Future Ecologies (Future Ecologies)

What is a border? Is it simply an edge: a sharp transition between one state and another? Or does it stretch beyond a single dimension, warping land and people through a self-perpetuating 'otherness'?

In this final chapter of Goatwalker, we uncover the ties that bind ecosystems, identities, and communities of all sorts – migrant or otherwise. We'll walk a path to restorative justice: a way to foster new livelihoods through conservation programs and the many uses of an oft-overlooked keystone species of the desert southwest.

Rigid borders are a foundational source of inequity. For as long as they persist, we face a growing need to care for the earth and for each other: to discover our own capacity for Sanctuary.

From Future Ecologies, this is Goatwalker, Part Four: An Open Wound.

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Before this episode, we suggest you start with Part One of this series: On Errantry

And then listen to Part Two: Sanctuary

And then Part Three: Saguaro Juniper

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For musical credits, citations, and more, go to futureecologies.net/listen/fe-3-10-goatwalker-pt4-an-open-wound

Help make Season 4 our best yet: Support the show and join our Patreon community at patreon.com/futureecologies

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As of August 2021, Jim Corbett’s "Goatwalking" has been re-issued in a new 2nd edition. You can purchase a hard copy or an e-book here

A 2nd edition of "Sanctuary for All Life" is also now available from Cascabel Books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Future Ecologies presents "The Right to Feel," a two episode mini-series on the emotional realities of the climate crisis.

This first episode, “Climate Feelings,” is a collection of students’ non-fiction essays and reflections on their personal realities of living with and researching the climate crisis. The first episode opens with an introductory conversation between Naomi Klein and series producer Judee Burr that contextualizes how this class was structured and the writings it evoked.

Over a two-year period, associate professor of climate justice and co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice Naomi Klein taught a small graduate seminar designed to help young scholars put the emotions of the climate and extinction crises into words. The students came from a range of disciplines, ranging from zoology to political science, and they wrote eulogies for predators and pollinators, alongside love letters to paddling and destroyed docks. Across these diverse methods of scholarship, the students uncovered layers of emotion far too often left out of scholarly approaches to the climate emergency. They put these emotions into words, both personal reflections and fictional stories.

“The Right to Feel” was produced on the unceded and asserted territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Find a transcript, citations, credits, and more at www.futureecologies.net/listen/the-right-to-feel

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Part 1: Climate Feelings

2:38 — Introduction by Judee Burr and Naomi Klein

19:05 — Connection to Jericho Willows by Ali Tafreshi

22:27 — Connection to the Water by Foster Salpeter

27:06 — Connection to Family and Land by Sara Savino

31:01 — Scientists and Feelings by Annika Ord

36:00 — Biking away from the Smoke by Ruth Moore

39:32 — Climate Sensitivity on the Bus by Nina Robertson

43:13 — Grief and Climate Change Economics by Felix Giroux

46:36 — The Age of Sanctuary by Melissa Plisic

52:04 — Age of Tehom by Maggie O’Donnell

Our fifth genus includes the Dragons of Perceived Risk: functional, temporal, financial, social, and physical. These dragons are at the root of all fears – steering our decisions in a continuous assessment of risk versus reward.

When it comes to climate change, the risks are global, but distributed unequally. In this chapter, we explore what physical risk can mean to the people dedicated to the health of the planet, as we follow one woman’s journey to becoming a force of nature.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

Are agriculture and biodiversity always at odds? In the late 1970s, a radical environmental movement rejected this dichotomy — rebuking conventional farming in favour of holistic & mutualistic principles, with the dual promise of plentiful food and a vibrant ecosystem.

When Permaculture was first articulated, it emerged from a simple question: why don’t our food systems look more like forests? In the tropics, traditional Indigenous agriculture integrated perennial foods crops so densely that their gardens had often been mistaken for jungle.

Inspired by these techniques, permaculturists adapted forest gardening for the temperate world. But, in their enthusiasm, they too may have been missing the forest for the trees.

Wherever you are, whatever you're going through, we hope you find solace by spending some time with us — in the garden.

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For musical credits, episode transcript, citations, and more:

https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-1-forest-garden

🌱

Future Ecologies is independent and ad-free. This podcast is possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon

Join our community of supporting listeners for access to early releases, a rad discord server, and more

✨https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies ✨

In collaboration with the Serpentine Galleries, Future Ecologies presents a choral, poetic collage featuring the voices of The Understory of the Understory: a virtual symposium bringing together practitioners from many disciplines to consider the ground beneath our feet across ecologies, politics and spiritualities. With vignettes ranging from co-evolution to condensation, from medicine to mycomorphism, and from death to dust and back again, and all generally rooted in a question of earth, soil, and territory.

General Ecology is a long-term, cross-organisational, multi-disciplinary and cross-media research project. Harnessing the network and learnings developed over the last years, the project is the Serpentine’s think tank at the porous thresholds of art, science and the humanities, bringing together the most forward-thinking researchers, artists, activists and practitioners from all disciplines to reflect on the urgent crises of the Anthropocene by thinking ecologically both within the Galleries, across a network of individuals and organisations, and in a wider context.

YouTube Playlists:

The Understory of the Understory Day 1

The Understory of the Understory Day 2

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon community

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Cover image: Future Ecologies x Giles Round x Bea Leiderman

Food security, climate adaptation, and vibrant biodiversity all in one place — welcome to the ancient and diverse technologies of Sea Gardening.

These widespread (but often overlooked) monumental rock features are proof positive of thriving Indigenous maricultural systems all around the Pacific Rim, since time immemorial. These spaces are not only simply stunningly beautiful spots to hang out, they're also a powerful symbol of ecocultural restoration; of Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, and internationalism; of relationship building; and of the kind of future that is possible as we adapt to a changing climate and rising sea levels. We hope you find them as inspiring as we do.

Join us as we visit a sea garden, learn about how they work, and meet a few of the people bringing them back to life.

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Visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-6-2-sea-garden for full credits, links, citations, photos, a transcript, and more.

Support the making of this independent, ad-free podcast at futureecologies.net/join for as little as $1 each month, and get early episode releases and exclusive bonus content. Chip in a little more and we'll send you stickers, an embroidered patch, and a cozy hat.

Future Ecologies is an independent podcast about the living world and its interrelations. The show varies in format, but this is a taste of what you can expect.

New to the show? Find our whole back catalogue and subscribe for new episodes — right here in your podcast app, or at futureecologies.net

Been with us for a while? Send this trailer with someone who shares the planet with you.

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This ad-free podcast is supported by our listeners on Patreon. Join our community for as little as $1/month for early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more.

In our sixth genus, we dive deep into the Dragons of Sunk Cost – the investments that work against our climate interests.

Some of these may simply be financial, but they may also be emotional: our goals and aspirations, our patterns of behaviour, and our attachments to the places around us.

In this episode, we focus our attention on Place Attachment, as we tag along with the ṮEṮÁĆES Climate Action Project: a W̱SÁNEĆ-led eco-cultural revitalization project.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

Vision without eyes? Intelligence without a brain? Are plants more akin to us than we have been prepared to acknowledge? Or are they different in ways we will forever strain to imagine? One way or another, a vine with some unusual abilities is shaking the field of botany to its foundations.

On this episode: Zoë Schlanger (author of the newly-released, New York Times bestselling book The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth) takes us to the misty rainforests of Chile and back to report on what might just be the world’s most extraordinary plant — hidden in plain sight.

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With music by Modern Biology, Mort Garson, Hotspring, Thumbug, and Sunfish Moon Light.

For credits, citations, transcript, and more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-10-everything-will-be-vine

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🌱 Future Ecologies is an independent, ad-free, listener-supported podcast.

Be the first to hear new episodes, and get exclusive bonus content, behind the scenes updates, and access to our discord server, plus stickers, patches, and toques @ futureecologies.net/join

We're excited to share another beautiful guest episode with you today.

In this piece, originally broadcast in 2 parts on The Wind (one of our favourite podcasts), producer Eleanor Qull is taking us on a pilgrimage in honour of, and in tribute to that most collective monarch — the monarch butterfly. Through those lepidopteran migrants, it’s a story of scale, agency, and spiritual offering in a changing world.

Eleanor cooked up a special ~1 hour version just for us. It's spacious, equal parts silly and deadpan, with a big scoop of mono no aware.

If you’d like to see pictures of the pilgrimage offerings from each stop, you can find them at thewind.org/episodes/the-merry-monarchs, along with complete list of citations, plus the original unabridged 2-part version — where the tour makes an additional stop (in space).

As is tradition, we're releasing all the original music we composed for the latest season of Future Ecologies as a set of soundtracks. For the first time ever, they are also available on all major music streaming services. Enjoy!

