For The Wild

Will we “undo” or “solve” climate change? Could we still create a livable world if the answer to the previous question is no? Could we create an even more just world than the one we’ve been living in so far? This week we step away from thinking about climate change at the planetary scale and reflect on how we can respond at the community level with guest Gopal Dayaneni. Gopal reminds us to think about the climate crisis as a message in which we are being asked to respond by tending to our all of relationships, not just reducing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. In this exploration of crisis, solutions, distribution of suffering, and relations - we learn about the power of changing our relationship to a problem. Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic, environmental, and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking, and direct action since the late 1980s. Gopal is a co-founder of Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project. Currently, Gopal supports movement building through his work with organizations including The Climate Justice Alliance, ETCgroup, and the Center for Story-based Strategy. Gopal works at the intersection of ecology, economy, and empire. He lives in an intentional community of 9 adults and a squabble of kids.Music by Skeppet, Shingai, and Yesol.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Within Paiute and Shoshone lands in so-called Nevada exists a quiet habitat teeming with life. Thacker Pass is home to rare desert wildflowers, bighorn sheep, old-growth sagebrush, sage grouse, pronghorns, and coyote to name a few. Yet the abundance of this place, these sacred lands, and the wellbeing of the surrounding community means absolutely nothing to Lithium Nevada, a corporation planning to extract an estimated 179 metric tonnes of lithium over the next 46 years to meet the rising demand of lithium for electric vehicles and energy grid storage. In part one of our two-part conversation, we join Max Wilbert of Protect Thacker Pass. Max Wilbert is a writer, organizer, and wilderness guide. A third-generation dissident, he came of age in a family of anti-war and undoing racism activists in post-WTO Seattle. His latest book is the forthcoming "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It." He has been active in social movements for nearly 20 years. Music by Buffalo Rose, Heavybird, Aviva le Fey, and Forest Veil. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.

Mainstream media has gradually begun to recognize the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S) epidemic across North America, but only after constant attention and pressure from Indigenous communities, advocates, and organization - still, much needs to be addressed as there continues to be serious misrepresentation. In this week’s episode, we speak to advocate and athlete, Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel about the tremendous ripple effects of missing relatives, where the media continues to get it wrong, and the crippling economic tolls incurred by families as they are punished during periods of urgency and loss. As a marathon runner, we also speak with Jordan about the act of running and how it can meaningfully move energy in solidarity with the MMIWG2S movement. Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel is a citizen of Kul Wicasa Oyate (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe) as well as a passionate and devoted advocate nationally known for her grassroots organization for anti-pipelines/climate justice efforts, change the name/not your mascot, MMIWG2S and MMIP, and native youth initiatives. Jordan is the founder and organizer of Rising Hearts, an Indigenous-led grassroots group.Music by Lake Mary, Santiago Cordoba, Emily Ritz, and Arthur Moon. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Many of us have access to more choices than we ever thought imaginable, in fact, it is quite easy to find ourselves amidst an abundance of products, eating foods cultivated across the world, or selecting from a myriad of variations of the same “thing”. But this “abundance” of choice masks ecological depletion, and as we gain access to that which is far from our homes, actual place-based abundance is often jeopardized. This week on the podcast we explore this in context to herring in Southeast Alaska with guest K’asheechtlaa (Louise Brady). Everything from chinook, seals, whales, eagles, halibut, and dolphins, all depend on herring directly or indirectly. In addition to nourishing so much of the Pacific marine ecosystem, these kin are embedded in the culture and spirit of Sheetʼká (Sitka). But as herring have been utilized in pet food, fertilizer, fish meal for aquariums and salmon farms, and marketed as a delicacy abroad - fisheries have been mismanaged by the state of Alaska and overfished to near extinction. K’asheechtlaa is a woman of the Tlingit nation in Sheetʼká Ḵwáan, an island off the coast of Southeast Alaska. She is Raven-Frog or Kiks.ádi Clan, Kiks.ádi women are known as the herring ladies, they have a story or original instruction that connects them spiritually, culturally, and historically to herring. K’asheechtlaa is the founder of the Herring Protectors, a grassroots movement of people that share concerns that the herring population in Sheetʼká Ḵwáan, and the culture tied to it, are under threat. Music by Lake Mary, The Ascent of Everest, Alexandra Blakely, and Fountainsun. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

