Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Junior. You know religious institutions. The UN estimates they an eight percent of habitable land on Earth. The majority shareholder is the Catholic Church. It has one hundred seventy seven million acres. We need to realize the power of our portfolios. They are a proposition of what we believe in and our values. They aren't neutral like anything, and when it comes to portfolios of land, developing it, growing food, building on it, and
living on it are the most familiar uses. Molly Burhans is a member of the Catholic Church. She's also a cartographer and data scientist, and she believes that land can be used to protect the environment and create a more equitable world. I don't think anyone should have a global data set of all the world's religions, given that landing religion are like the two things that we have the most beef about in history, but also are the two
critical leverage points that climate change. Through her nonprofit good Lands, Burham's aims to leverage the power of data to mobilize the church to use its abundance of land assets for the greater good. She's developing a database to house comprehensive maps of all modern Catholic land assets. If we all realize the potential of our property and make land work for good, biodiversity loss and climate change is a solvable problem.
I am Pentecostal. I grew up a preacher's kid, and I saw something that was interesting about your story, which was that you didn't get serious about your Catholic faith until college, which was a lot like me too. I was saved at nine, but I didn't really get serious about the church and make a commitment until somewhere within my mid twenties, I want to say, around twenty four or twenty five. Tell me a little bit about that experience for you, well before that, I'm interested in you, like,
how did you end up coming back? You know, it's it's actually a journey that that I'm kind of still on. So growing up in church the whole time, viewing the faith, listening to all the tenets, listening to everybody, everything that everyone says, being in a faith or faith practice that's a little more conservative than most. If you are a child or a young adult or a person that's questioning those types of conservative practices, you have no one else to interface with or to talk to that may think
the same way that you do. And I knew that if I left, then all of the people who were like me at night and younger as kids would not have a me to talk to there. And so that's why that's why I stay, and that's kind of what continues me to renewing my faith every day. So Molly, tell us a little bit about your path with Catholicism and how it ties into what you do. My dad was a molecular oncologist, my mom's computer scientist, and I had been like really deep into kind of questions about
finding God in all things. So, like, naked mule rests are very interesting creatures. I don't want to call any of God's creation ugly, but they are like really really funky little guys that live under the ground and they have they live really long. And you know, I kind of like had this moment and doing some mathematical modeling, it hit me like, gosh, why would anyone want to live forever? It sounds like terrifying to me in a sense. And then you know, that led to the really deep
question of why would anyone want to live today? What's the meaning of life? You know and and it kind of made me realize faith and science are like there's a quote, are like my thumb and my fourth finger and through my grassball things. You know, God is love and he's logical, not fear. It's love. We want to be here with those we love and celebrate. Why would you want to live forever be hellish? If is anything else but love? That's the only reason. And so meaning
of life is love. That's and and then I you know, had to after that, it was the long journey of like how do we do this? And I'm still on that one. So tell listeners about what it is that you do. Okay. I run a social enterprise that I founded in twenty fifteen, and the social enterprise helps the Catholic Church, but it serves everyone. It can serve anyone with large portfolio, understand what they own generally at least thirty properties or more, and implement environmental programs using an
understanding of the environment in the church. So often one of the criticisms you hear of Catholicism is you know, they're the richest, richest thieves, which is, you know, it's
not liquid. I think a lot of people, especially the Catholics like I know, who are just like working for a diocese, doing the books, like doing ministry, who are like making wage you know, Like the issue is really a management when financially our property portfolios, any investment portfolio, but a property portfolio right now is shaping the land around it, and it has potential and it will build the landscapes of our future. And we need to realize
the power of our portfolios. They are a proposition of what we believe in and our values. They aren't neutral like anything, and embodying our faith and our mission to care for the poor and the earth and reflect that love and also be responsible financial stewards. You have to use data to do it, and we now have the tools to do that. So essentially we digitize records. People can know what they have and where it is to understand the impact of that property right now and how
it can shape the landscapes of our future. What's your ultimate intent with the work that you do, Like if you could boil it down, what does that look like? The big goal to make the largest global network of ecosystems restoration, you know, making land work for good. Say, just give me a cursory explanation of what you mean when you say make the land work for good. You want to shelter the homeless, You've got to have a shelter, that's land use. You want to feed the poor, you
have to grow that food somewhere. You know, care for this sick. Oh gosh, we know how much like design and outdoors and ventilation matters. Now with like COVID. You want to prevent the next pandemic. We have to stop destroying habitats. You cannot separate any of our missions from the environment. Everything goes back to the land. So if you're telling me what you do is you work with the Catholic Church to get a survey of all that
land and you recommend better ways for them to use it. Yes, do you have a successful example of repurposing the land and for good and what that looks like? So I have a master's in ecological design and I studied under landscape architects. So I my first project, which is being built in Springfield, showed me that making land work for good is so encompassing. When you do it, it's a food forest and an urban farm for at Riscue Youth in Springfield, Massachusetts. And you design with the people. The
people are the designers. We see community being built, health being built, skills being built, futures being built. It's good because it's so horizontal and it's impact when we use our property as well. So quick question, Molly, talk to us about why maps are important. It's like it's time consuming work, So why not just jump in and start making ecologically smart choices as fast as possible given the
urgency of our timate challenges right now? Yeah, okay, because everybody needs a map, because a map is a blueprint pretty much like if you're doing environmental programs without a map. How I view it is it's kind of like you're building a building without any blueprints. You're just kind of throwing stones, if that makes sense, Like I think it's
it's really problematic. Actually, I'm you know, for us, all the projects we did, they weren't just digitizing, but they started to progress to like okay, now we're gonna look at the portfolio financially, Okay, now we're gonna look at schools. So why you need a map is if you try to even keep me. Look, I'm rambling right now. Without a map, I could have said everything I just said to you in like twenty seconds, and we would have gotten a boom, boom boom. He has these data steps.
