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 ...

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...

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.

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This ad-free podcast is supported by our li...

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, yo...

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.

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Music: Thumbug, Local Artist, Yu Su, SFML

Cover art: Alé Silva

Thanks: Ian Wyatt, Ava St...

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 do...

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, ...

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/

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September 15-17 will hold climate marches and demon...

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-fire

Learn more about Fern at earthkin.ca

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Find Earthkin's September workshops in Vancouver: earthkin.ca/rewilddays

and a 10-weekend cour...

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...

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?

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Hear the entire conversation wherever you get podcasts — join our community at patreon.com/futureecologies

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Haven't heard our own...

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 Spiders

Part 2 is the Song

Headphones advised.

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For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song

Missed Part 1? You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or at futureec...

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 Spiders

Part 2 is the Song

Headphones advised.

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For credits and much more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-1-spiders-song

You can listen to Part 2 right now — find it wherever you get your podcasts, ...

When the Earth Started to Sing

Produced 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 Eart...

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, a...

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 ...

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...

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...