The Landscape

Aaron and Kate are joined by Davina Smith, who represents the Navajo Nation on the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition , and Lauren Henson, who is the Collaborative Management and Tribal Support Specialist for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, to talk about the Bears Ears draft monument management plan, which came out in March . We talk about how the draft plan came together and how to get invo...

Kate and Aaron are joined by the Wilderness Society’s Michael Carroll and Justin Meuse to talk through a handful of federal regulations, or rules, that were finalized in late March and April. These rules touch on everything from methane waste on public lands to ecosystem restoration to caribou herds in Alaska. Some of these rules are already in effect, and some will take effect soon. Together, the...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Trout Unlimited CEO Chris Wood, who has been with TU for twenty years, following a career as chief policy director at the U.S. Forest Service during the Clinton administration. Chris talks about how an influx of federal funding for ecosystem restoration is supercharging the group’s work reconnecting streams and rivers, as well as how his group is engaging in legi...

Kate and Aaron are joined by author Betsy Gaines Quammen to talk about public lands and extremism. Betsy has written two books about extremism in the West. Her first, American Zion , looks at the connection between Mormonism and extremism. Her second book, True West , which came out last year, digs into the myths that define the West. News Interior rule aims to crack down on methane leaks from oil...

Kate and Aaron are joined by three members of the reporting team behind, Lithium Liabilities , a groundbreaking investigation into how lithium mining could affect the West’s water supply. Emma Peterson, Morgan Casey, and Lauren Mucciolo are part of a large team of editors, photographers, and reporters who worked on the investigation at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona Stat...

Kate and Aaron are joined by pollsters Lori Weigel and Dave Metz to discuss the 14th Annual Colorado College State of the Rockies Project Conservation in the West poll. The poll surveys voters in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado on their environmental views. This year, it found support for conservation of nature is higher than ever. Click here to read an auto...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Justin Meuse, Director of Government Relations for Climate and Energy at the Wilderness Society, to talk about a proposal from the Bureau of Land Management to prioritize around 22 million acres of public land for utility scale solar development across the West. They discuss why planning matters, how much solar development to actually expect if this plan proceeds, and...

Driven by high uranium prices, domestic uranium mining has resumed at three locations in the U.S. after an eight-year hiatus. Kate and Aaron are joined by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director at the Grand Canyon Trust and Scott Clow, Environmental Programs Director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, to discuss how that will impact the Grand Canyon and Tribal communities on the Colorado Plateau. Click here...

Kate and Aaron are joined by I Ling Thompson, CEO of The Foundation for America’s Public Lands . The Foundation is the official charitable partner of the Bureau of Land Management. Its job is to engage with local communities and the public on behalf of the agency. Thompson discusses the challenges the BLM faces and how the Foundation plans to help, as well as how members of the public can en...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Tony Caligiuri, president and CEO of Colorado Open Lands , a nonprofit land trust that exists to protect Colorado’s land and water resources. Colorado Open Lands works primarily with private landowners to place voluntary agreements called conservation easements on their property. Tony talks about how private land and water conservation works, as well as the vital role...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala for a year-end public lands news roundup and a look ahead at 2024. Overall, 2023 was a great year for public lands. The Biden administration took some really important and concrete steps toward protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands by 2030, as well as started some important rule-makings to update public lan...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage , a project of the Earth Island Institute. We had Dr. DellaSala on the Landscape back in June to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect old growth forests. At the time, the U.S. Forest Service had just released data that it found more than 32 million acres of old-growth forests remain on public...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Rachel Morgan, author of Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology . Rachel is an archaeologist based near Washington, DC, and her book, which was published last month, is largely focused on the Southwest. She gives a detailed account of the Wetherill family, which settled in southwest Colorado in the 1800s and explored Chaco Canyon...

Aaron and Kate are joined by Julia Stuble, Wyoming State Senior Manager with the Wilderness Society. Julia is a Wyomingite who’s lived and worked in the state for decades. She’s here to talk about a proposed Bureau of Land Management resource management plan, or RMP, for southwest Wyoming that’s making waves in the state . The draft Rock Springs RMP prioritizes conservation in some areas by closin...

Aaron and Kate are joined by Laura Peterson, staff attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, to talk about the Bureau of Land Management’s recently finalized Labyrinth Rims/Gemini Bridges Travel Management Plan . The plan will guide land management decisions for a 300,000-acre landscape to the north of Moab for years to come, and will help protect cultural sites, riparian habitat,...

Kate and Aaron are joined by three other members of the Center for Western Priorities for this episode focused on a new report from CWP. The Conservation Toolbox report is a directory of the major land protection tools available to help preserve federal public lands. CWP’s Director of Campaigns and Special Projects, Lauren Bogard, Policy and Design Associate, Lilly Bock-Brownstein, and Outreach an...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Tim Davis, founder and executive director of Friends of the Owyhee, and Karly Foster, campaign manager at the Oregon Natural Desert Association, to talk about how we can better protect the Owyhee Canyonlands. The Owyhee Canyonlands span from southeast Oregon into southwest Idaho, and it is one of the most remote, intact landscapes in the Western U.S. Senator Ron Wyden...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Alan Zibel with Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group focused on the influence of big business in government, and Nichole Heil with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group focused on bringing transparency and accountability to the private equity sector, to talk about a report they co-authored. The report, Private Profits, Public Risks , looks into...

Aaron and Kate are joined by Ben Goldfarb, an award-winning environmental journalist and author who covers wildlife conservation, marine science, and public lands management, to talk about his new book, Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet , which is out now from Norton. In Crossings, Goldfarb explores how roads have made our planet perilous to animals, as well as how we...

Kate and Aaron are joined by pollster Lindsay Vermeyen, senior vice president at Benenson Strategy Group, and Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala to dig into the results of our 2023 Winning the West poll . Spoiler alert: Western voters really love public lands, and they want to see them protected. Kate and Aaron also recap some of the great public lands and conservatio...

Aaron and Kate are joined by I Ling Thompson, vice president of strategy and engagement at the Trust for Public Land, to discuss a new report from the Trust called the Power of Parks to Promote Health . The report looks at the myriad ways urban parks improve human and environmental health, as well as how cities and park managers can ensure parks are used to their full potential. Thompson also touc...

In a special Road to 30: Postcards episode, Aaron and Kate talk to two members of the Havasupai Tribe about the proposed Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument. The proposed monument would partially surround and help protect the Grand Canyon National Park, as well as the communities that live in and near the canyon, from uranium mining. The monument is being proposed by a large...

The Bureau of Land Management just proposed a rule that would essentially codify the oil and gas reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act as well as make a few other important changes to the federal leasing program. The proposed rule would fundamentally change the way oil and gas leasing occurs on public lands, putting the federal government in the driver’s seat instead of the oil and gas comp...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Lori Faeth, senior director of government relations at the Land Trust Alliance, to discuss the Farm Bill and private land conservation. The Farm Bill conservation programs are the largest single federal source of funding for private land conservation. Farm Bill programs create significant opportunities for land trusts to protect high-priority farm and ranch lands, gras...

Kate and Aaron are joined by Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage, a project of the Earth Island Institute, to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect old growth and mature forests. They also touch on reducing wildfire risk through forest management. Dr. DellaSala is the author of over 300 science papers on forest and fire ecology, conservation biology, e...