As She Rises

How to thrive in the face of adversity is a lesson nature teaches us over and over again.  THE WILD with Chris Morgan  is on a mission to prove that, despite the political and economic forces threatening our environment, nature persists and gives us hope for the future. Every episode takes you on an immersive, sonic adventure, exploring how wild animals and entire ecosystems adapt to for...

Kindred  is back, hosted by Kate Coffin and Jenn Asplundh. This season, we’re flipping the script on creatures everyone loves to hate — from hyenas and vultures to bats and possums — and showing why they’re fascinating, essential, and surprisingly lovable. Join us as we explore the hidden connections between humans, animals, and nature, and discover stories that will make you see the world in...

In the final episode in our season on rewilding, we’re visiting New York Harbor. Commonly considered a high-traffic waterway beneath skyscrapers – New York Harbor actually was once one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. It was full of living reefs of molluscs that filtered the harbor and created a thriving habitat for other creatures. But as the city grew, the harbor fell silent. Today,...

In Puerto Rico, centuries of colonial rule have uprooted local food systems. Currently, the island imports around 85% of its food. But in the wake of Hurricane Maria and other catastrophic storms, the fragility of that dependence—and the urgency for food sovereignty—has come sharply into focus. Out of this reckoning has emerged a new generation of farmers returning to ancestral and Indigenous form...

North Cove, Washington, more commonly known as Washaway Beach, was once experiencing the fastest erosion along the Pacific coast. For decades, homes in the surrounding rural community had fallen into the ocean due to increasingly powerful winter storms. That is, until a neighbor defied conventional engineering practices and dumped a pile of rocks onto the shoreline. This community is facing a...

Premiering October 8, As She Rises is back for its fourth season, hosted by Leah Thomas, founder of The Intersectional Environmentalist. This season, As She Rises is exploring rewilding—the practice of restoring ecosystems to their natural state. We’ll hear how communities are letting the land lead, and reimagining what it means to truly coexist with the natural world. Follow wherever you're liste...

Hey As She Rises listeners! Today, we're bringing you a bonus episode from the Inherited podcast, told by one of our very own team members at WMN: Paloma Moreno Jiménez.  Inherited is a climate storytelling podcast by, for, and about young people across the globe. In this episode of the show, storyteller Paloma Moreno Jiménez conjures a folkloric audio fiction about the cross-cultural, agricultura...

For the last episode of the season, we’re traveling to the Colorado River Delta, south of Mexicali, Mexico: where all the waters from upstream are supposed to reach. Here, the Colorado River used to split into braided streams and tendrils, forming a complex estuary of riparian forests, rich wetlands, countless lagoons, and abundant wildlife. But today, the river water no longer reaches the sea.  H...

The Sonoran Desert, situated at the bottom edge of Arizona, stretches out into the haze of a horizon, rippled with heat. It’s fed by thin tributaries of the river and, more often, watered by sparse rains. It’s a place that, in theory, could seem pretty inhospitable. But the Tohono O’odham nation has survived and thrived there, thanks in part to traditional agricultural practices that are more rele...

In the southern valleys of California, lies a desert oasis known as the Salton Sea. The inland sea is picturesque— from afar. Up close, the beauty begins to fade. The sea is a result of diverting the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley for agriculture, and it’s filled with fertilizer, pesticides, and salt. Decades of drought have caused the sea to evaporate at a rapid pace, exposing the lakebed,...

Black Mesa is a high desert, arid, with few streams or rivers aboveground. Water tends to come from above or below: sometimes, as a gentle rain. Other times, a rushing monsoon. Navajo and Hopi people have called it home for thousands of years. Its water reservoirs— a complex system of underground pools called “aquifers”— sustain people, livestock, and agriculture on the plateau. More recently, tha...

The Havasupai tribe lives at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, in Supai Village. Just north of the village, a hidden aquifer turns into Havasu Falls, a waterfall that cascades into a pool of blue-green water. This water has sustained the Havasupai people for centuries, nourishing their crops, softening the harsh conditions of the desert, and serving as a place of reverence. But now, the Havasupai tr...

