WEBVTT - Ep. 474: Future Wild - A Case for Wildness with David Quammen 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.800 I don't particularly enjoy reading the news these days. It's 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:08.400 always something sensational, always something bad. But what saves me 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:10.840 when I get the good sense to put down my 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:16.400 phone and take a step outside is wildness. Henry David 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.520 Thurrow wrote that in wildness is the preservation of the world, 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.960 and I think he's right. But what exactly is wildness. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.560 It's a tricky thing to pin down. What I can 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.560 tell you is that I've seen it in the eyes 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.480 of a mountain lion, lying on a branch twenty feet 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.680 above my head, its tail swishing back and forth, its 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.599 iron gray eyes locked right on mine. And I felt it, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.520 for example, as a kid every morning during summer break, 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.080 when I would set off into the neighborhood woods on 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.879 the full day with nothing to do but look for 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:57.240 snakes and turtles and frogs, and coming back at dark covered. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.640 In slime mud scratches. 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.280 And I've heard it on nights laying on a tent 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.280 on the top of a cold, dark mountain, when I've 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.319 been woken up by the screaming of a bowl elk 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.319 echoing from peak to peak. This, as far as I 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.880 can tell, is wildness, but it comes in so many 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:19.640 other forms. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:21.679 And each is essential. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:27.160 By some accounts, today wildness is disappearing. Just take a 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:27.880 look at the news. 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:28.840 As I mentioned. 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.880 In other ways, though, you might say that wildness is 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.360 on the rise. Take that mountain line I saw, for example, 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.240 and the many other two the carnivores that are starting 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.759 to return to landscapes that they haven't commonly been seen 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.160 in since the early twentieth century. 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.240 The question is. 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.640 Does any of this matter in a twenty first century 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:55.640 world that's seemingly defined by social media and AI and power, 0:01:55.760 --> 0:02:02.000 fame and fortune. Is wildness still relevant? I believe it is. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.280 In fact, I think it's more important than ever in 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.520 the face of so much today that's artificial. We need 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.480 something real, and there's nothing that can shake you back 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:19.839 to reality more urgently than the wild. Thankfully, I'm far 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.600 from the only one who's asking questions today about wildness, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.080 and one of those thinkers who has spent more time 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.919 than most defining and making a case for wildness today 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.760 is David Kwaman. David is an outdoor enthusiast, a world 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.239 renowned science writer, and the New York Times best selling 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.280 author of numerous books, including several of my all time 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.960 favorites on the topics of wildness and wildlife, such as 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.919 the Song of the Dodo, Monster of God, and most recently, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.000 The Heartbeat of the Wild. I've invited David to join 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.359 me here today to help us understand how wildness might 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.480 be defined in our present day matters and what the 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.480 future might hold for wildness on this planet. Thanks for 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:14.640 being here, David Kwalman. Thank you so much for joining me. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.760 You're very welcome. Mark glad to be with you me too. 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.520 As I mentioned, have really appreciated your work, and in 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.240 reading and listening to your books over the years, I've 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.000 come away from them with a lot of new thoughts, 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.960 but also questions, and I'm hoping to dive into some 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.360 of those here today. A lot of witches is wondering 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.080 how your thoughts on many of these topics that you've 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.760 written about over the last thirty or so years have 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:46.640 possibly evolved over the subsequent decades. But I want to 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.000 start with your most recent work, your most recently published book, 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.960 The Heartbeal of wild You opened with this extended discussion 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.480 of wildness and what that is, and I'm curious if 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.080 you could help us understand what you mean by that. 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:07.760 How would you define wildness. And then secondly, why why 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.360 is wildness worth contemplating and possibly preserving? 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.480 Right? Happy to do that, let me start with the 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:20.200 second of those two questions. Why Why did I try 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.320 to define wildness at the beginning of this book and 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:28.159 the introduction of this book? And that's because I wanted 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.200 to think about it more systematically than I ever had before. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:34.960 Because I knew I was going to be publishing this 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:40.320 book of essays, reports narratives drawn from work that I 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.400 did over twenty years for National Geographic and I knew 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.760 I was going to title it the Heartbeat of the Wild. