Sean Gerrity is the co-founder and former CEO of American Prairie—a giant wildlife refuge in the making in Montana, which I hiked and kayaked this past August. Sean is the host of The Answers Are Out There podcast in which he interviews leaders who’ve taken on bold conservation projects. He’s the author of Wild on Purpose: The American Prairie Story and the Art of Thinking Bigger.

• Some of Sean’s favorite things: musician Ry Cooder, Sapiens by Yoval Noah Hariri, Travels with Charley, East of Eden, A Short Walk In the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, and…
• Sean’s podcast interview with Violet Sage Walker — a Northern Chumash Tribal Leader — celebrating America’s Newest Large-Scale Marine Sanctuary.
• Are we in a rewilding renaissance?
• How well known is American Prairie? Is it’s under-knownness due to the noise of the modern day information flow?
• Is today the best of times (lots of exciting conservation opportunities) and the worst of times (the overwhelming negativity funneled into our brains).
• 192 out of 196 countries signing up to achieve vision of 30% of the world saved for nature by 2030.
• The big four things for helping the environment:    
  • Stabilize global human population
  • Accelerate transition to green energy
  • Rewild
  • Redo how we do agriculture

   

• Fundraising: is it as unpleasant as it sounds?
• The art of risk-taking—analyze the risk so deeply the risk is no longer a risk?
• Do our schools need to teach “risk analysis” in their curriculums?
• MT. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s letter to the BLM opposing American Prairie’s use of bison.
• I pitch a book idea to Sean.
• American Prairie’s “Wild Sky” program, which involves paying landowners for photographic evidence of wildlife on their property, plus some wildlife friendly fencing.
• How there could be 30-40 more American Prairie-like projects, just across the American West.
• Chumash National Marine Sanctuary—4500 square miles of protecting marine habitat.
• Klamath River Dam Removal—over 400 miles of river protected.
• On how originality is overrated.
• Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing:
• George Catlin proposing a park way back in the 1830s.
• The Tarras Valley Nature Reserve project. Here’s Sean’s podcast interview with them.
• Will American Prairie need to evolve into more like a multi-entity committee in the future?
• I get Sean’s thoughts on de-extinction.