treehugger podcast

It is no longer science fiction. The future is now people. Can we respond quicker to disturbances and mitigate climate change by planting tough places with drones? Matthew Aghai joins me from Droneseed to demystify this ever-adaptable technology. This company is scaling up to what Matthew refers to as "terraforming-level operations using biomimicry" - package seed up with resources to survive, load it into a swarm of aircraft and bombs away – plant forests. Matthew Aghai is currently the Director of Research and Development at DroneSeed Co in Seattle. Previously his work as a consultant had sent him around the world to pursue reforestation including projects in the Central Midwestern US, intermountain US, the Pacific Northwest, the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, Europe, the Middle east and more. He has trained and practiced for over a decade as a nurseryman and restoration specialist. In addition to previous degrees in forestry and wildland management, he is a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington. Reforestation and native plant restoration have always been his mission. Learn more about Droneseed https://www.droneseed.com/ Join #TeamTrees at https://teamtrees.org or check out video from Mark Rober - former NASA engineer, current YouTuber and friend of science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7nJBFjKqAY University of Washington Botanic Gardens' Ecological Restoration Symposium in Seattle, WA was postponed until June 16th. It will now be a remote meeting. The theme is Pollinators, Pests, and Prey: Considering the roles of and mitigating for the influence of invertebrates within regional ecological restoration efforts https://botanicgardens.uw.edu/education/adults/conferences-symposia/ecological-restoration-symposium Save the Date for February 8-11, 2021. The Society for Ecological Restoration Northwest and Western Canada Chapters present a Joint Regional Conference on Adapting Restoration Practices to a Changing Climate in Eugene, Oregon. I am organizing field trips, so please reach out to me if you have ideas about nearby sites to visit. https://chapter.ser.org/northwest/conferences/2021-regional-conference Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com. Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod Review treehugger podcast on iTunes

On this episode I want to introduce you to Sean Rowe. He is a restorationist born and raised in Humboldt County, CA. Sean has a science communication-based business called Resonant Restoration that is currently doing the Resonant Restoration Podcast with his cohost, Kyle Sipes. The podcast focuses on topics related to the world of ecological restoration and includes interviews about specific projects occurring around the world. Sean is a Botanist with SHN in northern California. His work includes ecological restoration, wetland delineations, rare plant surveys, monitoring, and stormwater compliance. He is a qualified SWPPP practitioner (QSP), qualified industrial stormwater practitioner (QISP), and certified erosion, sediment, and stormwater inspector (CESSWI). Sean has a bachelors in ecological restoration and a minor in botany from Humboldt State University and was born and raised in Humboldt County, California. He has been fortunate to work on great endeavors such as the Salt River Ecosystem Restoration Project, The Willits Bypass Mitigation Project, and on the Prosper Ridge Coastal Grassland Restoration effort. The Resonant Restoration podcast focuses on topics related to the world of ecological restoration and includes interviews about specific projects occurring around the world. The show is produced in order to encourage discussion and collaboration in the field of restoration ecology with both practitioners and the general public. Episodes to date include wallflower restoration, floating treatment islands, forest revegetation using open source unmanned aerial vehicles, and beaver dam analogues in northern California. The show includes background information on types of restoration endeavors, an interview segment, a segment on California phenology, and a plant of the week. Resonant Restoration website resonantrestoration.com/ Resonant Restoration on Instagram instagram.com/resonantrestoration/ Resonant Restoration on Twitter twitter.com/restorationpod Are you a garden lover? Check out my @spokengarden podcast and blog https://spokengarden.com/ Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com. Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod Review treehugger podcast on iTunes

Forests can and do play an essential role in urban life in many places - 4 bil people live in cities world! Join my conversation with Sarah Low, Executive Director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation - an organization dedicated to community-powered urban greening in the South Puget Sound of Washington State. They provide a great template for community engagement around tree planting, tree care and integration of urban greening into the fabric of our lives. They are helping to shape our urban ecosystem. Some say the Earth told us to go to our rooms and think about it for awhile back in the early days of 2020. Many many people were forced to do nothing in order to protect the old, the weak and the vulnerable when SARS2 spread around the world. It has been a human crisis that called for solidarity. This interview was recorded in the early parts of 2020, just as the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day was just getting started. Even though a whole Earth Year of activities were being planned, the coronavirus put a small dent in the "normal" schedule of events. Tacoma Tree Foundation website https://www.tacomatreefoundation.org/ Tacoma Tree Foundation on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tacomatrees and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tacomatreefoundation How racism kept black Tacomans from buying houses for decades by Kate Martin in Tacoma News Tribune from 2018 Compare the historic redlining maps against the City's urban forestry canopy data City of Tacoma Urban Forest Management Plan https://www.tacomatreeplan.org/ Special Issue "The Science and Practice of Managing Forests in Cities" in the journal Cities and the Environment (CATE) Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com. Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod Review treehugger podcast on iTunes

Natural light from the sun is so vital to the health of every living thing. My guest on this episode is Dr. Travis Longcore. He is going to "illuminate" this topic of the ecology of light, especially focusing on impacts of artificial light at night. Light pollution doesn't just affect our ecosystems. The loss of darkness is linked to increased energy consumption and a disrupted connection with the night sky. There are important consequences for human health too. You can find out more about Travis by visiting his website travislongcore.net. twitter: @travislongcore #lightpollution And more about the Urban Wildlands Group at www.urbanwildlands.org. Links to explore noted in the episode: University of Utah in Salt Lake City developed a new undergraduate minor in dark sky studies in 2019 housed in the College of Architecture + Planning. Metro21: Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon Loss of the night Berlin, interdisciplinary research project about light pollution International Dark-Sky Association Draft strategy for the Restoration Decade is up and available to peruse and comment on. Available at www.decadeonrestoration.org/get-involved/strategy Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com. Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod.

