The Wild Idea Podcast
What is The Wild Idea?
Humans have been part of Earth’s natural cycle for 300,000 years, with brains much the same as ours for the past 100,000 or so. What’s evolved isn’t our biology but how we understand our place in the natural world. As small populations grew into communities and then into societies, we created cultural, religious, and legal frameworks to help explain and define our connection to the rest of life on Earth.
How did we come to see our relationship with wild places the way we do?
Is that relationship thriving—or falling apart?
And where could it, and should it, go from here?
These are the questions we’re excited to explore with you on this journey.
Explore All Our Episodes
Jose Gonzalez: Show Up and Be Curious
In this episode of The Wild Idea, we speak with José González, founder of Latino Outdoors and co-founder of The Outdoorist Oath, about identity, community, and redefining what it means to belong in wild spaces.
David Gessner: Roosevelt, Resistance and Reclaiming the Wild
Today, celebrated author David Gessner joins Anders Reynolds and Bill Hodge on The Wild Idea Podcast to talk about his career, writers who inspired him, and the paradox of land management.
Tim Manley: Grizzlies, Conflict, and Coexistence
Grizzly bear biologist Tim Manley joins Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds on The Wild Idea podcast.
Drew Lanham: The Wild We Inherit, The Wild We Imagine
Deconstructing the idea of "wild" "Home isn’t just where you’re from - it’s where your heart settles into the land and says,‘I see you. I know you. I’m part of you.’" -- Dr. J. Drew Lanham What does it mean to belong to a place, and who gets to decide what counts as...
Greg Aplet: Forests, Fire, and What is Wild
What does it mean to be "natural"? Today we're welcoming forest ecologist Greg Aplet as we dive into one of the most common points of interest when it comes to the wilderness today: forest fires and how they impact spaces both wild and human. We talk with Greg about...
Susan Jane Brown: The (Troubled) Future of the United States Forest Service
Susan Jane Brown joins us in this special bonus episode to explore the recent government actions impacting the U.S. Forest Service.