Embracing the mountains, desert steppe, and islands of Patagonia, this week’s guest Diana Friedrich grounds listeners in an expansive and profound landscape. As she describes her work to protect swaths of land through Rewilding Argentina’s Patagonia Azul project, Diana and Ayana share in a love for landscapes that offer both challenge and refuge. 

For Diana, conservation work is a calling to enter into deep community and to build trust over a shared love for the land. This means reimagining economic systems, challenging industrial greed, and countering our current culture of consumption and exploitation. Focusing on the resilience of biodiverse landscapes, and the hope of what we can still conserve, Diana stresses the importance of finding loving conservation strategies that amplify joy and community while pushing for more funding, focus, and effort for conservation measures.  

Diana brings expert insight as she talks listeners through the complexity of international biodiversity goals and declarations. Though this, Diana emphasizes the importance of creating truly protected local areas rather than just relying on regulations and declarations. The deep commitment and intentional work of rewilding is vital as we work to support and to be a part of a world teeming with biodiversity.

Diana is a naturalist and adventurer. From a very early childhood, her parents took her and her four siblings traveling to the wildest and most remote places of Argentina and Chile. Right after finishing high school, she volunteered and worked at several conservation organizations in Argentina. She received a degree in Nature Conservation in South Africa and worked in nature reserves and communities in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania. In Argentina, Diana coordinated field activities at the hooded grebe Project for three seasons and worked as a field technician on Rewilding Argentina’s projects to reintroduce giant anteaters and red-and-green macaws. She currently lives in Patagonia and manages the Patagonia Azul project’s Parks and Communities Program.

♫ The music in this episode is “Wide Open” by Bird By Snow, “For The Wild” by Papa Bear and the Easy Love, and “Little Fire” by Aviva Le Fey.

Episode References

IBERÁ - Rewilding Argentina 

Patagonia Azul Project - Rewilding Argentina

To 30x30 and Beyond - Oceana  

Reading Recommendations

https://www.rewildingargentina.org/rewilding-argentina-library

https://ww2.rewildingargentina.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Rewilding-in-Argentina-100.pdf

https://ww2.rewildingargentina.org/library/libros/institucional/25.pdf

Follow us on social media and share what we do so more people get involved: @parquepatagoniaazul

Visit us: Get to know the future Patagonia Azul Park. Plan Patagonia Azul into your next holiday: By visiting us, you are supporting the conservation project, helping to empower the local communities, adding to the local nature based economy and creating a renewed value of the natural and cultural diversity of our place.

Check our website: www.rewildingargentina.org/proyecto-patagoniaazul

Get informed: Inform yourself about the impacts of the fishing industry and what your country is doing towards protecting the ocean. Be aware of where your fish comes from, how it is fished, who fishes it and what this activity has done to the whole ecosystem. Start with language: what you get on your plate is not "seafood", it´s seaLIFE. (quote from Sylvia Earle).

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