The Sustainable Jungle Podcast

“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...

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,...

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 acros...

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 Tortuguer...

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 indivi...

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, sustaina...

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” permacul...

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!   ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Find all episodes here ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ *** SOCIALIZE WITH US *** Website Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube  

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...

“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 popu...

“An award-winning television presenter and filmmaker, Bonné de Bod, is well-known for her in-depth reporting on wildlife and environmental issues. For nearly a decade, Bonné has presented in both Afrikaans and English on South African television. Awards include the prestigious SANParks Kudu Award for Best Journalist in 2015 and an ATKV-Mediaveertjie in 2016. Her Kudu award stated that she received...

Dipesh is quite the eco-leader and one of the founders of the Flipflopi Expedition, a remarkable plan to build a 60ft dhow out of recycled plastic and sail it from Lamu, Kenya to Cape Town South Africa ('just' 5,250km!).  More on Dipesh: "Having lived on the Kenyan Coast for seven years, Dipesh became addicted to trash. He was obsessed with what else one could do with all the flip-flops and discar...

Erin Meezan is the VP and Chief Sustainability Officer at Interface Inc, a publicly listed company in the USA that manufactures carpet tiles and has earned a reputation as a leader in sustainability. Erin came from an environmental law background and has always been exceptionally passionate about making a difference. Today she "leads a global team that provides technical assistance and support to...

Aarón Bendfeldt is a young social entrepreneur based in Guatemala City. After visiting Norway and learning about effective waste management (amongst many other things), he co-founded Grønn, a social enterprise that "generates social, environmental and economical impact through its operation in Guatemala. [They] are creating Guatemala's first glass recycling platform for restaurants and upcycling g...

Danelle Murray, together with her husband Brendan, her two kids and her team, runs the Owl Rescue Centre and Sanctuary in Hartbeespoort, South Africa. "The Centre takes in hundreds of owls every year through their rescue efforts.  The owls are rehabilitated and when they can survive on their own in the wild, are released in The Sanctuary - a farm which is located within a twelve thousand hectare p...

Philip Wilson is a serial entrepreneur, who, having been successful in business in the USA and Guatemala, sought meaning and purpose in his life and turned his hand to social entrepreneurship. He built Ecofiltro into a profitable business that serves clean water to the rural poor of Guatemala. Philip also mentors other social enterprises who focus on building financially sustainable businesses and...

Eliza was born in the USA and grew up in Guatemala City to visionary parents who today, run The Jungle School for 400 kids in San Andres, Petén, Guatemala. Back in the USA, she enjoyed a career in PR and events before hearing the call to return to Guatemala to start Itza Wood, the social enterprise that uses local, responsibly sourced wood offcuts (that would otherwise be wasted or burned) to crea...

Frank is a Southern Californian who spent his youth hanging out in nature. He pursued a career in the Navy until, on a prompt from his wife, realized that he needed more in his life. Today, he is the founder of Golden Coast Mead, a small meadery based in Oceanside California that supports healthy bee populations by buying organic honey from regenerative farms. Frank is a deeply thoughtful and deli...

Elysse is an “Entrepreneur, mentor, and unabashed wanderluster livin' it up in San Diego, CA”. She is the founder of Wabi-Sabi Botanicals, a luxury, ethical beauty line and ‘Be Led by Love’, a beautiful website about self-love and empowerment. Elysse is passionate about the betterment of women… all women! We caught up with Elysse in her home state of California, USA and she graciously shared her a...

Nick Mott is an outdoor guy! He is also a conservationist, climber, and environmental journalist. He is the Assistant Producer for Threshold, the beautifully produced Podcast which uses” stories to explain how humans are changing and being changed by the planet”. We met Nick on the Lions Lair Spur Trail Head in Boulder Colorado with the intention of interviewing him out in nature but it was so win...

“Jenny Golding is a writer, musician, mom, and educator. She loves long rambles in the woods, writing songs, singing harmony, cross-country skiing, and adventuring in the wilderness with George and little George. After 20 years working for nonprofits in conservation and education, she now writes about Yellowstone and natural history topics from her home in Gardiner, Montana, and has published over...

Cara Smyth is a leader in the Fashion Industry. She has built her career in management, brand building, and global scaling and has served as President of Jill Sanders America, a Director of Burberry and the CEO of Menichetti International in Milan. Today, Cara is an Executive Board Member and Vice President of Glasgow Caledonian University New York College (GCNYC) and is also the passionate founde...

Harish Hande is the definition of a social entrepreneur. In 1995, after learning about the power of a distributed energy model, he founded SELCO India, which “provides sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses” and recently won the 2018 Skoll Foundation award for social entrepreneurship. Harish has won numerous awards over the years and has an incredible a...

"Louis Masai is a visual artist based in London. He uses his research on endangered species as a topic of discussion to heighten the general public’s awareness of the ‘sixth mass extinction’. When not working in the studio, Masai travels around the world painting murals in cities, towns, and villages. These are often of locally endangered species. His paintings have reached out to people in ways t...

Todd Lemons is an economist, engineer and ultimately, an environmentalist (quite the unique combo). Over the last 25 years, Todd Lemons lived and worked in South and Central America, Mainland China and South East Asia. In that time, he has: Served as CEO for EnVision Corp, an “incubator for sustainability technologies and a leader in the development of market-based environmental finance solutions”...