Goal of the Blog:  Stories and lessons about Nature, Environmental Issues, & Cultures  from around the world. Treading Lightly, Conservation, Volunteering, Spirituality in Nature, Social Justice….all of these are sprinkled in.

The Blog is a companion to Venture Outside…a company that does Holistic Multi-sport Adventures and Retreats in Maine and in the world. A twist on typical travel offerings, Venture Outside combines physical and holistic activities in nature at amazing and beautiful places around the world to provide a restorative experience that is purely and simply exceptional.  Check it out at http://www.venture-outside.com. Hope to see you out in nature!

Nature, Environmental Advocacy & Commentary – I´m an Ecologist, Wetlands Scientist, Ornithologist, Wildlife Biologist and Naturalist.  Through all of that, I spent a great deal of time in nature, learning to read it, feel it, and learn and grow from it.   Puma Diaries is an expression of those lessons.

Travel  –  When it´s an entry about travel or adventure, my goal is to inspire you to look below the surface of that experience.  We travel to escape the routine of our everyday lives, experience places we’ve read or dreamed about, and to renew and recharge.  But it’s healthy for the world for us to recognize that our vacations and travel are taking place in a world that’s under incredible pressures from population growth, economic development, climate changes, and general exploitation.  Our travel itself contributes to this pressure:  fossil fuel for your car or plane?  Resource & energy use to produce the explosion of “necessary” travel gear?  Luxury “ecolodges” in remote and “pristine” jungles justified by our demand to have AC, clean towels, and bug-free dinners?  Like a great deal of modern life, you can’t escape some aspect of the dualism  that’s part of our travel.

It’s okay to want to experience other cultures and perspectives, or to add to your life-list of birds.  Travel, and the generation of sustainable economies fueled by tourism dollars, is helping to pay for a lot of good things.  Tourism has allowed many cultures to resurrect traditions that had been in danger of slipping away.  It also generates a great deal of money for conservation projects, land preservation, and environmental and cultural research.  Let’s face it, take away tourism, and many parks in the world…and cultures…would be in serious trouble.

It’s okay to allow the travel experience to wake you up a bit, to recognize that not all is paradise in paradise, and that your travel does come with a price tag beyond your airplane ticket and hotel bill.  It’s even better if that realization inspires a change in your outlook or every day practices.

If you’re open to looking and learning, then you’re open to helping to being  part of the solution.  There’s so much we can do in our everyday lives….energy conservation, support of local food production, reigning in our hunger for collecting more and more “stuff”, supporting nonprofit organizations, donating our time and energy to causes at home and abroad.  Even when you travel, there’s ways to lessen your impact, from adopting “leave no trace” ethics, to buying one less item before your trip that you’re not sure you’ll use on the trip, and definitely won’t use back home.

Thanks for checking the Blog out, and let me know what you think!