When asked about implementing 5G in 2019, Brussels’ Environment Minister, Celine Fremault was quoted saying “the people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit. We cannot leave anything to doubt.” Comparatively here in the United States, we are bombarded with advertisements that boast about the speed, accessibility, and necessity of 5G. Of course, unlike other countries, the United States has also embraced the digitization of our life beyond recognition. There are more cell phones in the United States than there are people, so it comes as no surprise that 5G would be an easier sell to our public. Alongside guest Devra L. Davis, we take a deeper look at why the telecom industry is manufacturing demand for 5G, as well as the overwhelming amount of research on global 5G wireless networks and how they threaten various species and ecosystems. Dr. Davis is an internationally acclaimed award-winning scientist and author of more than 220 scientific publications and 3 popular books. She was the U.S. Senate confirmed Presidential appointee to the National Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and served as an advisor to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the World Health Organization. She is currently the President of the Environmental Health Trust.Music by Jeremy Harris, Shay Roselip, and Tan Cologne. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Humans have often turned to the night sky for both practical matters, like direction and orientation, as well as philosophical matters, like making sense of our place in the world and communicating with the ethereal. Despite this ancestral connection, many of us either know very little about the space above us and the galaxies around us, or we don’t even have the privilege of being able to develop this connection. Did you know 85% of matter in the universe is considered intangible “dark” matter? Have you ever wondered why it’s even called dark matter? Did you know some nation-states are still considering what it would take to mine the moon? Or that we are radically altering what the night sky looks like through the increasing presence of satellites? In this week’s episode, we explore these curiosities with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an assistant professor of physics and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein’s book The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred will be published in the US and Canada in March 2021. Music by Harrison Foster, Amaara, and Jahnavi Veronica. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

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In 2018 former Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, what we didn’t know was that beginning in 2017 the Trump administration ran a secret pilot program that began rapidly separating children from their families in El Paso, Texas. After running this pilot program, Customs and Border Protection unequivocally told the administration that the program was a failure because they were unable to track parents and children after separation. In the face of these conclusions, the administration went forward with their policy which ultimately separated over 2,500 children, many of whom will most likely never be reunited with their parents. In this week’s episode, we speak with artist, immigration lawyer, and activist Carolina Rubio MacWright on the ongoing travesty of family separations, the inherent trauma of U.S. detention centers, and how we can begin revamping our laws, values, policies, and systems when it comes to migration. Carolina Rubio MacWright is an artist, immigration lawyer, and activist fighting for immigrant and humanitarian rights. She believes ART is the most powerful way of bringing humans together and dissolving walls and cages that separate us. She has thus mixed her law and art into a non-profit called Touching Land that uses hands-on experiential arts to empower, build bridges and decolonize food. Music by Madelyn Ilana and Samuela Akert.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. Support the show

We are often reminded of the tremendous amount of loss that transpires every day on this Earth; loss of language, biodiversity, and ancestral knowledge. In response, it’s understandable that many of us may be hyper-fixated on preserving whatever we can and fighting to stave off the mass changes that have been set in motion. But what if we challenged ourselves instead to recognize the autonomy of living knowledge, land as its own entity, and the inevitability of constant change? In this week’s episode, guest Enrique Salmón uses the lens of kincentric ecology to challenge our propensity for memory banking, our difficulty grappling with a changing Earth, and our inadvertent oversimplifications of complex living relationships. Enrique Salmón is a Rarámuri. He is head of the American Indian Studies Program at Cal State University–East Bay. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Arizona State University and has published many articles on Indigenous ethnobotany, agriculture, nutrition, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. He is the author of Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity and Resilience and Iwígara. Music by Justin Crawmer, Katie Gray, and Sara Serpa. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

“We forget that so much is given freely, that this world is meant to be enjoyed.” This week, we heed this powerful reminder by guest Ella Noah Bancroft. As our belief systems have become entwined with the dominant economic structure, we see the commodification of our wellness, intimacy, and connectivity - a phenomenon that is severely hindering our ability to connect authentically. In conversation, Ella traces the powerful connection between our ability to go against mainstream capitalist ways of being and our capacity for deep connection with ourselves and each other. With intimacy as an entrance point, our conversation explores what happens when we derive our pleasure from extraction, the kind of deep embodiment and connectivity that threatens capitalistic and colonial structures, and how we can journey back into spaces of trust through practices that don’t have to cost us a thing. Ella Noah Bancroft is a Bundjalung woman based in the Northern New South Wales, Australia. Ella identifies as mixed heritage Indigenous, gay woman. She grew up living in both worlds, her Indigenous world and the mainstream Australian world. Both challenged her identity in different ways. She is an Australian born artist, storyteller, mentor and founder of “The Returning” and Yhi Collective. Music by Harrison Foster, Lady Moon & The Eclipse, and Sucúlima. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

