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 furt...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 2
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...
Jan 28, 2022•58 min•Season 4Ep. 1
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 ...
Nov 24, 2021•37 min
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-colon...
Oct 13, 2021•49 min
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. Fin...
Sep 22, 2021•47 min
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...
Aug 29, 2021•3 min
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 spe...
Aug 04, 2021•59 min•Season 3Ep. 10
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 ...
Jul 07, 2021•58 min•Season 3Ep. 9
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 summar...
Jun 02, 2021•55 min•Season 3Ep. 8
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 import...
May 05, 2021•54 min•Season 3Ep. 7
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...
Apr 07, 2021•53 min•Season 3Ep. 6
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,...
Feb 26, 2021•53 min•Season 3Ep. 5
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 rela...
Jan 27, 2021•56 min•Season 3Ep. 4
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 a...
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 3
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 adopt...
Nov 25, 2020•45 min•Season 3Ep. 2
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 g...
Nov 13, 2020•20 min
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 f...
Oct 30, 2020•53 min•Season 3Ep. 1
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 c...
Oct 08, 2020•49 min
While we work on Season 3, we're featuring an episode from one of our favourite podcasts: Plastisphere ––– 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. ––– 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...
Aug 19, 2020•59 min
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 ...
Jul 09, 2020•44 min
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 Cli...
Jul 02, 2020•55 min
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 ab...
Jun 25, 2020•35 min
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...
Jun 18, 2020•32 min
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 – ...
Jun 11, 2020•39 min
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...
May 28, 2020•34 min
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/...
May 21, 2020•37 min
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
May 14, 2020•33 min
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
Apr 27, 2020•5 min
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, Tro...
Apr 08, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 9
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 ...
Mar 11, 2020•58 min•Season 2Ep. 8
