On the emerald isle of Ireland, an easily-overlooked creature holds the history of a nation within its shell. From the rise and collapse of heavy industry, to a bloody civil war, the riverbeds of Ireland have been witness — and they tell a story of change and possibility stretching far beyond any human lifetime.
With the help of guest producer Caitlin Kennedy, we're tracing the modern arc of Northern Ireland through the story of the freshwater pearl mussel.
We have a soft spot for food systems that challenge the modern convention: food systems like forest gardens or sea gardens that don’t at all look like vast rows of monocultures, but instead blend into the landscape — to the point of being invisible — at least until you’ve learned how to see them.
It just so happens that, not far from us (in the Cowichan Estuary), there’s another kind of ancient food system being revived, and we were looking forward to visiting it as part of our upcoming season 7. But when one of the all-time greatest shows on Canadian radio beat us to the scoop, we thought we may as well save ourselves the effort and bring you the story that much sooner.
So you want to put good fire on the ground, but how?? We're taking you to Yurok territory, at the mouth of the Klamath River, to join the Cultural Fire Management Council for 3 days of burning — not just for fuel management, but for all sorts of cultural and ecological values: food, wildlife, materials, and more. We're finally moving from theory to practice, as we learn what it really means to be on the fire line.
Bogs are our absolute favourite places to be. They’re not only tremendously important ecosystems, rich in exquisite biodiversity and massive stores of carbon, they’re also uniquely beautiful. These serene, colourful spaces jumble land and water into something at once both alien and familiar.
In this episode, we explore the wonders and the mysteries of peatlands, through the story of one very special (and threatened) bog just outside of the city of Vancouver. We meet the scientists who fought for its protection, and some of the folks who are studying it and working on restoring it to this day.
Plus, we answer a tricky question: should we still be extracting peat to help grow plants?
We had the opportunity to hang out with two of our favourite podcasters: Amy Martin of Threshold, and Amy Westervelt of Drilled.
We've previously featured both of their work on the Future Ecologies feed, and we couldn't pass up the chance to talk shop about the latest (fantastic) seasons of their respective shows, and get to know more about their personal journey. That's this episode: Part 1
In the supporter-exclusive Part 2, we get into more of a roundtable on the practice of environmental journalism and podcasting in these especially scary and chaotic times. For the two of us, unschooled and unqualified in anything resembling journalism, it was a blast to have the privilege of what ended up being a private consulting session with two of our heroes. Interested? You can find it on our Patreon
What do you call it when a population of podcasts mysteriously drop episodes on the same topic at the same time? It's Critical Mast! We're so proud to present this nutty experiment in community podcasting, with its roots going back to the very beginning of our show (and to the beginning of our dedication to silly puns).
Thanks to help from our pals at Jumpstart Nature, Golden State Naturalist, Learning from Nature: The Biomimicry Podcast, Nature’s Archive, and Outside/In, it's time for a bumper crop of podcasts about (or inspired by) the mysterious phenomenon known as masting: where plants somehow synchronize their seed production across staggering distances.
Our friends over at the podcast Cited have a new series out called “Green Dreams” — covering stories of radical environmentalist thought leaders, and the ripples they’ve left on the present day. We wanted to share with you the very first episode from this series, called “The Green Cosmos”, covering Gerard O’Neil’s 1970s vision for humanity’s passage to the stars.
Today, through a series of conversations, we’re exploring the notion of what it means to have a relationship to land, to be or not be of a place (in other words, to belong or not) and how the intrinsic tensions in all that may be metabolized through the practice of art, and more importantly, that of life.
With help from recordist/anthropologist/podcaster Louise Romain and musician/conservationist Javan Hunt, we're visiting the Caribbean. First, off the coast of Colombia, on the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, and next a musical excursion to Grand Bahama.
The Miyawaki Method of micro-forestry is a viral sensation: sprouting tiny, dense, native tree cover in neighbourhoods all around the world. With the promise of afforestation at a revolutionary speed, this planting technique has become the darling of green-space enthusiasts, industry, and governments alike —yet few professional or academic ecologists have commented on its efficacy, or even seem to have heard of it!
In this episode, we debate the legacy of Dr. Akira Miyawaki: the man, the myth, and the method.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From UBC Centre for Climate Justice, Future Ecologies presents "The Right to Feel," a two episode mini-series on the emotional realities of the climate crisis. The 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. 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.
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.
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.
