Semester in the West Podcast

Heidi Fischer and Bill Debuys moved on from grief by getting active: walking. Their conscious choice to keep going took them from hardship and on with their lives.

The March 2014 “Pulse Flow” brought water back to the dry Colorado River Delta after decades of diversion for municipal and agricultural uses. But the flood only lasted a couple of days, so what good could it do?

Individually, ranchers and environmentalists tend to understand one another, but in groups, there is little ability to compromise. How can large-scale collaboration be accomplished across the West if no region-wide agreements are possible?

Ted Turner’s known for a lot of things: CNN, baseball, and sailing being just a few. But what about bison ranching and Pleistocene rewilding? To write his conservation legacy, Turner’s trusted experienced and innovative ranch managers to do whatever it takes, as long as it’s profitable.

Kryptobiotic soil crusts, or biocrusts, are small colonies of bacteria, fungi, and other species, but they're not much to look at. Yet, these diminutive dry patches are among the best indicators of healthy Western arid landscape, and their conservation is of paramount importance.

Californians love wind power, and Californians love endangered species. What happens when a new energy project and the restoration of California Condors intersect? Synergy.

Valer Austin needed to keep water on her ranch, so she built small dams on her creeks. An absolute ecological revitalization resulted, bringing plants and fish back to her ranch. She ended up in court with the Center for Biological Diversity. Why?

Fires are part of a forest's cycle of growth: they are continuously changing, sometimes dramatically. People tend to become attached to forests that look a certain way. Can we learn to love the ashes, too?

Peabody Coal and the strip mining of Black Mesa, on the Navajo Nation, spelled doom. The mine displaced Navajos who'd lived there for centuries, and has sucked the once plentiful and clean Navajo aquifer, completely dry.

The Desert Tortoise doesn't have an easy life: predators, heat, and development of the Mojave threaten these long-lived creatures every day. Solar energy investment and endangered species funds have let scientists work to protect and breed the tortoises, but the results of this work won't be clear for a long time.

In the 1990's, the Endangered Species Act listing of spotted owls and salmon brought Wallowa County to the edge of collapse. With the lumber mills, shut down, there didn't appear to be a way out, until a local non-profit combined environmental stewardship and job creation to establish a new identity for the county.

Mary O'Brien's come a long way in conservation, and she now finds herself as a lone voice for aspen, beaver, and soil crusts in Southern Utah, but has struggled to effect actual change. Through collaboration and the threat of legal action, she's found fun and function in the bureaucracy that most consider boring.

In conservation, passion and expertise only go so far. Caring, knowledgeable people have tried and failed to preserve many a place from development and destruction. Ecologists Mary O'Brien and Suzanne Fouty espouse the importance of a third necessity: tools.

Released Mexican Gray Wolves roam between western New Mexico and adjacent Arizona, but are relocated if they stray from a small zone where they're allowed to live. Ranchers live in fear of these top carnivores, and imposed this seemingly self-defeating system of reintroduction. Does this have to be the case?

In wilderness, access is important: roads crisscross many "wild" places so people can move around freely. Ironically, roads become barriers as tortoises, deer, and other species struggle to cross roads or fences built alongside them.

Invasive species are often seen as a pest: something to be immediately removed. This one-minded view ignores the broader ecological context of these species: the connections between organisms, rather than the organisms themselves.

Heidi Fischer stood to be taken by their grief. The passing of a loved one could have swept her away. She found joy at home in the West, captivated by canyons, cold desert nights, and saguaros.

The Mojave Chubb is found in only one pond in the entire world, and will continue to do so: artificial restoration for these fish is impossible. If the goal of the Endangered Species Act is to aid recovery, what's the point of the Chubb?

Renewable energy in California faces a conundrum: green power is prioritized, but faces strict environmental regulations that protect impacted species. Energy companies like TerraGen push for exceptions to the rules, but have also made themselves a model organization for working with regulators, rather than fighting them.

Coal is both boon and bane of the Navajo people. It provides millions in revenue and many jobs to a community in sore need of both, but carries the obvious cost of pollution, depletion of natural resources, and displacement of Navajo from their ancestral homes. What's the way forward?

Liza Doran came to Bluff, Utah in 1986 to run the Cow Canyon Trading Post. From this central location in the middle of nowhere, her life's been changed by her surroundings here and other Bluff residents. Liza has learned to lean into the change.

Texan wildlife specialist Billy-Pat McKinney's unique path shows that people can be open to change.

What does it mean to lose the places we hold dear? Land in the American West faces a barrage of political, climatic, and economic pressures. Hear the stories of grief and hope from those who call this region home.

Navajo activists in Arizona fight to preserve sacred space from the specter of development: a proposed tramway into the Grand Canyon.

Sometimes to save a species, we must take an individual.

As environmental pressures increase, ranchers and conservationists consider the struggles surrounding public lands grazing. Generations after its inception, does ranching still belong on public lands?

Stories can help us care about complex issues, but can also lead us astray.

A story of perseverance, told from the mud flats of the Colorado River Delta.

Science and passion are equally important ingredients to becoming a successful activist.

