big Apple. Grab a printed copy at one of our four NYC stores or check out the digital version at the end of this post.…
In the conventional model of philanthropy, the big funders—corporations and foundations—mainly support big professional environmental groups. The large national organizations (those with budgets over $5 million) are doing important work but they make up just 2% of all environmental groups, yet receive more than 50% of all environmental grants and donations. Meanwhile, funding the environmental…
DWR coatings are a crucial part of outdoor gear. They’re extremely effective at repelling water but carry an environmental cost.
With ancestor chants evoking the original stewards of these shores, Chris Malloy, the Farm League crew and I put together a video short to comment on the Refugio Oil Spill. I did a voice-over at Todd Hannigan’s amazing recording studio based on some lines I wrote, but after a nip from the flask to loosen…
Meet Mike. He’s 21 years old, 20 feet long, weighs about 10,000 pounds. He speaks a language that was taught to him by his elders: a series of squeaks, clicks and squeals that allow him to coordinate hunting strategies with his clan. His species is the apex predator in the eastern Pacific. He also babysits.…
Long before the arrival of Europeans, native peoples referred to Yellowstone as the “land of yellow rock waters” for the distinctive stone forged by volcanic blasts and the boiling waters of the largest geothermal system in the world. By 1872, Congress had dedicated Yellowstone as the nation’s—and the world’s—first national park. Yellowstone thus predates the…
Dear Friends, We’ve spent the past several days looking deep into our wool supply chain, shocked by the disturbing footage of animal cruelty that came to light last week. Patagonia’s partnership with Ovis 21 has been a source of pride because of the program’s genuine commitment to regenerating the grassland ecosystem, but this work must…
Update 8/17/15: Thank you to everyone who commented on this story. Your feedback is very important to us. Please see our follow-up post on this issue for the latest news. PETA has shown us video footage from within the Ovis 21 farm network that supplies merino wool for Patagonia’s baselayers and insulation. It is as…
The cacophonous boom of that explosion will forever resonate within me. With the flip of a switch, one hundred years of destructive history began to wash away. It was a new day—a day in which the Elwha was finally free. At long last, its waters could once again run unabated to the sea and its…
This op-ed was originally published in the Sacramento Bee on July 23, 2015. On May 7, the Yuba Salmon Partnership Initiative (YSPI) shared a plan that would create the first “trap and haul” program of its kind in California. Trap and haul involves capturing fish, putting them in trucks, and moving them up or down…
Fifteen years ago, I was drawn to southeastern Utah by the vast tracts of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and National Forest lands where I could find the freedom to explore and climb and have an adventure—rarely seeing another human other than my climbing partners or an intrepid hiker. I loved the feeling that my…
Exactly one month ago I tightened the last bolt in the last hold on the first-ever climbing boulder in Mozambique—and then climbed on it with over 1,000 Mozambican school children. Tonight, over dinner in Central Mozambique, I made a promise to climb a 12-pitch run-out granite slab with a Mozambican farmer named Elias who’s never…
Today, July 10, 2015, President Obama announced the designation of two new national monuments: Basin and Range and Berryessa Snow Mountain. We want to thank the President for his decisive action to protect some of America’s last remaining pristine valleys, mountain ranges, wild rivers, and wildlife habitat. Above: Cache Creek Natural Area in the newly designated Berryessa…
We released a new short film this week called Free the Snake. The film, from the producers of DamNation, looks at the effects of four deadbeat dams on Washington’s lower Snake River. For years, Snake River salmon have been trucked, shipped and sent up ladders—all costly and failed bids to stop their decline. We believe…
Snake River Salmon have been trucked, put on barges, diverted up fish ladders—all in the hope that enough would get by four dams to reach their historic habitat in numbers that would assure their future. It’s not working.
The following remarks (shortened slightly due to time constraints) were delivered on Monday, June 29, 2015, in the California State Legislature. To the members of the California State Legislature present today, thank you for your attention to the health and safety of our coastline and ocean. I’m here in support of Senate Bill-788 the California Coastal Protection…
