The Sustainable Jungle Podcast is a mission driven show, focusing on solutions for the world’s sustainability and conservation challenges. Hosts, Lyall and Joy, talk with some of the most interesting and inspiring people working to future proof our planet. Join us as we create a place to encourage and galvanize positive change.
Episodes
Thursday Jan 31, 2019
Thursday Jan 31, 2019
“Born and raised in Slovenia, Primož Kovačič is an entrepreneur and geodetic engineer who lives in Nairobi, Kenya. Primoz is a co-founder and director of Spatial Collective, a social enterprise that supports communities and organizations in adopting available technologies to collect, manage, own and use data that is important to them.”
Michelle Gathigi is a Nairobi local and the Spatial Collective Operations Manager. She is an International Relations Graduate from the University of Birmingham and is “passionate about community development and particularly see the benefits of empowering community members to be innovative, creative and proactive in improving their lives.”
We hung out with Primož and Michelle in the Spatial Collective office in the busy, lively “silicon savanna” of Nairobi. We discussed how knowledge and data can give power back to the people and make real, meaningful change.
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Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Thursday Jan 10, 2019
Tomás and Marcelo are two Costa Rican biologists who founded deep travel, ecotourism company, the Oropopo Experience, based in San José, Costa Rica. They have a “strong passion for the understanding and protection of tropical environments, as well as sharing the scientific information with people”. Their mission is to “provide authentic experiences around ecosystems and communities of Costa Rica, highly focused in biology, human quality and operational sustainability”.
We spent two weeks hanging out with these two passionate biologists in San Jose as well as the jungles and towns of rural Costa Rica. It was quite the epic adventure and at the end we sat down with Tomás and Celo to chat out what floats their boat, mindfulness in nature, their favourite moments in wild places, why Costa Rica is winning at conservation and renewable energy and thoughts on becoming a more sustainable person. We recorded this episode on the banks of the Tortugeuro river so you will hear the sounds of birds, boats and locals going about their business. Enjoy!
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Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
Misha Teasdale is the Tree-E-O of Greenpop South Africa, a tree planting eco-education organization, popularizing the green movement and coordinating climate-action events and festivals in Southern Africa. Misha has a B-Tech in Sustainable Industrial Design, and before he started Greenpop, had a colourful career, including a journey from Cape Town to London, where he profiled NGO's and CBO's across the continent to attract CSI funding and encourage knowledge sharing and grassroots volunteering. He also drinks coffee, bikes, runs mountains, and practices low-impact living!
We visited Greenpop’s Eden Festival of Action, held in Knysna, South Africa, a small town hit by devastating forest fires and in desperate need of re-greening. We interviewed Misha in the middle of a very high energy tree planting day, in a forest, right next to the ocean so you can hear the waves, the birds and the delighted shrieks of high-school students throughout the episode. We discuss many things but most importantly, we cover how the very special Greenpop events make exceptionally positive change on more than just the environmental front. We were blown away by the energy, love and care that defined the Eden Festival of Action for us so as you listen to this episode, we would encourage you to think of someone who may be interested in attending one of these life-changing festivals and share this episode with them… or perhaps you might like to head over to South Africa and participate yourself?
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Tuesday Nov 20, 2018
Tuesday Nov 20, 2018
Rafael Robles is a biologist, researcher and an esteemed leader in the rural town of Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Rafa has also lived and worked in Mexico and has contributed to conservation projects all over the world. He is passionate about his country and their significant efforts to protect their wild places. Rafa has spent a lifetime protecting and improving both human and “wild” life in Tortuguero, Costa Rica and has made extraordinary contributions to making this a model sustainable, rural town
We visited the small village of Tortuguero Costa Rica with our friends from the Oropopo Experience and were really impressed by the village’s intense focus on sustainability and protecting their wild. We were fortunate to get time with local leader, Rafa and enjoyed sitting down in his very ‘alive’ garden (we had a sloth hanging about overhead!) on the edge of the Tortuguero National Park to discuss small town sustainability, surviving a pit viper snake bite and Costa Rica’s success in prioritizing conservation and sustainability.
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Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Ian Dommisse is an Architect from Cape Town, South Africa. After learning about eco bricks, an innovative “invention” that uses unrecyclable plastic waste to make building materials, he founded the Ecobrick Exchange, “an environment awareness enterprise that facilitates the construction of preschools in underprivileged communities using unrecyclable plastic waste”. Their programmes “empower individuals to address the shortage of quality education facilities, implement sustainable waste management systems and raise environmental awareness.”