Finally, an episode about forests. And climate. My guest Dr. Sally Aitken delivers a nuanced discussion that embraces the complexity of how climate has and will continue to drive change in our beloved long-lived tree species and plant communities. Sally Aitken is currently a Professor and Associate Dean, Research and Innovation, in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. In 2001, Aitken helped start the Centre for Forest Conservation Genetics at UBC. Broadly, she studies the population, conservation, and ecology of forests. More specifically she is deeply involved in large-scale multi-institutional, applied genomics project that use population genomics, common garden experiments and climate-mapping technologies to help guide reforestation decisions for new climates. As restorationists we make decisions about which plant seeds and other propagules to introduce to the land, or in some cases, the sea to assist the natural processes for ecosystem recovery. This episode is a a primer on the response adaptation strategies that exist that allow ecosystems to adapt to the changing climates they are bound to experience. Resources to explore that we mentioned Center for Forest Conservation Genetics and CoAdapTree Project: Healthy trees for future climates British Columbia Provincial webpage on "Climate-Based Seed Transfer," this is replete with updates as late as 2019, video presentations and fact sheets on their science-based policy United States Forest Service Seedlot Selection Tool in the Climate Change Resource Center. Initial conceptualization and development was done by Glenn Howe, Brad St. Clair and Ron Beloin. The Walrus from December 2015 "Run, Forest, Run: Helping trees flee climate change" Scientific American from August 2015 "How to Move a Forest of Genes" Twitter/ @SallyNAitken Thanks for listening. See you in the woods.

Restoration ecologists may be the optimists of biology. We are often hopeful and confident about the future and our work. Brianne Palmer is back to discuss hope and doubt, environmental change, community, environmental heroes and gratitude. This conversation was jumpstarted by Brianne's 2019 Opinion Article called Restoration Ecology: The Study of Applied Optimism found in the journal Restoration Ecology. Thanks to the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for the theme music from their EP "In the Wild." You can directly support them by visiting Bandcamp. Keep up to date with treehugger podcast by following the show on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod.

The Society for Ecological Restoration is a global community of restoration professionals all over the world. Bethanie Walder is our Executive Director, guiding the mission to expand restoration science, practice, policy and the community. The Society claims members in 81 countries and growing! You can be rest assured that while we work on our local/regional projects, there is also a small staff and consultants and other volunteers who are also helping to move the needle on restoration science and international restoration-related initiatives. We are striving towards net restoration gain in the face of rapid environmental change. If you want to find out more about the Society, head on over to www.ser.org. There is also a new restoration podcast in Cascadia. Check out Resonant Restoration at www.ResonantRestoration.com. You can always track treehugger podcast @treehuggerpod on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks as always to the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme music. You can find out more about them at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com.

The United Nations has named the years 2021-2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which seeks to scale up efforts to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. For more information, mosey on over to decadeonrestoration.org. The coordinator of this Decade is Tim Christophersen from the United Nations Environment Program. His focus is on cultivating grassroots support, political will and economic investment to support this grand effort. This is just the beginning of this story about the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It hasn't even gotten started yet.

Explore coral restoration in our shallow seas with my guest Sabine Bailey. Her organization, the Coral Restoration Foundation, is the largest group in the world focused on coral restoration, building reef resilience while cultivating healthy oceans for the future. We all may understand the importance of coral as an ecosystem, providing nearshore protection and sustaining livelihoods. However, so many of us aren't familiar with anything related to their restoration. This episode introduces restoration technology as an important component of reef conservation. Find out more about coral reef restoration and the Coral Restoration Foundation by heading to coralrestoration.org. Also keep up with the restoration action on Facebook and Instagram.

"The medicine you need is the medicine you have to offer" is what she asserts. Eco-spiritual guide, author, and nature-based designer is who she is. On this Winter Solstice episode, Julia Plevin joins me to discuss the intricacies of forest bathing. It can be a solitary practice or one to share in community. She even started a Forest Bathing Club. Julia breaks it way down about how the forest guides us (if we listen), and in return, how we can give back to the planet. You can find her website at juliaplevin.com and join the Forest Bathing Club by visiting www.forestbathing.club and on Instagram.

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are a global phenomenon and have been called the "living skin of the earth" and one can find them on every single continent. Ecology PhD student Brianne Palmer joins treehugger podcast to discuss how this complex and beautiful suite of diverse organisms live in direct contact with the soil surface – yet are distinct from the soil below the crust. Brianne's research is focused on understanding how biocrusts recover after fire, how they interact with other plants, and their potential uses for dryland restoration. You can follow Brianne on her website at briannepalmer.weebly.com/ and Twitter at @briecology

Dr. Kathy Wolf is a social scientist and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. She investigates people's perceptions of and behaviors in nearby nature. Together, we explore the social dimensions of urban greenspaces and restoration.

On this inaugural episode, Jacob Mills discusses Microbiome Rewilding - the use of urban biodiversity to restore the human exposure of microbes to a more native, healthier state.

In this first installment of the treehugger podcast, creator and host Michael Yadrick introduces the show to the world.