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.240 So I wanted to think, what is the heartbeat of 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.320 the wild? What is the wild itself? And what is 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.359 the very core, the very essence of it? So I 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:04.880 started thinking about that systematically than I had before, and 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.919 and what I came to was the simple statement that 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.520 what we mean when we use the word wildness, what 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.320 do you mean? And what I mean as opposed to 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.480 what somebody means about you know times square on New 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.560 Year's Eve, is we're talking about and thinking about nature, 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:30.640 living nature, living nature on planet Earth at its most dynamic, 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:39.000 its most diverse, its most unfettered and robust, Right Okay, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:44.200 a bunch of adjectives that I apply to this. And 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.840 then I said to myself, well, so when you add 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.240 those things together, what is it that What is it 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:58.559 that's necessary to constitute a place, an ecosystem, a patch 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:04.120 of landscape, a collection of animals and plants such that 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:15.360 that wildness is throbbing with vitality, is is permanent, is capacious, 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:21.600 is substantial enough? What is it that differs wildness as 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:27.440 we think about it, from say, a tiger in a 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.400 cage in a zoo, or a or a piranha in 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:38.400 an aquarium, or a single great baobab tree in Africa, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:44.240 as I've seen great baobab trees in Africa that has 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:49.800 become the centerpiece of a roundabout in a village, surrounded 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.400 by dirt roads, surrounded by shops, surrounded by cars and motorcycles, 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.400 a baobab. We don't think of those as wildness. So 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.480 what is it that that comes together to constitute wildness? 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.919 And what I came up with is four characteristics and 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:10.960 I enumerate them in the introduction, and those are scale, connectivity, diversity, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:16.160 and ecological processes. You put those together and I'll define 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.440 each of those briefly put those together and you have 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.920 real wildness. As I think of it, so scale. It's 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:24.160 got to be big. It's got to be big enough, 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.920 big enough piece of landscape, big enough protected area, national park, whatever, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:34.240 big enough forest. It's got to be sufficiently big so 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.840 that it will contain all of the creatures that were 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.600 there originally. If you have a small piece of really 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.680 beautiful forest but it's too small to support a population 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.560 of the top predator, then everything is going to change 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.960 and you're not going to have wildness in the same stent, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.239 because if you lose the top predator, then the middle 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.800 sized predators will explode in population and they'll eat up 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.880 all the ground nesting birds and you'll start losing diversity 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.680 in sort of a chain reaction. So you've got to 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.400 have scale. It's got to be big, and the bigness 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.680 has got to have connectivity. It can't be just a 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:20.840 cumulative gathering of small patches that are separated from one 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:26.360 another by roads and by parking lots and by fences. 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:32.120 It's got to be well scale with connectivity. And that 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.080 realizing that went back to work I've done thirty years 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.800 ago on island biogeography in the song of the Dodo. 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:46.760 So scale connectivity diversity, Well, that's both the both the 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.239 necessity and a result of this kind of wildness disassemblage 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:55.160 of factors. You need full biological diversity. You need that 0:08:55.200 --> 0:09:01.240 top predator. You need that population of lions, or that 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.680 population of grizzly bears, or that population of tigers to 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.360 play their role, that population of saltwater crocodile to play 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.400 their role in the ecosystem. And you need the things 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.760 all the way through at the bottom, including the little 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.960 things that run the world. Is the great ed Wilson 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.360 Edward O. Wilson put it. You need the ants, Yes, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.160 you really need the ants. Ants are really important on 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.320 this planet. You need all of the insects. You need 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:36.080 the beetles, which are less obviously important but are incredibly biodiverse, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.839 so you need them. You need the bacteria. You need 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.679 the archaeans, the microbes that are not bacteria but look 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.200 like bacteria. I wrote a whole book about the discovery 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.120 of the tangle tree. You need all of that. You 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:51.080 need the diversity, and finally, if you have those three things, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.559 you probably will have the ecological processes. But if you don't, 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:00.320 you need to know the reason why ecological processes dation, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:18.080 herbivy competition, photosynthesis, decomposition, parasitism, seed dispersal, pollination. What am 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:23.440 I missing? Mark you that I thought, Okay, you need 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.160 those things. You need those things to be happening. And 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:31.920 when you have those things, then scale connectivity, diversity, and 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:36.599 the ecological processes. Then you've got this thing where the 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.200 heart of wildness is beating within it, the way it 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.680 beats in the Congo forest, the way it beats in 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.959 the best intact portions of the of the Amazon forest, 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.199 the way it beats in the northern boreal forest, the 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.679 way the way it beats at the heart of you know, 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.400 the Bob Marshall wilderness. Then you have that wildness. 