Episode 123: Who Pays for Conservation, Being the Lorax, and Introducing A New Voice For Western Lands Conservation
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe to Rewilding Earth Podcast: Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS
About Today’s Guests
George Wuerthner, Tobacco Root Mountains, Montana
George Wuerthner (President, Sage Steppe Wild) – George is a professional photographer, writer, and ecologist. He has visited hundreds of mountain ranges around the West, more than 400 wilderness areas, more than 200 national park units, and every national forest west of the Mississippi. George is the author of 38 books on environmental issues and natural history including Welfare Ranching, Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy, Energy: The Delusion of Endless Growth and Overdevelopment, Thrillcraft, and Keeping the Wild. His most recent publication is Protecting the Wild.
Jonathan Ratner, Director, Sage Steppe Wild
Jonathan Ratner (Director, Sage Steppe Wild) – Jonathan has extensive knowledge of federal land management agency methods and practice, with a specialty in public lands livestock grazing. He has been monitoring and commenting on grazing cases in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado for the last 20 years. Prior to that he studied endangered species such as the grizzly bear, lynx, wolverine, and marten for the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, the US Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
Topics
- Who funds most conservation and environmental groups and how funders can knock organizations off mission.
- The difficulties of having a no-compromise policy when it comes to mission and funding.
- An old, treasured conservation news source gets a new life.
Extra Credit
- Reading: “The Wildlife News“
- Sage Steppe Wild
- Tons of resources on all things Western public lands conservation and advocacy
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.
Excellent presentation. I’ve been a huge fan of George’s work for many years, and use and recommend “A Wildfire Reader” frequently. Also his “Keeping the Wild” was a shocking eye-opener about the emerging “Anthropocene” threat to wilderness and to traditional conservation. It gives me hope that the new Sage Steppe Wild outfit has leaders that are fighting against anthropocentrism and compromise politics.
Paul Hughes, Forests Forever, Berkeley