Auditory Compost by Sunfish Moon Light

Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music

Convergence by Thumbug

Bandcamp, Spotify (Side A | Side B), Apple Music (Side A | Side B)

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Find all of our seasonal soundtracks at futureecologies.net/albums

And get free download codes on our Patreon ✨

Meet the Fire Watchers of Skeetchestn: the people keeping their community safe during nearby wildfires, and working to bring good fire back to the land. Join us for this conclusion to our visit to Secwépemc territories as we discuss a way to bring different knowledge systems together: a synthesis of western science and Indigenous understanding.

This is the 5th instalment in our series of indeterminate length, "On Fire". While you don't need to listen to them in order, you may want to at least catch up Part 4 (Under Water) before diving into this one.

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Links, citations, photos, episode transcript and more

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🌱 Future Ecologies is supported by our community of listeners like you.

Join for as little as $1/month to access early episode releases, bonus and behind the scenes content, our discord server, and more at futureecologies.net/join

Listening to The Disintegration Loops during wildfire season — a review of William Basinski’s seminal album as a meditation on looping thoughts, physical disintegration, and fire.

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Subscribe to The Wind wherever you get your podcasts, and visit thewind.org

You can find a transcript of this episode at https://the-wind.simplecast.com/episodes/the-disintegration-loops/transcript

Jim Corbett was not your typical rancher. Over the course of decades roaming the borderlands of the desert southwest, he developed a practice that he referred to as 'goatwalking' - a form of prophetic wandering and desert survival based on goat-human symbiosis. For Jim, 'goatwalking' provided both physical and spiritual sustenance, and allowed him to become at home, for a time, in wildlands.

To many, this modern-day Don Quixote would seem an unlikely figure to have sparked one of the most important social movements of the 20th century, but to those who knew him well, it was hardly a surprise. Even today, his influence is felt throughout the borderlands of the Southwestern United States, and beyond.

This is the story of a man behind a movement – the biographical first part of a 4-part series.

From Future Ecologies, this is Goatwalker, Part One: On Errantry.

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon community

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As of August 2021, Jim Corbett’s "Goatwalking" has been re-issued in a new 2nd edition. You can purchase a hard copy or an e-book here

A 2nd edition of "Sanctuary for All Life" is also now available from Cascabel Books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

In the early 1980s, the outbreak of civil war across Central America forced unprecedented numbers of refugees to seek asylum in the United States, putting the recently passed 'Refugee Act' of 1980 to the test. There was just one catch: the Reagan Administration was providing funding to right-wing governments that most of these refugees were fleeing. As a result, Central American refugees making the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands were being intercepted, denied asylum, and summarily deported.

As this crisis unfolded, a ragtag group of self-proclaimed 'goatherds errant', led by philosopher-turned-rancher Jim Corbett, took it upon themselves to enact U.S. immigration law at the grassroots level. In so doing, they sparked a national movement that continues to the present day, turning the concept of 'civil disobedience' upside-down.

This is the story of the Sanctuary movement – the 2nd part of a 4-part series.

From Future Ecologies, this is Goatwalker, Part Two: Sanctuary.

👉 We suggest you start with Part One of this series 👈

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon. We've got bonus episodes, stickers, patches, and a rad discord community.

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As of August 2021, Jim Corbett’s "Goatwalking" has been re-issued in a new 2nd edition. You can purchase a hard copy or an e-book here

A 2nd edition of "Sanctuary for All Life" is also now available from Cascabel Books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

What does it mean to live on an island? Is it to be independent from, or inexorably dependent on the rest of the world? And when the ecosystem's physical limitations are so clearly circumscribed, do people behave more "environmentally"?

In this episode, we visit Adam's home island of Galiano, and find out just how big its ecological footprint really is.

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Explore the full One Island, One Earth report (and interactive map)

💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

You'll get exclusive bonus content (like a blooper reel from this episode and extended interviews), access to one of the best discord servers out there, stickers, patches, early episode releases, and more!

Full credits, citations, transcript, and lots more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-6-an-island-unto-itself

Dams remain one of the ultimate demonstrations of human power over nature. Wild rivers can be tamed to deliver energy for industry, lakes for recreation, and water for agriculture. But severing the link between land and sea has come with grave ecological costs. The impact of dams on salmon populations has been especially obvious and painful.

This is part one of a two-part series on dam removals. In this episode, we go to the Klamath river to examine the fierce conflict (and unlikely partnerships) in pursuit of the deconstruction of 4 major dams. Part 2 is here.

This episode was originally published in November 2018. We've added a brief update about some recent developments in 2022. Read more about the news here

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This episode features Ryan Hilperts, Erica Terrence, Bill Tripp, and Senator Jeff Merkley.

Music for this episode was produced by Brian D. Tripp, Loam Zoku, Kieran Fearing, Sour Gout, the Western Family String Band, the Clan Stewart Pipe Band, and Sunfish Moonlight.

A full list of citations and a transcript can be found at our website: futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-9-swimming-upstream

At the heart of the Salish Sea lies the Fraser River Estuary: home to over half of the population of the Province of British Columbia, thousands of endemic species, and one world-famous pod of orcas. But as the human population of the region has grown, wildlife populations — including salmonids, orcas, and over 100 species at risk — have been plummeting.

As economic imperatives press up against ecological thresholds, a mega-project that has been in development for over a decade is poised to further alter the character of the estuary, with massive implications for the health of Salish Sea and its many residents.

In this episode, we ask: can we find ways to hear each other through all the noise?

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For lots of photos, transcripts, citations, musical credits, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority's responses to our questions, head to www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-2-terminal

UPDATE

The decision to approve Roberts Bank Terminal 2 was announced on April 20, 2023 by Steven Guilbeault, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, who said “With 370 environmental protection measures that the port must meet, we have set a high bar for this project to proceed. For the first time ever, we are asking a proponent to put up $150 million to guarantee the strict environmental conditions are met and habitats are protected for species such as the Western Sandpiper. Moreover, this decision is paired with massive government investment in the protection of threatened species like Chinook salmon and endangered Southern resident killer whales. “

The measures that have been announced have not addressed the concerns of the environmental and labor movements that oppose the project.  Misty MacDuffee, who you heard in this episode, responded: “All viability assessments of southern resident killer whales indicate their threats must be significantly lowered for recovery to occur. Approving this project does the opposite. It increases threats, worsens their feeding conditions and increases their likelihood of extinction.”

While the approval has been made, this story is far from over.  The project faces additional regulatory hurdles, a changing market environment, and continued opposition as it enters an estimated six years of construction.  We’ll continue to follow the story as it unfolds and we’ll keep you updated.

Read more about the Roberts Bank decision

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Future Ecologies is independent and ad-free. This podcast is possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon

Join our community of supporting listeners for access to early releases, a rad discord server, and more

✨https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies ✨

If you'd prefer to support the show with a one-time donation, you can do so at https://www.futureecologies.net/donate

And if you can't support the show financially, you can always leave us a nice rating (or even a review) wherever you listen. We post our favourites at

Ecological science has had a persistent blind spot: the deep involvement of Indigenous peoples in managing their lands and waters. The return of Sea Otters from the brink of extinction, while celebrated, was enacted under a framework of settler colonialism. As voracious predators themselves, otters compete with humans for all of the same sea foods. One shellfish in particular has become a flash point for fisheries – a modest mollusc, Haliotis kamtschatkana: Northern Abalone.

This is part two of our three-part series on kelp worlds. Click here to listen to part one, Trophic Cascadia.

This episode features Kii'iljuus Barbara Wilson, Anne Salomon, and Charles Menzies.

For a full list of music credits, citations, and more, head over to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-8-ocean-people

💖 To support the work that we do, and to get access to monthly bonus mini-episodes, a community Discord, and more, pay what you can at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Bull Kelp artwork by Sarah Jim

Guest producers Sadie Couture and Russell Gendron explore the concept of invasive species through a look at a small island community, a species doing some serious damage to the ecosystem, and the complex issues at play when a plant or animal moves into a new territory.

Sadie and Russell talk to current and former residents of Mayne Island, Indigenous elders, and conservation professionals to think through what it means to call something an “invasive species,” how to manage our ever-changing relationships to plants and animals, and how we might prepare for the certainty of change in the future.

This episode was originally a short piece on the Mayne Island Sound Map, entitled “The Joy of Cooking Fenison.”

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We rely on listener support to make this work possible.

Support Future Ecologies for $1/month, and join the producers for a discord Ask-Us-Anything on February 3rd

https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

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For musical credits, citations, and photos click here.

From Love and Radio:

Adam Zaretsky is a bioartist who explores the manipulation of DNA, the fringes of genetic modification, and butts up against the ethical boundaries of science and beyond.

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Future Ecologies season 5 arrives July 7. Listen early at patreon.com/futureecologies

We're featuring another podcast we think should be in your feed (if it isn't already): MEDIA INDIGENA.

This episode, originally released on May 27 2021, features a conversation with Dr. Max Liboiron – Director of the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research, and author of the new book Pollution is Colonialism.

