The Wild Idea

Wild Idea Media
  • 4.9 (68)
  • Nature

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. 1d ago

    Sheena Pate: The Rivers That Launched the Wild and Scenic Act

    The Three Forks of the Flathead River in northwest Montana didn't just earn Wild and Scenic designation — they inspired the law that made it possible. In the 1950s, a proposed dam at Spruce Park would have dewatered the Middle Fork entirely, routing its flow through a mountain tunnel into Hungry Horse Reservoir. Wildlife biologists John and Frank Craighead floated the river to document what would be lost, and their fight against the dam seeded the movement that became the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. The three forks themselves weren't formally designated until 1976 — 50 years ago this year. Recorded live at Lake Baked in Bigfork, Montana during the annual Whitewater Festival, this episode features Sheena Pate, executive director of the Flathead Rivers Alliance (FRA), in conversation with Bill and Anders about what protecting 219 miles of wild river actually requires on the ground today. FRA runs a River Ambassador Program, an annual noxious weed pull with 165 volunteers, water quality monitoring, youth programming, and boots-on-ground education at put-ins across all three forks — work that has become more urgent as recreation pressure has grown and federal agency capacity has shrunk. The conversation covers the distinct character of the North, Middle, and South forks; the transboundary dimension of the North Fork, which originates in Ktunaxa Nation territory in British Columbia; FRA's partnerships with First Nations tribes and the Blackfeet; and the long-overdue update to the 1980s river management plan. Bill is a former board member of FRA who was there at the organization's founding, which gives the conversation an unusually frank quality about what it takes to build a river stewardship organization from scratch. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    36 min
  2. The Wild Line: Trump Targets Recommended Wilderness, Lee Launches Attack on Roadless, Interior Designates New Trails

    5d ago

    The Wild Line: Trump Targets Recommended Wilderness, Lee Launches Attack on Roadless, Interior Designates New Trails

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking a lackluster oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a draft Forest Service memo that could open recommended wilderness to off-road vehicles, Senator Mike Lee's move to nullify the Roadless Rule, and a bipartisan bill to keep public land sales out of budget reconciliation. From Alaska to Appalachia, these stories come down to who decides the future of America's public lands. For more on these stories and the links mentioned, visit our website at thewildidea.com.

    20 min

  3. Jun 9

    Kaitlin de Varona: Stewardship as a Form of Advocacy

    Kaitlin de Varona is the executive director of Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS), the nonprofit that has spent more than a decade building a community of skilled, committed wilderness stewards across the Southeast. In this special episode, she joins Bill and Anders — both former SAWS leaders who helped shape the organization — for a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to keep wild places healthy and accessible for generations to come. From the passage of the Tennessee Wilderness Act in 2018 to the harrowing weeks following Hurricane Helene in 2024, SAWS has repeatedly proven that consistent stewardship changes minds, builds coalitions, and, when disaster strikes, can respond to the wilderness faster than anyone expected. In the months after Helene, Kaitlin's pro crews deployed into remote Tennessee backcountry in winter conditions with one week's notice, clearing 700 downed trees using only traditional tools. Meanwhile, she worked to ensure that not a single staff member lost their job in the storm's aftermath. This episode is part of The Wild Idea's Month of Stewards series and captures a moment of genuine transformation for SAWS: the organization has grown to approximately 70 employees, launched year-round professional crews with benefits, and continues to expand the Wilderness Skills Institute — all while staying true to the founding conviction that places worth protecting are worth showing up for, again and again. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    52 min
  4. The Wild Line: Trump Repeals Motorized Protections, the CRA comes for Utah, Appropriators Slash Funding for National Parks

    Jun 5

    The Wild Line: Trump Repeals Motorized Protections, the CRA comes for Utah, Appropriators Slash Funding for National Parks

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the White House's repeal of decades-old off-road vehicle protections on public lands, House appropriations cuts to national parks and the EPA, the collapse of federal conservation program funding for farmers, and the withdrawal of NSF's deep-sea ocean monitoring network. From rolling back environmental safeguards to shrinking the public institutions that protect land and water, these stories trace a consistent direction in 2026. Find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    18 min

