The Landscape

By Center for Western Priorities

What's The Landscape about?

News, interviews, and history with newsmakers and environmental advocates, focused on parks and public lands across the American West. Produced by the Center for Western Priorities, formerly known as Go West, Young Podcast.

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The Landscape episodes:

05.10.2024
Behind the scenes of the Bears Ears draft management plan
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...
04.23.2024
Why April was a huge month for public lands
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...
04.12.2024
Swimming upstream with Trout Unlimited
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...
03.28.2024
Talking public lands extremism with Betsy Gaines Quammen
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...
03.13.2024
Will lithium mining dry up the West?
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...
02.28.2024
What Western voters want in 2024
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,...
02.22.2024
More solar on public lands? Digging into BLM’s plan
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...
02.08.2024
Uranium mining returns to the Colorado Plateau
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...
01.25.2024
Inside the Foundation for America’s Public Lands
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...
01.12.2024
The private land piece of the 30×30 puzzle
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...
12.27.2023
The year in public lands
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...
12.21.2023
Behind the headlines: old growth logging ban
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...
12.06.2023
Sins of the shovel: How archaeology evolved from pot hunting to science
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...
11.17.2023
How a Wyoming land use plan ended up in a misinformation war
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...
11.02.2023
Balancing trails, wilderness, and ATV’s in Moab’s backcountry
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...
10.25.2023
Opening up the Conservation Toolbox to protect public lands
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...
10.11.2023
Protecting the wild, vast Owyhee Canyonlands
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...
09.26.2023
The problem with Wall Street getting into public lands drilling
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...
09.12.2023
Author Ben Goldfarb on the power—and peril—of roads
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...
08.28.2023
Digging into our 2023 Winning the West poll results
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...
08.22.2023
How urban parks improve public health
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...
08.04.2023
Inside the effort to protect the greater Grand Canyon region
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...
07.28.2023
New oil and gas rule just dropped. What’s in it?
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...
07.13.2023
How the Farm Bill promotes private land conservation
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...
06.30.2023
What’s going on with old growth forests?
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...
06.13.2023
A BLM veteran weighs in on the agency’s proposed conservation leasing rule
Kate and Aaron are joined by James Kenna, a 40-year Interior Department veteran who wore a number of hats over his decades of public service, including a stint as the California state director at Bureau of Land Management. That gave...
06.07.2023
Stewart Udall and the politics of beauty
Kate and Aaron are joined by filmmaker John De Graaf to talk about his new documentary Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty. De Graaf has been producing and directing PBS documentaries for 45 years, 32 of which he spent...
05.24.2023
Can renewable energy and conservation coexist?
Aaron and Kate are joined by Grace Wu, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, to talk about her research on balancing renewable energy development and conservation in the West. The study examined the potential...
05.11.2023
Why you should care about the Rio Grande River
Kate and Aaron are joined by journalist Danielle Prokop and photographer Diana Cervantes to talk about their recent series documenting drought on the Rio Grande River, which runs from Colorado, through New Mexico, to Texas. Danielle and Diana produced the...
05.02.2023
A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mining bill
Kate and Aaron are joined by Alli Henderson, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, and Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, to talk about the recently-introduced Mining Regulatory Clarity Act—or, as Miller-McFeeley has renamed it,...
04.19.2023
What’s really holding up renewable energy transmission construction
Kate and Aaron are joined by clean energy consultant Rob Gramlich, founder and president of Grid Strategies LLC, to talk about the need to ramp up renewable transmission capacity in the U.S. Gramlich tells us what the Inflation Reduction Act...
04.06.2023
Making conservation more inclusive
Kate and Aaron are joined by the co-chairs of the America the Beautiful for All Coalition, a new group that came together to ensure conservation benefits marginalized and overly burdened communities. Nse Witherspoon, executive director of the Children’s Environmental Health Network,...
03.21.2023
Biden designates two new national monuments
The announcement of two new national monuments formed the centerpiece of the White House Conservation in Action Summit on March 21, 2023. Biden designated Avi Kwa Ame and Castner Range national monuments using his authority under the Antiquities Act, protecting...
03.16.2023
The tangled fates of Arizona and Arabia
Aaron and Kate are joined by author and professor Natalie Koch, whose new book—Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia—explores the ways in which Arizona and Saudi Arabia have worked together to promote desert agriculture, and how that...
03.02.2023
What Western voters think about conservation
Kate and Aaron are joined by pollsters Lori Weigel and Dave Metz to talk about the most interesting and important statistics from the recently released 2023 Colorado College State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll. The poll found...
02.17.2023
What’s going on with the Colorado River?
Kate and Aaron are joined by water scientist Brad Udall to talk about the current state of the Colorado River. Water levels are dropping and something has to give or the river’s main reservoirs—Lake Powell and Lake Mead— are going...
02.10.2023
Why we need mining reform on public lands
Aaron and Kate are joined by two mining reform experts to talk about the need to update our century-old mining laws and regulations in order to protect vulnerable communities and public lands as interest in mining grows thanks to electric...
01.26.2023
Are we about to see a mining boom for EV minerals in the West?
Mining expert Ian Lange joins Kate and Aaron to talk about critical minerals and mining in the West. Lange directs the mineral and energy economics program at the Colorado School of Mines and is an expert in mining economics. He...
01.05.2023
Fighting a plan to mine oil in Utah using billions of gallons of Colorado River water
On this episode of The Landscape, Kate and Aaron are joined by Grand Canyon Trust staff attorney Michael Toll to discuss a plan to mine hundreds of thousands of barrels of waxy crude oil in Utah near Dinosaur National Monument,...
12.22.2022
The past year in public lands
On this episode of The Landscape, Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala and CWP Director of Campaigns and Special Projects Lauren Bogard join Aaron and Kate to go over the past year in public lands. From the passage...
12.08.2022
Photographer Pete McBride on the Colorado River
Renowned nature photographer Pete McBride joins Aaron and CWP’s Director of Campaigns and Special Projects Lauren Bogard on the pod to discuss his work documenting the Colorado River. Pete is a photographer, filmmaker, and writer who has been to more...
12.02.2022
The top 8 actions Biden can take to protect 30×30
Aaron and Kate talk to Drew McConville and Sam Zeno from the Center for American Progress about their new report, which identifies the top 8 actions Biden can take to meet his America the Beautiful goal of protecting 30 percent...
11.16.2022
What the 2022 election means for public lands
CWP Executive Director Jennifer Rokala and Colorado-based political consultant Curtis Hubbard join Aaron to break down the 2022 election results and what they mean for public lands across the West. Producer: Aaron WeissMusic: Purple PlanetFeatured image: @POTUS
11.02.2022
What the science says about national forest management
This week on The Landscape, Aaron and Kate talk to forest scientists Megan Cattau and Nayani Ilangakoon to find out what’s up in the world of wildfire risk reduction and forest recovery. Specifically, they ask about the U.S. Forest Service’s...
10.19.2022
What makes national monuments special?
Author and outdoors enthusiast McKenzie Long joins Aaron and Kate to chat about her new book, This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America’s National Monuments. The book is an exploration of national monuments—why they matter, what...
09.30.2022
An evidence-based look at permitting reform
University of Utah law professor Jamie Pleune joins Kate and Aaron on the Landscape to talk about the National Environmental Policy Act and permitting reform. Pleune and her colleagues analyzed over 40,000 Forest Service NEPA decisions to determine the mean and median...
09.23.2022
Is Camp Hale our next national monument?
Janessa Goldbeck Just in time for National Public Lands Day on Saturday, September 24, a conversation with Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of Vet Voice Foundation. VVF is one of the groups sponsoring a hike and rally for the proposed Camp Hale-Continental Divide...
09.15.2022
BONUS: Closing the Nature Gap in Southern California (en español)
The proposed Western Riverside National Wildlife Refuge would protect around 340,000 acres southeast of Los Angeles in southern California, helping preserve habitat for around 150 native species—over 30 of which are endangered—as well as green space for the county’s largely...
09.15.2022
Closing the Nature Gap in Southern California
The proposed Western Riverside National Wildlife Refuge would protect around 340,000 acres southeast of Los Angeles in southern California, helping preserve habitat for around 150 native species—over 30 of which are endangered—as well as green space for the county’s largely...
08.31.2022
National Wildlife Federation president Collin O’Mara on the IRA
Collin O’Mara joins Aaron and Kate to talk all things Inflation Reduction Act, including: what’s in it, how the bill came together behind the scenes, how his group and others got Senator Joe Manchin on board with some of the...