Lake Powell is long and thin. It snakes through the red-desert, running southwest through Utah, ending at the top of Arizona. From above, it looks like a human artery. From the inside, it's idyllic. The water is crystalline. Every year, millions of people flock to the lake to fish, canoe, and hike. Today, Lake Powell is around a fifth of its original size. Pools that used to be deep enough to dive...

Premiering May 1 wherever you get your podcasts. As She Rises is back for its third season with a new host: Leah Thomas, founder of The Intersectional Environmentalist. This season, As She Rises is traversing the Colorado River Basin downstream, understanding water through a new lens and centering stories of resilience in the face of the drought.  If you're interested in learning more about the Co...

As climate change progresses, more people will be forced from their homes and into exploitative environments. In the United States, this is particularly true of farmworkers. The climate crisis is, undeniably, a labor issue too. “like you i woke up in the dark. but i was reaching for animals, trying to beat the heat. like you sunrise usually found me in the middle of doing something. i didn’t call...

Nestled in the Northwestern corner of present-day New Mexico is the Greater Chaco Region: home to thousands of Diné and Puebloean families. It's also one of the most intense concentrations of oil wells in the country, designated an “energy sacrifice zone” by the Nixon administration in the 1970s. Now, a group of activists who recognize the land’s inherent importance, and who themselves have built...

Far out in the waters of the South Pacific are the Samoan Islands. They make up an island paradise, a contested territory, an ecological haven. They might also hold a key in the fight to protect endangered coral reefs. “steady us mother/ your eye lights the way your heart moves our blood your hand steers our boat.” Welcome to season 2 of As She Rises. In this episode, we visit the islands of Samoa...

Straddling the border between the US and Canada, the Skagit Watershed is a haven for sea creatures. The “Magic Skagit” is in peril: the ways of life it has sustained for the communities along its shores are faltering under years of settler disruption, and upstream, its headwaters originate in a pool of unprotected land threatened by extractive industries. Still, there’s hope in numbers: a cross-bo...

As She Rises is back for a second season to celebrate both Earth and Poetry Month. Throughout April, we’re telling the stories of climate progress that give us the hope we need to keep going.    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The worst crime I know men have committed is to turn nature into an oppressor.” In the city, the heat is suffocating: it reverberates off buildings, seeps through the concrete, and bounces off glass back down onto a city of 8.4 million people. New York City is hotter than ever before-- but it’s felt differently from neighborhood to neighborhood. Today, we’re ending our season in the land currentl...

In Oklahoma, a fight is playing out that could finally recognize tribal sovereignty, especially over how to manage the environment. This could set a precedent for the rest of the country, and affect our climate. But the powers that be won’t let go easily. In this episode we visit the plains of eastern Oklahoma. Joy Harjo, the United States poet laureate, reads her poem “Speaking Tree” and shares w...

This land has always been on fire. But the destructive power of these flames is new. There was a time before, and there is a time ahead, when fire clears the way for new growth in the foothills. “So many particular precious, irreplaceable lives that despite ourselves, we're inhaling.” In this episode, we visit the land currently known as Northern California. Molly Fisk, inaugural poet laureate of...

The most visited stretch of beach in Hawai’i should be underwater. Instead, it’s kept afloat by over thirty thousand tons  of sand-- sand that drifts out to sea every 5 to 10 years before it's replaced yet again. Before the Ala Wai canal drained the watershed, Waikiki sustained a native population of over a million, and fed and nurtured its diverse wildlife in a self-sustaining system. Today,  kin...

In Northern Minnesota, over eleven hundred glassy lakes create a vast inland sea. The water is so clean that canoers can drink straight from the lakes. What will it take to protect this beautiful and life-giving landscape from human threat? In this episode, we are transported to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota. Kim Blaeser, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate, reads her poem “Elo...

“It’s not the same, knowing the theory of climate disaster, and then actually living through it.” There is a fissure on the island of Puerto Rico-- one widened in the wake of massive storms, earthquakes, COVID, and quickened by the dizzying pace of climate change. In this episode, bilingual  poet Raquel Salas Rivera finds hope in a poem titled “nota para una amiga que desea suicidarse después del...