Don't miss Part Two of this important discussion. Find episode 259 of MEDIA INDIGENA wherever you listen to podcasts, or visit https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/pollution-is-colonialism-part-two-ep-259

For a copy of Dr. Liboiron's book: https://www.dukeupress.edu/pollution-is-colonialism

For more on the CLEAR Lab: https://civiclaboratory.nl/

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Thanks to all our Patrons who are making Future Ecologies Season 4 possible.

To join our community, hang out with us on discord, get stickers, patches, and bonus audio content, head to https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Future Ecologies presents "The Right to Feel," a two episode mini-series on the emotional realities of the climate crisis.

The second and final episode, “Eulogies,” is based on fictional writing from the class. Students imagine and eulogize something that could be harmed by the climate emergency, and then imagine a speculative future in which action was taken to mitigate that harm.

Over a two-year period, associate professor of climate justice and co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice Naomi Klein taught a small graduate seminar designed to help young scholars put the emotions of the climate and extinction crises into words. The students came from a range of disciplines, ranging from zoology to political science, and they wrote eulogies for predators and pollinators, alongside love letters to paddling and destroyed docks. Across these diverse methods of scholarship, the students uncovered layers of emotion far too often left out of scholarly approaches to the climate emergency. They put these emotions into words, both personal reflections and fictional stories.

“The Right to Feel” was produced on the unceded and asserted territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Find a transcript, citations, credits, and more at www.futureecologies.net/listen/the-right-to-feel

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Part 2: Eulogies

02:15 – Clione by Annika Ord

12:49 –The Abundance Will Be Forever by Judith Burr

24:03 – A Eulogy for Wolves by Niki

33:33 – Return of the Hidden Worlds by Sadie Rittman

44:59 — Eulogy for the Bees by Rhonda Thygesen

North America abounds in wildlife — but why?

At the turn of the last century, many observers believed that species that we take for granted today would disappear forever. In this episode, we share a story about the way that wildlife conservation came to be practiced, the lives that it privileged, and the lives that it left out.

But despite any controversy, one aspect of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (or "the NAM" for our purposes) is indisputable: its principles explain the landscape of laws and institutions in which North Americans enjoy nature today.

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

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Future Ecologies is only possible with the support of you, our listeners!

Our patrons get early episode releases + other bonus content, a community discord server (which runs the gamut from meme trading, recipes and fermentation, nature sightings, media suggestions, to discussions on environmental restoration), plus stickers, patches, and more!

We are an independent and unaffiliated podcast. Listener contributions make it possible for us to keep producing stories that matter, make them sound great, and keep them ad-free.

Join our community of supporting listeners on Patreon for as little as $1/month

This is our final chapter, and our last genus of Dragon: Immobilis – the dragons of Limited Behaviour. This genus contains only two species: Immobilis signum, or the Dragon of Tokenism, and Immobilis jevonsii, or the Rebound Effect. They are among the most pernicious dragons, especially for people who already care deeply about the climate.

As we unpack this small but important genus, we discover how they are tied to the global movement to divest from fossil fuels. Once again we find ourselves with the themes that have run throughout our entire series: the power and flexibility of language & narrative.

Visit futureecologies.net/dragons to learn more about the Dragons of Inaction (including their names, descriptions, and phylogeny), and find all of our citations, guest speakers, and musicians.

We’ve got an amazing 4th Season headed your way! While we’ve got our heads down for the rest of the year, we’re going to feature some episodes from other podcasts we think you’ll love.

First up is an episode from the kind folks at How to Save a Planet. Dedicated Future Ecologies listeners might notice that this episode connects nicely with some of the work we covered in our first season, specifically episodes six and nine. There’s fire, there’s dam removal, there’s land back, and much more.

Find more episodes of H2SAP on Spotify or at how2saveaplanet.show

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PS. Our amazing supporters on Patreon are not only making our Season 4 possible, they’re keeping it ad-free for everyone to enjoy. If you are in a position to help (even just $1/month), it goes a long way. We’re almost at 200 supporting listeners, so please join us at patreon.com/futureecologies

PPS. Listen on for a big announcement before the episode 📻(& send your campus and community radio stations to futureecologies.net/radio )

How do we account for nature? We can build on it and we can take from it, but what is its intrinsic value — in and of itself?

On this episode: Adam Davis (of Ecosystem Investment Partners), and a cultural transformation happening right now — reshaping the intersection of environmentalism and capitalism. Welcome to the restoration economy.

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Music: Thumbug, Local Artist, Yu Su, SFML

Cover art: Alé Silva

Thanks: Ian Wyatt, Ava Stanley, Aila Takenaka, Alex Janz

Transcript, Citations, etc: https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-6-making-a-living

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Help us keep making this show for as little as $1 each month.

Our supporters get access to early episode releases, a community discord server, discounted merch, and exclusive bonus content: for example, a follow-up Q&A conversation with Adam Davis.

For a new season of bonus Patreon mini-episodes, we’re going beyond kelp worlds to meet the rest of our seaweed sojourners.

Today, we’re stepping into a world of colour – of light, and shadow. Our first algal introduction is a stunning seaweed, known to some as rainbow leaf (or Mazzaella).

We're unlocking this first episode of of our Patreon-exclusive series: “Seaweed Sojourning”, as we explore The Curious World of Seaweed with Josie Iselin. Pay what you can – as little as a $1 per month – to get the rest of the series, and our whole back catalogue of bonus content.

https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Episode artwork by Josie Iselin (from The Curious World of Seaweed). For more images of Mazzaella in its iridescent glory, check out our Instagram

This episode is the second in a 3-part series. Before listening to this one, you may want to catch up with FE3.1 - Nature, by Design? Part 1: Taking the Neo-Eoscenic Route

As we continue to discuss the practice of ecological restoration, an important question emerges: is wilderness itself an illusion? We all have a picture of wilderness in our minds, but how did that image come to be? Join us for a tale of two simulacra.

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Please consider adopting an episode for transcription

Support the show and join our Patreon community

Mushrooms that smell? Fungi can be pungent, provocative, and at times irresistible. While we might not always recognize it, we're in constant chemical communication with the world around us through olfaction. For those with the senses to discern them, aromas, perfumes, stinks, and stenches can all convey useful information. Some scents are warnings, and others are deterrents, but the most alluring are expert portraits of our animal fascinations, honed through evolution to attract, captivate, and compel.

In this episode, we stop to smell the Russulas – examining the fascinating fragrances of Kingdom Fungi, with the help of Michael Hathaway, Merlin Sheldrake, and Anicka Yi.

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For musical credits, citations, and the Mushroom Smelling Wheel, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon community

Cover artwork by Leya Tess

Our third genus contains the Dragons of Social Comparison and Social Norms.

Every aspect of who we are is mediated by these Dragons: we adjust to the norms of our communities – the people we interact with, and the people we consider to be our peers around the world. As with everything, these norms are subject to change. Their flexibility is based on our collective willingness to share, and to listen.

When it comes to the climate crisis, community conversations – in whatever form they may take – are integral to our ability to adapt. 

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

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Please note that this chapter does not contain direct reference to the ongoing protest movement against white supremacy and police brutality. However, we believe the lessons of this episode are as relevant to this cause as they are to issues of climate change.

We Walk the Earth is a podcast that explores creativity, curiosity, and cultural evolution through personal conversations, and the occasional sonic journey.

In this episode, Mendel and Sergio discuss podcasting, art, music, hope, and lots more besides. We hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain into the making of Future Ecologies, and Mendel's unfiltered inner monologue.

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Subscribe to We Walk The Earth wherever you find podcasts, or get in touch at wewalktheearth.org

Catch the upcoming Future Ecologies release right now on our Patreon: patreon.com/futureecologies

In this conclusion to our trilogy, we're looking at a proposal to move beyond the concept of "rangelands" through the rewilding of the American west — meaning, the return of forgotten landscapes, species, and ecologies not commonly seen in generations (not to mention improved water and carbon storage). But at least one thing isn't compatible with this vision: grazing cattle on public lands.

Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2

And find citations, a transcript, and credits on our website

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This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and now toques! Head to futureecologies.net/join and choose whatever option works best for you.

Future Ecologies is recorded on the unceded territories of the Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓əm) Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh), and Tsleil- Waututh (Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh) Nations - otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia. But what does that mean?

In this proto-episode of Future Ecologies, we talk to indigenous plant diva T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss, about how, as non-indigenous people, we can podcast respectfully on unceded indigenous territory. It’s our way of acknowledging the the land we live on and the ever-present role that indigenous peoples will play in the stories to come. Also, Cease tells some great stories of her own.

Find show notes for this episode at www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-1-decolonize-this-podcast

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The story of modern-day North America begins with the systematic genocide and displacement of indigenous peoples. The social and ecological consequences of this founding trauma have become clearer over time, but so far relatively little has been done to address this at the federal, state, and provincial levels. In this episode, we zero in on two violently displaced tribes in California - the Wiyot and the Amah Mutsun - and tell the stories of their respective journeys to return to the spiritual centers of their worlds. Along the way, we ask a simple question: can the wrongs of the past be addressed, at least in part, by the return of stolen lands?

