The Wild Idea

Wild Idea Media
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The Wild Idea is an exploration of the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. The hosts, Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, through conversations with experts and thought leaders will dive into the ways that humans have both embraced and impact the function and vitality of our remaining wild places.

  1. The Wild Line: Pearce Confirmed for BLM, Cyanide Bombs Return to Public Lands, Kash Patel Dives Pearl Harbor

    1 DAY AGO

    The Wild Line: Pearce Confirmed for BLM, Cyanide Bombs Return to Public Lands, Kash Patel Dives Pearl Harbor

    This week on The Wild Line, we’re tracking the Senate confirmation of Steve Pearce as Bureau of Land Management director, the Trump administration’s restoration of cyanide trap devices on public lands, new reporting on how automated bots are locking everyday users out of Recreation.gov permits, the launch of a free community shuttle connecting Colorado residents to outdoor destinations in the Golden and Morrison area, and FBI Director Kash Patel’s coordinated snorkel tour of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. From FY27 appropriations markups to Conservation Alliance lobbying in Washington, these stories trace a week of compounding movement on federal lands and wildlife policy. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.

    17 min

  2. 4 DAYS AGO

    John Leshy: The Hollowing Out of America’s Public Lands

    John Leshy has spent sixty years tracking the arc of federal public land policy, which makes his assessment of the current moment unusually grounded and unusually sobering. He is an Emeritus Professor at UC Law San Francisco, former Solicitor of the Interior Department under President Clinton, and the author of Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands (Yale University Press, 2022).   In this conversation, Leshy traces the founding-era origins of America’s public lands, from the thirteen colonies’ negotiation over western land claims to the Great Transition of 1890, when Congress first authorized presidents to reserve lands for protection. He then turns to the present, naming the Trump administration’s approach not as a policy disagreement but as something new: a deliberate strategy to hollow out the agencies that manage these lands, make the management visibly bad, and use public disillusionment to justify divestiture. He also examines why Bears Ears National Monument drew an immediate public backlash while rescinding the Roadless Rule has not, and what that difference means for conservation organizers. The hollowing out of agencies is not something that can be reversed quickly; rebuilding the expertise and capacity that has been stripped away could take a decade. Whether public support, which Colorado College’s annual western polls show remains strong and even growing across the political spectrum, can translate into political action remains, in Leshy’s words, “a big, gigantic question mark.” Learn more about today's conversation and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.

    52 min
  3. The Wild Line: Public Lands Rule Rescinded, Right Whale and Roadless Rule Hearings Loom, and Wins in Colorado and New Mexico

    15 MAY

    The Wild Line: Public Lands Rule Rescinded, Right Whale and Roadless Rule Hearings Loom, and Wins in Colorado and New Mexico

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the Bureau of Land Management's rescission of the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's congressional testimony — including his description of designated wilderness areas as "death sentences for forests" — a House bill that would block North Atlantic right whale protections through 2035, the authorization of chainsaws in the Frank Church Wilderness, and state-level wins in Colorado and New Mexico.  Find the details and links mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com

    12 min

  4. 12 MAY

    Gregg Treinish & Lara Birkes: Turning Adventure into Conservation Data

    In this episode, Bill and Anders sit down with Greg Treinish, founder of Adventure Scientists, and Lara Birkes, the organization's newly appointed executive director, for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when outdoor skill meets scientific purpose.  Greg launched Adventure Scientists 15 years ago after growing restless on expeditions across the Andes and Appalachian Trail, feeling that the time and effort spent exploring wild places could be put to better use. What began as a scrappy nonprofit driven by personal relationships and viral outdoor media has grown into a global network of more than 10,000 trained volunteers collecting data across projects spanning microplastics, antibiotic resistance, endangered species, coral reef restoration, illegal timbering, and high-altitude fungi. A central theme of the conversation is data quality: how Adventure Scientists has built protocols rigorous enough to hold up in court, and how that credibility has forced a broader reckoning in the scientific community about what community-gathered data can actually achieve. Greg and Lara also discuss the frontier of new tools, from eDNA sampling to LIDAR drones flown by indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon, and how these technologies extend the reach of field science without replacing the irreplaceable value of boots on the ground. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today on our website.

