The Wild Idea

36:45

Marshall Johnson: Conservation Ranching and the Birds...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/10/06

Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer for the National Audubon Society, joins Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds to discuss how the Conservation Ranching Program aligns rancher livelihoods with grassland health. Johnson explains why ranchers were the easiest sell for a national certification effort and how birds act as diplomats connecting urban and rural communities. The conversation traces the program’s evolution from a small pilot to a national framework, highlighting collaborations

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54:58

Amy Bowers Cordalis: Indigenous-Led Conservation and...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/09/29

Amy Bowers Cordalis is a Yurok Tribe member, attorney, and executive director of Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group. She helped lead the fight to remove four dams from the Klamath River, the largest dam removal and salmon restoration project in U.S. history. In this conversation, she traces that fight from the first covenant of the Yurok creation story through her great-uncle's arrests for fishing on the Klamath, the Supreme Court case that followed, and the grassroots and

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49:08

Mark Haggerty & Megan Lawson: The Economics of Public...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/09/22

Some of the highest-output rural counties in the country are losing population, even as public lands get pitched as the answer to everything from housing to the national debt. Mark Haggerty of the Center for American Progress and Dr. Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics, two economists who study what public lands do for the communities next door, join Bill and Anders to sort out what the numbers actually say. They cover why automation and stagnant wages have hollowed out extractive jobs,

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49:35

Fitz Cahall: The Million-Signature Push to Save...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/09/15

Fitz Cahall has spent nearly twenty years telling other people's outdoor stories as the host of The Dirtbag Diaries. Now he's leading one himself: Save Public Lands, a coalition campaign racing to collect a million signatures against public land sell-offs, backroom deals, and giveaways before National Public Lands Day on September 26.Cahall talks with Bill Hodge about the throughline from The Dirtbag Diaries to organizing, including his and Becca Cahall's history with Bears Ears National

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47:12

Jim Klug, Hal Herring & Alex Leone: River Access Is...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/09/08

In most Western states, wading a river through private land can get you arrested for trespassing. In Montana, it can't, and three guests join Bill and Anders to explain why. Jim Klug of Yellow Dog Flyfishing, journalist Hal Herring, and Alex Leone of the Public Land/Water Access Association trace Montana's 1985 Stream Access Law back to its roots in the state's 1972 Constitution and the landowner fights that tested it in court for decades, and explain what the law means for Montana's

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40:55

Christian Hunt & Kelly Cox: Can Wildlife Corridors...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/09/01

Parks and refuges were built to protect wildlife, but many function as islands, and the species that depend on them can't always survive within borders drawn decades before habitat connectivity was understood. Christian Hunt and Kelly Cox of Defenders of Wildlife join Bill and Anders to break down the Wildlife Corridors and Habitat Connectivity Conservation Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill that would create the first durable, legal framework for connecting fragmented wildlife habitat across

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45:51

Adam Cramer: How Outdoor Recreation Became a...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/08/25

Adam Cramer co-founded and now leads the Outdoor Alliance, a coalition of ten organizations, including American Whitewater, the Access Fund, and Winter Wildlands Alliance, that turns climbers, kayakers, mountain bikers, and backcountry skiers into public lands advocates. In this episode, Cramer traces his own path from corporate law to conservation, sparked by a pro bono legal case over a hydropower permit on a favorite whitewater river, and explains how Outdoor Alliance builds consensus

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50:21

Dan Puskar: DC's Own National Park

The Wild Idea ·

2026/08/18

Dan Puskar, executive director of the Rock Creek Conservancy, introduces listeners to Rock Creek Park, the 1,754-acre national park running through the heart of Washington, DC, created by Congress the same week as Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. Puskar explains what it takes to steward an urban national park that draws more than two million visits a year but has seen no real increase in its federal budget in two decades, from a 4,000-volunteer stewardship program to a new DC Water tunnel

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48:31

Ryan Johnston: Building Cast Hope Through the Sport...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/08/11

Ryan Johnston has spent 24 years as a fly fishing guide, working rivers in California and Idaho and now Montana's Flathead Valley. In this episode, he shares stories from his three books, including the now-legendary "Monster Brown Trout" tale from his first book, A Reel Job, and reflects on what two decades in a drift boat has taught him about people, patience, and the intimacy of sharing a day on the water with a stranger. Johnston also traces the origin of Cast Hope, the youth mentorship

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68:53

Andy Mergen & Justin Pidot: How Do We Make Public...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/08/04

Please take our listener survey! We'd love to hear from you. Are America's public lands getting more public, or less? Two of the sharpest legal minds in the field join Bill and Anders to dig in. Andrew Mergen, faculty director of Harvard Law School's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, spent decades litigating public lands cases for the Department of Justice. Justin Pidot teaches environmental law at the University of Arizona and served as general counsel of the White House Council