Find show notes for this episode at www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-2-this-is-where-it-begins

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What do you do when you find the last individual of a species previously thought to be extinct? The two rarest plants on earth both live in the Presidio of San Francisco, they’re both in the same genus, and there’s only one left of each. Is there a future for these species, and if so, what does it look like? And what can species on the brink tell us about ourselves and the future of our ecosystems?

Find show notes for this episode at www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-3-the-loneliest-plants

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During the devastating September 9, 2017 earthquake off the coast of southern Mexico, residents of Mexico City and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala witnessed mysterious bursts of light in the sky. These lights, however, were not UFOs, exploding transformers, or evidence of a mysterious government conspiracy - instead, they were examples of a long-documented phenomenon known as “earthquake lights.”

Can these mysterious lights in the sky help us learn to anticipate earthquakes? Can physics explain the strange animal behaviour linked to seismic activity? We unravel the science – and controversy – of a new interpretation of geophysics, and we talk to two groups developing very different technologies with the same goal: saving lives from earthquake disaster.

Find shownotes for this episode at www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-4-luces-en-el-cielo

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The past two years have been the worst fire years on record across the west coast of North America, with whole communities being engulfed in flames and smoke enveloping major cities for weeks. But as the airways fill once again with stories of valiant fire-fighters and people who’ve lost their homes, we answer some burning questions that seem to always fly under the radar. For example:

• How long have fires been burning on this planet
• Have our ecologies always been adapted to fire?
• What role did indigenous peoples play in lighting fires in the past?
• And how can we return prescribed burns to sensitive ecosystems?

To answer these questions, we talk to regional experts, including internationally renowned ethnobotanist Dr. Nancy Turner, in this first part of our two-part three-part series, On Fire.

Find shownotes, sources, and musical credits at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-5-on-fire-pt-1

Ready for Part Two? https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-6-on-fire-pt-2

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In this second part of our two-episode series, On Fire, we look at ways to move our civilization forward – without continuing to deny the role of fire in our landscapes. We discuss how prescribed burns are currently conducted, radical new (and old) perspectives on land management policy, and practical techniques for everyone in fire country to protect their homes, their communities, and their forests.

Find shownotes, sources, and musical credits at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-6-on-fire-pt-2

Catch Part 1: https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-5-on-fire-pt-1

Update: there is now a 3rd part to this story! Find it at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-2-on-fire-pt-3

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In the fall of 2017, a series of devastating earthquakes rocked southern Mexico. But what if it’s not the earthquakes themselves that pose the greatest threat to these communities? The conflict between institutional and grassroots disaster response in the aftermath of these earthquakes provides a powerful illustration of the tensions that have underlain the concept of development ever since President Truman’s second inaugural address in 1949. In this episode, Oaxacan deprofessionalized intellectual Gustavo Esteva guides us through his thinking on capitalism, disaster response, and what lies beyond development.

Find shownotes, sources, and musical credits at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-7-help-not-helping

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💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

How are human activities changing our oceans, and why do these changes all seem to support a new age of jellyfish? What are these ancient, diverse beings: harbingers of doom, or simply the most well-adapted form of life in the sea? In this episode we go jellyfishing for answers with preeminent jellyfish researchers Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin and Dr. Lucas Brotz.

Find show notes for this episode at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-8-jellyfishing-for-answers

If you’d like to dive into more detail about a number of fascinating jellyfish species, we have a series of mini-episodes featuring Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin – available only to our Patreon supporters at www.patreon.com/futureecologies

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Dams remain one of the ultimate demonstrations of human power over nature. Wild rivers can be tamed to deliver energy for industry, lakes for recreation, and water for agriculture. But severing the link between land and sea has come with grave ecological costs. The impact of dams on salmon populations has been especially obvious and painful.

This is part one of a two-part series on dam removals. In this episode, we return to the Klamath river to examine the fierce conflict (and unlikely partnerships) in pursuit of the deconstruction of 4 major dams.

Find shownotes, sources, and musical credits at https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-9-swimming-upstream

UPDATE

In November of 2022, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the removal of the 4 key dams along the Klamath River - a huge victory for salmon and for the Indigenous tribes and environmental groups that had worked for over two decades towards this end. The dams are expected to be removed by the end of 2024 in what will be the largest dam removal effort in history. Scientists hope to study the impacts of dam removal on the Klamath river’s ecology and salmon populations. We’ll continue to follow this story as it unfolds and we’ll let you know what happens.

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In this conclusion to our series on dam removal, we travel from the Klamath up to the Olympic Peninsula, and the site of the former Elwha and Glines Canyon dams. What did it actually take to bring the dams down, and what lessons can we take forward to other ambitious ecosystem renewal projects?

For extended show notes, musical credits and more, head to www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-1-10-rushing-downriver

Corrections to this episode:

• While salmon fry may have to contend with hungry bass in other river systems, the Elwha is not one of them.
• The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife releases specifically Chinook salmon into the Elwha river.

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Forever is a really long time. This episode is about death, and its transformative power on the landscape. It’s also the last episode of Season 1.

It may be trivial to remind you that death is an unavoidable part of life. However, death is an act that leaves ripples in life. Some may last for thousands of years.⁣⁣

You might expect us to talk about new sustainable burial technologies (See: Jae Rhim Lee & Katrina Spade), and honestly so did we. As we started working on it, we realized that we would rather let TED Talks handle that sort of thing. Instead, this episode takes a broad view through the lens of ritual, urban planning, and ecological entanglements, with a distinct focus on the Salish Sea.

It’s been a huge honour to bring you all of these stories over the past 5 months. This seemed like the most appropriate way to close out our first season. We can’t wait to bring you Season 2!

For extended show notes, musical credits and more, head to www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-1-11-funerary-ecologies

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We’ve dropped an album. Those in the know might recognize the prolific Sunfish Moon Light as the musical alter-ego of Future Ecologies co-host, Adam Huggins.

Now you can listen to the original, full-length instrumentals that set the mood for Season 1.

Click here to preview the album for free, or buy it for $8.

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💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

We've unlocked our 11-episode Patreon series – Dr. Lisa-ann Gershwin, and occasionally the two of us, dive deep into jellyfish species and phyla. Find stories and science on:

- Aurelia labiata (the moon jelly)

- Turritopsis dohrnii (the immortal jelly)

- Chrysaora achlyos (the black sea nettle)

- Bazinga rieki (the little trickster who eats sunlight)

- Chironex fleckeri (the deadly box jelly)

- Aequoria victoria (the nobel-prize worthy crystal jelly)

- Ctenophores (the comb jellies)

- The Irukandjis (the doom jellies)

- Siphonophores (colonies of stringy, stingy thingies)

- Polyorchis penincilatus (the disappearing jelly)

- & Salpidae (your long lost pelagic cousins)

Find musical credits and show notes at futureecologies.net/listen/unlocked-jellyfish-overlords

For early access to bonus episodes and other content, join us at patreon.com/futureecologies

Lichens: ecosystems unto themselves. They’re diverse, apparently ubiquitous, and foundational to life on terrestrial earth. But this episode isn’t really about lichen. It’s about an endangered species that relies on a lichen diet – a diet that is disappearing as fast as the old growth forest in British Columbia. Southern Mountain Caribou are at the nexus of a heated debate about conservation. What can we save? What should we let go? And most importantly, what are we willing to admit about the policies that brought us to this point?

For extended show notes, musical credits and more, head to www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-1-enlichenment-and-the-triage-of-life

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Another year, another fire season. We’ve already had a lot to say about wildfire, forest science, traditional ecological knowledge, and prescribed burning, but we’re not done yet! In this episode, we tour the Province of BC (and dip down into Washington State) to meet vigilante fire fighters, researchers, and First Nations Chiefs: all working in their communities towards a future of true wildfire resilience.

For extended show notes, musical credits, and photos from our travels, head to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-2-on-fire-pt-3

This episode was a condensed version of a 2-part series on wildfire resilience produced for the Bulkley Valley Research Centre. If you want to dive even deeper, you can download and listen to those episodes at www.futureecologies.net/bvrc

Catch Part 1: https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-5-on-fire-pt-1

and Part 2: https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-6-on-fire-pt-2

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Who, or what, is a Naturalist? With the help of author Briony Penn, we trace the intertwined stories of two pivotal characters in the modern environmental movement: Cecil Paul (Wa'xaid) & the late Ian McTaggart-Cowan. These larger-than-life figures inspired a generation to reconnect, intellectually and spiritually, with the natural world. Associate producer Fern Yip investigates what it all means to the youth of today.

Adam and Fern are your hosts on this episode. Mendel is busy making a series of bonus mini-episodes on the weird and wonderful world of Fungi exclusively for our supporters on Patreon. Support the show, and get access to these episodes for as little as $1/month.

Music in this episode was produced by kmathz, VALSI, Luke and Charissa Garrigus, Claude Debussy, Leave, Sunfish Moon Light.

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Today is the 10th anniversary of the rediscovery of the Franciscan manzanita! To celebrate, we're re-releasing this episode from Season 1.