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.040 So so you and I and likely many many of 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.000 the people listening to this were so fortunate that we 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:11.760 have a direct connection to places and animals and examples 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.800 that you described there that exude that wildness. But there's 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.320 so many people likely across the world who would hear 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.520 what you just described and would think to themselves, that 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.679 sounds like a lot. That doesn't sound all that necessary. 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.319 When I look at the forest, I just see board 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.680 feet of timber that could help fill my bank account, 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.840 or they might say, you know, I really just want 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.440 to see as many different birds as possible to fill 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.960 out my list, and that's all that really matters to me. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.199 The rest of that seems like above and beyond, where 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:45.839 there might be some people that say, well, I just 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:47.920 want to catch as many fish as I can, or 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.480 I just want to be able to sell this piece 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.520 of real estate for as much as possible. There's all 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.200 these different ways that people look at a landscape or 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.600 the animals that are on that landscape that might be 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.160 different than what you just described. And my question for 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.440 you is what would you say to that person as 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:13.120 to why your description of wildness is important? Why should 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.200 that be preserved or fought for? 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.240 You know, Mark, there's no question that I've thought more 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.360 about and more often about over the last forty years 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:31.640 than that, how do you convey this to other people? 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:38.240 Because I feel it almost as as a religious belief. 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.560 You know, I'm not a conventionally religious person. I wouldn't 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.079 even claim to be a spiritual person. I'm a black 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.440 hole Darwinian materialist who happened to go through twelve years 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:55.120 of Catholic education. But I feel this connection. What ed 0:12:55.200 --> 0:13:01.760 Wilson called biophilia an inherent love for life in all 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:07.960 its forms. I feel that almost as a pre rational conviction, 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.680 but not everybody does. And I want people to agree 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:17.560 with the importance of preserving wildness. So it's incumbent on me, 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:19.840 and it's incumbent on you. This is what you guys do. 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.000 That's what I do all day, every day as we work, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.240 is try and figure out ways to make the case 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:33.000 that this stuff is important for people who maybe didn't 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.160 at the age of six encounter a snake for the 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.120 first time and think, this is the most wonderful thing 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.480 I've ever seen. What is this? Yeah, let me grab it. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:46.880 Let me take it home and put it in a 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.400 box in my bedroom so I can look at it. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.280 Not everybody is built that way or has that luck 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.640 that experience. I do, Jane Goodall did, Ed Wilson did. 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:04.120 Not everybody so incumbent to explain it make the case 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.000 for it. I think there are two ways. There are 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:11.439 two channels, two categories of explanation of argument for that. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:19.000 One is the pragmatic, sort of anthropocentric answer, and one 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:25.000 is a little bit more is less pragmatic and it's 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.120 more esthetic. Maybe is the way to put it. The 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:33.000 pragmatic answer is if you want to catch trout. I 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.080 was a fishing guide for a number of years. When 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.000 I was a starving young writer. I came to Montana 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:45.320 with a fly rod, an electric typewriter, and Volkswagen bus 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.800 filled with books in September of seventy three because I 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.200 wanted two things. I wanted to be a writer and 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:53.360 I wanted to fly fish. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:55.080 Yeah there's the dream right there. 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.040 Yeah yeah, And I don't fish anymore, but I know 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.640 what it feels, so I know how incredibly thrilling it 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.200 is to catch a trout on a fly. See a 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.520 rainbow trout, you know, come flying out of the water, 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.560 and a big jump when you come up snug with it, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.040 and you've laid out, you know, a number eighteen atoms 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.120 in front of him, and you tied that number eighteen 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.480 atoms yourself perfect. I know what that feels like. I 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.360 know how thrilling that is. But if you want that feeling, 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.840 then you need aquatic insects. You need mayflies, stone flies, catisflies, 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.400 and let's see what's the fourth one. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:43.240 Of the may fly, stone flies, cats flies, terrestrials of 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.000 different types would help. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.200 Yeah, anyway, clean water, and you need clean water and 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.440 nutrients in that water, but not too many nutrients, not 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.560 too much nutrients. And you you need a temperature regiment. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.200 You need for that water not to get too hot. