Before he and his wife Lucinda began rewilding work on the Pitchfork Ranch 20 years ago, A Thomas Cole spent thirty-two years as a small-town lawyer in Casa Grande, Arizona, successfully defended two death-penalty murder cases, a dozen homicide cases, co-counseled the largest jury verdict in Arizona history, Chaired the Casa Grande Town Hall, Arizona Humanities Council and banned from Walmart for life. Show Notes Rewilding On The Ground: Restoration Success at Pitchfork Ranch In this...

“Whoever you are, wherever your interest lies, whatever you’ve fallen in love with, get out of bed every morning and do something. Act, step into the fray—fight for a human society in balance with the natural world.” —Kristine McDivitt Tompkins Kris Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, an American conservationist, and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. For three decades, she has committed to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national...

About Dr. Jessica Hardesty Norris is a biologist with over 20 years of experience in ecological planning and research, program development, strategic planning and community outreach for natural resource conservation. She has demonstrated success in proposal writing, partnership building, and project management. Her recent project work includes park planning for Charleston County and leading Biohabitats’ engagement in a 100-mile greenway along the Chattahoochee, often with a focus on writing...

About Michael Kellett, the co-founder and Executive Director of RESTORE: The North Woods, has over 35 years of experience in the land conservation movement. In 1994, he wrote the first white paper proposing a 3.2 million-acre Maine Woods National Park & Preserve, and has been actively involved in efforts to restore the endangered wildlife such as the eastern wolf, Atlantic salmon, and Canada lynx; to protect federal and state public lands from unsustainable logging and...

About Emily Burns Emily joined the Sky Island Alliance in 2019 after practicing conservation science and restoration for nearly a decade in the redwood forests of California at Save the Redwoods League. She leads the team running all programs, including the Border Wildlife Study, the Trinational Internship Program, Sky Island FotoFauna, Spring Seeker, their stewardship projects, and communications. Her hope for the Sky Islands in the next 30 years is that communities make choices that keep...

About As the United States Policy Director for Wildlands Network, Erin Sito researches, develops and promotes laws and policies geared towards supporting habitat connectivity and biodiversity at the local, state, and federal level. Erin’s work also focuses on state agency reform and funding, and outreach to promote Wildlands Network’s policy initiatives nationwide. Episode 129 Rewilding Earth Podcast: Advancing Wildlife Connectivity with Erin Sito of Wildlands Network In this episode of...

About Eric Trefney grew up in Michigan in the metro-Detroit area, where he often camped and canoed with his family and friends. After finishing graduate school in 2015, Eric joined the Peace Corps, where he was assigned to Senegal, Africa, in the Sahel desert region. Eric practiced and trained in agroforestry techniques with local Senegalese partners and women’s financial literacy. In 2018, after his two years of Peace Corps service, Eric moved to the Washington D.C. area and was gifted a...

Ruskin Hartley champions equitable access to dark skies and quality lighting for all through DarkSky’s award-winning programs. He works closely with volunteer leaders and donors to secure increased support for our priorities around the world. Ruskin believes that experiencing a dark sky, and appreciating quality lighting, are essential to DarkSky’s mission. Before this position, Ruskin directed and managed conservation programs that protect land, water, and ocean resources. He served as...

About Myles Traphagen coordinates Wildlands Network’s borderlands program, focusing on channeling collaborative efforts to maintain and restore habitat for species like jaguar, black bear, and Sonoran pronghorn. He oversees strategic partnerships, communications, and projects to advance large-landscape conservation goals in Mexico and the United States. Learn more about Myles here. Show Notes In this episode of the Rewilding Earth podcast, Jack Humphrey interviews Myles Traphagen, the...

About With an academic background in landscape architecture and plant ecology, Buddy Huffaker joined the Aldo Leopold Foundation as an intern in 1996 and today serves as its President and Executive Director. In this role, he headed the $7.5 million campaign to construct and endow the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center and served as the Executive Producer for Green Fire, a documentary film about Leopold’s life & legacy. You can find a link to the documentary in “extra Credit” below. Buddy serves...

About Rowan Kilduff is a dad, long-time mountain, hawk & wildlife enthusiast, poet, and activist-artist. He has worked on various projects, including with Greenpeace, hands-on forest conservation in the Czech Republic, fixing a roof in Nepal, and photos used by The Irish Seal Sanctuary. His first writing about rewilding and first poems were published in Rewilding Earth, and his writing & pictures have been printed in Wingspan (from the Raptor Research...