Why do some communities embrace innovation while others cling to the past?

New Mexican farmer and writer, Stanley Crawford, walks through a collaborative water rights system that shapes the landscape and his community within it.

An examination of the ongoing Black Hills land claim dispute between the United States and the Sioux Nation.

A story of a Forest Service struggle to balance habitat health with the demands of public lands recreation.

Legislative and economic incentives pushing solar energy onto public lands damage the very places they were designed to protect

For those hoping to reduce the damage caused by cattle grazing on Western public land, there are several paths of action: do you work from outside or inside the system? Do you take a hard line or try to compromise? Listen to two stories of people who have had to make these choices.

Public lands logging can benefit environmentalists, rural communities, and the forests, too.

Hear the story of the Colorado River, told through the eyes of the Cucapa tribe of Northern New Mexico, longtime residents of its formerly lush delta.

The discovery of a supposedly extinct fish in Death Valley has led to the restoration of more than just wetlands.

Who is to blame for the problems climate change poses to the world? Who is responsible to fix them?

Hear Nicole Horseherder and Marshall Johnson, founders of the Navajo organization "Beautiful Water Speaks," tell their story of groundwater loss and coal mining on the Black Mesa in Northern Arizona.

When the feeling of helplessness to stop climate change struck him, US Forest Service biologist Kent Woodruff passionately set out against all odds to save his community and the earth.

The Colorado River was long ago tamed: Manifest Destiny and a can-do attitude built dams and canals that take nearly all its water to Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Mexico, home of the Colorado's mouth, was left with what remained: water that existed mostly on paper. After 100 years, this dynamic is slowly shifting.

Conservation work is frequently funded by large corporations and rich individuals trying to make an impact, but these supporters sustain their fortunes by exploiting natural resources and people. Is this hypocritical? Does it matter?

In America's rivers, the removal of beavers prompted a precipitous decline in water storage and riparian ecosystem health. By the same token, their reintroduction could transform these places for the better, but it's not as simple as putting them back where they came from.

The Navajo Nation has long benefitted and suffered from the presence of coal mines and generating stations. As these mines shut down due to increased regulation and a smaller coal market, the Navajo must transition to other sources of funding and employment. The Herder family and solar developer Brett Isaacs have some ideas for how to do that.

Ranchers have long bent the West to their will, putting cattle out to graze in deserts, mountains, and grasslands belonging to the American people. In an era of climate change and environmentalism, the landscape itself dictates what happens in the West. The icons of a prior age most likely to survive into a new one are those adaptable to this period of sudden change.

In the early 20th century, the Colorado River Delta was teeming with life and full of water. Now, it is dry and barren. The Sonoran Institute, a regional non-profit, seeks to reconnect the people of the Delta with the memory of what was lost and a dream of what could be regained.

Jason Nez works as a fire archaeologist, finding and protecting Native American cultural sites from the new norm of the West: wildfire. What inspires his dedication to this niche field?

Wolves are complex: the way we study them may be even more so. Wolf scientists struggle to relate with local ranchers and complete their work, while ranchers fight to have their opinions heard.

The United States was once a leader in scientific progress, but now trails behind, held back by denial of difficult truths. Could a more personal connection to science and the natural world open a path forward once more?

When grizzly bears were threatened by trophy hunting, three Jackson Hole women put in for tags. They weren't out for a kill, just a killer shot and a grizzly life saved. They told their friends, and thus a movement against hunting was founded, using the hunters' own lottery as its tool.

An analysis of what "multiple-use" really means, and whether the federal land management agencies are actually upholding their central mandate.

Cindy Abrams has always been frustrated by the lack of political discourse in her community. In this podcast, she investigates whether this apathy and aversion to disagreement continues in the West.

Environmentalists and ranchers alike are trying to restore the West, one bit at a time, but are stymied by powerful legislation designed to conserve natural environments. Is it time to modernize an aging system of land protection?

Where large disagreements exist, collaborative groups have been used to find compromise and unite communities. But collaboration takes time, which in an era of climate change, the West is short on.

Steve and Robin Boies are ranchers working to protect their reputation as stewards of public land, but face illogical public policy and environmentalists seeking one-size-fits-all solutions to nuanced problems.

Individualism has always stood as an American ideal, but this does little to help one's neighbors. The Navajo Nation retains its ruggedness by banding together en route to an uncertain future.

Steve Fuller has spent the winters of his life snowbound in the center of Yellowstone National Park. Why?

In the 1990's, the timber industry of Wallowa County collapsed overnight. With work programs and collaborative groups, Wallowa Resources has invigorated the county with new life by opening sustainable timber harvest and opportunities for conservation.

Karrie Kahle worked to bring the Paradise Valley together against risky exploratory mines in one of Earth's most beautiful locales. Her coalition of businesses and citizens could be an example of how to best use local organizing to stop multinational corporate power.

After full careers in business, when they could have happily retired and not worked another day, Tom Campion and Doug McDaniel opted out. For Tom, the Arctic beckoned as the last truly wild place on earth. For Doug, the river in his backyard couldn't hold fish. Each took the rougher lane at the end of the road: why?