Entry #17: Wildlife Tourism for Conservation with Sophia Wood and Gara Trujillo
Gara Trujillo ran Opwall's Galapagos site in 2019. She recently completed an Erasmus Master's program in Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management while traveling across Greece, Hungary, and Sweden. As an ecologist, Gara has worked in the Amazon rainforest in Peru, in coastal Greece, and in the Galapagos Islands with Opwall. This episode was recorded in early 2021 when she was still completing her graduate program. Gara is now interviewing at WWF Sweden. In this joint episode you will also hear Gara interview Sophia Wood about our site in the Ecuadorian Amazon and how it is evolved since she started managing the project in 2018. Sophia had her start with Operation Wallacea in 2017 while helping set up the Fiji project fresh out of university. After a brief stint in venture capital and start-ups in Latin America, she dove into conservation full-time with Opwall in 2019 to run Friends of Wallacea, Opwall's tourism arm, and to continue to develop conservation projects alongside indigenous communities across the region. In this episode, we cover what life is really like in the Amazonian rainforest, how travelers can leave a positive impact when they travel, and how scientific research fits into local tourism and conservation efforts.