We managed to catch Ian while the Ecobrick Exchange was on their big Winter Tour, a series of educational events held in Winter throughout South Africa. Specifically, we managed to gatecrash an epic Eco Festival called the Festival of Action, run by Greenpop (a tree planting eco-education organization, popularizing the green movement in South Africa) and boy are we glad we did, it was outrageously inspiring to see the work these folks do in action – Ian and the Ecobrick Exchange team included! We managed to find a semi-quiet spot, nestled on the outskirts of the Knysna Forest to sit down with Ian and chat about the wonder of ecobricks and how they can be (and are being) used as a powerful tool to tackle our huge plastic pollution problem.
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Thursday Oct 11, 2018
Thursday Oct 11, 2018
Luis Ricardo Murillo-Hiller is a Costa Rican entomologist working at the University of Costa Rica. He has been passionate about butterflies his entire life and believes protecting them will help us save the few remaining forests we have. Ricardo founded the Live Butterfly Exhibition together with his professor in 2010 as a way of educating school children about diversity, natural history, sustainable development and butterflies! He, together with his team, also conduct research on genetics, diseases, natural history and they help support breeders who export butterflies for exhibitions globally.
The team at Oropopo Experience introduced us to Ricardo and we visited him in his live butterfly exhibition on the university campus. It was, as you would expect, a little noisy, being in the middle of the big city, San José, but in our little pocket of paradise, we were surrounded by the most beautiful butterflies and jungle sounds - the perfect backdrop to cover some butterfly related topics including why they're so important to protect and how we can all do something to help by planting the right flora in our backyards!
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Tuesday Sep 18, 2018
Tuesday Sep 18, 2018
Fabian was born and bred in Southern Africa. He grew up on a farm in the Kalahari and has always been fascinated by nature and our impact on it as humans, especially when it comes to agriculture. He has studied extensively, covering Botany, Environmental and Geographical Science, Zoology, Agroecology and Permaculture. He now dedicates himself to educating others about the “thrive-ability” permaculture design principles can offer and has some pretty incredible impact stories from working with rural communities in Namibia.
We hung out with Fabian at his farmhouse outside of Windhoek Namibia and along with marvelling over his incredibly sustainable off-grid lifestyle (think solar panels, parabolic stove, solar oven, french drains and veggie garden - in the DESERT!), we got to chatting about about permaculture and how this design system can help with a whole raft of human problems
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Find the show notes here
Watch the video here
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Tuesday Aug 28, 2018
Tuesday Aug 28, 2018
Listeners, thank you for your support and feedback over the last 25 episodes! We're entering new era and based on your feedback, slightly adjusting our release schedule and podcast length.
Let us know if this new approach works better!
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Tuesday Aug 21, 2018
Tuesday Aug 21, 2018
Sara and Daniel are nature-loving, eco-warriors and experts on sustainable travel. They are are the founders of Peru Eco Expeditions, a Sustainable, Ecotourism company based in Cusco, Peru that specialises in luxury, customised and sustainable expeditions. They have both enjoyed long careers in tourism in both Peru and the United States and are visionaries when it comes to the tourism industry in Peru. They want to see epic things happen to create a viable and sustainable industry well into the future.
We got to know Sara and Daniel on two of Peru Eco Expedition’s epic bike and trek experiences and boy, was it good fun! We then sat down in the Amazon Cloud forest next to a gorgeous waterfall at the end of almost a week together and captured the essence of what we spent most of our trip time talking about: the importance of connecting to nature, tourism as a double-edged sword, how to be a sustainable tourist, why the Peruvian Amazon Cloud Forest is such an important and special place and what you can do to make the world a better place.
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Tuesday Aug 14, 2018
Tuesday Aug 14, 2018
“Award-winning wildlife expert, author and public speaker, Gareth Patterson, is known internationally for his efforts to protect the lions and elephants of Africa. His wildlife work has featured widely in the media, books and in documentaries.” Gareth has written extensively about his experience rewilding George Adamson’s last lion cubs and subsequently written about his discovery of a viable population of elephants in the Knysna Forest. He continues to work to raise awareness and build passion for the wild with his recent children's’ book “Born to be Free”, his upcoming project “Beyond the Secret Elephants” and his ongoing efforts to reignite African Environmentalism through Sekai Africa.
We visited Gareth Patterson in his cottage on the edge of the beautiful Knysna Forest in South Africa and together with his beautiful bush dog, Tuli (you can hear her grunting and sniffling throughout), covered how Gareth became well-renowned lion man, working with George Adamson's lions, truly incredible stories about rewilding lion cubs, the remarkable story of the secret Knysna elephants in South Africa, Gareth's upcoming project, his new children's book, 'Born to be Free' and his vision for African Environmentalism.
*This Episode is dedicated to Gareth’s very special bush dog Tuli who sadly passed away shortly after this episode was recorded. You will be able to hear her joining in throughout this episode, making her presence known*
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