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The Wild Idea is an exploration of the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. The hosts, Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds, through conversations with experts and thought leaders will dive into the ways that humans have both embraced and impact the function and vitality of our remaining wild places.
52 Episodes
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This week on The Wild Idea, Bill and Anders sit down with Rashid Poulson and Bella Ciabattoni, the horticulture leaders at Brooklyn Bridge Park, to talk about one of New York City’s most surprising wild spaces. What was once a stretch of abandoned shipping piers has become 85 acres of thriving wetlands, meadows, and woodlands along the East River, offering both locals and visitors a chance to reconnect with nature in the heart of the city. The conversation dives into what it takes to keep an urban waterfront alive with birdsong and tree canopy, from creative planting strategies to the value of having a dedicated team who knows the land season after season. At its heart, the story of Brooklyn Bridge Park is about more than plants; it is about people finding joy, curiosity, and connection in a place that feels both wild and welcoming.Learn more about today's guests, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the other resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com
This week on The Wild Line we cover congressional action to scrap resource management plans in three states, authorize the controversial Ambler Road project in Alaska, and to remove protections for the Mexican Gray Wolf. Over at EPA the agency fires employees critical of the Trump administration and the Department of Energy is taken to task by leading climate scientists. We also have Border Patrol arresting wildland firefighters and Scarlett Johansson chasing wolves away from cattle. These stories and more in under 15 minutes. Learn more about the topics covered today and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this episode Bill and Anders talk with Chris Hill, the CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. Chris highlights CLF's commitment to the National Conservation Lands System and the communities that adjoin these special areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management. They talk about the 25th anniversary of the Conservation Lands System, grass-roots cultivation and how to never forget why you got into the work in the first place. Learn more and find the resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.
This Labor Day, we’re turning the spotlight on the people behind our public lands. In this bonus episode, Bill and Anders sit down with three former federal employees who thought they had found their dream jobs in service to the land and the public, only to have those jobs abruptly taken away.Learn more and find the resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.
This week on The Wild Line, we dig into major developments for America’s public lands. The USDA has extended the comment period on its controversial Forest Service reorganization plan. At the same time, Secretary Rollins has opened public comment on a move to rescind the Roadless Rule, threatening 45 million acres of backcountry lands. In Texas, plans to expand Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge have been abandoned, even as a court ruling weakens protections for the lesser prairie chicken. We also bring you updates from Montana’s Western Policy Caucus, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association meeting, new wildfire research in California, and a union vote among Yosemite rangers.Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.
How do we turn the scars of environmental injustice into real innovation for a healthier future? For the fourth part of our Southern Currents series, Bill talks with Josephus Allmond, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, about environmental justice and the push for fair energy solutions in Virginia. Learn more and find the resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this episode, Bill and Anders sit down with Theodore Roosevelt IV, who they call Ted, to talk about Alaska, public lands, and what it means to carry forward a legacy of stewardship. From the North Slope to the Tongass, the conversation reveals a personal history in our 49th state with some critical policy and legislation data in the dialogue as well. Find the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this Southern Currents episode, Bill traveled back to Southern Appalachia early in the spring, just months after Hurricane Helene, to trace the impacts of a storm that has reshaped the region’s communities and forests hundreds of miles inland. We sit down with longtime conservation allies, Josh Kelly of MountainTrue, Ben Prater of Defenders of Wildlife, Sam Evans of the Southern Environmental Law Center, and later Jill Gottesman of The Wilderness Society, to reflect on what recovery really looks like. The conversation moves from personal stories of evacuations, power outages, and neighbors sharing water, to bigger questions about resilience, both human and ecological.Find the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this episode Bill and Anders head deep into the Okefenokee with guest Kim Bednarek, the executive director of the Okefenokee Swamp Park. Kim shares the story of how a local community created the park in the 1940s as a way to connect people with the swamp, and how today that mission has expanded into conservation education and community-led advocacy. We also cover the World Heritage Site nomination for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.Find the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