How can queerness guide us as we move through this liminal time period? How can queer ecology radically change our way of knowing? This week’s episode, initially aired in December of 2018, acknowledges that in order to expand ourselves to our fullest capacity, we must bend beyond the cultural and gender binaries that dominant society projects amongst us, to begin this process we need not look further than what has always been. Guided by culturally informed queer ancestral futurist dreams, Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd of Queer Nature explore how queering our awareness can dismantle the supremacist, ecocidal, and genocidal story we have found ourselves in. Queer Nature is an education and social sculpture project based on Arapaho, Ute, and Cheyenne territories that actively dreams into decolonially-informed queer ‘ancestral futurism’ through mentorship in place-based skills with awareness of post-industrial/globalized/ecocidal contexts. Co-envisioned by Pinar and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Queer Nature designs and facilitates nature-based workshops and multi-day immersions intended to be financially, emotionally, and physically accessible to LGBTQ2+ people and QTBIPOCs. Music by Y La Bamba and Elisapie. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

Our attention has operated as currency for the past couple of decades, but with the invasiveness of social media and technology, our ability to exit and enter the attention economy has been severely hindered. As we feel pressure to post and comment on everything for an unknown audience, do we inherently limit our capacity for complexity and vulnerability? And what are the extended ramifications of becoming illiterate in complexity? How does this ripple out into all of our relationships? In lieu of the demanding world buzzing inside our devices, guest Jenny Odell shares the brilliance of doing “nothing”, tending to the ecological self, and growing deeper forms of attention through a commitment to bioregionalism. Jenny Odell is a writer, artist, and enthusiastic birdwatcher based in Oakland, California. She is the author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Odell teaches digital art at Stanford University. Music by Harrison Foster, Bosques Fragmentados, Samara Jade, and Kritzkom. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

As so-called powerful “industrial civilizations” continue to decline into dysfunction, unable to care for the vast majority, the call to localize, reinvest in household economies, and strengthen our capacity for self-reliance is becoming emphatic. Amongst failing institutions and the remnants of exploitative wealth, this week’s guest, David Holmgren, encourages us to lean into crisis as a temporary portal that allows us to focus on the potential of all that lies around us. In conversation David explores creative reuse, salvage economies, ethical relationships, permaculture, and the intricacies of mass movements that are trying to override a system that is deeply committed to a machination of consumerism and debt. David Holmgren is the co-originator of the permaculture concept following publication of 'Permaculture One', co-authored with Bill Mollison in 1978. His most recent book, 'RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future' shows how people can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens, communities and above all, themselves to be more self-organised, sustainable and resilient into an uncertain future. Music by Roma Ransom and Jody Segar. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. Support the show

Emboldened by the rapid development of technology, a cultural ethos of rugged individualism, globalization, and the monopolization of our media, the era of efficiency in the so-called Global North has significantly altered our communal symbiosis. For many, acts of service that would have once been fulfilled by neighbors and community have now been replaced by apps and gig workers, ultimately commodifying most of our social relations in one form or another. This week on the podcast, we are joined by guest Vijay Prashad to explore how societies take care of themselves, what true public action looks like in crisis, and how movements across the world have resisted the privatization of life and the devaluation of care that we have become accustomed to. Vijay Prashad is the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Chief Editor at LeftWord Books and Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter. His most recent book is Washington Bullets, just out from Monthly Review Press with a preface by Evo Morales Ayma. Music by Nathan Keck, Lizabett Russo, Sidi Touré, and Jonathan Yonts. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show

In the United States, land ownership is dishonorable no matter how you frame it. For example, 60% of land in the U.S. is owned privately and 30% is owned by the federal government, comparatively tribal nations own about 2.5% of their land. Meanwhile, the Gates family recently became the largest owners of American farmland, owning a total of 260,000 acres of land across 19 states, with 242,000 acres being characterized as “farmland.” In today’s episode, we are joined by guest Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy to explore what land ownership means across the United States, how to begin seeding the concept of land return in mainstream consciousness, and the grave injustices we perpetuate when we continue to draw upon Traditional Ecological Knowledge for climate mitigation and adaptation without working towards land rematration simultaneously. Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University. Her research focuses on California Indians, Indigenous feminisms, social & environmental justice, and decolonization. Dr. Risling Baldy is Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk and an enrolled member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California. In 2007, she co-founded the Native Women's Collective, a nonprofit organization that supports the continued revitalization of Native American arts and culture. Music by Aisha Badru, Holy River, and Theresa Andersson. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.Support the show