What's The Landscape about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Landscape episodes:

Behind the scenes of the Bears Ears draft management plan

Why April was a huge month for public lands

Swimming upstream with Trout Unlimited

Talking public lands extremism with Betsy Gaines Quammen

Will lithium mining dry up the West?

What Western voters want in 2024

More solar on public lands? Digging into BLM’s plan

Uranium mining returns to the Colorado Plateau

Inside the Foundation for America’s Public Lands

The private land piece of the 30×30 puzzle

The year in public lands

Behind the headlines: old growth logging ban

Sins of the shovel: How archaeology evolved from pot hunting to science

How a Wyoming land use plan ended up in a misinformation war

Balancing trails, wilderness, and ATV’s in Moab’s backcountry

Opening up the Conservation Toolbox to protect public lands

Protecting the wild, vast Owyhee Canyonlands

The problem with Wall Street getting into public lands drilling

Author Ben Goldfarb on the power—and peril—of roads

Digging into our 2023 Winning the West poll results

How urban parks improve public health

Inside the effort to protect the greater Grand Canyon region

New oil and gas rule just dropped. What’s in it?

How the Farm Bill promotes private land conservation

What’s going on with old growth forests?

A BLM veteran weighs in on the agency’s proposed conservation leasing rule

Stewart Udall and the politics of beauty

Can renewable energy and conservation coexist?

Why you should care about the Rio Grande River

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mining bill

What’s really holding up renewable energy transmission construction

Making conservation more inclusive

Biden designates two new national monuments

The tangled fates of Arizona and Arabia

What Western voters think about conservation

What’s going on with the Colorado River?

Why we need mining reform on public lands

Are we about to see a mining boom for EV minerals in the West?

Fighting a plan to mine oil in Utah using billions of gallons of Colorado River water

The past year in public lands

Photographer Pete McBride on the Colorado River

The top 8 actions Biden can take to protect 30×30

What the 2022 election means for public lands

What the science says about national forest management

What makes national monuments special?

An evidence-based look at permitting reform

Is Camp Hale our next national monument?

BONUS: Closing the Nature Gap in Southern California (en español)

Closing the Nature Gap in Southern California

National Wildlife Federation president Collin O’Mara on the IRA

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