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.760 You need dissolved oxygen in that way. You need all 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.960 those things. And if you don't have them, if you 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.080 don't have a real wild stream, wildness in your stream, 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.200 wildness in your Madison River, wildness in your Odell Spring 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.000 creek or whatever, then eventually those those trout are not 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:18.600 going to be there. So that's pragmatic. If you're you know, 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.200 if you're in the timber business, if you're like buddies 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.480 of mine who have made their living in the timber 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:34.560 fell in trees, then you're probably wise enough to realize 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.800 that even for those trees to grow, you need a 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:44.840 healthy ecosystem. You need to control climate change. You need 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:50.960 for things to be happening so that your forest is 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.360 not streaked through with rusty red needles because of a 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.920 huge beetlekill that has swept through the forest and killed off, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.000 you know, twenty percent of the trees. Why did that 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:08.080 beetle kill happen, Well, it happened because of things that 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.680 people do happen probably because of climate change. Happened because 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.679 our weeks of sub zero weather in the winter have 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.840 decreased so that our beetle populations have exploded. Those things 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.520 are connected. Even if you're in the timber business. But 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.680 also if you're in the timber business, you're probably somebody 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:31.159 who likes to be outdoors in the forest, like the 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:33.879 buddies that I talked about, you know, with their johnsreads 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.120 who were out there, you know, cutting logs, and then 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.960 when they're done cutting logs, they go fly fishing, and 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.439 when they're done fly fishing, they'd work on their novel 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.800 I mean, not all loggers are working on novels and 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.080 fly fishing, but there are people who like to be 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:52.959 out there, sure, and so maybe maybe you find it 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.399 more satisfying if you're going out into the timber to 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.680 know that the grizzly is out there too, at pine 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.760 marks are out there too, that maybe maybe there's this 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.800 sparse population of wolverines or links out there you're cutting. 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.800 You know, you're cutting logs in the winter. Maybe you 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.840 want you want to see, you enjoy probably seeing some 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.959 some cougar prints or some linx prints moving around occasionally 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:26.280 occasionally seeing uh a uh a Martin or or whatever. Anyway. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.920 Uh So those that's all the pragmatic Well that's also 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.480 somewhat aesthetic. But but for timber, you need healthy forests 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.080 and and for it for there to be a sustainable 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:44.840 timber industry, you need proportion h you need good timber science, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.919 good ecosystem science. You need cooperation with your fellow citizens. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.920 You need to to appreciate that over the long term. 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.679 If you want to make a living from timber, you 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.640 need to compromise with people about about limits and sustainability. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.879 You need you need spotted owls. You might need not 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.880 need spotted owls for from your for yourself, but you're 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.919 there are gonna be people who are going to be 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:17.760 against you if you don't figure out a way to 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.120 make it possible for there to be northern spotted owls too. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:20.800 Sure. 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.160 Uh And then there's the aesthetic argument that I make 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:31.359 in preference actually to that argument, that category of argument there. 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.280 It's not all one or the other. But I think 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.000 the the more esthetic and maybe you could call it 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.120 spiritual argument is is the bottom line, if we don't 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.360 have these things, if we don't have scale in our wildness, 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:47.600 if we don't have connectivity, if we break everything up, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.720 we cut everything down, if we dig everything up, if 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.480 we if we you know, if we if we hunt 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.640 species to extinction rather than hunting them sustainably the way 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.440 good hunters do. Uh, And then we're going to be 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.040 living on a planet, and we're going to be passing 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.600 along a planet to our children and our grandchildren. If 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.919 we have children that is more boring, more lonely, and 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.920 more ugly than the planet that we were born on. 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.960 I don't have any children, but if I had children 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.760 and grandchildren, and by now, you know, at least one 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.560 of my high school buddies has a great grandchild. That's 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:34.200 how old I am. If I had children and grandchildren, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:38.560 I would not want to look at them and realize 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.200 that they're going to live on a planet where there 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.880 is no polar bear, or at least no polar bear 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:45.919 in the wild. They're going to live on a planet 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.120 where there is no lowland gorilla. They're going to live 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:56.320 on a planet where there is no tiger swallowtail. A 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.680 planet that's more lonely, boring, and ugly than the amazing, 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:07.720 green and blue, throbbing with life planet that we inherit 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.919 and that we still live on right now. Yeah. You know, 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:16.360 there's a famous statement attributed to Benjamin Franklin. He comes 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.480 out of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia seventeen eighty nine, 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.880 and a woman says to him, mister Franklin, what sort 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:29.399 of a government have you designed for us, you guys 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:34.800 in there in the Constitutional Convention? And Franklin supposedly said, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:40.520 a republic, madam, if you can keep it. So. What 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:45.280 I'm thinking about is we have wildness on this planet, 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:54.840 amazing wildness, boys and girls. If you can keep it? 