Future Ecologies

On the emerald isle of Ireland, an easily-overlooked creature holds the history of a nation within its shell. From the rise and collapse of heavy industry, to a bloody civil war, the riverbeds of Ireland have been witness — and they tell a story of change and possibility stretching far beyond any human lifetime. With the help of guest producer Caitlin Kennedy , we're tracing the modern arc of Nort...

We have a soft spot for food systems that challenge the modern convention: food systems like forest gardens or sea gardens that don’t at all look like vast rows of monocultures, but instead blend into the landscape — to the point of being invisible — at least until you’ve learned how to see them. It just so happens that, not far from us (in the Cowichan Estuary), there’s another kind of ancient fo...

Spring is here, and (not to brag, but) around these parts, the smell of flowers is in the air, and everything seems to be buzzing with life. Times like these, it’s hard not to have plants on the brain, and we fully endorse you getting out to meet your green neighbours. While you do that, we thought you’d like to hear from two of our favourite plant enthusiasts: Chelsey Armstrong and Leigh Joseph ....

So you want to put good fire on the ground, but how?? We're taking you to Yurok territory (at the mouth of the Klamath River) to join the Cultural Fire Management Council for 3 days of burning — not just for fuel management, but for all sorts of cultural and ecological values: food, wildlife, materials, and more. We're finally moving from theory to practice, as we learn what it really means to be...

Eric Higgs (of FE3.1 , FE3.2 , FE3.3 , and FE4.9 ) sits down with Laura Govers , who has been working on bringing eel grass back to the Netherlands' Wadden Sea — on an island that moves , no less! This conversation covers the low-tech solutions that they concocted to plant hectares of eel grass, the social invisibility of the marine domain, and the semantics of "restoration" in a rapidly changing...

Bogs are our absolute favourite places to be. They’re not only tremendously important ecosystems, rich in exquisite biodiversity and massive stores of carbon, they’re also uniquely beautiful. These serene, colourful spaces jumble land and water into something at once both alien and familiar. In this episode, we explore the wonders and the mysteries of peatlands, through the story of one very speci...

Mendel has another show to share with you: Waterbodies It's a video podcast dedicated to a particular body of water we have here in Vancouver, called False Creek, but more generally it’s about how we can transform our urban spaces into thriving, biodiverse, celebrations of living nature — for everyone’s benefit. If you live in a city on a coast, and you dream of swimming in clean waters, tidepooli...

We had the opportunity to hang out with two of our favourite podcasters: Amy Martin of Threshold , and Amy Westervelt of Drilled . We've previously featured both of their work on the Future Ecologies feed, and we couldn't pass up the chance to talk shop about the latest (fantastic) seasons of their respective shows, and get to know more about their personal journey. That's this episode: Part 1 In...

What do you call it when a population of podcasts mysteriously drop episodes on the same topic at the same time? It's Critical Mast! We're so proud to present this nutty experiment in community podcasting, with its roots going back to the very beginning of our show (and the beginning of our dedication to silly puns). Thanks to help from our pals at Jumpstart Nature , Golden State Naturalist , Lear...

We've got another edition of our intermittent interview show for you, this one featuring Sadie Couture in conversation with Hannah Tollefson . You'll remember Sadie as co-producer and reporter of FE3.4 — Dama Drama . Since then, she’s become a PhD student in Communication Studies at McGill University pursuing research at the intersection of media history, sound studies, and feminist science and te...

We’ve got a great guest episode for you today, coming courtesy of our friends over at the podcast Cited . They’ve got a new series out called “Green Dreams” — covering stories of radical environmentalist thought leaders, and the ripples they’ve left on the present day. We wanted to share with you the very first episode from this series, called “The Green Cosmos”, covering Gerard O’Neil’s 1970s vis...

We’ve got something a little different for you: something a little less in the sciences, and a little more in the humanities — in the realm of language and human experience. Today, through a series of conversations, we’re exploring the notion of what it means to have a relationship to land, to be or not be of a place (in other words, to belong or not) and how the intrinsic tensions in all that may...

It's a double feature! With help from recordist/anthropologist/podcaster Louise Romain and musician/conservationist Javan Hunt , we're visiting the Caribbean. First, off the coast of Colombia, on the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, and next a musical excursion to Grand Bahama. — — — From Reef to Ridge is an audio documentary love story with the Ocean, the reef, and...