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9:38

The Wild Line: DOGE Cuts Exacerbate Wildfire,...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/31

This week, a Senate committee drops most of its wilderness, national park, and wild and scenic river bills in favor of energy permitting measures, a federal judge in Anchorage clears the way for transferring more than 2 million acres along the Dalton Highway corridor to the State of Alaska, while the Interior Department cancels the Endangered Species Act's blanket 4(d) rule and NOAA rejects a bid to expand North Atlantic right whale critical habitat. We also cover new reporting linking

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51:47

Lynn Scarlett & Matt Lee-Ashley: Can We Rewrite the...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/28

What would it take to rewrite the rules of American conservation? Lynn Scarlett, former Deputy Secretary of the Interior, and Matt Lee-Ashley, Executive Director of Ground Shift, join Bill and Anders to talk about a new initiative asking that exact question, crowdsourcing ideas for what public lands and waters should look like in ten, twenty, and fifty years.The conversation covers essays on the Ground Shift platform that challenge conservation orthodoxy, from private land tools to a class

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20:20

The Wild Line: Proposed NHPA Changes Undermine...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/24

This week, proposed federal rules would gut tribal consultation and historic-preservation protections under the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Trump Administration opens a comment period on drilling near Chaco Canyon, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We also cover a nearly one-third cut to Canada lynx critical habitat, a Montana Land Board grazing policy widely read as targeting American Prairie's bison herd, and a busy week for the House Natural Resources Committee. Plus: two

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57:21

Brooks Lamb: Land, Legacy, and Who Comes Next

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/21

Brooks Lamb has spent his career trying to answer a hard question: who will own rural America? As Special Advisor for Strategic Communications at American Farmland Trust, Lamb works on one of agriculture's most urgent and least-discussed problems, the more than 300 million acres of U.S. farmland set to change hands over the next two decades as current owners retire or pass away. Recorded live at the Old Salt Festival on the Mannix Ranch in Montana, this conversation covers why succession

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23:31

The Wild Line: Trump Guts Utah Monuments, Admin...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/17

This week, President Trump signs executive orders cutting Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments by nearly 3 million acres combined, over tribal leaders' objections that they were never consulted. Federal agencies rescind the Endangered Species Act's core habitat protection, and Interior proposes returning grizzly bear management to Western states. We also cover a court ruling on grizzly and bull trout habitat in Montana, a House committee vote on whale protections, new

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41:55

Heather Hansman: Fierce Women Who Ignited America's...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/14

For decades, the story of American conservation has been told almost entirely through male protagonists: Thoreau, Muir, Abbey. Journalist and author Heather Hansman joins The Wild Idea to make the case for three women who belong in that story too. Her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild, profiles Georgie White, one of the first commercial Grand Canyon river guides; Anne LaBastille, an off-grid Adirondack biologist whose research

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18:17

The Wild Line: A New Tracker for Public Land Comment...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/10

This week, the Bureau of Land Management proposes its first grazing rule overhaul since 1995, covering 155 million acres of Western public land and sharply limiting public participation in permit decisions. A coalition sues to block the Forest Service's largest restructuring in a century, and we track new wildlife crossing funding in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, a wildfire burning into a 50-year-untouched Colorado wilderness, and a new free tool for tracking public lands comment

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33:19

Paul Hendricks, Jen McLaren & Dawn Mancini Moyer: Why...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/07

Congress has taken 65 separate actions against U.S. public lands this year, and three outdoor industry leaders are done staying quiet about it. Recorded live on a panel at Switchback Spring 2026 in New Orleans, this conversation brings together Paul Hendricks of The Conservation Alliance, Jen McLaren of Altra, and Dawn Mancini Moyer of Fjällräven to talk through the real risk-reward calculus behind corporate advocacy: what it costs a brand to speak up, what it costs to stay silent, and how

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17:30

The Wild Line: A Genomics Pact for Endangered...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/07/03

This week, the Forest Service opens a comment period on a proposed rule that would narrow public input into how national forests are managed, and the window closes July 31. The Interior Department signs a partnership with "de-extinction" company Colossal Biosciences on species genomics, raising the question of whether the tools complement or replace habitat-based recovery. A new lawsuit tests how far Congress can stretch the Congressional Review Act against land management plans. We also

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47:41

Meryl Harrell & Lisa Ronald: The future of stewarding...

The Wild Idea ·

2026/06/30

Wilderness visitation surged 75% during the pandemic and hasn't come back down. Federal staffing hasn't kept pace. Meryl Harrell of Friends of the Forest Service and Lisa Ronald of American Rivers joined The Wild Idea at the National Wilderness Skills Institute to talk honestly about what that gap looks like on the ground, and where the stewardship community is actually filling it.They cover the federal capacity crunch, American Rivers' 2025 National Protected Rivers Assessment (which found

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