Arthur Haines is back on ReWild Yourself Podcast! Arthur is a good friend and our most esteemed frequent guest on the show. Arthur is a forager, ancestral skills mentor, author, public speaker, and botanical researcher. His work merges the material knowledge of present-day people with the ecological knowledge of ancestral people. Arthur’s mission is to help people develop deep awareness of and connection to nature, promote individual health and foster self-reliance. He is a fellow Mainer, and he hunts and gathers from our abundant local landscape to feed himself and his family.
In this episode, Arthur and I share — from the heart — our thoughts on a prominent and relatively recent phenomenon in our modern-day culture: the loss of respect for real-world experience/age-based wisdom and the valuing of modern cultural norms over biological norms. We’re often asked if eating wild food is a privilege, and we share our views on this and the true meaning of privilege. With a shared mission of promoting an egalitarian society that actively participates in ecology, practices ecoculture, fosters personal sovereignty and emboldens thoughtful interaction with fellow Homo sapiens, it is our hope that you listen to our viewpoints with an open mind and keep this conversation going in the ReWilding community!
Tristan Gooley returns to ReWild Yourself Podcast to guide us through the lost art of reading nature’s signs. Tristan is an author and natural navigator. He teaches people to re-awaken their senses and tune into their ancestral ability to navigate across a landscape using the signs that nature provides. Tristan has led expeditions in five continents, climbed mountains in Europe, Africa and Asia, sailed small boats across oceans and piloted small aircraft to Africa and the Arctic. He has walked with and studied the methods of the Tuareg, Bedouin and Dayak in some of the remotest regions on Earth. He is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed singlehanded across the Atlantic and is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Geographical Society.
In this episode, Tristan explains how — once we learn to use nature as a compass — we can create a natural navigation map based in ecological knowledge. We also discuss Tristan’s latest work and the importance of purposeful nature engagement. Tristan gives us practical tips for re-awakening our senses to the natural world and simple techniques for getting started in natural navigation. Tune in, and be inspired to interact with your local landscape in a new and more intimate way!
In the final installment of our invasive species series, we hear from Tao Orion — author and permaculturist — for a new perspective on invasives that links restoration with thoughtful habitat design. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Tao has dedicated her life to the art and science of regenerative living. She has a degree in Environmental Studies with a focus on Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture and has studied under some of the world’s leading permaculture teachers. She co-owns Resilience Permaculture design with her husband. Tao offers an alternative conversation on invasives with her book, Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Perspective on Ecosystem Restoration. She believes that deep and long-lasting ecological restoration outcomes will come not just from eliminating invasive species, but through conscientious redesign of these production systems.
In this episode, Tao shares how we can look to permaculture to inspire solutions to non-native invasive species and ecosystem restoration. She explains the restoration movement and imparts fundamental ecological knowledge to give context to our on-going invasives conversation. We also discuss ways to have meaningful conversations about invasive species without the divisiveness that can often arise from this controversial topic. Tao leaves us with some excellent strategies to participate in species and land stewardship as foragers with the goal of moving towards regeneration in ecosystems. Enjoy, and let’s keep this conversation going!
“Rewilding holds out hope of a richer living planet that can once more fill our lives with wonder and enchantment.” -George Monbiot
Prolific author George Monbiot joins us to share his niche in the world of rewilding: rewilding the land. George is an investigative journalist who writes a weekly column for the Guardian and is the author of a number of bestselling books, including Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea, and Human Life where he passionately advocates the large-scale restoration of complex natural ecosystems.
To begin our conversation, George takes us back in time to the riveting adventures that began his career in investigative journalism. We cover a lot of ground in this interview, including how his work evolved to covering the large-scale ecological issues of our world, what rewilding means to George and his take on de-extinction. George also presents his argument in favor of fake meat as an option to feed the world’s population and why he does not feel that agriculture of any kind — including regenerative agriculture — is sustainable. While our opinions differed on some things, it was fascinating to hear George’s viewpoint on these controversial topics. Enjoy our conversation exploring George’s important work as an advocate for the rewilding of our earth’s ecosystems!
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