Meryl Harrell, former Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA and a leader at Friends of the Forest Service, and Lisa Ronald, Western Montana Associate Conservation Director at American Rivers and co-founder of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Coalition, join The Wild Idea for a conversation recorded at the National Wilderness Skills Institute. They describe a real and unevenly distributed capacity crisis: the Forest Service’s non-fire staff has been reduced, monitoring programs are thin, and communities and nonprofits are filling operational gaps that federal agencies can no longer cover. The conversation draws on American Rivers’ 2025 National Protected Rivers Assessment, which found that over 80% of U.S. rivers lack adequate protection, to frame the urgency of what stewardship communities are currently being asked to absorb. Harrell and Ronald also describe community-led partnership models, including a single advocate driving a Wild and Scenic designation for Florida’s Myakka River to Congress and the Flathead Rivers Alliance piloting community river patrols in Montana, that offer genuine grounds for optimism about the resilience of the stewardship movement.

Place-specific solutions built on genuine listening are more durable than national frameworks.

Meryl Harrell is a former Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA and a longtime leader in wilderness and natural resource stewardship, currently working with Friends of the Forest Service. Lisa Ronald is the Northern Rockies Association Conservation Director for American Rivers and co-founder of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Coalition, with roots in the wilderness world through years at Wilderness Connect before transitioning to river advocacy. Both bring front-row perspectives on what people-powered stewardship actually looks like, and both are honest about where the system is beginning to strain. This episode was recorded as part of the National Wilderness Skills Institute, a national training platform bringing stewards together from across the country, and opens with a brief introduction from Ashley Arnold, host of Wild Idea Media’s new podcast Raising Wild, who previews the show’s first season.

Harrell and Ronald cover significant ground. They describe a federal capacity gap that is real but unevenly distributed: the Forest Service is down in non-fire staff, monitoring programs are underfunded, and agency partners are being asked to step into roles they weren’t designed to fill permanently. Former USFS Chief Vicki Christiansen cited a 75% increase in wilderness visitation at the first NWSI during the pandemic, and that pressure has not let back down; the pair discuss what responsible stewardship looks like when visitation climbs and staff declines simultaneously, including the management tensions unfolding in the Flathead Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management process in Montana. Technology comes up as a double-edged sword: GPS and apps have sent underprepared visitors into remote terrain, but tools like USGS streamflow gauges and American Whitewater’s hazard databases are equipping paddlers and land managers with better real-time information than has ever existed. On the question of contentious wedge issues, from fixed anchors in wilderness to fish barriers on rivers, both guests argue that the range of workable middle ground is larger than it appears, and that place-specific solutions built on genuine listening are more durable than national frameworks.

The most grounded optimism in this conversation comes from the partnership models that are working right now. Lisa describes a single community advocate who has almost single-handedly driven a Wild and Scenic designation bill for Florida’s Myakka River through Congress, and how that kind of community-driven, bipartisan conservation is exactly what’s moving in the current political environment. Meryl describes Friends of the Forest Service convening more than 300 organizations over the past year to build common ground for the Forest Service’s future. And both guests are clear that none of this is a long-term substitute for a funded, staffed federal workforce: talking to elected officials and voting is still the most direct lever available to anyone who cares about these places. The rubber band is stretching. Whether it holds depends on people showing up at every level.

In this episode:

• Origin stories: what drew each guest to stewardship Meryl traces her path to a summer at 15 on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Lisa describes becoming a whitewater paddler at 37 and how a river trip opened a second chapter of her career in water advocacy.
• The honest state of wilderness and wild rivers right now Wild places are under compound stress: climate impacts, wildfire risk, post-disaster damage, and a federal capacity that is being outpaced by the demand on these landscapes. Neither guest offers a press-release version.
• American Rivers’ National Protected Rivers Assessment Published in early 2025, this first-of-its-kind nationwide analysis found that over 80% of U.S. rivers lack adequate protection, and that the landscape surrounding rivers is often the deciding factor in whether they are protected or at risk.
• The visitation surge and what responsible stewardship requires Former USFS Chief Vicki Christiansen cited a 75% increase in wilderness visitation at the first NWSI; Harrell and Ronald discuss the monitoring deficit that makes it hard to make data-driven decisions about crowding, impact, and equity in access.
• Technology as a double-edged sword GPS and apps have sent underprepared visitors into places they are not equipped to handle; but USGS gauges, American Whitewater’s hazard databases, and emerging visitor distribution tools are giving managers and paddlers better information than they have ever had.
• Wedge issues and the value of common ground From fixed anchors in wilderness to fish barriers on rivers, both guests argue that place-specific conversations grounded in local input produce more durable solutions than top-down frameworks, and that the range of gray between seemingly opposed positions is almost always larger than it first appears.
• Partnership models providing genuine optimism A single citizen advocate driving a Wild and Scenic bill for Florida’s Myakka River, the Flathead Rivers Alliance piloting community river patrols in Montana, and the NWSI network itself are all cited as examples of what becomes possible when communities organize around shared care for a place.
• The capacity question and the rubber band Bill describes the demand on stewardship as a rubber band that stretches and flexes; both guests assess how thin that band is getting and where the breaking points are most likely to appear. Where community groups have built strong relationships with agency partners beforehand, the gaps are being bridged. Where they haven’t, impacts are visible.
• How to engage people who don’t already care Lisa makes the case that drinking water is the most effective frame for bringing non-recreation audiences into river advocacy; Meryl describes the web of connections between wild lands, agencies, and communities, and the importance of making that web visible.
• Raising Wild introduction The episode opens with host Ashley Arnold previewing Wild Idea Media’s new podcast Raising Wild, including her first season of guests: Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods, NOTICING), educator Genevieve King, trail runner Mike Foote, and Outdoor Recreation Roundtable executive director Jessica Turner, among others.

