Lifeworlds

I wrote this piece in a 6am flurry of sunrise inspiration, the words pouncing through me, stirred by a combination of books I’d been reading on plant science and deep evolutionary history (thank you, Stephen Harrod Buhner and Thomas Halliday). All too often we read headlines about extinction or climate change, and it can be difficult to relate. Difficult for emotions to flow and process. I think w...

Today I’m joined by Abhayraj Naik, a lawyer and activist-academic who teaches interdisciplinary courses on climate, environment, justice, law, policy, and research methods in universities across India. We discuss the trajectory of the Rights of Nature in India, and how this legal approach differentiates itself from other forms of environmental law. Abhayraj shares why the Rights of Nature can cata...

The wonderful father-daughter duo of Dr John Borrows and Lindsay Borrows explore questions such as: Is law a noun or a verb? How can we read the archive of the law that is written upon the Earth? What exactly is indigenous law, and how can it serve to revitalise colonial law? John Borrows has transformed Canada’s understanding of how indigenous and non-indigenous law can co-exist and created the w...

With Dr John Borrows, Lindsay Borrows & Abhayraj Naik. This week we’re traveling from British Columbia to Bangalore, exploring two different legal systems that are revolutionizing the very foundations of our global system of law. In transforming how we advocate and litigate on behalf of nature, these approaches require legal professionals to develop a whole new series of skills and sensibiliti...

Herb’s career in British Columbia has centered on forestry, land based communities and natural systems. From his work as a conventional forester he went all the way to launching an embodied learning forestry school and The Silva Forest Foundation, which he ran with his wife for 30 years. They developed over 25 nature-based plans across Canada, and around the world, upending ways that large landsca...

I had the delightful honor of meeting Tara Martin when I lived on Vancouver Island. We canoed out to a tiny Salish Sea sand island and shared a delicious sunset picnic among old growth forests. I love Tara because she is a rare breed of scientist that can seamlessly blend rigorous data science and ecological analysis with deep intuition and cultural insight. In this interview, we cover the basics...

With Dr Tara Martin & Herb Hammond. Today we are joined by Dr. Tara Martin and Herb Hammond, who have pioneered fascinating methods in developing large-scale maps and management plans for biodiverse, high-priority conservation landscapes. What really sets them apart is their ability to integrate both cutting edge Western science and indigenous worldviews, a synthesis called "two-eyed seeing."...

Without being awake in our bodies We can’t feel how our bodies belong to this earth Feel the touch of the world upon you. This one I will keep brief, and allow the practice to speak for itself. Find a quiet place where you will be undisturbed for half an hour. If you can be outdoors, that’s even better. And settle in, allow yourself to be guided and drift into deep connection with the forces of ou...

This is a beautiful conversation with Joe Martin, who is also known by his traditional name Tutakwisnapšiƛ. We speak about his work as a master canoe and totem pole carver, and role as an elder in his community. Joe is a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation living in Tofino, Vancouver Island, and has carved over seventy canoes made from ancient trees. He has sparked a revitalization of this an...

A delightful yarn with Tyson Yunkporta, Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University in Melbourne, and author of Sand Talk. Tyson is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland, Australia. On this episode we discuss: How their systems lab aggregates data and knowledge through indigenous sense-making protocols “Avatar Depression” syndrome and how...

With Tyson Yunkaporta & Joe Martin (Tutakwisnapšiƛ). Today we’re joined by two master indigenous scholars and artists, who will be laying down clues from their ancestral cultures on how to interpret and read the laws of the land. Our first conversation is what he likes to call a yarn, with Tyson Yunkporta, Aboriginal scholar, founder of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University...

Eric Smith has spent his career working at the intersection of economics and nature. Most recently he was the director of the venture capital vehicle Neglected Climate Opportunities (NCO) at the Grantham Environmental Trust, where he co-led over 40 direct investments in start-ups across all stages that can remove carbon and GHG at scale. He was previously with SJF Ventures and worked for BlackRock...

