Arlo Hemphill

My name is Arlo and I am in love with wilderness. Not your suburban backyard variety or even the local national forest, but the great expanses of this planet – both on land and in the sea – that remain relatively unaltered by modern humanity. Those last truly wild places on Earth give us the air we breath, the water we drink, the genetic resources we depend upon, and provide for the stable climate in which we thrive. Wilderness fuels our creativity and spirituality, feeds our minds and our bodies, and inspires exploration and scientific investigation. And we in turn are a part of this great system that maintains the world. Wilderness is the keeper of our past and the promise of our future. This is the core value that drives me. I am trained as a marine scientist, but have devoted most of my energy to conservation. The story of my working life began in Ecuador’s spectacularly diverse Yasuní National Park, cataloguing trees in the motherland of the Huaorani people. Despite the bond the Amazon held (and still holds) on me, the ocean’s salty song whispered my name and I found another home in the sea. My work on her behalf leans strongly on my science background, but more often manifests through new tools I’ve learned to wield in communications, policy advocacy and resource management. Just like the fish I’ve surveyed as a scientific diver, I am gullibly attracted to shiny objects. The rise of digital and social media was a natural fit from day one and they are now an extension of who I am and what I do – one way in which I speak to the world.