Future Ecologies

Our series on cows and rangelands continues in the weeds and in the thorns, looking at a specific piece of public land where livestock are being employed to give some endangered species a new lease on life.In this 3-part series, we're hearing from impassioned scientists and land managers with diametrically opposed opinions on the concept of "rangelands" — by some estimates, accounting for 50-70% of the earth's surface. Missed Part 1? Catch up here— — —Find credits, citations, a transcript and more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-8-home-on-the-rangelands-part-2This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more. Head to futureecologies.net/join and choose whatever option works best for you.

The introduction of cattle to western North America has undeniably contributed to massive ecosystem change. But could cows be as much a part of the solutions as they are the problem?In this 3-part series, we're hearing from all sides of this issue: impassioned scientists and land managers with diametrically opposed opinions on the concept of "rangelands" — by some estimates, accounting for 50-70% of the earth's surface.Part 1 kicks things off with a look at the special case of California, and a challenge to the conventional environmentalist perspective that cattle are always a destructive force for biodiversity and ecosystem health.— — —Find credits, citations, a transcript and more at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-7-home-on-the-rangelands-part-1This ad-free podcast is supported by listeners just like you! Join our Patreon to get early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more. Head to futureecologies.net/join to meet everyone who makes this podcast possible.

Future Ecologies is an independent podcast about the living world and its interrelations. The show varies in format, but this is a taste of what you can expect. New to the show? Find our whole back catalogue and subscribe for new episodes — right here in your podcast app, or at futureecologies.net Been with us for a while? Send this trailer with someone who shares the planet with you.— — —This ad-free podcast is supported by our listeners on Patreon. Join our community for as little as $1/month for early episode releases, bonus content, merch, discord server access, and more.

We’re slowing down for the holidays, and we hope you are too.But we didn’t want to leave you without something great to listen to, so we’re borrowing an episode from one of our favourite podcasters: Ashley Ahearn is the independent science and environmental journalist behind several series covering life in the rural American West. If you haven’t already listened to Grouse, on sage grouse, or Mustang (her latest), on wild horses, you’re missing out.The episode we picked for you today is kind of a teaser for our own next series. It’s a look at livestock, the regenerative ranching movement, and the women who are leading it.From Ashley Ahearn, Boise State Public Radio, and the Mountain West News Bureau, this is Women’s Work, Episode 5: Keep them Doggies Rollin’Go find the rest of Women’s Work wherever you get your podcasts. And while you’re at it, go find Grouse and Mustang too.You’ll be hearing from us soon. ‘Til next year — happy holidays, and take care.

How do we account for nature? We can build on it and we can take from it, but what is its intrinsic value — in and of itself?On this episode: Adam Davis (of Ecosystem Investment Partners), and a cultural transformation happening right now — reshaping the intersection of environmentalism and capitalism. Welcome to the restoration economy.— — —Music: Thumbug, Local Artist, Yu Su, SFMLCover art: Alé SilvaThanks: Ian Wyatt, Ava Stanley, Aila Takenaka, Alex JanzTranscript, Citations, etc: https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-6-making-a-living— — —Help us keep making this show for as little as $1 each month.Our supporters get access to early episode releases, a community discord server, discounted merch, and exclusive bonus content: for example, a follow-up Q&A conversation with Adam Davis.

Meet the Fire Watchers of Skeetchestn: the people keeping their community safe during nearby wildfires, and working to bring good fire back to the land. Join us for this conclusion to our visit to Secwépemc territories as we discuss a way to bring different knowledge systems together: a synthesis of western science and Indigenous understanding.This is the 5th instalment in our series of indeterminate length, "On Fire". While you don't need to listen to them in order, you may want to at least catch up Part 4 (Under Water) before diving into this one.– – –Links, citations, photos, episode transcript and more– – –🌱 Future Ecologies is supported by our community of listeners like you.Join for as little as $1/month to access early episode releases, bonus and behind the scenes content, our discord server, and more at futureecologies.net/join