What do you do when you find the last individual of a species previously thought to be extinct? The two rarest plants on earth both live in the Presidio of San Francisco, they’re both in the same genus, and there’s only one left of each. Is there a future for these species, and if so, what does it look like? And what can species on the brink tell us about ourselves and the future of our ecosystems?

An update from Dan Glusenkamp:

“Today the mother plant is thriving, hundreds of clones are growing in dozens of botanic gardens across California, and baby plants are being reintroduced to their ancestral home in the Presidio. What’s more, the project inspired even more ambitious work –for example, Newsome Administration recently budgeted funds to enable scientists to collect seeds from all California’s rare plants, so they can be placed in long term storage toward ending extinction.”

Click here to learn more about the California Native Plant Society

Music for this episode was produced by PORTBOU and Sunfish Moon Light.

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💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

No matter where we call home, the land beneath us has been in a long and constant relationship with people. Some of these people may be our ancestors, some may not. This episode is about how we move forward from a fragmented past; how we build community in our shared spaces; and how a women-led movement can bring collective healing to a deeply storied land. Come with us to Ohlone territory – from Tuyshtak (Mt. Diablo) to the East Bay, and meet the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

This episode features Corrina Gould, Johnella LaRose, Gavin Raders, and Siena Ezekiel.

Music in this episode was produced by VALSI, Ben Hamilton, Hildegard’s Ghost, Leucrocuta, Spencer W Stuart, Cat Can Do, Jose Guzman, and Sunfish Moon Light.

To learn more about the West Berkeley Shell Mound project, visit shellmound.org or watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZoapMtyRsA If you’d like to learn more about the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, and pay your Shuumi Tax, go to sogoreate-landtrust.com. Or, if you live in Seattle, check out realrentduwamish.org to pay your rent. Eureka listeners, you can find the Wiyot’s honor tax at honortax.org. Curious about Planting Justice and their nursery? Check out plantingjustice.org and rollingrivernursery.com.

Find full show notes for this episode at www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-4-rematriation

To support the work that we do, and to get access to monthly bonus mini-episodes and more, pay what you can at www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Cover photo of Tuyshtak (Mt Diablo) by Hitchster

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💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

The world is full of sound. With the help of Hildegard Westerkamp, Bernie Krause, and Nick Friedman, we untangle some of the amazing ways that we can learn about our planet by listening to it. Join us as we explore the nature of sound through the sounds of nature. Featuring sublime electroacoustic composition, stunning field recordings, and cutting-edge scientific research, it all begins by listening.

For a full list of music & soundscape credits, citations, and more, head over to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-5-the-nature-of-sound

To support the work that we do, and to get access to monthly bonus mini-episodes and more, pay what you can at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Cover illustration by Katie Lukes

This is an excerpt from episode 5 of our Patreon-exclusive series: “Meet Your Fungal Associates”

Pay what you can – as little as a $1 per month – to unlock this entire episode, and our whole back catalogue of bonus monthly mini-episodes.

https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

A more efficient world is simply cleaner, greener, and more sustainable. Or is it? This month, we’re exploring some of the ways we can reset our long-standing paradigms of labour, productivity, and efficiency. Take a break with us.

For a full list of music credits, citations, and more, head over to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-6-podcasters-of-the-world-relax

For more by Outside / In, get to http://outsideinradio.org

To read Conrad’s work, find “Alternatives to Growth: Efficiency Shifting” or “Workers of the World, Relax” at your favourite book store.

To support the work that we do, and to get access to monthly bonus mini-episodes and more, pay what you can at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Photo by Alex Goetz

How did nuclear testing accidentally reshape our understanding of food webs and marine ecology? Why did sea otters bounce back from near-extinction on some parts of the Pacific coast, but are still absent in others? We speak with Dr. Jim Estes (a godfather of the field) about a series of serendipitous events that led to the re-writing of textbook ecology.

This is part one of our three-part series on kelp worlds.

For a full list of music credits, citations, and more, head over to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-7-trophic-cascadia

💖 To support the work that we do, and to get access to monthly bonus mini-episodes, a community Discord, and more, pay what you can at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

In this very special donkumentary, we’re headed to the Mojave Desert — to Death Valley, in particular — where we find one animal at the centre of a heated debate in land management: the hardy wild burro (AKA donkey, ass, or Equus asinus).

These feral burros, beloved by some and reviled by others, are an introduced species in the desert southwest, but are uniquely entangled in its human history. Since before the establishment of Death Valley as a national monument, they have been widely regarded as overpopulated on the Mojave landscape. In recent years, rising costs, public controversy, and some conflicting legislation have brought the sustainability of conventional burro management into crisis.

But not everyone is convinced that they’re harmful. Could this crisis be avoided altogether if we looked at burros under a different light?

Are they crowding out the native and endangered fauna? Or are they filling an ancient ecosystem niche? Join us as we meet the land managers, ecologists, and donkey racers all trying to do right by the desert.

Find photos, credits, a transcript, and citations at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-6-3-get-yer-ass-outta-here

— — —

We rely on listener support to stay independent, ad free, and making the best podcast we can make.

Help us keep the lights on at patreon.com/futureecologies — and get perks like early episode releases, bonus audio content, stickers, patches, a cozy hat, access to our community discord server, and your name on our website

Get new episodes in your email: join our mailing list

You can also find us on Bluesky, Instagram, Mastodon, & iNaturalist

Spiders Song is a story about a quest to hear the greatest symphony on Earth: the music of evolution. Along the way, we get to know some of nature’s most surprising musicians — the paradise jumping spiders.

Part 1 is the Spiders

Part 2 is the Song

Headphones advised.

— — —

For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song

Missed Part 1? You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureecologies.net

— — —

But there's more to this story than just a couple podcast episodes!

We're also releasing an open-source system which may be used to hear evolutionary patterns as music.

As you'll hear in Part 2, data sonification, the sonic equivalent of data visualization, has found applications in many scientific fields, but never before in phylogenetics: the study of evolutionary relationships.

This sonification system is intended as an experimental platform for evolutionary biologists to explore and communicate their data through sound, and for musicians to take inspiration from biodiversity. It is built in Max/MSP, and released under a GNU-GPLv3 license for customization and further development. 

Find a lovingly illustrated explanation of our sonification at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song#explanation

• Listen to / download the full length sonification on its own
• Get the source code and a detailed technical explanation, and
• Watch a video of the patch in action

— — —

Funding for this series was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.

But ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going and growing, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

Our patrons get early episode releases, exclusive bonus audio content, access to a fantastic discord server, 50% discounts on all merch, and more (eg. a livestream tour of the sonification system that we built).

Can we sequester our carbon and eat it too?

For the first time in 4 seasons, we're discussing natural climate solutions, and in particular, regenerative agriculture. Joining us is agrologist and fellow podcaster, Scott Gillespie (of Plants Dig Soil) to get into the nitty gritty of farming for soil carbon — its promise, possibility and feasibility.

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Support Future Ecologies (pay what you can >$1/month) @ futureecologies.net/patrons 🌱 — Get access to our delightful discord server, early episode releases, an exclusive podcast feed for bonus content, and more:

Find a full list of citations, and a transcript for this episode: futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-8-ground-truthing

A few quick announcements!

Get in touch with us: https://www.futureecologies.net/#contact-section

Meet the musicians we've featured: https://www.futureecologies.net/music

Download the Official Soundtrack of Season 3: https://www.futureecologies.net/season-3-ost

💖Support the show and join our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

We're borrowing an episode from one of our all-time favourite shows: Threshold, a Peabody Award-winning documentary podcast about our place in the natural world.

Now in their 5th Season, "Hark", Threshold producer Amy Martin is exploring sound itself: investigating what it means to listen to the nonhuman voices on our planet — and the cost if we don’t. With mounting social and ecological crises, what happens when we tune into the life all around us?

Other episodes from Hark cover the sounds of the primordial microbial ooze, of insects, of fish, and of plants. Today, we're featuring episode 3: on the sounds of coral reefs, and how listening to them may help them survive a warming world.

Find Threshold (and the rest of Hark) wherever you get podcasts, or at thresholdpodcast.org

Is “Nature” a real thing, or is it just an idea? When we talk about restoring ecosystems, what are we restoring them to? Or more precisely, when?

This episode is the first part of a conversation between Mendel, Adam, and two of Adam’s mentors, wherein we explore what it means to practice ecological restoration as a form of art.

Click here for photos and details of Oliver’s artwork / restoration project in the Grandview Cut.

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Two corrections for this episode:

• Prototaxites and giant horsetails (Calamites) were extant ~350 million years before the Eocene
• It is indeed a telescope, and not binoculars.

Please consider adopting an episode for transcription

Support the show and join our Patreon community

What happens after the smoke clears? What does recovery look like when the disasters never end?

In this episode, we're visiting the sites of some of BC's biggest burns of 2017 and 2021 – making the link between the mega-fires and the floods and landslides that followed. We'll hear about how the land is (and isn't) recovering, and the factors that spell the difference.

