South American Explorers
| Location |
|
|---|---|
|
Region served
|
South and Central America |
|
President
|
Donald James Montague (1977–present) |
| Website | SAExplorers.club |
South American Explorers, headquartered in Ithaca, New York, is a nonprofit travel, scientific, and educational organization founded in 1977. Its goals are advancing field exploration and research in South and Central America on subjects such as biology, geography, anthropology, and archaeology, and promoting field sports such as mountaineering, rafting, and caving.
The organization publishes the quarterly South American Explorer magazine, and sells maps, guidebooks, trip reports, and other materials. There are clubhouses for member use: Lima and Cuzco in Peru; Quito, Ecuador; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
South American Explorers was founded by journalist Donald James Montague as the South American Explorers Club in 1977. Before founding the organization, Montague did a stint in South Korea with the Peace Corps in the 1960s, then joined United Press International Television News (UPITN) as a New York City-based assignments editor. Linda Rosa claims to be co-founder and to have largely funded the initial enterprise. Tired of his desk job, Montague decided to organize a camera crew in South America because it was the source of the agency's "worst film," and he figured it would be easy to do better. The crew would consist of himself and two friends he'd met in South Korea, Jane Berger and Dale Forster.
The crew landed in Lima in 1971, not long after the 1970 Ancash earthquake. After filming a wide range of stories in Peru for UPITN and other organizations, they began covering events throughout South America, including Juan Perón's 1973 return to Argentina after 18 years of exile in Spain. Soon after, the camera crew shifted its base of operations to Buenos Aires, but when Peron died in 1974, the state-sponsored Dirty War made conditions particularly unsafe for journalists. Montague chose to disband the camera crew later that year and headed overland to Peru.
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