Hello! As you know well, we're not the news. The news is generally bad, and we prefer to not be bad news. So, it's a funny thing for us to release an episode about politics. In this edition of Hyphaedelity, our interlocutor Adam Davis ( EIP , FE5.6 ) and his guest Tim Male ( EPIC ) discuss going from working at an environmental NGO to within the White House, the role of executive orders, the state...

The Miyawaki Method of micro-forestry is a viral sensation: sprouting tiny, dense, native tree cover in neighbourhoods all around the world. With the promise of afforestation at a revolutionary speed, this planting technique has become the darling of green-space enthusiasts, industry, and governments alike — yet few professional or academic ecologists have commented on its efficacy, or even seem t...

Mendel here with an exciting announcement: I'm producing a new video podcast for a local environmental advocacy organization: the False Creek Friends Society . False Creek, as the name suggests, is not a creek. It’s a tidal slough, and it’s one of the most visible waterways here in Vancouver, where I live. It’s right next to downtown, and it’s always bustling with life. It also has a reputation fo...

We're excited to introduce our brand new spin-off format: Hyphaedelity (which will ironically be somewhat lower-fi than our usual output). Here’s the deal: Hyphaedelity is our experiment in chatcasting, but with a twist. On each episode, we’re inviting a past guest from Future Ecologies to conduct their own interview, and bring us all along to sit in on their conversation. We wanted to see what wo...

When is it ethical to kill one thing to save another? Lethal intervention is a common practice in the field of wildlife management, especially when the survival of a species hangs in the balance For as long as we’ve existed, human beings have employed killing as one of our primary responses to adversity. We seem to believe at some deep level that if we have a problem, killing the manifestation of...

Today, it's our pleasure to bring you an episode from our friends at Bioneers, who have just released a 6-part series called Nature's Genius. Follow Bioneers wherever you get podcasts, or listen to the rest of the series at bioneers.org/natures-genius/ This is episode 1 — The Universe Beneath Our Feet: Mapping the Mycelial Web of Life Imagine an underground web of mind-boggling complexity, a bustl...

In this very special donkumentary, we’re headed to the Mojave Desert — to Death Valley, in particular — where we find one animal at the centre of a heated debate in land management: the hardy wild burro (AKA donkey, ass, or Equus asinus). These feral burros, beloved by some and reviled by others, are an introduced species in the desert southwest, but are uniquely entangled in its human history. Si...

We’re unlocking one of the conversations from our bonus feed. In this interview, building on episode FE6.2 , Mendel speaks with Skye Augustine, a leading voice uplifting the science, history, and culture of Sea Gardens. In a time where so much of the future feels uncertain, the resiliency of Sea Gardens over millennia is (at least to us) a source of deep comfort and inspiration. What’s more, if yo...

We're borrowing an episode from one of our all-time favourite shows: Threshold , a Peabody Award-winning documentary podcast about our place in the natural world. Now in their 5th Season, "Hark", Threshold producer Amy Martin is exploring sound itself: investigating what it means to listen to the nonhuman voices on our planet — and the cost if we don’t. With mounting social and ecological crises,...

Food security, climate adaptation, and vibrant biodiversity all in one place — welcome to the ancient and diverse technologies of Sea Gardening. These widespread (but often overlooked) monumental rock features are proof positive of thriving Indigenous maricultural systems all around the Pacific Rim, since time immemorial. These spaces are not only simply stunningly beautiful spots to hang out, the...

Season 6 kicks off in the deep dark woods: the simplified, post-industrial forests of the world — the only  forests that many of us have ever known. Join us as we meet foresters in British Columbia, Vermont, and Scotland, all working to embrace the messy art of ecological forestry. Because if we want our forests to be old growth-ier, we might not be able to just wait and leave them alone. It...

As is tradition, we're releasing all the original music we composed for the latest season of Future Ecologies as a set of soundtracks. For the first time ever, they are also available on all major music streaming services. Enjoy! Auditory Compost by Sunfish Moon Light Bandcamp , Spotify , Apple Music Convergence by Thumbug Bandcamp , Spotify ( Side A | Side B ), Apple Music ( Side A | Side B ) –&n...