This is the 4th instalment in our series of indeterminate length, "On Fire", but don't feel obliged to listen to parts 1-3 beforehand.

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Links, citations, photos, episode transcript and more

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🌱 Future Ecologies is supported by our community of listeners like you.

Join us for as little as $1/month to access early episode releases, bonus and behind the scenes content, our discord server, and more at futureecologies.net/join

When the Earth Started to Sing

Produced by Emergence Magazine, this sonic journey written and narrated by David G. Haskell brings us to the beginning of sound and song on planet Earth.

The experience is made entirely of tiny trembling waves in air, the fugitive, ephemeral energy that we call sound. Spoken words combined with terrestrial sounds invite our senses and imaginations to go outward into an experience of the living Earth and its history. How did the vast and varied chorus of modern sounds — from forest to oceans to human music — emerge from life’s community? When did the living Earth first start to sing? We invite you on a journey into deep time and deep sound that will open your ears and your imagination.

Find many more stories exploring the intersection between ecology, culture and spirituality at emergencemagazine.org/

David Haskell’s new book: Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction

Cover artwork by Daniel Liévano

Season 6 kicks off in the deep dark woods: the simplified, post-industrial forests of the world — the only forests that many of us have ever known.

Join us as we meet foresters in British Columbia, Vermont, and Scotland, all working to embrace the messy art of ecological forestry. Because if we want our forests to be old growth-ier, we might not be able to just wait and leave them alone. It might mean challenging some assumptions and getting out of our comfort zone, but that's what it'll take to see the forest for the trees.

— — —

With the voices of Ethan Tapper, Brian Duff, Keith Erickson, and Herb Hammond

Music by Thumbug, Spencer W Stuart, Nathan Shubert, and Sunfish Moon Light

See also:

• FE3.4 - Dama Drama
• Galiano Conservancy Association
• NNRG's "A Forest of Your Own"
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest

For photos from our time in the ancient old growth, citations, a transcript, and more, click here.

– – –

🌱 If you like what we do, you can help us to do it ✨

Support the production of Future Ecologies by contributing any amount at futureecologies.net/join

Our entire community of supporters get early episode releases, bonus content, discord server access, and a 50% discount on all merch. Our biggest supporters get to show off with stickers, patches, and now toques (aka beanies).

Thanks for keeping us independent and ad free!

In this chapter we meet our first genus of dragons: Artusnoia – the dragons of Limited Cognition.

Among them, the twin dragons of Perceived Behavioural Control, and Perceived Self Efficacy (A. impotens & A. parvoperitia, respectively) are perhaps the greatest challenge to meaningful climate action. Join us as we discover the subtle shifts that can make all the difference.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

While we work on Season 3, we're featuring an episode from one of our favourite podcasts: Plastisphere

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We want to know what you want to listen to! Take our 2020 Listener Survey and help shape the sound of Future Ecologies Season 3.

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Finally, we're releasing 2 albums: the official soundtracks of Season 2 and our Scales of Change series, featuring the instrumental compositions of Sunfish Moon Light (a.k.a. Adam Huggins), Loam Zoku, and Vincent van Haaff. We hope these help you pass the time before we kick off our next season. You can download both and name your price.

From Mountaintop to Seafloor – The Music of Future Ecologies Season 2

Scales of Change – The Official Soundtrack

We're sharing an episode from our friends over at Drilled. Four years ago, the Drilled podcast asked a question that changed how people thought about climate stories: What if we stopped acting like the climate crisis was inevitable and instead treated it like it truly is...the crime of the century? Now, the original true crime podcast about climate change is back with a new season all about the opportunistic oil industry.

The season is packed with high stakes court cases, intrepid journalists, and a whole lot of intrigue, set in the world's largest oil boom town.

We're dropping you straight into the action with Episode 4. Get all the background, and follow the rest of the story at https://link.chtbl.com/futureecologiesdrilled

The Dragons of Discredence are agents of mistrust – the species of this genus are responsible for climate deniers, contrarians, and conspiracy theorists. But it’s not only the fringe that suffers from the dragons of discredence. They can act in subtle ways on all of us: casting doubt on well-intentioned policy, and dissuading us from aligning our self-interest with the interests of our environment. To tip the scales, we have to prove that there’s plenty of honey to go around.

Many of the Dragons of Inaction are insights for individuals – leading change from the bottom up. In this chapter, we discuss the other side of the equation: how governments and policy makers can design programs for climate change that people actually want.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

What can a brand new patch of nature tell us about Europe's ancient history?

In this episode, we touch down in the Netherlands, where an unconventional experiment (the Oostvaardersplassen) has shaken up both the field of ecology and Dutch society. What started as a bird watcher’s obsession with thousands of trekking geese, led to a criticism of one of the central tenets in ecology: ecosystem succession.

Enter a counter-theory that would return the rarest of birds, butterflies, and a once-extinct mega mammal to one of the most densely populated countries on earth.

For photos, transcripts, citations, and musical credits, head to www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-3-a-tiny-wilderness

– – –

Future Ecologies is independent and ad-free. This podcast is possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon

Join our community of supporting listeners (for as little as $1 per month) for access to early releases, a rad discord server, and more:

✨https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies ✨

If you'd prefer to support the show with a one-time donation, you can do so at https://www.futureecologies.net/donate

And if you can't support the show financially, you can always leave us a nice rating (or even a review) wherever you listen. We post our favourites at https://www.futureecologies.net/#reviews 💖

Our series on cows and rangelands continues in the weeds and in the thorns, looking at a specific piece of public land where livestock are being employed to give some endangered species a new lease on life.

In this 3-part series, we're hearing from impassioned scientists and land managers with diametrically opposed opinions on the concept of "rangelands" — by some estimates, accounting for 50-70% of the earth's surface. Missed Part 1? Catch up here

— — —

Find credits, citations, a transcript and more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-8-home-on-the-rangelands-part-2

This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more. Head to futureecologies.net/join and choose whatever option works best for you.

Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a garbageosphere – an ecosystem of trash and detritus. But despite the extent of anthropogenic impacts, life is resilient and infinitely creative.

Hyper-ecologies, novel ecosystems, freakosystems – different names for the same thing: never-before-seen assemblies of lifeforms, born of human disturbance. These profoundly weird ecologies are persistent, and (through a certain lens) often functional.

In this final chapter of "Nature, by Design?", we meet again with Oliver Kellhammer and Eric Higgs to discuss what we can learn from these ruderal places, and how they can empower a new way of thinking about ecological restoration.

This episode is the last in a 3-part series. Before listening to this one, you may want to catch up with Part 1: Taking the Neo-Eoscenic Route [FE3.1] & Part 2: The Path to the Wilderness Lodge [FE3.2]

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Please consider adopting an episode for transcription

💖 Support the show and join our Patreon community

Our latest episode — on soil carbon and regenerative agriculture — could never have fit everything that needs to be said on the topic. So, we're leaning on a couple of other podcasts that we think you'll love.

First up, we're running an episode from Hot Farm, from our friends at the Food and Environment Reporting Network. It's all about what farmers are doing (or could be doing) to take on the climate emergency.

In this episode you'll hear about a novel grain that farmers are starting to grow, and that could be part of the solution. This is Hot Farm part 3: "Is Kernza the Grain of the Future?"

Find more episodes of Hot Farm wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://thefern.org/podcasts/hot-farm/

Catch up on our own treatment on soil carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture: on FE4.8 — Ground Truthing https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-8-ground-truthing

At the heart of the Salish Sea lies the Fraser River Estuary: home to over half of the population of the Province of British Columbia, thousands of endemic species, and one world-famous pod of orcas. But as the human population of the region has grown, wildlife populations — including salmonids, orcas, and over 100 species at risk — have been plummeting.

As economic imperatives press up against ecological thresholds, a mega-project that has been in development for over a decade is poised to further alter the character of the estuary, with massive implications for the health of Salish Sea and its many residents.

In this episode, we ask: can we find ways to hear each other through all the noise?

This episode was originally published in March 2022. We've added a brief update about some recent developments in 2023. Read more about the news here

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This episode features Janie Wray, Misty MacDuffee, Steven Slə́qsit Stark, Marko Dekovic, and Stephanie Kwetásel'wet Wood

With music by Ruby Singh (with Dawn Pemberton, Inuksuk MacKay, Russell Wallace, Shamik Bilgi, Tiffany Ayalik, and Tiffany Moses), Thumbug, and Sunfish Moon Light.

This episode was produced by Mendel Skulski and Adam Huggins, with help from Megan Hockin Bennet and Lili Li.

A full list of citations and a transcript can be found at our website: futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-2-terminal

To find out what the future might hold for Kelp, Sea Otters, Urchin, and Abalone, we're taking you to Haida Gwaii – an archipelago famous for both its deep culture and unique ecology. In Gwaii Haanas, the Islands of Beauty, a surprising experiment is taking shape, and we're going to dive right in.