What happens after the smoke clears? What does recovery look like when the disasters never end?In this episode, we're visiting the sites of some of BC's biggest burns of 2017 and 2021 – making the link between the mega-fires and the floods and landslides that followed. We'll hear about how the land is (and isn't) recovering, and the factors that spell the difference.This is the 4th instalment in our series of indeterminate length, "On Fire", but don't feel obliged to listen to parts 1-3 beforehand.– – –Links, citations, photos, episode transcript and more– – –🌱 Future Ecologies is supported by our community of listeners like you.Join us for as little as $1/month to access early episode releases, bonus and behind the scenes content, our discord server, and more at futureecologies.net/join

Inherited is a climate storytelling podcast by, for, and about young people. We're bringing you Season 3, Episode 1: "Mama's House", a personal story of family loss, structural resilience, and survival in an era of climate change.Find all of Season 3, including behind-the-scenes interviews with each of the 8 storytellers, wherever you get your podcasts, or at yr.media/inherited/–––September 15-17 will hold climate marches and demonstrations around the world (many starting RIGHT NOW). Join the fight to end fossil fuels, and find the action near you: fossilfueltreaty.good.do/global-march/map/

In this bonus conversation, Adam catches up with Fern Yip (guest producer on FE2.3) about her recent close call with wildfire, with lots of practical advice for those living on forested lands.For photos and a transcript of this conversation, see futureecologies.net/listen/earthkins-trial-by-fireLearn more about Fern at earthkin.ca— — —Find Earthkin's September workshops in Vancouver: earthkin.ca/rewilddaysand a 10-weekend course September 2023 through June 2024 at Anderson Lake: earthkin.ca/waysofthewildSee also: BC's Emergency evacuee guidance for the public — — —VANCOUVER: Spiders Song will return to Lobe Studio on Thursday, September 14th!Join us for this exploration of the music of evolution, presented in 4DSOUND spatial audio.2 showtimes: 6:30pm and 8:30pm, both including a Q&A with Mendel.Tickets available on a sliding scale: eventbrite.ca/e/lobe-artist-residency-series-spiders-song-by-future-ecologies-tickets-695016291437Get yours soon! Capacity is limited and both of the last shows sold out.— — —🌱 Ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies 💖

How do our dreams shape our reality? Tonight, with the help of scientists, artists, philosophers, and historians, we're sprinkling a little stardust on our understanding of the more-than-human — from fish, to demons and gods.This episode features the words and voices of Lucia Pietroiusti, Filipa Ramos, Alex Jordan, Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Rain Wu, Nahum Mantra, Onome Ekeh, Federico Campagna, Yussef Agbo-Ola, and Hatis Noit, recorded at The Shape of a Circle in the Dream of a Fish — a recurrent festival exploring ideas of consciousness, language and the mind across non-human species and beings, initiated in 2018 by the Serpentine Galleries and held in 2022 in partnership with the Galeria Municipal do Porto.With music by Yussef Agbo-Ola, Hatis Noit, Thumbug, and Any-Angled Light.Big thanks to Adam's Electric Sheep Radio co-hosts, Ryder Thomas White & Samantha Ruth, to Kostas Stasinopoulos, and to Arda Studios.— — —Love and strength to everyone affected by wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or other disasters right now. We're feeling... not great about planetary stability, and we'd bet you're in the same boat.This episode doesn't directly address the climate breakdown, but we hope it can at least be a reprieve — or even offer some ways to reframe a shared nightmare.Our next episode (on fire) is in the works. For now, we're wishing you safety, preparedness, and many moments of joy in all the life around you. Get to know your neighbours, and take care of each other. Maybe have a chat about holding climate criminals accountable.— — —Our supporters on Patreon get early episode releases, a lovely discord server, and other bonus content, including some of the unabridged presentations that went into this episode.Join our community at https://www.patreon.com/futureecologies— — —VANCOUVER: Spiders Song will return to Lobe Studio on Thursday, September 14th!Join us for this exploration of the music of evolution, presented in 4DSOUND spatial audio.2 showtimes: 6:30pm and 8:30pm, both including a Q&A with Mendel.Tickets available on a sliding scale:

Get to know our friends and collaborators, Miriam Quick and Duncan Geere — the hosts of Loud Numbers, a data sonification podcast.How do data visualization and sonification differ? What are the possibilities and pitfalls? And how can you incorporate the practice into your life?— — —Hear the entire conversation wherever you get podcasts — join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies— — —Haven't heard our own data sonification yet? That's in Spiders Song (Part 2)

Spiders Song is a story about a quest to hear the greatest symphony on Earth: the music of evolution. Along the way, we get to know some of nature’s most surprising musicians — the paradise jumping spiders.Part 1 is the SpidersPart 2 is the SongHeadphones advised.— — —For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-songMissed Part 1? You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureecologies.net— — —But there's more to this story than just a couple podcast episodes!We're also releasing an open-source system which may be used to hear evolutionary patterns as music.As you'll hear in Part 2, data sonification, the sonic equivalent of data visualization, has found applications in many scientific fields, but never before in phylogenetics: the study of evolutionary relationships.This sonification system is intended as an experimental platform for evolutionary biologists to explore and communicate their data through sound, and for musicians to take inspiration from biodiversity. It is built in Max/MSP, and released under a GNU-GPLv3 license for customization and further development. Find a lovingly illustrated explanation of our sonification at futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song#explanation Listen to / download the full length sonification on its ownGet the source code and a detailed technical explanation, andWatch a video of the patch in action— — —Funding for this series was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.But ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going and growing, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologiesOur patrons get early episode releases, exclusive bonus audio content, access to a fantastic discord server, 50% discounts on all merch, and more (eg. a livestream tour of the sonification system that we built).

Spiders Song is a story about a quest to hear the greatest symphony on Earth: the music of evolution. Along the way, we get to know some of nature’s most surprising musicians — the paradise jumping spiders.Part 1 is the SpidersPart 2 is the SongHeadphones advised.— — —For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-songYou can listen to Part 2 right now — find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureecologies.net— — —Funding for this series was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.But ongoing support for this podcast comes from listeners just like you. To keep this show going and growing, join our community at patreon.com/futureecologiesOur patrons get early episode releases, exclusive bonus audio content, access to a fantastic discord server, 50% discounts on all merch, and more

From Love and Radio:Adam Zaretsky is a bioartist who explores the manipulation of DNA, the fringes of genetic modification, and butts up against the ethical boundaries of science and beyond.— — —Future Ecologies season 5 arrives July 7. Listen early at patreon.com/futureecologies

When the Earth Started to SingProduced by Emergence Magazine, this sonic journey written and narrated by David G. Haskell brings us to the beginning of sound and song on planet Earth.The experience is made entirely of tiny trembling waves in air, the fugitive, ephemeral energy that we call sound. Spoken words combined with terrestrial sounds invite our senses and imaginations to go outward into an experience of the living Earth and its history. How did the vast and varied chorus of modern sounds — from forest to oceans to human music — emerge from life’s community? When did the living Earth first start to sing? We invite you on a journey into deep time and deep sound that will open your ears and your imagination.Find many more stories exploring the intersection between ecology, culture and spirituality at emergencemagazine.org/David Haskell’s new book: Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory ExtinctionCover artwork by Daniel Liévano

We're trying out a new format of bonus content over on our Patreon feed: casual, conversational interviews that go behind the scenes of some of the content on the main feed.In this first edition, our guest is Jonathan Kawchuk: composer, sound artist, and volunteer paleontologist. Jonathan's work is in both FE4.10 Geopoetics and the Emergence Magazine piece we recently featured When the Earth Started to Sing — music in the former, and paleo-soundscapes in the latter.We discuss Jonathan's technical and creative process — assembling reconstructed choruses of ancient soundmakers (Parasaurolophus and Permostridulus), and creating music in conversation with the Rocky Mountains — as we nerd out on sound production and paleo art.To hear the 47 minute conversation in its entirety (and get access to all our other bonus content, discord server, merch, and more) join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

