Mr Borboroglu’s Penguins
Meet Pablo Garcia Borboroglu, a 52-year old biologist in Patagonia who has dedicated his life to studying and protecting the world’s penguin populations. His global conservation effort has saved over 1.6 million penguins and created 32 million acres of protected ocean and coastal habitat.
Pablo’s passion for penguins was inspired by his grandmother. As a young boy Pablo was captivated by her bedtime stories about travelling by horse and cart in the 1920s across Argentina to the Atlantic coast to see the penguin colonies. Pablo chose to study law at university and pursue a career as an ambassador, but never forgot his grandmother’s stories.
In the late 1980s, Pablo took a sabbatical from his studies to join volunteers in southern Argentina who were saving penguins from oil spills that were killing 40,000 birds a year. Although Pablo helped save thousands of birds, washing each one with soap and water, he knew a bigger change was needed. “When I released the first one back into the wild, it clicked – I realized that one individual action can have a big impact, so I started to scale up.”
By raising public awareness around the issue, Pablo forced the Argentinian government to create new tanker routes and prompted oil companies to change their practices. Pablo returned to university to earn a PhD. in biology and spent the next three decades researching penguins and working with governments around the world to make informed decisions about conservation.
In 2009, Pablo established the Global Penguin Society with a mission to protect the 18 different species of penguins through scientific research, the management of habitats and public education. The organisation has established numerous protected areas to safeguard nesting and feeding areas and has involved more than 7,000 children in education programs because Pablo believes “change begins with them.”
“The only way to be healthy is to be connected to wildlife. When we benefit penguins, we benefit the oceans, and we also benefit people.”