Today on the Wild Line we bring you some numbers of hope for Red Wolf recovery, a temporary restraining order on more development at the Everglades detention facility and win for the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. There is also a new map out there that shows the public lands at risk of disposal. These stories and more on this week's Wild Line. Find the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this second Southern Currents bonus episode of The Wild Idea, Bill chats with Stewart Noland, Tommie Kelly, and Martha Morris from the Ozark Society, the group that came together in 1962 to keep the Buffalo River from being dammed and went on to make it America’s first National River in 1972. They swap stories from that fight, like riding the Jubilee Bus to Washington, D.C. and floating the river with Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and talk about how the work to protect the Buffalo has come up again and again with new threats like landfills, dams, and hog farms. They also share how the Society keeps pushing forward, protecting rivers and wilderness, building trails, and getting the next generation out on the water. Learn more and access the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
Environmental justice scholar Joe Whitson joins Bill and Anders to talk about how our stories about nature shape the land itself. Joe explains his concept of “wildernessing,” the process of making a place look and feel “untouched” through policy decisions, land management, and marketing, even though these landscapes have deep human histories. The conversation moves from history to the present, exploring how our cultural definition of “wilderness” has shifted over time, why climate change is challenging the myth of pristine nature, and what it will take to create a more just and inclusive future for public lands.Find the resources mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
Today we report on the rollback of protections in Alaska’s North Slope, revival of a mining project near the Boundary Waters, and threats to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We offer some good news with proposed Wild and Scenic River designations in Montana, and some bad news with Louisiana’s cancellation of a landmark coastal restoration project, plus public comments open on a controversial Forest Service reorganization plan.Find out more about the news mentioned today and links and resources from today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this first installment of our special Southern Currents series, Bill travels the Gulf Coast (sadly, without Anders) to explore the crisis of coastal land loss and the role of citizen science in protecting the region's future.We begin in Louisiana with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bob Marshall, who has spent decades covering the collapse of his home state's coastal wetlands, before shifting east to the Florida panhandle, where marine biologist, author, and lifelong mischief-maker Jack Rudloe tells the story of founding the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, Florida.Together, these conversations trace the interconnected threads of land, water, loss, and resilience in the Gulf South and ask what it means to fight for wild places when those places are rapidly disappearing.Learn more and find the resources and links mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
Join us as we climb aboard the BOB, a 50-foot Catalina sailboat, with Blain and Monique Anderson—a husband-and-wife team navigating the remote waters of Southeast Alaska. As the owners of Sound Sailing, they’ve turned their love of sailing and wild places into a platform for sharing the raw beauty and singular experience found only in Alaska’s coastal wilderness. Today's episode is part travelogue, part meditation on modern wilderness, and part love letter to the wild waters of Alaska.Find the resources and links mentioned in today's discussion at our website, thewildidea.com.
Today we zoom in on layoffs, restructuring, and reorganizations across multiple departments, and cover wins and losses for wildlife and parks. We also inventory what happened on the hill this week. Find out more about the news mentioned today and links and resources from today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this special 20th episode of The Wild Idea, Bill and Anders are recording face-to-face for the first time, from the deck of a sailboat in Southeast Alaska. To mark the milestone, they’re answering twenty questions submitted by listeners. The result is a wide-ranging, often hilarious, occasionally serious, and always thoughtful conversation that covers everything from their dream podcast guests and close calls in the backcountry to artificial intelligence, bipartisan conservation, screen addiction, and the secret behind those corny intro questions. Find the links and resources mentioned today along with the list of questions answered on our website, thewildidea.com.
Today on The Wild Line: A sweeping USDA plan to restructure the Forest Service, a major executive order from President Trump aimed at fast-tracking AI data center development on federal land, the House’s latest Interior budget bill, and a legal win for conservationists. Find the resources mentioned today and more at our website, thewildidea.com.
Josh Jackson didn’t set out to become a champion for the Bureau of Land Management. But after stumbling into BLM lands in the deserts of California, he found himself transformed, first by the landscape, and then by the history behind it.In this episode, Josh joins Bill and Anders to talk about The Enduring Wild, his new book exploring California’s public lands, and the path that took him from “drive-by desert” skeptic to devoted pilgrim. why the desert strips us bare, how the King Range helped launch a conservation revolution inside the BLM, and the power of returning to overlooked landscapes again and again.Learn more about Josh and the resources mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Cristina Eisenberg shares her perspective on the growing crisis facing our forests and why meeting this moment will take more than science alone. As the opening speaker for the Ninth American Forest Congress, Cristina reflects on how this historic gathering signals a shift in how we think about forest stewardship—and why that shift depends on blending Western science with Indigenous knowledge and local wisdom. Together with Bill and Anders, she unpacks why both extractive management and strict hands-off protection have fallen short, and how it’s time to rethink what “wilderness” really means.Learn more, connect with Dr. Eisenberg, and find the links and resources mentioned in today's episode at our website, thewildidea.com.
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