  5. Jun 2

    Jaime Loucky: 60 Years of Stewarding Trails in the Evergreen State

    Jaime Loucky is the CEO of the Washington Trails Association, one of the largest trail stewardship nonprofits in the United States. The organization now facilitates more than 160,000 hours of volunteer trail work each year, runs gear lending libraries that generated 5,000 outdoor experiences for youth last year alone, and serves one to two million website visitors monthly looking for reliable information about where and how to get outside. The sixtieth anniversary arrives at a moment when the public lands those trails cross are under serious pressure. A central concept in the conversation is what Jaime calls the flywheel: the cycle by which high-quality trail information draws people outside, outdoor experiences build personal connection, and connection generates the volunteers, donors, and advocates who keep public lands accessible. That flywheel is under stress. In 2025, federal staffing cuts eliminated hundreds of Forest Service and National Park Service positions across Washington State, including all but three of the thirteen-person recreation team managing the Enchantments, one of the state's most-visited backcountry landscapes. Jaime describes what a trail nonprofit does when agency partners disappear, how WTA has expanded paid professional crews into post-wildfire backcountry areas that volunteers cannot safely work in, and why urban day work parties in city parks are not a retreat from the wilderness mission but a genuine entry point for the next generation of trail stewards. The episode is also about coalition. Jaime identifies the fourth pillar of WTA's new strategic plan, building an outdoors movement, as the one that excites him most: uniting recreation groups, conservation organizations, hunters and anglers, and motorized users around shared public lands interests, a coordination that has not historically happened at the scale the current moment requires. The question he is working toward is not whether people care about public lands, because they do across the political spectrum, but whether they can be organized to show it before the losses become permanent. Learn more about the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    49 min
  6. The Wild Line: Wildlife Fare Well in Transportation Bill, Park Fees Redirected to DC, a Warning on Wildfire Season

    May 29

    The Wild Line: Wildlife Fare Well in Transportation Bill, Park Fees Redirected to DC, a Warning on Wildfire Season

    This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking a new bill to nullify the Gulf of Mexico Endangered Species Act exemption, $67 million in national park entrance fees redirected to Washington, D.C. beautification projects, a steep drop in Forest Service wildfire fuels reduction, and conservation wins in the House surface transportation bill. From the Gulf to the Rockies, these stories capture the pressures and the persistent advocacy shaping federal land and wildlife policy heading into a high-risk fire season. Learn more about the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

    12 min

  7. May 26

    Tracy Stone-Manning Returns: Don't Mourn, Organize

    The federal lands fight has shifted since Tracy Stone-Manning last sat down with Bill and Anders in June 2025. The workforce cuts she warned about have arrived; the Roadless Rule is days from final rescission; and on the day this episode was recorded, the BLM Public Lands Rule was formally rescinded. Stone-Manning, who led the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden, returns as the show's first repeat guest to assess the damage, name what's still worth fighting for, and make the case that the crisis contains an opportunity. The conversation covers the full landscape of the current moment. We walk through the hollowing-out of federal land management agencies, including the deferred resignation programs, proposed 30% budget cuts for FY27, and Forest Service reorganization, all of which she frames as an effort to set agencies up to fail and use that failure to justify divestiture. She sounds a direct alarm on wildfire: with historic low snowpack, a reorganizing Forest Service, and reduced staffing, she calls the coming season a recipe for the government to fail its people. She also addresses the Congressional Review Act's unprecedented use against Grand Staircase-Escalante's citizen-built management plan, and names what a future Congress would need to do to fix it. The episode's most striking thread is Stone-Manning's argument that the destruction itself has opened a door. Ground Shift, a cross-partisan ideas hub seeded by the Wilderness Society but operating independently, is betting that public anger, the obvious inadequacy of laws written for the Dust Bowl and to settle the West, and the scale of what will need to be rebuilt represent a once-in-a-generation chance to reimagine public lands protection from the ground up. Her message to listeners losing hope: don't mourn, organize, and be ready with the answers when the moment comes. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.

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

    May 22

    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.

    15 min
See All (128)

Trailer

4.9
out of 5
68 Ratings

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
    128
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Wild Idea Media
  • Show Website
    The Wild Idea

You Might Also Like