Matt Maynard
103 FOLLOWERS
Originally from the UK, I have freelanced as a writer and photographer in South America since 2011. Increasingly I write about environmental issues such as air pollution and ocean protection. I also write about self-powered adventures and travel by bicycle and on foot. As a fluent Spanish speaker I provide reliable, informed and engaging English language content from Latin America and beyond.
Matt Maynard
11M ago
This march 2023 Men´s Fitness magazine ran an eight page story with my words and photography from the inaugural race to the 6,893m summit of the world´s highest volcano Ojos del Salado.
052-059_MF_MAR23_highest race in world ..read more
Matt Maynard
1y ago
THE PATAGONIAN GUEST A story from inside the Fireflies Patagonia 1,000km gravel-bike raid.
Words and Photography by Matt Maynard
Dressed in blue jeans and a flat-brimmed baseball cap, the septuagenarian pilot takes us out across the bay. I’m so close in the cockpit that if I move my knee it presses against the joystick.
Puerto Montt is soon far behind, and we whistle over salmon farms, the atolls of Chiloé, and an islet where dolphins breach in the surrounding surf. ‘Sure, I can open the window,’ the pilot says. I stick the camera out, and fire off a few shots before all creative impulse i ..read more
Matt Maynard
1y ago
Rewilding by Numbers
Geographical magazine. August 2022
A major new study has identified 20 species whose reintroduction would ensure that an additional 54 per cent of the planet’s land area regains its full complement of large mammals – but how practical is such an idea? I investigated for Geographical this August edition, interviewing the scientists behind the study and the animal experts from a dhole expert in India to a reformed puma hunter in Patagonia.
Extract follows
Rody Álvarez doesn’t look like a puma hunter. Crouched over a camera trap on a steep, southern-beech- cloaked ..read more
Matt Maynard
1y ago
For the July / August issue of Ecologist and Resurgence Magazine I told the story and captured photos of potentially Chile´s greatest conservation story to date. The feature unpacks our successful expedition to the previously unclimbed Cerro Barco and unpacks how the move to make the Olivares and Colorado valleys a national park, would democratise mountain access for the 7million citizens of Chile´s captial Santiago.  ..read more
Matt Maynard
1y ago
The following is an extract from my feature story for the June 2022 print edition of Geographical, telling the madcap story of iceberg acquisitions. I researched and photographed this feature in Chilean Patagonia, following leads to South Africa, Iowa and the Arabian Peninusla.
The clag is down and the icebergs loom out of the dark fjord. Our captain cuts the outboard motor and we glide silently through the grey water. The fibreglass hull grinds alongside a serrated frozen slab. It sounds like a kayak being shredded in a sawmill. ‘No pasa nada,’ he reassures us.
For the ..read more
Matt Maynard
2y ago
It’s always nice to get an open brief. This story came with a ¨go see what you can find.¨
An opportunity arose to travel down from Santiago again, to see the work of Rewilding Chile (formerly Tompkins Conservation) in the northern Patagonian region of Aysén. The endangered South Andean deer, known in Chile as the huemul, had just been included in an academic paper listing it as one of 20 large mammal species whose rewilding across its original habitat would restore the greatest number of ecosystems on Earth.
Chileans have a long distance relationship with this animal that made a cameo appeara ..read more
Matt Maynard
2y ago
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Matt Maynard
2y ago
This story for Chilean investigative news house Interferencia was a collaboration with journalist Diego Ortiz and was the culmination of several years of researching the multinational mine company´s plans to expand operations, effect glaciers and threaten water supply in the pre-cordillera above Santiago with ramifications for half of the nation´s 17million people who live in the Metropolitan area.
You can read it here. (Spanish language only ..read more
Matt Maynard
2y ago
Citizens of the global south have done the least to cause global climate change, but are at the greatest risk from its bad tail effects.
This August and September I had the honour of speaking to seven leaders, scientists and activists from Bolivia, Brazil, Easter Island (Chile), the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, East Timor and Indonesia.
Each of them told their own countries story of how climate change is biting, but there was an underlying theme to all the interviews I carried out. Developing nations are being called on by the global north to preserve their forests to help reduce ..read more
Matt Maynard
2y ago
This March I shot a big Patagonian bike tale from the remotest Cochamó region and wrapped it up in 1500 words for Men’s Fitness magazine. I hauled an electric Specialized gravel bike 400km through virgin forests and charging glacial rivers to get the story. Hope you can taste the blood, sweat and beers that went into it.
056-061_MF_JUNE21_patagonia ..read more