The Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature is an award-winning series featuring breakthrough solutions for people and planet. The greatest social and sci...
In this age of global weirding where climate disruption has tumbled the Goldilocks effect into unruly surges of too much and too little water, the restoration of beavers offers ancient nature-based solutions to the tangle of challenges bedeviling human civilization. Droughts, floods, soil erosion, climate change, biodiversity loss – you name it, and beaver is on it.
In this episode, Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center share their semi-aquatic journey to becoming Beaver Believers. They are part of a passionate global movement to bring back our rodent relatives who show us how to heal nature by working with nature.
This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.
Featuring
Kate Lundquist, co-director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute and the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign in Sonoma County, is a conservationist, educator and ecological artist who works with landowners, communities and resource agencies to uncover obstacles, identify strategic solutions, and generate restoration recommendations to assure healthy watersheds, water security, listed species recovery and climate change resiliency.
Brock Dolman, co-founded (in 1994) the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where he co-directs the WATER Institute. A wildlife biologist and watershed ecologist, he has been actively promoting “Bringing Back Beaver in California” since the early 2000s. He was given the Salmonid Restoration Federation’s coveted Golden Pipe Award in 2012: “…for his leading role as a proponent of “working with beavers” to restore native habitat.
Resources
Beaver Believer: How Massive Rodents Could Restore Landscapes and Ecosystems At Scale
Fire and Water: Land and Watershed Management in the Age of Climate Change
Brock Dolman – Basins of Relations: A Reverential Rehydration Revolution
From Kingdom to Kin-dom: Acting As If We Have Relatives Brock Dolman, Paul Stamets and Brian Thomas Swimme
The WATER Institute’s Beaver in California reader
Bioneers – Where Water, Flows Life Thrives - Ensuring Drought Resilience and Water Security for Farms, People and Ecosystems
Credits
Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
Written by: Kenny Ausubel
Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
Producer: Teo Grossman
Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
Production Assistance: Monica Lopez
Graphic Designer: Megan Howe
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29:36
Seeing the Forest for the Trees
We trek into the ancient old-growth forest where the trees reveal an ecological parable: A forest is a mightily interwoven community of diverse life that runs on symbiosis. With: Doctors Suzanne Simard and Teresa Ryan, ecologists whose work has helped reveal an elaborate tapestry of kinship, cooperation and mutual aid.
This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.
Featuring
Dr. Sm’hayetsk Teresa Ryan is Gitlan, Tsm’syen. Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Science Lecturer at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Forestry, Forest & Conservation Sciences. As a fisheries/aquatic/forest ecologist, she is currently investigating relationships between salmon and healthy forests.
Dr. Suzanne Simard, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia and author of the bestselling, Finding the Mother Tree, is a highly influential, researcher on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence.
Resources
Forest Wisdom, Mother Trees and the Science of Community | Bioneers Podcast
Suzanne Simard – Dispatches From the Mother Trees | Bioneers 2021 Keynote
Suzanne Simard – Dealing with Backlash Against Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change | Bioneers 2024 Keynote
The Wood Wide Web: The Intelligent Underground Mycelial Network | Bioneers interview with Suzanne Simard
Unraveling the Secrets of Salmon: An Indigenous Exploration of Forest Ecology and Nature’s Intelligence | Bioneers interview with Teresa Ryan
Teresa Ryan: How Trees Communicate | Bioneers 2017 Keynote
Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature
Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter
Credits
Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
Produced by: Cathy Edwards
Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
Producer: Teo Grossman
Graphic Designer: Megan Howe
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32:11
Nature's Genius: A Bioneers Podcast Series
Nature’s Genius is a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. For all the talk about the Age of Information, what we’re really entering is the Age of Nature. As we face the reality that, as humans, we have the capacity to destroy the conditions conducive to life, avoiding this fate requires a radical change in our relationship to nature, and how we view it. Looking to nature to heal nature, and ourselves, is essential.
Traditional Indigenous wisdom and modern science show us that everything is connected and that the solutions we need are present in the sentient symphony of life. We can learn from the time-tested principles, processes, and dynamics that have allowed living systems to flourish during 3.8 billion years of evolution.
