The Creative Conservationist Photography by Chad Brown
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HAD BROWN is a celebrated photographer, filmmaker, creative strategist and proud Veteran. He is also a wonderfully devoted conservationist who has a knack for convening remarkable groups of leaders to embark on journeys into our most treasured wild spaces. Chad’s recent adventures are run through the organization Love is King (LIK), which is committed to creating a reimagined outdoor environment focused on participation, representation, inspiration and advocacy. The mission of LIK Operation ROAM (Rapid Ongoing Advance Missions) is to provide an opportunity for BIPOC individuals (21 and over) to step into the realm of public land and freshwater conservation. Historically, BIPOC voices were not invited in government, congressional or decision-making spaces when it came to wildlife and indigenous policies, recreation, permitting, land management and advocacy in the outdoors. LIK ROAM magnifies the voices of BIPOC leaders and provides representation where it counts.
6 | openroads roads
In the pages ahead, we are invited to peek into two adventures: one shared by a group of inspiring female leaders, and another uniting five veterans. In both cases they traveled to the Arctic Village in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR), where they were immersed in the culture, lifestyle and traditions of the Gwich’in and Iñupiat people — two communities whose connection to the land and subsistence way of life has guided the management of this unique landscape for millennia. This land is now threatened by the Ambler Access Project. AAP is a proposed 211-mile controlled industrial-access road in Northwest Alaska that would open this fragile ecosystem to mineral extraction and destroy one of the last largely untouched natural landscapes on earth. Both initiatives not only enable a powerful journey of self-discovery in the Arctic but also aim to develop stories that highlight the role these leaders (and perhaps all of us) can play in protecting this sensitive natural treasure.