Lorenzo de Rosenzweig is what you might call an “OG” (original gangster) of the conservation finance world. An engineer and marine biologist by training, for 25 years he was president of a $170 million endowment conservation trust fund - the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature - and for over 17 years he was chairman of the Mesoamerican Reef Fund. During his tenure in both institutions he l...

With Lorenzo de Rosensweig & Eric Smith. This week we’re asking whether it’s possible to support the lifeworlds of nature with the very same tools that have caused them harm. We’ll be joined by Lorenzo de Rosenzweig, who has headed Latin America’s largest nature conservation trusts for over three decades. And Eric Smith, from the Grantham Neglected Climate Opportunities Fund and Edacious, will...

“An improvisation with the natural vibrations of a certain place and time – via plant bioelectricity, latent electromagnetic radiation, and even the earth’s resonant hum…” Tarun Nayar, musician and biologist, captures the song of a mushroom’s bioelectricity, using the movement of water inside fungi and plants as electrical resistance. Like human skin, a mushroom skin possesses electrical prop...

Woodchucks and bald eagles. Fungal fermentation. Compost heaps. Animism. Deviant animal sex. Disability. Jesus and Dionysus. Fungi, microbes, and the divine feminine critique. It’s never a dull conversation with the brilliant and freewheeling articulate writer, poet and philosopher Sophie Strand. Kick back and enjoy the ride. Episode Website Link: lifeworld.earth/episodes/fungisophiestrand Show Li...

Introducing Giuliana Furci. The woman who has been chosen by the fungi. The mother who is in love with the mould that grows on lemons. The founder and CEO of the Fungi Foundation, a Harvard University Associate, Dame of the Order of the Star of Italy (!), and Co-Chair of the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee. We travel through the day in the life of a fungi; how moving beyond plant and animal-cen...

With Giuliana Furci & Sophie Strand. Oh, the fungi! Without them we’d have no plants, no trees, no chocolate, no beer, yogurt, baked bread – all the good things! Yet despite their burgeoning popularity, science has barely scratched the surface of mapping and understanding the hidden world of fungi. The more we learn, the more these ecosystem architects warp our minds of what we think is possib...

Following the episodes on rewilding, I wanted to drive the message of wildness home with this spellbinding poem by Tom Hirons . It gives me chills every time I listen to it, remembering all the animals, all the chthonic forces, that we refuse to let in, the wild madness we long and thirst for, the shuddering pact we’ve made with this world before we were born. Read the poem on: https://www.lifewor...

Kristine Tompkins is an American conservationist who is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, and former CEO of Patagonia. For nearly thirty years, along with her late husband Doug Tompkins, she has been protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, inspiring activism and economic vitality across 14.7 million acres of pa...

With his hilariously sharp-witted, no-nonsense approach and radiating descriptions of nature’s landscapes, Derek Gow is a force to contend with. He’s been one of the most vocal actors in the reintroduction of missing keystone species in England such as the beaver, the water vole and the white stork, butting heads with obnoxious lobbyists and government officials. He is currently rewilding his 300-...

With Derek Gow & Kris Tompkins. The rewilding movement is currently sweeping across the world’s landscapes, restoring ecologies and species, re-naturalising rivers and forests. Our two guests are trailblazers in this space – first we hear from Kristine Tompkins, ex-CEO of Patagonia who, together with her late husband Doug Tompkins, have protected over 14 million acres of wildlands and national...

This is the first of the Lifeworlds ‘bonus’ episodes, designed to help us tune in somatically to the living world. We need to be grounding our connection to other lifeworlds into our very bodies for them to become lasting and real. Here we discover how to access these states through things like mindfulness, art, wilderness practices and poetry. Today's exercise is about understanding the ground we...

Michael Ableman is a farmer, author, photographer and urban food systems activist. Michael has been farming organically since the early 1970s and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. He founded North America’s largest urban farm in downtown Vancouver, that employs people who are experiencing long term addiction and mental illness. Michael lives...

Lyla June Johnston is an Indigenous public speaker, artist, poet, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. She blends her studies in human ecology at Stanford University, graduate work in Native American Pedagogy at the University of New Mexico, and the indigenous worldview she grew up with. Lyla and I got together to discuss her brilliant...