Converting an English Estate into a Thriving Ecosystem

Guest: Isabella Tree, journalist and author, “Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm”

Take a walk on the wild side--the wild side of conservation, that is! When Isabella Tree’s 3,500 acre farm was failing, she and her husband decided to switch gears from intensive farming to a hands-off conservation technique called “rewilding.” Check out the miraculous tenacity and wonder of nature.

Diving Sea Nomads (originally aired May 22, 2019)

Guest: Melissa Ilardo, Evolutionary Genomicist, University of Utah, and Integrative Biologist, UC Berkeley

Humans have adapted to live in some of the most extreme environments on earth, from the high altitude of the Tibetan Himalayas to the dry wasteland of the world’s deserts. The Bajau, a people of the Malay Archipelago, spend almost all of their lives at sea. These sea nomads, who live on floating houses, have prodigious diving capabilities. 

Know Nothings

Guest: Tyler Anbinder, Professor, History, George Washington University, and author, “City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York”

During the 1840s, a massive immigration of Catholics (mostly from Ireland and Germany) resulted in the creation of the “Know Nothing” party, commonly considered the forerunner to other radical hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. It was founded mostly upon a distrust of immigrants, and particularly of Catholics.

Redefining Nature

Guest: Emma Marris, environmental science, policy and culture writer, and author of “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World” 

Between climate change and the destruction of habitat, it may seem like nature as we know it is coming to an end. But maybe we need to get away from a definition of nature as something pristine and untouched and spend more time appreciating the wildlife in our own backyard. We might be surprised at what we find.