    49 min
  5. The Wild Line: Pearce Nomination Heads to Senate Floor, American Prairie Permit Battle, Alaska Land Transfer, and Ted Turner's Legacy

    8 MAY

    The Wild Line: Pearce Nomination Heads to Senate Floor, American Prairie Permit Battle, Alaska Land Transfer, and Ted Turner's Legacy

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the Senate's imminent floor vote on Steve Pearce's nomination as BLM Director, Montana's escalating campaign against American Prairie's bison grazing permits, a federal land transfer tied to the Ambler Road corridor in Alaska, an Alaska court ruling allowing unlimited bear killing in southwest Alaska, a pending Forest Service decision on chainsaw use in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, and the death of conservationist Ted Turner. From nomination fights to wilderness policy to bison restoration, the pressure on public lands is building on every front. Find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com

    8 min

  6. 5 MAY

    Autumn Gillard & Steve Bloch: Tribal Voices and the Fight to Save Grand Staircase - Escalante

    In this episode, Bill and Anders are joined by Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase Intertribal Coalition, and Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), for a wide-ranging conversation about one of the most contested and celebrated landscapes in the American West: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Autumn brings a Southern Paiute perspective to the work, rooted in personal connection to ancestral land and galvanized by witnessing the vandalism of irreplaceable cultural sites. Steve brings 30 years of legal and conservation advocacy, including direct involvement in the monument's establishment in 1996 and the subsequent legal battles that followed. The conversation traces the full arc of the monument's history, from early twentieth-century preservation visions to the coal mining threat that catalyzed the 1996 designation, through the Trump administration's 2017 reduction of the monument boundaries and the Biden administration's 2021 restoration. Steve and Autumn explain how the collaborative management planning process that followed the restoration became an opportunity to elevate tribal voices in unprecedented ways, with coalition members sitting alongside elders without smartphones to hand-transcribe their knowledge into formal public comments. That process produced a management plan that now faces a new and potentially permanent threat: weaponized use of the Congressional Review Act by Representative Celeste Maloy and Senator Mike Lee. What emerges from this conversation is not despair but resolve. Autumn speaks with quiet power about carrying the weight of ancestral obligation and drawing strength from the land itself, preparing not for today's outcome but for seven generations forward. Steve lays out the legal landscape with clarity and urgency, while both guests leave listeners with a simple, actionable message: your voice matters, and raising it, whether by calling Congress or simply visiting the monument, is its own form of advocacy. Learn more about today's episode and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.

    50 min
  7. The Wild Line: Trump Pulls NPS Nominee, Appalachian Groups Sue Over Corridor H, and the Forest Service Embraces Glyphosate

    1 MAY

    The Wild Line: Trump Pulls NPS Nominee, Appalachian Groups Sue Over Corridor H, and the Forest Service Embraces Glyphosate

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the withdrawal of the Trump administration's National Park Service nominee, a Forest Service plan to spray glyphosate across 10,000 acres of public land, a federal lawsuit to stop a controversial West Virginia highway, a proposed blast mine threatening the San Joaquin River, new University of Montana survey data on public lands attitudes, a coalition framework rejecting public land sell-offs as a housing fix, and the opening of a new trail at Red Rock Canyon. From farm bill stalemates to the gap between what Montana voters say and how their delegation votes, these stories cut to the heart of who controls — and who protects — America's public lands. Find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    13 min

  8. 28 APR

    Dalton George: The Hellbender, The High Country, and the Fight to Keep Appalachia Wild

    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.  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.  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. Learn more about today's conversation and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.

    33 min
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About

The Wild Idea is an exploration of the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. The hosts, Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, through conversations with experts and thought leaders will dive into the ways that humans have both embraced and impact the function and vitality of our remaining wild places.

Information

  • Creator
    Wild Idea Media
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    121
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Wild Idea Media
  • Show Website
    The Wild Idea

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