60. Doing the Difficult Thing - Dr Niall McCann - Intrepid Explorer and Director of National Park Rescue

<p>Dr Niall McCann doesn't mess around. He's cycled the Himalayas, rowed across the Atlantic and skied across Greenland. He knows a thing or two about taking on difficult challenges and winning.</p> <a href="https://imgur.com/sMzdqf2"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/sMzdqf2.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> <p>His incredible mindset to take on huge challenges doesn't just stop with adventuring but also taking on the worlds biggest problems. As a Biologist and conservationist he was challenged by the lack of impact science was having on the decline of species and the climate. Instead of getting depressed he took on the problems head on and runs <a href="https://www.nationalparkrescue.org/">National Park Rescue</a> to solve these problems.</p> <p>They take the biggest issues to the most important people they can and get buy-in at a top level to protect nature by law. They also take a bottom up approach and skill local people to look after wildlife and provide them jobs as park rangers and tour guides so they can preserve their assets and make money out of them from tourism instead of hunting. Because of his work there are huge ares of land that are protected and provide sanctuary to species that would be going extinct otherwise.&nbsp;</p> <a href="https://imgur.com/xpXrH7U"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/xpXrH7U.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> <p>He is also a member of the Mountain Rescue Team in the Brecon Beacons and if you hadn't got the picture he is a bit of a hero on every level.</p> <p><strong>Topics</strong></p> <p>It was an inspiring conversation with Niall about the work he does. We discuss so many things:</p> <ul> <li>How to become an 'explorer'</li> <li>The challenges rowing across the Atlantic</li> <li>How illegal poaching relates to arms dealing, drug trade and human trafficking and the importance of stopping it</li> <li>How to get buy in from politicians</li> <li>How to create a sustainable economy that solves these problems</li> <li>How to get on TV</li> <li>Why climate change was