At the heart of the Salish Sea lies the Fraser River Estuary: home to over half of the population of the Province of British Columbia, thousands of endemic species, and one world-famous pod of orcas. But as the human population of the region has grown, wildlife populations — including salmonids, orcas, and over 100 species at risk — have been plummeting.As economic imperatives press up against ecological thresholds, a mega-project that has been in development for over a decade is poised to further alter the character of the estuary, with massive implications for the health of Salish Sea and its many residents.In this episode, we ask: can we find ways to hear each other through all the noise?This episode was originally published in March 2022. We've added a brief update about some recent developments in 2023. Read more about the news here– – –This episode features Janie Wray, Misty MacDuffee, Steven Slə́qsit Stark, Marko Dekovic, and Stephanie Kwetásel'wet WoodWith music by Ruby Singh (with Dawn Pemberton, Inuksuk MacKay, Russell Wallace, Shamik Bilgi, Tiffany Ayalik, and Tiffany Moses), Thumbug, and Sunfish Moon Light.This episode was produced by Mendel Skulski and Adam Huggins, with help from Megan Hockin Bennet and Lili Li.A full list of citations and a transcript can be found at our website: futureecologies.net/listen/fe-4-2-terminal

Dams remain one of the ultimate demonstrations of human power over nature. Wild rivers can be tamed to deliver energy for industry, lakes for recreation, and water for agriculture. But severing the link between land and sea has come with grave ecological costs. The impact of dams on salmon populations has been especially obvious and painful.This is part one of a two-part series on dam removals. In this episode, we go to the Klamath river to examine the fierce conflict (and unlikely partnerships) in pursuit of the deconstruction of 4 major dams. Part 2 is here.This episode was originally published in November 2018. We've added a brief update about some recent developments in 2022. Read more about the news here– – –This episode features Ryan Hilperts, Erica Terrence, Bill Tripp, and Senator Jeff Merkley.Music for this episode was produced by Brian D. Tripp, Loam Zoku, Kieran Fearing, Sour Gout, the Western Family String Band, the Clan Stewart Pipe Band, and Sunfish Moonlight.A full list of citations and a transcript can be found at our website: futureecologies.net/listen/fe1-9-swimming-upstream

We're sharing an episode from our friends over at Drilled. Four years ago, the Drilled podcast asked a question that changed how people thought about climate stories: What if we stopped acting like the climate crisis was inevitable and instead treated it like it truly is...the crime of the century? Now, the original true crime podcast about climate change is back with a new season all about the opportunistic oil industry.The season is packed with high stakes court cases, intrepid journalists, and a whole lot of intrigue, set in the world's largest oil boom town.We're dropping you straight into the action with Episode 4. Get all the background, and follow the rest of the story at https://link.chtbl.com/futureecologiesdrilled

We work hard to make sure our music doesn’t just complement our voices, but actually tells a story all of its own. Now that our 4th Season is complete, as per usual, we’ve compiled all the original music that went into it, and we’re releasing it as an album. This year, that album takes the form of two companion volumes.Volume 1: Electrical Storms by Sunfish Moon LightVolume 2: Sympoiesis by thumbugOf course we're not responsible for all the music you hear on our show. We've borrowed tunes from so many truly great artists, often connected thematically or geographically to the content of that specific episode. You can discover each of them, and support their work at futureecologies.net/music— — —We want to hear from you — take our brief listener survey and help make Season 5 the best yet.💖 Join our community: support Future Ecologies on Patreon to access our discord server, an exclusive bonus podcast feed, stickers, patches, and moreVancouver: Join mendel and friends for a PWYC panel on acoustic ecologies, ecopoetics, and biosonification, at the Lobe Spatial Sound Studio Spring Equinox Summit (Saturday March 25 @ 1PM)— — —BTW: we release all of our original music from each season. Previous soundtracks (all PWYC CC-BY-NC-SA):Season 1Season 2Scales of ChangeSeason 3