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:58.159 That haunts me. A question haunts me that I imagine 0:21:58.680 --> 0:21:59.320 for my kids. 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.280 I do have chill. I have a six year old 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:02.080 and an eight year old boy. 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.920 And what keeps me up at night more often than 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.879 I cared to admit, is twenty years from now, thirty 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.520 years from now, forty years from now, them living in 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:19.119 that alternate world, and them asking me, why didn't you 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.080 do anything, Why didn't you change this? Why didn't you 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.600 keep that wild here for us? Why am I hearing 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:28.960 these stories about how great it was when you were 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:33.000 twenty or thirty and not able to actually experience it myself. 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:39.000 That that's the scariest thing to imagine for me. So yes, 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:41.480 I can relate to that. And so that brings to 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.920 mind the next question, which is if wildness is worth 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:51.520 preserving as we both believe, and wildness is illuminated or 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:56.440 is manifested by these four different these four different I 0:22:56.440 --> 0:23:02.160 guess qualifiers, that being scale, connectivity, diverse, and those ecological processes. 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.880 Standing here now in twenty twenty six, I'm curious, would 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:11.000 you say that those four elements are gaining ground or 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.640 losing ground? What's what's the trend for wildness currently? 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.359 Well, the overall trend is losing ground. The overall trend 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:24.840 is tragic, it is losing ground. We have eight point 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:32.840 three billion humans on this planet. And when you when 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:37.800 you multiply the human population times average human consumption, you 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:41.200 get our footprint, or not just our carbon footprint, b 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:47.720 our ecological footprint, our consumptive footprint. So you can say, well, 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.600 it's human population, but it's not just human population, because 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:55.679 if you say it's just human population, then the next step, 0:23:55.840 --> 0:24:01.399 the next conclusion that some people leap to is well, 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.760 it's those those families in Africa that have six kids, 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.080 or seven kids, or eight kids. They're the problem. And 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.639 you know we have two kids or three kids. I 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:13.240 don't have kids, but my parents have three kids. I 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:20.160 have two sisters. But no, those those six or eight 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.440 kids in that family in that village in Africa are 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:27.760 not the problem because they're consuming less. We who live 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:36.240 in affluent countries and belong to africa aff fluent socioeconomic 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:44.840 groups categories, we account for more consumption than those six 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:48.040 or eight kids in that average African village. So we 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.800 need to think about our consumption. And this is not 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:57.440 you know, if this is not to point fingers except 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.520 into the mirror. If you're going to point figures fingers 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:04.760 about what's happening, the first direction you point the finger 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:10.080 is into the mirror. I do that. I know you 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:13.439 do that. You just mentioned that we all need to 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:15.920 do that. And then we point figure fingers also at 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:18.639 our elected representatives. You know, there are two ways in 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.280 which we ultimately deal with this. We deal with this 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:26.000 as citizens of communities, voters, people who can march, who 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:30.400 can write letters, who can who can donate to organizations, 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.199 And we deal with it as individuals. What am I 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:40.959 doing that is causing a lot of footprint that maybe 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:48.919 I could reduce and the thing we talked about children, 0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:51.200 the number of children that you have, that's an important 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:57.080 part of your footprint. The number of miles that you travel, 0:25:57.119 --> 0:26:02.320 particularly by airplane, the amount of meat you eat. And 0:26:02.400 --> 0:26:04.920 we're on meat eater, so it's important that I can 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:07.639 immediately say what I'm really talking about is the amount 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:11.080 of meat you buy. Yes, the amount of meat you 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:14.159 buy especially, it's different, especially the amount of meat you 0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:19.959 buy from a supermarket chain. Yeah. Now, if you're you know, 0:26:20.000 --> 0:26:24.560 if you're a hunter who harvests his own meat or 0:26:24.560 --> 0:26:28.520 her own meat in a sustainable way, in a responsible way, 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:34.959 then great. But the number of children you haven't, what 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:37.520 they consume as well as you consume into the future, 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:43.560 the amount of meat that you eat that's bought from 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:51.600 industrial animal husbandry operations and through supermarkets, and the amount 0:26:51.600 --> 0:26:56.879 of carbon you burn in traveling around. And you know, 0:26:56.960 --> 0:26:59.679 I travel a lot. I burn a lot of airplane fuel. 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:02.960 So when I look in the mirror and point the finger, 0:27:03.040 --> 0:27:05.960 that's one of the things I point at. Okay, you're 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:10.679 invited to go such and such a place, or you 0:27:10.760 --> 0:27:13.560 want to go such and such a place. Is that 0:27:13.680 --> 0:27:18.520 worth it? Or should that be a zoom conversation and 0:27:18.560 --> 0:27:20.800 more and more. For me, it's zoom conversations. I mean 0:27:20.800 --> 0:27:23.520 not the last book that I published, the Heartbeat of 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:25.520 the Wild, I did a lot of travel. All those 0:27:26.560 --> 0:27:30.840 travels came for National Geographic Magazine over that twenty year period, 0:27:30.960 --> 0:27:35.480