Mark: Wildlife conservation has always been a core principle of Brave Wilderness – we’re focused on inspiring the next generation of conservationists and providing information that empowers people to make a difference. Even before our very first YouTube video was created, we were hosting fundraising events and educational efforts within our local park systems in Columbus, OH. Many of these featured our first animal co-star, the persnickety common snapping turtle.
As we grew Brave Wilderness, our location-based productions were frequently placing us near the frontlines of field research and conservation work and I realized that we had the opportunity to focus the development of our stories around these efforts. By participating and delivering broad global awareness where it was needed most and appealing to our audience of millions we could eventually protect the environment with every single video we made.
Activating this strategy was propelled by collaborating with the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center (CRARC), a habitat restoration project that spans 80 hectare of biodiverse rainforest and serves as a recovery arch for endangered frog species. Some of our most famous videos have been filmed at this location and have generated a greater awareness of this small, but important place in Central America.
To date, we have filmed hundreds of wildlife videos amassing over four billion views. Most recently, we have been forging larger partnerships to activate our audiences to make a global impact. Last summer, we partnered with ReWild.org and raised more than $500,000 for Virunga National Park by taking our audience to the Congo to witness their legendary mountain gorillas. Because of efforts like this, I am proud to say that Brave Wilderness’s environmental impact is both meaningful and measurable across the globe.