Dan Dagget was one of the original members of EarthFirst!, one of the more radical environmental activist organizations of the last 50 years. In his efforts to achieve health for the Earth’s ecosystems, however, he found himself conflicted over environmentalism’s means and the ends those means actually achieved. With that in mind, he began investigating and writing about success stories where active participation by humans in the ecosystems they depended on for livelihoods made the environment healthier than if they were not there. Two of his books, "Beyond the Rangeland Conflict" and "Gardeners of Eden - Rediscovering Our Importance to Nature" have thus been influential for many of us concerned about the serious environmental problems confronting the contemporary American West.

This work is supported by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, project award no. 2022-38640-37487 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The Art of Range Podcast is supported by the Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission; Vence, a subsidiary of Merck Animal Health; and the Western Extension Risk Management Education Center.

Visit the episode page at https://artofrange.com/episodes/aor-160-dan-dagget-peoples-contributions-nature-and-ecosystem-successes-southwest-us for links to more of Dan's work, including photos on his website which he mentions in the interview, and these books.