We go from mountain top to sea floor, and we finally get to meet the fastest snail in the west.

This is the final chapter of our three-part series on kelp worlds. Click here to listen to part one, Trophic Cascadia, and here for part two, Ocean People

This episode features Stu Crawford, Captain Gold, Lynn Lee, Dan Okamoto, and Nate Spindel, and more.

For lots of photos from our adventure to Haida Gwaii, musical credits, citations, and more head to https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-2-9-in-the-balance

Support Future Ecologies and get monthly bonus episodes and more! https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

Kelp forest photo by Alex Mustard

We’re slowing down for the holidays, and we hope you are too.

But we didn’t want to leave you without something great to listen to, so we’re borrowing an episode from one of our favourite podcasters: Ashley Ahearn is the independent science and environmental journalist behind several series covering life in the rural American West. If you haven’t already listened to Grouse, on sage grouse, or Mustang (her latest), on wild horses, you’re missing out.

The episode we picked for you today is kind of a teaser for our own next series. It’s a look at livestock, the regenerative ranching movement, and the women who are leading it.

From Ashley Ahearn, Boise State Public Radio, and the Mountain West News Bureau, this is Women’s Work, Episode 5: Keep them Doggies Rollin’

Go find the rest of Women’s Work wherever you get your podcasts. And while you’re at it, go find Grouse and Mustang too.

You’ll be hearing from us soon. ‘Til next year — happy holidays, and take care.

Season 2 may be over, but Future Ecologies is still going strong.

We're so excited to announce that our new *weekly* 8-part miniseries will hitting your podcast feed on May 13th. Listen on for the trailer.

Subscribe to Scales of Change at https://scales-of-change.captivate.fm/listen

How do our dreams shape our reality? Tonight, with the help of scientists, artists, philosophers, and historians, we're sprinkling a little stardust on our understanding of the more-than-human — from fish, to demons and gods.

This episode features the words and voices of Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Alex Jordan, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Rain Wu, Nahum Mantra, Onome Ekeh, Federico Campagna, Yussef Agbo-Ola, and Hatis Noit, recorded at The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish — a recurrent festival exploring ideas of consciousness, language and the mind across non-human species and beings, initiated in 2018 by the Serpentine Galleries and held in 2022 in partnership with the Galeria Municipal do Porto.

With music by Yussef Agbo-Ola, Hatis Noit, Thumbug, and Any-Angled Light.

Big thanks to Adam's Electric Sheep Radio co-hosts, Ryder Thomas White & Samantha Ruth, to Kostas Stasinopoulos, and to Arda Studios.

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Love and strength to everyone affected by wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or other disasters right now. We're feeling... not great about planetary stability, and we'd bet you're in the same boat.

This episode doesn't directly address the climate breakdown, but we hope it can at least be a reprieve — or even offer some ways to reframe a shared nightmare.

Our next episode (on fire) is in the works. For now, we're wishing you safety, preparedness, and many moments of joy in all the life around you. Get to know your neighbours, and take care of each other. Maybe have a chat about holding climate criminals accountable.

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Our supporters on Patreon get early episode releases, a lovely discord server, and other bonus content, including some of the unabridged presentations that went into this episode.

Join our community at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies

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VANCOUVER: Spiders Song will return to Lobe Studio on Thursday, September 14th!

Join us for this exploration of the music of evolution, presented in 4DSOUND spatial audio.

2 showtimes: 6:30pm and 8:30pm, both including a Q&A with Mendel.

Tickets available on a sliding scale:

Meet our second genus of Dragons – Ideologies. These are constellations of beliefs and values; filters for understanding the world.

One species of Ideology has flourished in the modern era: the Dragon of Technosalvation – A belief that technology can fix all our problems, and by extension, the climate.

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons 

Support the show at patreon.com/futureecologies

In this bonus conversation, Adam catches up with Fern Yip (guest producer on FE2.3) about her recent close call with wildfire, with lots of practical advice for those living on forested lands.

For photos and a transcript of this conversation, see futureecologies.net/listen/earthkins-trial-by-fire

Learn more about Fern at earthkin.ca

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Find Earthkin's September workshops in Vancouver: earthkin.ca/rewilddays

and a 10-weekend course September 2023 through June 2024 at Anderson Lake: earthkin.ca/waysofthewild

See also: BC's Emergency evacuee guidance for the public

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VANCOUVER: Spiders Song will return to Lobe Studio on Thursday, September 14th!

Join us for this exploration of the music of evolution, presented in 4DSOUND spatial audio.

2 showtimes: 6:30pm and 8:30pm, both including a Q&A with Mendel.

Tickets available on a sliding scale: eventbrite.ca/e/lobe-artist-residency-series-spiders-song-by-future-ecologies-tickets-695016291437

Get yours soon! Capacity is limited and both of the last shows sold out.

— — —

🌱 Ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies 💖

The introduction of cattle to western North America has undeniably contributed to massive ecosystem change. But could cows be as much a part of the solutions as they are the problem?

In this 3-part series, we're hearing from all sides of this issue: impassioned scientists and land managers with diametrically opposed opinions on the concept of "rangelands" — by some estimates, accounting for 50-70% of the earth's surface.

Part 1 kicks things off with a look at the special case of California, and a challenge to the conventional environmentalist perspective that cattle are always a destructive force for biodiversity and ecosystem health.

— — —

Find credits, citations, a transcript and more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-7-home-on-the-rangelands-part-1

This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more. Head to futureecologies.net/join to meet everyone who makes this podcast possible.

Today, it's our pleasure to bring you an episode from our friends at Bioneers, who have just released a 6-part series called Nature's Genius.

Follow Bioneers wherever you get podcasts, or listen to the rest of the series at bioneers.org/natures-genius/

This is episode 1 — The Universe Beneath Our Feet: Mapping the Mycelial Web of Life

Imagine an underground web of mind-boggling complexity, a bustling cosmopolis beneath your feet. Quadrillions of miles of tiny threads in the soil pulsate with real-time messages, trade vital nutrients, and form life-giving symbiotic partnerships. This is the mysterious realm of fungi. Acclaimed visionary biologists Toby Kiers and Merlin Sheldrake guide us through the intricate wonders of the mycorrhizal fungal networks that make life on Earth possible.

We're trying out a new format of bonus content over on our Patreon feed: casual, conversational interviews that go behind the scenes of some of the content on the main feed.

In this first edition, our guest is Jonathan Kawchuk: composer, sound artist, and volunteer paleontologist. Jonathan's work is in both FE4.10 Geopoetics and the Emergence Magazine piece we recently featured When the Earth Started to Sing — music in the former, and paleo-soundscapes in the latter.

We discuss Jonathan's technical and creative process — assembling reconstructed choruses of ancient soundmakers (Parasaurolophus and Permostridulus), and creating music in conversation with the Rocky Mountains — as we nerd out on sound production and paleo art.

To hear the 47 minute conversation in its entirety (and get access to all our other bonus content, discord server, merch, and more) join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

The North American Model is just one story of how wildlife conservation can be practiced. In part 2 of this mini-series we tell another: of restorative human–predator relationships and local self-determination.

We're bringing you a success story from the Great Bear Rainforest, and another articulation of how we can relate to wildlife — complete with its own set of guiding principles, naturally.

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Click here for Part 1

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Just over 200 people are making Future Ecologies possible on Patreon!

Meet them all at futureecologies.net/patrons

You too can join our community and help the show to grow @ patreon.com/futureecologies

We're featuring another guest episode. This time, from Canada's National Observer: a new podcast called Race Against Climate Change

Episode 1 – How We Eat

SUMMARY:

Everybody’s gotta eat, but who’s feeding us, and what else are we eating up along the way? In this episode we chew on the ways our food affects our climate, and what can be done about it. Professor and author Lenore Newman discusses food security and this summer’s heat dome with National Observer founder Linda Solomon Wood. Plus, the surge in regenerative farming in Canada, and a future of real beef with no real cows. Yes, you read that right.

GUESTS:

●     Robyn Bunn, Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture

●     Fawn Jackson, climate lead for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

●     Karen Ross, director of Farmers for Climate Solutions.

●     Lenore Newman, Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute and Canada Research Chair in Food Security and Environment at the University of the Fraser Valley

●     Isha Datar, Executive Director of New Harvest

Find more episodes of Race Against Climate Change wherever you enjoy podcasts, or on their website: nationalobserver.com/podcast/race-against-climate-change (where transcripts are also available)

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Support Future Ecologies Season 4 for as little as $1/month to get access to our rad discord server and other fun perks: patreon.com/futureecologies

Browse our episode archive and explore our website: futureecologies.net

Say hi to us on social media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, iNaturalist

What is queer ecology? How do queer theory and artistic practice inform environmental activism and climate justice? How can we think decolonisation and queerness together?

