Episode 152: Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian - Forest Euphoria

Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is an author and the curator of mycology at the New York State Museum, as well as faculty with the Bard Prison Initiative. Kaishian earned her PhD from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Patricia introduces us to the ‘Abounding Queerness of Nature’ (the subtitle to her book Forest Euphoria). Along with recounting her personal path to a life of science found as a child in the Hudson Valley's natural settings, she describes how fungal species commonly encompass more than two biological sexes. Intersex slugs, glass eels, various bird species, and many others are all examples of the queerness of all the life around us, and there is never just one way for living things in the natural world to reproduce or evolve or interact.

Episode 151: Ethan Tapper - How To Love A Forest

Ethan Tapper is a nationally-recognized forester, bestselling author, and content creator from Vermont. In 2017, he bought a 175-acre forest in Bolton, Vermont that he now calls “Bear Island.” In this episode of Nature Revisited, Tapper walks us through the fragile and resilient community that is a forest, and recounts- through countless bittersweet and beautiful acts- how he was able to transform the problem-ridden Bear Island from a symbol of “everything that was wrong with the world,” into “a symbol of what is possible, a symbol of hope." He explains how the actions we must take to protect ecosystems are often counterintuitive, uncomfortable, even heartbreaking, reminding us that what is simple is rarely true, and what is necessary is rarely easy.

Episode 150: Helen Whybrow - The Salt Stones

Helen Whybrow is a nonfiction author, journalist, professor, and farmer. In 2001 she and her partner set out to restore Knoll Farm, an old two-hundred-acre farm in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, our friend Scott Chaskey invites Helen to discuss her 25 years on Knoll Farm raising Icelandic sheep and how she approached reflecting on those experiences in her intimate and profoundly moving memoir The Salt Stones - Seasons of a Shepherd's Life. As she intertwined her life with the land, Helen realized that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of a farm, revealing a way of life that is at once ancient and entirely contemporary, inspiring us all to seek greater intimacy and a sense of belonging wherever our home place may be.

Episode 149: Sharman Apt Russell - Citizen Scientist

Sharman Apt Russell is a widely published and anthologized nature and science writer based in New Mexico, United States. Her topics include citizen science, living in place, public lands grazing, archaeology, flowers, butterflies, and Pantheism. She is also an avid citizen scientist.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Russell introduces us to the exploding world of citizen science, where hundreds of thousands of volunteers are monitoring climate change, tracking bird migrations, finding stardust for NASA, and in Russell's case, studying a little-known species, the Western red-bellied tiger beetle. She relates the exciting and rewarding aspects of community science and explains how the sheer number of citizen scientists, combined with new technology and data collection, has begun to shape how research gets done.

Episode 148: James Canton - Renaturing

James Canton is an author and Director of Wild Writing at the University of Essex, England. His writing is mainly concerned with the ties between nature, literature and the environment.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Canton discusses his experiences 'renaturing' a field behind his countryside cottage. Over time, what began as a grassy space for picnics and cricket matches became something more, and was once again buzzing with life. As his efforts revealed, even on the smallest of scales we can all create habitats to support a greater diversity of nature and be involved in caring for and restoring the natural world.

Episode 147: Kahea Pacheco - Women's Earth Alliance

Kahea Pacheco

The Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) is a global organization on a mission to empower women’s leadership to protect our environment, end the climate crisis, and ensure a just, thriving world. WEA Co-Executive Director Kahea Pacheco (Kanaka 'Ōiwi) is a passionate advocate for Indigenous people’s rights, intersectional environmentalism, and climate justice. On this episode of Nature Revisited, Kahea introduces us to WEA and the amazing programs, campaigns and collaborative regional partnerships it has enacted to provide leadership, strategy, and technical training to support grassroots, women-led climate initiatives and eco-enterprises around the world. 

Episode 146: Scott Stokoe - Reconciliation - An Ecocentric Path

Scott Stokoe is a Vermont-based ecologist and educator who works with institutions to develop and expand their offerings in sustainability education through the creation of hands-on, applied learning. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Scott returns to discuss the looming climate crisis and how the solution lies not with identifying the problems we face nor in the way we communicate them, but in changing the very mental models culturally instilled in us - paradigms which fundamentally shape the way we view the natural world and our place within it.