Now we know the story, right, Yes, And now if you're working with soils and hydrology and water drainage, and you know, if you're going to implement a stormwater management strategy, you know, if you're going to implement tree planting, not only do you need to have the right species in the right place to do it with any sort of ecological integrity, but at the same time, you can have
five thousand times the impact on this one property. And so it's really maps are also about helping your neighbor in need, you know, not just doing it in a sound way, but doing it in a more equitable way.
And then what's the action item after you get the map? Yeah, so they get like a master plan which is really just kind of like a strategic plan for their property, but with the impact folded in, with the community input and with the data so they can continue onwards and also to track what they're actually doing and in terms of how what you're doing helps the environment. What has that interaction been like between you and the church, You
know it has been it's been weird. I somehow got a meeting at twenty six years old, you know, at the Vatican. It has been very well received. This hostel called the Melting Pot in Rome, that's fifteen years a night. I'm matching an entire global religious order at the time to just like get an idea of the data structure of going to these meetings in palaces in the evening. And I asked talked to the Vatican about it from day one, and you know, have been very mindful of
security and policy. I think that is one of the kind of greatest outcomes so far of this is that I have been a voice about land, land security and data security and policy. I actually also had an association of Buddhist monasteries come to me to ensure that they know how to do this with their data. I don't think anyone should have a global data set of all
the world's religions lands per se. I think that that would be too powerful and high risk, given that land and religion are like the two things that we have the most beef about in history, but also are the two critical leverage into climate change. You know, religious institutions. The UN estimates they own eight percent of habitable land on Earth that is larger than India and Sudan combined
and five percent of commercial for us. If we don't succeed as faith institutions and owning our responsibility in the face of this crisis, the world is going down. How do you convince a faith the organization of their responsibility here though, because when we talk about climate change, especially when you think about religion and the fact that in a lot of Christian faiths they see themselves being taken out of here when the world gets to its worst state.
So how do you even get organizations to care about something like climate change when they think that they might not even be around for it? Grueling, absolutely grueling work, to be honest, you know, I guess we've been told it wouldn't be easy, but I never expected what I've faced in this. It's well, first, it's it's really education.
So like you know, what I found is that people are kind of waking up more and more each year, and I think that's a collective effort of the science communicators, the activists, of the faith leaders of it's so devastating, you know, every day, but we keep at it, like all of us, you know, from different faiths, and no faiths and just knowing the human family impact. The funding is the most screwed of thing I've ever seen, and
it is shocking. So like, you know, the Pope gave me approval to establish the first scientific institution there in the trial basis, the budget was not enough there and I mean, and it's so weird, like my salaries less than McDonald's salary. And I hope it gets fixed for all of us, and I hope all of our faith communities learned to to step up because the interest is there,
the leadership that the bishops are want this. You know, we have more request than we could take and we've already done as much as we can with pulling together these teams. You know, it's it's just it blows my mind. Most people that work in actives and working to work that you are in have an acute awareness that there really is no end. But let's say there is an end, what does that successful journey look like for you? Well, the big end is the Catholic conservation on the global scale.
But I think in the next five years, you know, we have right now in our kind of backlog, we have seventeen dioceses and two major engeos who want to work with us. I actually think it's an alliance of you know, dealing with the complexities of ownership and healing. Have to heal our communities in each other if we want to heal the land with integrity, What can listeners do to kind of help to be engaged in your mission? Just go start googling permaculture, just like inspire, like a
holistic land design. Go find a place locally that is practicing these these land management techniques, because you will see a future that you want to live in that is awesome and verdant and like abundant. Whatever faith you are in the connections you have, encourage the fiduciary support. That is really the missing piece for all the organizations. I'm terrible at fundraising, but the whole space needs help. It needs money. All of the Faith for Earth, every Faith
for Earth organization desperately. Was there a way for listeners to get involved directly with the actual matmaking and help propelling the project forward. Oh my gosh, if you got one point three billion Catholics collecting data on species, we'd have like the greatest global species inventorium like a month. It'd be so cool. You know, I'm really hopeful actually about all of this right now. I know our partners at the Saint Katterie Conservation Center have an app where
you can log different species. I think there's a lot of apps out there too, like like the Audubon Society and their bird Day, you know, bird count, and it's it's awesome. I'm hopeful about the future. You know, We're all just hacking at it and I see it happening, and it's it's coming out, and it's just not just Catholics, but all face the people I've met in the faith for Earth space, We're all caring about the same thing. Molly, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you.
Molly Burhans is the founder and executive director of good Lands. To learn more about our work mapping the lands of the Catholic Church and to find links to our suggestions about ways you can get involved with the ecological design and mapping, check out the links in our show notes. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank, research by David Job, booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and the executive producer of Pushkin Podcasts is mil LaBelle.
I'm Ronald Young Junior. Thanks for listening,