In the 1960s, a 17-year-old rancher nearly died burning a Colombian forest; he later lived in a cave and turned 7,400 acres into a wildlife refuge

In the 1960s, Juan Guillermo Garcés was a teenage rancher in Colombia’s Antioquia region when he helped set fire to the forest to clear land for cattle. The fire nearly killed him and immensely damaged one of the remaining patches of virgin forest in the area. According to The Guardian , the experience became a turning point in his life as Garcés eventually abandoned conventional ranching and devoted himself to protecting and restoring the forests around the Río Claro river. Garcés’s private reserve now covers about 3,000 hectares, roughly 7,400 acres, and has become one of the region’s notable conservation projects.

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