Future Ecologies

Vision without eyes? Intelligence without a brain? Are plants more akin to us than we have been prepared to acknowledge? Or are they different in ways we will forever strain to imagine? One way or another, a vine with some unusual abilities is shaking the field of botany to its foundations.

On this episode: Zoë Schlanger (author of the newly-released, New York Times bestselling book The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth) takes us to the misty rainforests of Chile and back to report on what might just be the world’s most extraordinary plant — hidden in plain sight.

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With music by Modern Biology, Mort Garson, Hotspring, Thumbug, and Sunfish Moon Light.

For credits, citations, transcript, and more, visit futureecologies.net/listen/fe-5-10-everything-will-be-vine

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🌱 Future Ecologies is an independent, ad-free, listener-supported podcast.

Be the first to hear new episodes, and get exclusive bonus content, behind the scenes updates, and access to our discord server, plus stickers, patches, and toques @ futureecologies.net/join

Tomorrow (Saturday Dec 5) is World Soil Day, and there are many exciting things underfoot!

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of A Fish: The Understory of the Understory

• The 4th annual festival from the Serpentine Galleries
• Live streaming Saturday and Sunday (12pm - 5:45pm GMT)
• Register and attend for free: themind.fish
• Festival trailer: https://youtu.be/6_vz_avr8Js

Life in the soil

• A new podcast collaboration by Anja Krieger and the Plant, Fungus, and Soil Ecology Lab at the Freie Universität Berlin
• Episode 1 launches Saturday
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Soundcloud
• Or listen online at https://rilliglab.org/podcast/
• Podcast teaser: https://soundcloud.com/mrillig/teaser-life-in-the-soil-podcast

North America abounds in wildlife — but why?

At the turn of the last century, many observers believed that species that we take for granted today would disappear forever. In this episode, we share a story about the way that wildlife conservation came to be practiced, the lives that it privileged, and the lives that it left out.

But despite any controversy, one aspect of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (or "the NAM" for our purposes) is indisputable: its principles explain the landscape of laws and institutions in which North Americans enjoy nature today.

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

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In the early 1980s, the outbreak of civil war across Central America forced unprecedented numbers of refugees to seek asylum in the United States, putting the recently passed 'Refugee Act' of 1980 to the test. There was just one catch: the Reagan Administration was providing funding to right-wing governments that most of these refugees were fleeing. As a result, Central American refugees making the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands were being intercepted, denied asylum, and summarily deported.

As this crisis unfolded, a ragtag group of self-proclaimed 'goatherds errant', led by philosopher-turned-rancher Jim Corbett, took it upon themselves to enact U.S. immigration law at the grassroots level. In so doing, they sparked a national movement that continues to the present day, turning the concept of 'civil disobedience' upside-down.

This is the story of the Sanctuary movement – the 2nd part of a 4-part series.

From Future Ecologies, this is Goatwalker, Part Two: Sanctuary.

👉 We suggest you start with Part One of this series 👈

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For musical credits, citations, and more, click here.

Support the show and join our Patreon. We've got bonus episodes, stickers, patches, and a rad discord community.

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As of August 2021, Jim Corbett’s "Goatwalking" has been re-issued in a new 2nd edition. You can purchase a hard copy or an e-book here

A 2nd edition of "Sanctuary for All Life" is also now available from Cascabel Books on Amazon or Barnes and Noble