loader from loading.io

#6 777 Bison Ranch

Muse Ecology

Release Date: 04/06/2019

#27 Vicki Hird: Rebugging the Planet show art #27 Vicki Hird: Rebugging the Planet

Muse Ecology

Bugs are foundational to life on Earth, and their numbers are plummeting due to human activity.  In this conversation with Vicki Hird, author of Rebugging the Planet, we explore the wonders of bugs and how we can restore our relationship with them. You can find more information about rebugging, and purchase the book, at . Here's the two papers referenced in Vicki's book that came up in our discussion, on the potential effects of new higher frequency radiation on invertebrates: Arno Thielens et al., Exposure of Insects to Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields from 2 to 120 GHz, Science...

info_outline
#26 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 2nd Panel show art #26 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 2nd Panel

Muse Ecology

"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Prof. Millan M. Millan This last episode, for now, in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, was a great panel conversation with 6 people from 3 different organizations, each working from distinct approaches  to restore weather and climate through restoring natural processes.  It was a lovely example of the diversity of backgrounds that are beginning to come together around this idea. Juliette Kool and Ties van der Hoeven, Maya Dutta and Jim Laurie, Marcel de Berg and Pieter-Paul de Kluvier, Here...

info_outline
#25 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 1st Panel show art #25 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 1st Panel

Muse Ecology

The understanding that we can restore weather and climate systems by protecting and restoring the living surface of the Earth is an idea whose time has come.  In these final two episodes in this Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we'll hear discussions of how this understanding is beginning to guide our response to climate change, from grassroots to international levels.

info_outline
#24 Renewables and Accountability:  A Panel Discussion show art #24 Renewables and Accountability: A Panel Discussion

Muse Ecology

This episode is a diverse panel discussion on the implications of renewable energy supply chains on life, water, and local communities, and how we might address them.

info_outline
#23 Life and Lithium at Thacker Pass show art #23 Life and Lithium at Thacker Pass

Muse Ecology

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we hear diverse voices from the resistance to the proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, on Paiute and Shoshone ancestral lands.

info_outline
#22 Judith Schwartz and Walter Jehne: Climate Change Narrative Shift show art #22 Judith Schwartz and Walter Jehne: Climate Change Narrative Shift

Muse Ecology

In this conversation with author Judith Schwartz and scientist Walter Jehne, we discuss the importance of the shift from seeing the Earth as a resource base to seeing ourselves as enmeshed in a web of life that both manages and depends on natural processes.  In particular, we focus on how this perspective shift affects how we understand and are empowered to address anthropogenic climate change.

info_outline
#21 Paul Cereghino Part 2: Bioregional Restoration and Social Complexity show art #21 Paul Cereghino Part 2: Bioregional Restoration and Social Complexity

Muse Ecology

In this conversation with Paul Cereghino, we discuss some of the challenges of collaborating in groups and groups of groups to protect and restore the Earth, including such topics as the role of online interactions, the importance of place-based reality, benefits and pitfalls of systems like sociocracy, Covid complications, and much more.

info_outline
#20 Paul Cereghino Part 1:  Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping show art #20 Paul Cereghino Part 1: Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping

Muse Ecology

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we explore one of the great challenges on our way back to harmony:  humans.  Through the lens of his Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping project in western Washington State, Paul Cereghino and I discuss some of the interhuman and intergroup complexities of grassroots ecological restoration efforts.

info_outline
#19 The Mangrove Action Project show art #19 The Mangrove Action Project

Muse Ecology

In this episode we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Alfredo Quarto, co-founder and international program director of the Mangrove Action Project.  In our conversation with Alfredo, we discuss the importance of mangrove ecologies, their devastation by the shrimp farming industry, and how the mangrove action project uses an approach called Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration to facilitate their natural regeneration.

info_outline
#18 Neal Spackman; The Business of Restoring the Earth show art #18 Neal Spackman; The Business of Restoring the Earth

Muse Ecology

We continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Neal Spackman, ecological restoration designer, regenerative entrepreneur, and bold visionary. Previously in this series, we heard how agriculture and development having long been destroying ecology and hydrology, causing disruptions of weather and climate systems, and leading to the fall of empires. Neal is working to change that ancient dynamic, by restoring ecological function and hydrology to regenerate economies and rainfall patterns.

info_outline
 
More Episodes

In this episode, we continue our investigation of the Great Plains Bison with a visit to 777 Bison Ranch near Rapid City, South Dakota.  Owner Mimi Hilenbrandt and fellow operations manager Moritz Espy gave us a tour of the pastures and corrals.  Along the way, we discussed differences and similarities between bison and cattle, the possibility of a buffalo commons, their business model and how it affects the bison, and how their decades of Holistic Management and bison grazing have led to regeneration of the prairie landscape.  We also discussed a few of the complex questions the bison forces us to wrestle with.

You can find them at 777bisonranch.com.

In the episode I refer to a book about restoration bison ranching.  It's called A Wild Idea, by Dan O'brien of Wild Idea Buffalo Company, whom you'll hear from next episode.

Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at https://www.mdigiorgio.com. Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.

Mimi and Moritz on a hilltop overlooking a large pasture

 

The hydraulic controls and the chute the bison go down to get their shots and tests

Map of the paddocks

Their Holistic Planned Grazing worksheet

We stopped the truck to inspect the grass covererage

Bison in their native homeland