In this enlightening series, we visit with scientists, ecologists, Indigenous practitioners of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, community organizers, and authors reporting from the frontlines of ecological restoration. They explore the intelligence inherent in nature and show us how to model human organization on living systems.
Guests featured in the series include: Jeannette Armstrong - Co-Founder, Enwokin Centre; Brock Dolman - Co-Founder and Program Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Erica Gies - Author and Journalist; Brett KenCairn - Founding Director of Center for Regenerative Solutions; Toby Kiers - Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Co-Founder of SPUN; Kate Lundquist - Water Institute Co-Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Samira Malone - Urban Forestry Program Manager, Urban Sustainability Directors Network; Teresa Ryan - Teaching and Learning Fellow, Forest and Conservation Sciences Dept., Univ. of British Columbia; Merlin Sheldrake - Biologist and Author; Suzanne Simard - Author and Prof. of Forest Ecology, Univ. of British Columbia; Rowen White - Seedkeeper/Farmer and Author from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne
Credits
Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
Written by Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
Produced by Cathy Edwards
Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch
Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
Producer: Teo Grossman
Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
Post Production Assistants: Monica Lopez and Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher
Graphic Designer: Megan Howe
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3:19
The Universe Beneath Our Feet: Mapping the Mycelial Web of Life
Imagine an underground web of mind-boggling complexity, a bustling cosmopolis beneath your feet. Quadrillions of miles of tiny threads in the soil pulsate with real-time messages, trade vital nutrients, and form life-giving symbiotic partnerships. This is the mysterious realm of fungi. Acclaimed visionary biologists Toby Kiers and Merlin Sheldrake guide us through the intricate wonders of the mycorrhizal fungal networks that make life on Earth possible.
This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.
Featuring
Toby Kiers, Ph.D., is the Executive Director and Chief Scientist of SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) and a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at VU, Amsterdam.
Merlin Sheldrake, Ph.D., is a biologist and writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He is currently a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, works with the SPUN, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.
Credits
Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
Produced by: Cathy Edwards
Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch
Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
Producer: Teo Grossman
Graphic Design: Megan Howe
Resources
Merlin Sheldrake – How Fungi Make our Worlds | Bioneers 2024 Keynote
Merlin Sheldrake and Toby Kiers – Mapping, Protecting and Harnessing the Mycorrhizal Networks that Sustain Life on Earth | Bioneers 2024 Panel Discussion
Interview with Merlin Sheldrake, Author of Entangled Life
Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature
Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter
SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks)
Fungi Foundation
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33:05
What Does Water Want?
Water makes life possible. From the tiniest bacteria to the tallest tree, every living thing relies on this irreplaceable substance. Erica Gies, author of “Water Always Wins,” explores water’s unique role in the web of life, and how we might repair and reshape our relationship with it. Rather than telling water what to do, maybe we should start by asking what it wants?
This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.
Featuring
Erica Gies is an independent journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and the author of “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge.” She covers water, climate change, plants and wildlife for Scientific American, The New York Times, bioGraphic, Nature, and other publications.
Credits
Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
Produced by: Cathy Edwards
Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
Producer: Teo Grossman
Production Assistance: Kaleb Wentzel Fisher and Monica Lopez
Graphic Designer: Megan Howe
Resources
Erica Gies – The Slow Water Movement: How to Thrive in an Age of Drought and Deluge | Bioneers 2024 Keynote
Embracing Slow Water: Rediscovering the True Nature of Earth’s Lifeline | Excerpt from “Water Always Wins”
Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature
Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter
About Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature
The Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature is an award-winning series featuring breakthrough solutions for people and planet. The greatest social and scientific innovators of our time celebrate the genius of nature and human ingenuity. The kaleidoscopic scope covers biomimicry, ecological design, social and racial justice, women’s leadership, ecological medicine, indigenous knowledge, spirituality and psychology. It’s leading-edge, hopeful, charismatic, provocative, timely and timeless – like nothing you’ve heard before.