For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.
This week we interview Reverend M. Kalani Souza, a gifted storyteller, singer, songwriter, musician, performer, poet, philosopher, priest, political satirist, and peacemaker. Join us in conversation as Ayana and Kalani discuss an “all hands on deck approach” to addressing human behavior and developing personal preparedness. Support the show
Queen Quet and the Gullah/Geechee nation are an exemplary vision of resilience in an age of deterioration, holding on to spirit and hope amidst. Facing the onslaught of colonial terrorism towards both Black and Indigenous lives, Queen Quet's vision is lighting the way forward in troubled times. Support the show
Since 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project has filed lawsuits on behalf of non-human animals in captivity – including four chimpanzees and three elephants, so far – seeking a writ of habeas corpus. The organization is fighting for the autonomy of our more than human kin as we face the need for multi species liberation. Support the show
This week we are joined by Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas, a globally renowned anthropologist, conservationist, and orangutan researcher. She has been researching and working with wild and wild-born ex-captive orangutans for nearly half a century. Support the show
Ben Goldfarb is an independent environmental journalist based in Spokane, Washington, whose writing has appeared in publications such as Mother Jones, Science, The Guardian, and High Country News. He is the author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Support the show
Dr. Russo and the Lummi people believe that Tahlequah carried her baby on the tour of grief because she knows we are watching. The display of her dead offspring in this way was an intentional act– not only an act of grieving, but intended to stir an empathetic reaction from those who live above the water. Support the show
Elizabeth Fournier, affectionately called ‘The Green Reaper,’ is the author of The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial. Support the show
Heather Milton-Lightening has seventeen years of organizing experience from local issues to international campaigns. Among other topics, Ayana and Heather discuss truth and reconciliation, true ally-ship, the commonality of Trump and Trudeau and reflections from Standing Rock. Support the show
This week’s conversation is with Nnimmo Bassey, an inspirationally committed Nigerian activist, who is fighting the global petrol military complex to reveal the full ecological and human horrors of oil production. Support the show
Steven and Ayana explore the ideas of co-creative integrated polyculture, living reciprocally with the land, autonomous evolution of nature, invasive species, and the origins of our food and medicine plants. Steven has more than thirty years experience living co-creatively with the Earth, practicing traditional living skills of growing food, building and healing. Support the show
This conversation between Ayana and Leah confronts us with harsh realities of injustice, simultaneously speaking of healing, possibility, and reconciliation. We must acknowledge the current state of our food system. Land and food sovereignty are essential to liberation. By re-evaluating our relationship with land and agency, we can fix the problems of our food system and heal our communities... Support the show
Ron Finley is an artist, farmer and visionary who “envisions a world where gardening is gangsta, where cool kids know their nutrition and where communities embrace the act of growing, knowing and sharing the best of the earth’s fresh-grown food.” In this episode Ron asks us to inquire about our socialization, our indoctrination into a capitalistic system of values that perpetuate unwellness... Support the show
Stephen Harrod Buhner is the earth speaking on behalf of themselves. He beautifully and scientifically challenges us to give ourselves fully and humbly in our relationships with our more than human elders and kin, he asks us to walk our talk when it comes to unlearning human supremacy and civilized consumptive conditioning through relationship to plants. Support the show
In an age of natural exploitation and capitalism, under the westward expansion of the settler colonial mindset, we have veered far off the path of right relations. Severance from seven generations thinking has left a falsehood of limitlessness, and we stand at at a critical crossroads for all life on Earth... Support the show
Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation is a mother, scientist and writer, a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY, and the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Support the show
Dune Lankard has made a living demonstration of resource conservation over exploitation as better economics ~ to continue to catch fish means preserving what gives fish life. We cannot continue stealing from the future, and the bad economics of doing so are swiftly coming home to roost in climate change, environmental degradation, and the collapse of resources. Support the show
Favianna invites us to explore the wisdom of nature and Earth relations as a lens through which to envision an alternative to the current immigration crisis. As climate change advances, the consequence of human migration will only become more pressing, Favianna invites us to explore the freedom in recognizing this beyond the extractive economical box. Support the show
This week we are rejoined by Zayaan Khan to discuss water scarcity in South Africa. Local communities are experiencing a threshold being reached; a point of no return at which culture can change rapidly. Suddenly people become accustomed to the unthinkable —no showering! no laundry!— and they begin to ask, how could we have ever been so wasteful, so indulgent... Support the show
Through discussion with Zayaan, we trace the ways that the white colonization of South Africa not only destroyed the complexities of the human-to-land relationship, but also continues to ignore the intricacies and connectivity of the landscape, leading to today’s dire drought. Further, we learn how South Africa is still living within the echo chamber of a shockingly repressive colonial system... Support the show
We are living through a time when there are more people, more creatures, more plants, more cultures, dying than ever before. The debts of generations past have accrued to us, but not the wisdom. Our inheritance of obligation, of reciprocity, has been broken and we are left with what is dying, but without any understanding of how to be with it... Support the show
At the heart of Emergent Strategy is moving towards life and learning from the wisdom of nature to drive our social movements. Emergent Strategy asks us to think about spirituality and transformative justice as central to the resilient future we are imagining together. Support the show
Jacinda Mack, leader of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining is a mother, water protector and Indigenous woman striving to promote environmentally sound mining exploration and development processes that respect First Nations rights and grant them full participation. Support the show
This week on For The Wild podcast we are joined by Tom Goldtooth, an Indigenous rights leader in the climate and environmental justice movement. He advocates for building healthy and sustainable Indigenous communities based on traditional knowledge foundations, and works within tribal governments to develop Indigenous-based environmental protection infrastructures. Support the show
This week, we speak with Ron Finley, an artist, designer and a South LA "gangsta" gardener who made the change he wanted to see in his own neighborhood. Together, we learn about how people power and community agitation can facilitate change. Support the show
This week’s episode centers around the devastating impacts of salmon farming on the Pacific coast of British Columbia. This week’s guest, Alexandra Morton, is an expert in salmon farming and the viruses perpetuated by this destructive aquaculture practice– she has written 26 papers on the topic alone and is a leader in the movement to halt salmon farming off the coast of British Columbia. Support the show
This week we’re joined by Ian McAllister, co-founder and Executive Director of Pacific Wild, a non-profit located in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. McAllister is committed to defending wildlife and their habitat on Canada’s Pacific Coast. Support the show
Ulrich is a German ecologist and conservationist who has been living in Vienna, Austria for 29 years. He worked for the World Wildlife Fund Austria for more than 17 years until 2007, being primarily concerned with river conservation and restoration. He has been campaigning internationally against the construction of hydropower plants, such as dams along the Danube and the Ilisu Dam project... Support the show
Malik Kenyatta Yakini is an activist and educator who is committed to freedom and justice for humanity. Yakini is co-founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN). DBCFSN operates a seven-acre urban farm and is spearheading the opening of a co-op grocery store in Detroit’s North End. Support the show
Jurek is one of the activists camped out with Camp of the Forest-a non-hierarchic, grassroots, no-logo camp based on equality. Theirs is a movement for everyone: “It’s not a movement of some radical fighters. It’s not a movement of young men or young women or any specific social, economical, age group, or gender group. It’s open for anyone, from any country around the world, who wants to come... Support the show
This week’s interview is with Jeremy Lent, an author whose writings investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability. His book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, published last year, explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. Support the show
