The World Wilderness Congress is the longest-running public environmental forum in the Planet. It started in South Africa by a Zulu elder and a white man. Now forty-five years later the Congress has been held in all five Continents.

 

Patricio has a strong connection to wilderness, especially those areas that are large in size, in which man have not left a deep mark, and where large predators can still be found. The word Wilderness does not have a really meaningful translation in many languages, especially in Mexico, mainly because is and America-English word, and this bothers Mexicans. Patricio has produced, edited and photograph two different books with this word as title, the first, Wilderness; Earth´s Last Wild Places, a large-format art book that presents the 37 ecoregions, due to their size, the level of ecological integrity and the little human presence. Dr Russell Mittermeier was the scientist behind this initiative, its launch was in collaboration with Cemex, Conservation International, and Sierra Madre.

 

Around those days in 2003, Russell invited Patricio to the IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, to introduce Vance Martin, president of the Wild Foundation. Patricio´s first encounter with Vance was in the wild, on a Reserve in South Africa, then they return to Durban to attend the Congress. For three days Patricio wandered between the plenary sessions of the Congress, finding no fire in any of the presentations, the spirit of the Natural world was absent. On one of the last days Vance introduces Patricio to his wild colleagues, there he found a group of companions who spoke the same language, the powerful voice of wild nature.

 

Vance Martin was very impress with the Cemex acquisition of El Carmen and invite Patricio to presented this initiative at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Anchorage Alaska in 2005. Patricio also invited Ernesto Enkerlin director of Mexico´s National Commission of protected Areas CONANP, as well as the President of Conservation International, Russell Mittermeier, and Armando Garcia from Cemex, together present the El Carmen Initiative. The result of the launch was a standing ovation of all attendees.

 

The World Wilderness Congress has never been held in Latin America in its 30 years of exitance. After the success in Anchorage, Vance asks Patricio to be his co-leader to take Wild Congress to Mexico. The Wild Foundation and Sierra Madre work for three years to hold this congress in 2009 on the Yucatan Peninsula in the heart of the Mayan civilization, in the City of Merida.

 

Patricio´s work in those three years was to raise funds to make the congress viable, he convenes conservationist, scientist, corporate leaders, photographers and the artistic communities from Mexico and the world. Patricio bets in the power of art, and did a major investment in visual communication, coordinating and producing a series of art events including a concert with a composition by Philip Glass that presented Frans Lanting’s photo essay ‘Life: A journey through time’. Also presented James Balog’s ‘Extreme Ice Survey’ where he uses using remote cameras to document the world retreat of glaciers, a dramatic climate-change story. Four major photoexhibits where shown at the main hall of the congress, one by National Geographic photographers, a second images by Wild Wonders of Europe, a third photographs of the Mesoamerican Corridor, and the last one by the Look 3 Photo Festival, a space where all delegates could hang up their own images.