About Today’s Guests 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...

Note from Randy: Hi everyone thank you for listening. On the podcast I speak about not reporting possible poachers when they talk about jaguar killings. In addition to the fact that information channels would dry up if we were to report those who talk about killing jaguars, there is also the fact that actual poachers with evidence of the crimes are not prosecuted. In the death of Corazon the jaguar and the bear killed in Cumpas there was physical evidence and no charges were brought against...

About Before joining The Rewilding Institute, Megan “Turtle” Southern was the coordinator of the Northern Jaguar Project, where she helped to establish and grow the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, Mexico, organized scientific research projects and conservation education among youth, and worked extensively with ranchers to promote coexistence. It has been 15 years since the jaguar known as Macho B died. That is an entire lifetime for a jaguar. It has been eight years since El Jefe was...

About Paula MacKay has studied wild carnivores for the past two decades and is currently a carnivore conservation specialist with Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. Also dedicated to communications on behalf of her wild kin, Paula earned an MFA in creative writing from Pacific Lutheran University in 2015. She was managing editor for Noninvasive Survey Methods for Carnivores (Island Press, 2008), and her work has been published in numerous journals, magazines, books, and anthologies. Paula lives...

About Lauren Strohacker is an eco-political artist whose work emphasizes the non-human in an increasingly human-centric world. She received a BFA (2006) from The Ohio State University and an MFA (2011) from Arizona State University. Strohacker’s co-creative and site-responsive practice routinely collaborates with both local and national wildlife conservation organizations to conceptualize animals who have been displaced by the colonial built environment, controlled by the North American...

About In the early 1980s, an outdoorsy, nature-loving undergrad named Keith Bowers had an epiphany. Keith had been studying landscape architecture at the University of Virginia when he met Ed Garbisch, a pioneering practitioner of marsh restoration along the Chesapeake Bay. “Wait a minute,” thought Keith. “I can apply my education to restoring the places I love?” After graduating in 1982, Keith started Biohabitats, an ecological restoration company. 36 years later, with a mission to...

About Christina Selby is a conservation photographer, filmmaker, and science writer, who uses multimedia storytelling as a powerful tool to share the beauty of the planet and motivate others to act on behalf of nature. She uses use aerial, macro, landscape, underwater, remote camera, photojournalism, and any other technique required to tell engaging stories that speak to our shared need for beauty and connection to nature. Her storytelling focuses on remembering who we are, what we can be,...

About A native of New Jersey, Jamie discovered his passion for Wild Nature surrounded by meadows and forests near his home and on a family outing in an old growth forest in the Quebec wilderness. In 1986 he bought a log cabin in northern New Hampshire where he still lives. In 1985 Jamie became involved with Earth First!, and his “Preserve Appalachian Wilderness Proposal” appeared in the May 1987 issue of the Earth First! Journal. The following year, working as a reporter for the local...

About Duncan is the Founder and Managing Director of Journeys With Purpose.  Journeys With Purpose is a member of 1% for the Planet, a...

About Rachel Conn As Deputy Director of Amigos Bravos, Rachel advocates for strong and environmentally just local, state, and federal water policy. She provides hands-on support to New Mexico communities and groups working to protect their watersheds. She is a leader in the ongoing campaigns to hold Los Alamos National Lab accountable for pollution, designate more of New Mexico’s waters as Outstanding National Resource Waters, protect New Mexico’s ground and surface water from degradation...

About Peter Alagona Peter is a professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He’s an environmental historian, historian of science, conservation scientist, and nature-culture geographer. His work explores what happens when humans share space and resources (their habitats) with other species: how we interact with non-human creatures, how we make sense of these interactions, why we fight so much about them, what we can learn from them, and how we might use...

About Chris Hawkins leads the Colorado Chapter of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Cities program where he spends his time focusing on improving regional habitat connectivity and access to nature; creating a more equitable and climate resilient urban forest; and ensuring there is funding and support for helping the region achieve more sustainable outcomes at the intersection of people and nature. Prior to this role, he was a member of TNC’s Chief Conservation Office and Global Cities team...

About Born and raised in Massachusetts, Jon Rezendes had a lifelong obsession with wilderness and big cats interrupted by the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Jon was a high school freshman and watched the first responder jets fly overhead from the now-defunct Otis Air Force Base en route to New York City and felt the unshakeable urge to serve. He took that deep obligation with him to the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating in 2009 as an infantry officer. Less...