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Episode 145: Tamara Dean - At Home in the Driftless

Tamara Dean is the author of The Human-Powered Home as well as short stories and essays which have appeared in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, the Guardian, STORY Magazine, and numerous other publications. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Tamara relates an array of personal experiences that culminated in her latest work Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, based on her time living in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.

Seeking a way to live lightly on the earth in the midst of climate chaos, her quest drew her to a unique landscape untouched by glaciers. It was there that she confronted the challenges of meeting basic needs while facing the ravages of climate change.

Episode 144: David James Duncan - Sun House

David James Duncan is an American novelist and essayist, known for his two cult bestselling novels, The River Why and The Brothers K. On this episode of Nature Revisited, farmer and author Scott Chaskey (Soil and Spirit) interviews David about his latest acclaimed work Sun House, an "epic comedy about the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American west". Guided by Chaskey's deft observations, Duncan describes how a lifetime of experiences - many drawn from nature itself - served as inspiration for Sun House's sweeping, lyrical vision of a more open-hearted world.

Episode 143: Dorn Cox - The Great Regeneration

Dorn Cox is a farmer-technologist, the research director for the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment in Freeport, Maine, and farms with his family on 250 acres in Lee, New Hampshire. He is a founder of the farmOS software platform and Farm Hack, and is active in the soil health movement. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Dorn breaks down his radical vision of hope for the future of healthy regenerative agriculture. By employing the same data-sharing and networking tools used to visualize and identify the global instability in our climate and our communities, there is potential to revolutionize how we manage food production around the world, decentralizing and deindustrializing the structures and governance that have long dominated the agricultural landscape.

Episode 142: Jon Waterman - Into the Thaw

Jon Waterman is a former park ranger, wilderness guide, and a prolific author of books on adventure, exploration, and the environment. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Jon recounts his decades-long history of explorations of the Alaskan Arctic. Having returned to the Noatak headwaters after 30 years in 2021, Waterman was shocked by the environmental and cultural changes wrought by the climate crisis. As in his book Into the Thaw, Waterman paints for our listeners an intimate portrait of both the villages and the little-visited landscape, suggesting actions we can all take to slow the thaw and preserve what is left of the remarkable, vast Arctic frontier.

Episode 141: Ellen Zachos - Mythic Plants

Ellen Zachos is a Harvard graduate, former Broadway actor, professional gardener and the author of eleven books including, most recently, Mythic Plants: Potions and Poisons from the Gardens of the Gods. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Ellen shares her varied personal background and takes us back to revisit the Greek myths anew by focusing on the fascinating roles plants play in the stories. Many of the mythic plants were real and still exist today, and Ellen colorfully describes how the ancient Greeks used these plants in their lives and loves and conquests.

Giant Fennel

Episode 140: Dr. Vandana Shiva - The Nature of Nature

The author of more than 20 books, Dr. Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization writer. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Dr. Shiva lays out the emergency we all face: extinction, climate havoc and the global food crisis. Our future, Shiva argues, lies in following the ecological laws of the earth by de-colonising, decreasing food miles, de-industrialising and de-globalizing food systems. A future sustained by biodiversity, local foods, and end to deforestation and an ethical and organic farming system in which degenerative cycles are transformed into regenerative cycles.

The Nature of Nature book

Episode 139: Eiren Caffall - The Mourner's Bestiary

Eiren Caffall is an award-winning writer and musician whose writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in numerous publications. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Caffall talks about her recent first novel The Mourner’s Bestiary, a literary memoir on loss and chronic illness, as well as a meditation on grief and survival told through the stories of animals in collapsing marine ecosystems. Caffall carries a family legacy of two hundred years of genetic kidney disease, raising a child who may also. As she describes, the process of writing the book was a way for her to weave environmental research with a memoir of generational healing, and the work it takes to get there for the human and animal lives caught in tides of loss.

Episode 138: Amy Tan - The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Amy Tan is an American author best known for her novel The Joy Luck Club (1989) as well as other novels, short story collections, children's books, and a memoir. Tan is the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, among other awards, and her writing has been praised for its bravery in exploring both the personal struggles and triumphs of immigrant families. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Tan discusses her latest work The Backyard Bird Chronicles. What initially began as a way to find respite from the country's increasing social division, hostility and misinformation, the act of observing and drawing the birds in her backyard became something greater - a meaningful way to connect with nature, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

American Bird Conservancy