Organizing, advocacy, and the kind of power that’s still available to regular people when they decide to use it.

Dalton George is the mayor of Boone, North Carolina and the national organizing director for the Endangered Species Coalition. He came up through community organizing, founded a tenant rights organization, led the campaign to make Boone the first carbon-neutral municipality in North Carolina, and got himself elected to town council before becoming the youngest mayor in the state. He carries all of that into a conversation that moves fast and covers a lot of ground.

The thread connecting Dalton’s work across housing justice, voting rights, and wildlife advocacy is a conviction that displacement is displacement, whether it happens to people or species. He draws a direct line between luxury development pressuring working families out of Appalachian communities and the same pressures pushing the Eastern hellbender salamander toward extinction. Both stories, he argues, are about powerful outside forces reshaping a place and its character, often without the people who live there having much say. That framing, unusual in conservation circles, turns out to be surprisingly effective when talking to constituents who might not otherwise connect with endangered species work.

The episode was recorded while Dalton was in Washington, DC lobbying against the ESA Amendments Act, a bill that would have significantly weakened the Endangered Species Act. The morning they recorded, that bill was pulled from the floor after opposition mounted and its sponsors realized they did not have the votes. It was a rare and meaningful win, and Dalton’s reflections on what made it possible, ordinary people from across the country showing up to tell their stories in congressional offices, cut to the heart of what he believes about organizing, advocacy, and the kind of power that’s still available to regular people when they decide to use it.

In this episode:

• Organizer mentality in the mayor’s office Dalton describes how his background in community organizing shapes how he governs, including pausing public hearings to walk constituents through exactly how and when to stay involved in a decision.
• Housing, displacement, and the hellbender Dalton connects working-class displacement in Appalachian communities to the habitat loss driving the Eastern hellbender toward extinction, arguing that the stories are the same and the enemy is often the same.
• Carbon neutrality and local government leadership How Dalton pushed Boone to become North Carolina’s first carbon-neutral municipality, and why he believes local governments have more power than they usually claim, even when state law limits their formal authority.
• Boone’s resolution in support of hellbender protections The story behind Dalton authoring what may be only the second community resolution in US history to formally support an Endangered Species Act listing, and why he sees it as listening to his constituents rather than making history.
• Hurricane Helene and the noise problem Dalton reflects on being embedded with Boone’s public works crew for weeks of physical recovery work after Helene, then returning to find the national conversation dominated by people who weren’t there, and what that disconnect meant for serious conversations about environmental protection and recovery.
• The gap between national conservation groups and local communities A frank assessment of where the conservation movement has lost its organizing muscle, and what it looks like to build real relationships with people instead of filling webinar seats.
• The ESA Amendments Act and a win on the Hill What the lobbying push against the bill looked like from inside the congressional meetings, why the bill was pulled, and why Dalton is cautious about celebrating while still insisting the win matters.
• Why your phone call might actually matter A reminder, from someone who has sat in those meetings, that congressional staffers sometimes aren’t tracking a bill at all until constituents start calling, and that a single call at the right moment can change a vote.

Links & Resources

Organizations & Initiatives:

• Endangered Species Coalition A national advocacy organization focused on defending the Endangered Species Act; Dalton serves as its national organizing director while simultaneously serving as mayor of Boone.
• Biodiversity Movement School A training program run through the Endangered Species Coalition to develop grassroots advocates for wildlife, mentioned as an example of deep relationship-based organizing.
• Down Home North Carolina A regional organizing group where Dalton worked prior to ESC, focused on leadership development and community-rooted issue campaigns.
• Boone Fair Housing A tenant rights organization Dalton founded early in his career, connecting housing justice work to the broader community organizing background he brings to elected office.

Places & Landscapes:

• Boone, North Carolina A high-country Appalachian city where Dalton serves as mayor; the episode’s conversations about hellbender habitat, hurricane recovery, and local climate policy are all rooted here.
  
• Watauga River A waterway running through the Boone area that Dalton references as both a hellbender habitat and an example of the direct connection between development pressure and watershed health.
  
• Watauga County The county surrounding Boone, invoked as a place with a strong cultural identity tied to landscapes like Grandfather Mountain and the cold mountain streams the hellbender calls home. 

Government & Policy:

• Endangered Species Act (1973) The foundational federal law protecting at-risk species; the central legislative focus of this episode, with polling cited suggesting roughly 85 percent of Americans support it.
• ESA Amendments Act A bill introduced by Representative Bruce Westerman that would have significantly weakened the Endangered Species Act; it was pulled from the House floor the day before this conversation was recorded after lobbying efforts mounted enough opposition.

Wildlife & Species:

• Eastern Hellbender Salamander A large, fully aquatic salamander native to cold Appalachian streams; discussed as an indicator species for clean water, a cultural symbol for the Boone area, and the subject of the ESA listing that Dalton’s city formally endorsed. Populations in some areas declined sharply following Hurricane Helene.

People Mentioned:

• Bruce Westerman The US Representative who introduced the ESA Amendments Act; identified in the episode as the bill’s primary sponsor.
• Joel Tomasulo A colleague at the Endangered Species Coalition mentioned in the context of Dalton’s early lobbying experience.

Dalton George is the current Mayor of Boone, North Carolina, and the National Organizing Director for the Endangered Species Coalition.
In both of those roles, he’s worked extensively to advocate for and organize on behalf of wildlife, including his favorite, the Eastern Hellbender. With a deep background in organizing, Dalton is dedicated to including more people in the wildlife movement, bringing that attitude to the Mayor’s office and the environmental organizing world.

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