Links & Resources

Media & Books:

• The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter — Lisa references this book in discussing how the conservation movement is building resilience by working through an uncomfortable moment rather than around it. 
• National Protected Rivers Assessment (2025) — American Rivers and Conservation Science Partners; the first comprehensive nationwide analysis of river protection, finding over 80% of U.S. rivers lack adequate protection; peer-reviewed in Nature Sustainability. 

Organizations & Initiatives:

• Friends of the Forest Service — Organization working to build common ground and shared capacity for the future of the Forest Service and national forest stewardship. 
• American Rivers — National river conservation organization working to protect and restore rivers across the country. 
• Wild and Scenic Rivers Coalition — National coalition co-founded by Lisa Ronald to advance wild and scenic river designations and support stewardship of designated rivers. 
• Wilderness Connect — Interagency wilderness communications and education program housed at the University of Montana’s Wilderness Institute, in partnership with the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. 
• American Whitewater — Organization that maintains a national database of river hazards and access information, enabling paddlers and managers to share real-time safety information. 
• Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS) — Wilderness stewardship organization co-founded by Wild Idea host Bill Hodge; referenced in the context of community-driven stewardship models. 
• Flathead Rivers Alliance — Montana organization piloting a collaborative community-led river patrol program on the Flathead Wild and Scenic River in partnership with the Forest Service. 
• National Wilderness Skills Institute (NWSI) — National virtual training platform for wilderness and wild river stewards; the conversation in this episode was recorded as part of NWSI programming. 

Places & Landscapes:

• Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming — Where Meryl Harrell had her formative experience with wilderness stewardship at age 15. Link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/btnf
• Flathead Wild and Scenic River, Montana — Currently undergoing a comprehensive management process; the focus of discussion around visitation pressure and community-led stewardship responses. 
• Myakka River, Florida — Florida river at the center of an active Wild and Scenic designation campaign in the 119th Congress, driven substantially by a single community advocate; cited as a model of grassroots conservation.

Government & Policy:

• Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968) — Federal legislation establishing the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System to protect free-flowing rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values from development. 
• Wilderness Act (1964) — Foundational legislation establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System; briefly referenced in the context of wilderness management friction points. 

People Mentioned:

• Vicki Christiansen — USFS Chief from October 2018 to July 2021; cited a 75% increase in wilderness visitation at the first NWSI during the pandemic.
• Ashley Arnold — Host of Raising Wild, Wild Idea Media’s new podcast about childhood, nature, freedom, and risk. She opens this episode with a preview of the show’s first season. Catch the Raising Wild trailer now wherever you listen to podcasts.

A native of southeastern Idaho, Lisa Ronald has lived in Montana since 1996. She is a University of Montana alumni, lived off-grid for ten years in Montana’s Garnet Mountains, and spent nearly 20 years working on national wilderness outreach and partnerships at the University of Montana’s Wilderness Institute. In 2017, she helped found and continues to lead the Wild and Scenic Rivers Coalition, a national alliance of more than 60 river groups. She joined American Rivers in 2022 to broaden her river advocacy in western Montana and north central Idaho by championing Wild and Scenic River designations, administrative river protections, headwaters mining defense, and community powerbuilding. Lisa is an avid whitewater kayaker and packrafter and has paddled many of the rivers she now works to protect.

Meryl Harrell is a collaborative leader and forest policy expert with more than 20 years of natural resource leadership and a track record of bringing people together to create meaningful change. Her approach is rooted in bringing people together to find common ground, and working across silos to create systemic change for the well-being of the land and the communities we serve.

During her two terms of service at USDA, most recently serving as the Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment (NRE), Meryl led work on issues including wildfire resilience, Tribal co-stewardship, land management planning, outdoor recreation, watershed health, and increasing access to Forest Service lands, programs and resources. She also served as the Executive Director of the Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS), a workforce development and wilderness stewardship non-profit organization providing boots-on-the-ground support on public lands, and as a consultant working with government, philanthropic, industry and non-profit partners to steward America’s lands and waters. Meryl is the Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the Forest Service.

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