Victoria Sin welcomes guest host Serpentine Assistant Curator, Kostas Stasinopoulos to dive into transformation, queerness, the natural and unnatural, wild, decolonial and submerged perspectives. Together with guests Ama Josephine Budge, Macarena Gómez-Barris and Jack Halberstam they ask: “where does wildness live?” and they collectively explore questions of desire, pleasure, queer resistance and affinity within apocalyptic world making.

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Future Ecologies presents this episode from the Serpentine Podcast series Back to Earth – a nine part podcast series that follows artists and an art organisation developing projects, interventions and campaigns at the crossroads of art and the climate emergency.

Learn more about the Serpentine Galleries at https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/

Subscribe to the Serpentine Podcast at https://playpodca.st/serpentine

Having finished his work in the Sanctuary Movement, Jim Corbett allowed his focus to broaden, bringing his system of ethics to the land itself. Jim had gathered many people around him throughout the Sanctuary days: a group that shared a deep, abiding love for the more-than-human world. Together they would establish a herding community – a herd in which they would all be members – grounded in a practice of ‘pastoral symbiotics’, and guided by a prescient ecological covenant: a bill of rights for the land.

From Future Ecologies, this is Goatwalker, Part Three: Saguaro Juniper

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Before this episode, we suggest you start with Part One of this series 

And then listen to Part Two

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Get in touch with the community at Saguaro Juniper

As of August 2021, Jim Corbett’s "Goatwalking" has been re-issued in a new 2nd edition. You can purchase a hard copy or an e-book here

A 2nd edition of "Sanctuary for All Life" is also now available from Cascabel Books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

– – –

For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon community

We’re unlocking one of the conversations from our bonus feed.

In this interview, building on episode FE6.2, Mendel speaks with Skye Augustine, a leading voice uplifting the science, history, and culture of Sea Gardens. In a time where so much of the future feels uncertain, the resiliency of Sea Gardens over millennia is (at least to us) a source of deep comfort and inspiration.

What’s more, if you’re as inspired as we are, and you want to learn how your community could build a clam garden, we’ve got you covered. Don't miss our conversation with Joseph Williams, Community Shellfish Liaison for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, who constructed the first Clam Garden of the modern era — available for free on our Patreon.

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The Future Ecologies bonus feed is where we release exclusive bits of audio to all of our supporters. There’s a whole back catalogue of silly mini episodes, long-form extended interviews with guests from the main feed, and a bunch of entirely new, fascinating conversations you won’t hear anywhere else. It’s one of the ways we say thanks for helping us make the show — we really can’t do it without you.

You can get access to the bonus feed (on your podcast app of choice) and more, for less than the price of a cup of coffee at patreon.com/futureecologies or subscribe directly within Apple Podcasts.

Get to know our friends and collaborators, Miriam Quick and Duncan Geere — the hosts of Loud Numbers, a data sonification podcast.

How do data visualization and sonification differ? What are the possibilities and pitfalls? And how can you incorporate the practice into your life?

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Hear the entire conversation wherever you get podcasts — join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

— — —

Haven't heard our own data sonification yet? That's in Spiders Song (Part 2)

A story of memory, ghosting, and fire: how we can change the place we call home, and how it too can change around us.

Another version of this story, along with many other works of art, can be found in the pages of Fire Season II

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💖 Support Future Ecologies: join our community on Patreon at futureecologies.net/patrons

You'll get exclusive bonus content, access to one of the best discord servers out there, stickers, patches, early episode releases, and more!

Find credits, citations, transcript, photos, and more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-7-phase-change

In this episode, Anja and Matthias go on an underground safari through the hidden jungle of the soil. We hear from Diana Wall about a tiny worm that is so tough it survives in Antarctica. Richard Bardgett introduces us to collembola, also known as springtails. Stefan Scheu and Maddy Thakur reveal which animals are considered the “wolves of the soil”, and Kate Scow delves into bacterial communities. How do all these organisms work together as a system?

Find more episodes of Life in the Soil wherever you get your podcasts, or at rilliglab.org/podcast/

For some incredible soil microfauna photography, see Andy Murray’s Chaos of Delight

Catch up on our own treatment on soil carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture: on FE4.8 — Ground Truthing

We work hard to make sure our music doesn’t just complement our voices, but actually tells a story all of its own. Now that our 4th Season is complete, as per usual, we’ve compiled all the original music that went into it, and we’re releasing it as an album. This year, that album takes the form of two companion volumes.

Volume 1: Electrical Storms by Sunfish Moon Light

Volume 2: Sympoiesis by thumbug

Of course we're not responsible for all the music you hear on our show. We've borrowed tunes from so many truly great artists, often connected thematically or geographically to the content of that specific episode. You can discover each of them, and support their work at futureecologies.net/music

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We want to hear from you — take our brief listener survey and help make Season 5 the best yet.

💖 Join our community: support Future Ecologies on Patreon to access our discord server, an exclusive bonus podcast feed, stickers, patches, and more

Vancouver: Join mendel and friends for a PWYC panel on acoustic ecologies, ecopoetics, and biosonification, at the Lobe Spatial Sound Studio Spring Equinox Summit (Saturday March 25 @ 1PM)

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BTW: we release all of our original music from each season. Previous soundtracks (all PWYC CC-BY-NC-SA):

• Season 1
• Season 2
• Scales of Change
• Season 3

Before we lace up our boots and head into the field, some introductions are in order.

What are the Dragons of Climate Inaction? Where do they come from? And why, especially now, are they so important?

To learn more about the Dragons of Climate Inaction (+ musical credits, citations, and more) visit futureecologies.net/dragons

Spiders Song is a story about a quest to hear the greatest symphony on Earth: the music of evolution. Along the way, we get to know some of nature’s most surprising musicians — the paradise jumping spiders.

Part 1 is the Spiders

Part 2 is the Song

Headphones advised.

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For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song

You can listen to Part 2 right now — find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureecologies.net

— — —

Funding for this series was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.

But ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going and growing, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

Our patrons get early episode releases, exclusive bonus audio content, access to a fantastic discord server, 50% discounts on all merch, and more

From a distance, mountain landscapes may appear timeless and immutable. Take a closer look, however, and montane ecologies reveal themselves to be laboratories of radical transformation: rocks weather and fall; ecosystems burst into life for brief intervals; tree-lines shift; and wildfires rage. Even the very peaks themselves inch inexorably upwards or downwards with the flow of time.

Amidst all the constant, unyielding change that animates the Earth's high places, people have long sought a vantage from which to survey this shifting terrain. Who can resist the romance of a breathtaking, mountaintop view? Or then to imagine what generations past might have seen from the same spot?

In the mid 1990s, a small group of scientists in western Canada grew dissatisfied with mere imagining — they wanted to see that change for themselves. And in a forgotten corner of a national archive, they found some very heavy boxes that held a rare promise: an opportunity to look back in time at a landscape scale.

– – –

For musical credits, select photos, citations, links, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon community

– – –

Learn more about the Mountain Legacy Project: mountainlegacy.ca

Explore all the photos and data: explore.mountainlegacy.ca

More on land cover classification | Webinar | Deep Dive

“We need geopoetics because geopolitics necessitate other ways of being… Proposing alternate narratives to the hegemonic ones we are caught in is the work and play of geopoetics.”

– Erin Robinsong, Geopoetics in the Mess/Mesh

Enclosed is the last episode of our 4th season: a sympoietic stream of consciousness; on language, art making, and more-than-human interconnection.

Find a transcript, full credits, and citations here

– – –

We want to hear from you! Please take our brief listener survey

Support our 5th season: Join our community on Patreon

– – –

The feet are the link

Between earth and the body. Begin there.

The lungs are the link between body and air.

The hands, these uprooted feet, are the means

Of our shaping and grasping. Clasp them.

The eyes are the hands of the head;

its feet are the ears.

– Robert Bringhurst

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With the voices and words of Michael Datura, Astrida Neimanis, Cosmo Sheldrake, Rex Weyler, Robert Bringhurst, Jan Zwicky, David Abram, Megan Gnanasihamany, Stephen Collis, Eric Magrane, Hari Alluri, Nadia Chaney, Kaitlyn Purcell, Khari McClelland, Rita Wong, Jessica Bebenek, Vicki Kelly, Mark Fettes, Marjorie Wonham, and Cecily Nicholson

Music by Cosmo Sheldrake, Anne Bourne, Meredith Buck (as arranged by Vanessa Richards), Jonathan Kawchuk, the Time Zone Research Lab, Emily Millard, Khari McClelland, Ruby Singh, and Nathan Shubert, with field recordings by Julian Fisher.

Inherited is a climate storytelling podcast by, for, and about young people. We're bringing you Season 3, Episode 1: "Mama's House", a personal story of family loss, structural resilience, and survival in an era of climate change.

Find all of Season 3, including behind-the-scenes interviews with each of the 8 storytellers, wherever you get your podcasts, or at yr.media/inherited/

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September 15-17 will hold climate marches and demonstrations around the world (many starting RIGHT NOW). Join the fight to end fossil fuels, and find the action near you: fossilfueltreaty.good.do/global-march/map/