Jim Little

Most people have never heard of the Owyhee Canyonlands, let alone pulled over to visit. On a map of Oregon, it’s that mostly blank expanse in the southeastern corner of the state near the Idaho/Nevada border—a place most would call nowhere. Rome, Burns and Jordan Valley are the nearest towns of any note. The Malheur…

They flew in from rural Alaska, from Albuquerque, South Boston and Traverse City, Michigan, where they work to stop dams, preserve native forest, create urban farms and develop regional water-management plans. Coming together at Fallen Leaf Lake (near Lake Tahoe, Calif.), Sept. 11-15, for Patagonia’s Tools for Grassroots Activists conference, some 74 environmental activists from…

We have some great benefits at Patagonia. But none is better than the opportunity to volunteer with environmental groups through our internship program. During my 15 years working as an editor here at our headquarters in Ventura, I’ve gotten to follow wild buffalo in West Yellowstone, see the effects of industrial forestry in Chile, learn…

Patagonia hadn't budgeted for the  disaster of last year's Gulf oil spill (The Deepwater Horizon well blew up on April 20, 2010), but circumstances there were dire, so our CEO tapped Patagonia vice presidents to look for discretionary money. The VPs came up with $300,000 above and beyond our budgeted environmental giving. Two-thirds of it…

Taking the plunge (albeit it a shallow one) into the Ventura River in the spirit of Our Common Waters, Patagonia’s new environmental campaign, Patagonia editor Jim Little and a couple of friends spent the afternoon snorkeling for endangered southern steelhead trout. Along the way they sneak up on a few fish and discuss why the…

Patagonia’s environmental internship program is sending about 20 employees into the field this year to volunteer with nonprofit environmental groups around the world. The company pays employee salaries and benefits for up to a month while they work in D.C., Kenya, Kauai and other locales. Jim Little, an editor in our marketing department, recently spent…

This summer, Patagonia teamed up with non-profit environmental and social justice group, Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), to assist with a project massive in scale and ambition: to track the full impact of the greatest ecological disaster in American history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of Spring 2010. The impacts of this disaster extend well beyond…

Employees at our Dillon outlet store gained some “Freedom to Roam” last summer when Patagonia funded an environmental internship for store staff. Outlet employees chose to work with American Wildlands (AWL), a Bozeman-based non-profit that works in Montana to identify and prioritize wildlife corridors. Donning leather boots and gloves, they headed to the Centennial Valley,…

I like to start the day in my backyard hot tub, sipping on a cup of strong coffee and soothing sore muscles. It’s a great way to ease in. There’s also an added benefit. Spending a half hour outside each morning, sitting quietly in one place, provides an opportunity to observe the ever-changing rhythms of…

Patagonia employees are given a lot of latitude: flexible work schedules, hall passes for surf and snow, no one looking over shoulders making sure we’re working. In essence we’re treated like the big kids we are and trusted to get our work done. We’re also invited to help determine which groups receive money through the…

Today we repurpose an easy to digest, numbers-based summary of Patagonia’s environmental work in fiscal year 2009. First published in July in our Environmental Initiatives booklet, we’ve updated it slightly and present it Harper’s Index style. Perfect grist for a blog post, we think you’ll find it chewy but not filling. By the Numbers Quantifying…

Indonesia is a favorite destination of surfers from all over the world, including Patagonia employees, who have visited the islands many times over the years to surf and explore. A group from our company was on Sumatra just last month. They flew into Padang, the island’s largest city (pop. 900,000), where they hopped a charter…

You’ve seen our catalogs, our Web site and perhaps some press about Patagonia. For those of you who have never actually seen Patagonia (and I’m imagining that’s most of our customers and friends), here are some photos from and around our headquarters in Ventura. View all or have a look at Patagonia Ventura from space.…

We got a waterless urinal a couple of months ago here on the second floor of the Crystal Palace at Patagonia HQ. It’s saving a lot of water, but smells a bit unsavory. One guy likened the odor to that of restrooms in bus terminals. Another said it was a Third-World experience without the cultural…

Kim Stroud, who manages our sample room here at Patagonia HQ in Ventura, came walking in the other morning with one of those cardboard boxes used to carry live things. In her “spare” time, Kim is executive director of the nonprofit Ojai Raptor Center, so she’s always nurturing some kind of critter, not just raptors.…

I lay in bed the other night, a lot tired and a little bloodied, but smiling, thinking about the horned toad Alex and I had managed to catch earlier in the day. I’ve only seen a couple of these prehistoric-looking reptiles in the mountains of Southern California, because they’re kind of scarce and accomplished masters…

Several years ago, Patagonia email marketing coordinator Steve Wages saw this photograph of two anglers with a big catch of steelhead trout from the Ventura River. The shot was taken in the 1920s. Those were the glory days, when each year upwards of 5,000 steelies would leave the Pacific Ocean to swim up the rain-swollen…

A new citizen is emerging. That citizen is engaged, concerned, and most of all, confident; confident in his or her choice as a consumer, confident in his or her power as an employee, confident that change is possible. The Footprint Chronicles were developed to document the changes we’re making as a company to lighten our…

A new citizen is emerging. That citizen is engaged, concerned, and most of all, confident; confident in his or her choice as a consumer, confident in his or her power as an employee, confident that change is possible. The Footprint Chronicles were developed to document the changes we’re making as a company to lighten our…

Back in January, Patagonia paid me to go to Chile for two weeks to volunteer with ForestEthics, a North American-based environmental group working to preserve and protect native forest. My name is Jim Little. I’m an editor here at Patagonia, and one of 21 employees last year who took advantage of one of the coolest…

Last week, word came out from our friends at the Buffalo Field Campaign in West Yellowstone, Montana, that the state Dept. of Livestock decided not to round up and exterminate 300 wild buffalo (including calves less than a month old). Well, their compassion appears to have been short lived. We received word from the BFC…

Just last week, Montana’s Department of Livestock had plans to round up 300 wild buffalo (including babies) and ship them off this morning, June 4, to slaughter, because they’d wandered outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. Thanks to the efforts of the Buffalo Field Campaign, their supporters and all of the media that picked…

I just received word this morning from my friends up at the Buffalo Field Campaign in West Yellowstone. Montana’s Department of Livestock is planning on trapping and slaughtering 300 wild buffalo – including calves as young as a few weeks, and their mothers. The agency plans to begin the roundup on Thursday, May 31. It’s…