In Our Backyard Podcast

Hi everyone, we’re back with Debbie Clemens who is with the Outreach Coordinator for Orangutan Outreach. In this episode we talk all about palm oil and its effects. The sourcing of palm oil causes conflict because it has been produced illegally or under conditions associated with labor or human rights violations, ongoing destruction of rainforests, or expansion on carbon-rich peatlands.   One of the most pressing concerns associated with Palm Oil is its environmental impact. The expansion of palm oil plantations has been linked to deforestation, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss. In many cases, pristine rainforests are cleared to make way for these plantations, leading to the loss of critical habitat for endangered species like orangutans, tigers, and rhinoceroses. Deforestation also contributes to climate change by releasing stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With Debbie we talk about what palm oil is, where you can commonly find it, the ethics around it, and more. Contact and connect with Debbie: [email protected]  https://redapes.org/   https://palmdoneright.com/what-is-conflict-palm-oil/ 

In this episode I continue my conversation with Debbie Clemens who is the Outreach Coordinator for Orangutan Outreach. We talk about the behind the scenes work that goes into making field work possible for these creatures. Tune in for the last episode of the series in two weeks. Contact and connect with Debbie: [email protected]  https://redapes.org/   https://palmdoneright.com/what-is-conflict-palm-oil/ 

Debbie Clemens is the Outreach Coordinator for Orangutan Outreach. They are a US based charity that focuses on raising awareness and raising funds for their partners in Indonesia. They are personally not doing the orangutan rescue and rehabilitation work themselves, but are supporting those who are.  Mankind may be one of the orangutans' closest relatives but humans are also the greatest threat to the orangutans' survival. Clear cutting, forest fires and hunting are reducing orangutan numbers to alarmingly low levels. Never before has their very existence been threatened so severely. Orangutans used to live in many different parts of Southeast Asia, but the places where they can thrive and find food are quickly vanishing. In Borneo and Sumatra, their last remaining homes, large parts of the old growth rainforest are gone, ripped up for farmland, palm oil plantations and urban development. And the precious little forest that is left is disappearing rapidly as palm oil companies continue to illegally clearcut enormous areas of forest. With Debbie we talk about the behind the scenes work that goes into making field work possible for these creatures. Although we ultimately talk about how saving  orangutans is actually saving ourselves. This is a three part series so - look out for the next episodes in the coming weeks. Contact and connect with Debbie: [email protected]  https://redapes.org/   https://palmdoneright.com/what-is-conflict-palm-oil/

Leif Cocks is the Founder of The Orangutan Project. They are a passionate group of people based in Australia and are dedicated to saving the orangutan. They are led by an experienced set of wildlife experts that have been working for over 20 years to protect this species and their environment. And together they are working to protect orangutans from extinction.  Orangutans are the most intelligent beings on the planet after human beings, and they adapt to the environment by passing on culture through each generation. They are a self-aware being and as intelligent as a six year old child. Also being the slowest reproducing species in the world, they are highly prone to extinction, so if we do not act now we could lose them in our lifetime. Contact and connect with Leif: [email protected]  The Orangutan Project: https://www.theorangutanproject.org/

Ben Frition is the Founder of The REED Center which is a Maryland-based nonprofit that seeks to repair the holistic connection of humans and their environment through research, engaging communities in farm programming, developing self-perpetuating ecosystems, and designing natural landscapes on residential and commercial scales. They strive to inspire and empower humanity to reconnect with Nature and co-create a more resilient, equitable, and abundant future for all communities on the planet. They also have a Food Forest, that seeks to develop scalable diversified agro-ecosystems to produce both the maximized productively of land in both volume of food, as well as the more important bionutrient density of said food. Ben's work spawned from seeing the failures of reforestation projects that get cut down as the needs of people are unmet. He's been developing agricultural models that meet both the environmental imperative of biodiversity & resilience AND the acute needs of humans.Transitioning from almost three centuries of conventional agriculture into a diverse nature mimicking polyculture, the food forest offers a unique opportunity to study, document, and record the rejuvenation of this land over time. They intend to use this relatively standard agricultural canvas to collect key data, iterate on best practices, and pioneer novel methodologies for regenerative land management. Contact and connect with Ben: [email protected]  REED Center: https://thereedcenter.org/

Elizabeth Gillispie is Soil Scientist and Soil Health Vineyard Manager at Washington State University as well as a member of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA).  Soil is the loose surface material that covers most land. It consists of inorganic particles and organic matter. Soils are not only the resource for food production, but they are the support for our structures, the medium for waste disposal, they maintain our playgrounds, distribute and store water and nutrients, and support our environment. They support more life beneath their surface than what exists above. With Elizabeth, we talk about the many different ways soil supports our life and is key in functioning our society.  Contact and connect: [email protected]  Soil Science of America: https://www.soils.org/

Lisa Sorg is the Assistant Editor and Environmental Reporter at NC Newsline. She helps manage newsroom operations while covering the environment, climate change, agriculture and energy. She talks with me in two other so listen to episodes 8 and 11 to hear more from her. Within the episode we mostly reference NC drinking water suppliers, although you can apply this same information to your own area. According to the EPA, there are approximately 150,000 public water systems that provide drinking water to most Americans. Customers that are served by a public water system are able to contact their local water supplier and ask for information on contaminants in their drinking water, and are encouraged to request a copy of their Consumer Confidence Report. This report lists the levels of contaminants that have been detected in the water, including those by EPA, and whether the system meets state and EPA drinking water standards. Then about 10 percent of people in the United States rely on water from private wells. Private wells are not regulated and people who use private wells need to take precautions to ensure their drinking water is safe.  Contact or connect with Lisa: [email protected]  Consumer Confidence Report: https://www.epa.gov/ccr/ccr-information-consumers Drinking water info: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-your-drinking-water

Ben Tettlebaum is the Director & Senior Staff Attorney at The Wilderness Society. Across the U.S. there are 618 million acres of federal public lands, including national parks and forests, wildlife refuges and federally managed desert and prairie lands. Many of these special places are threatened by climate change and poor management decisions that favor development over conservation. And they are important to protect as they are a key piece of our natural heritage.  Within the episode we talk about the Western Arctic, in regards to federal land laws and to give some more background, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge) is a place of spectacular beauty as well as ecological and cultural significance, but right now it's vulnerable to oil and gas development. These industries threaten to pollute our air and water, degrade public lands, and ruin an Indigenous way of life. So we talk about what the Wilderness Society is doing to help there. BREDL has had a past working relationship with The Wilderness Society. In 1992, the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT) wanted to relocate U.S. 58 and make it a four-lane highway, bisecting the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area in S.W. Virginia. Citizens formed a BREDL chapter Mountain Heritage Alliance (MHA) and worked with another BREDL chapter Graysonites for Progressive Change to fight the VDOT proposal. The Wilderness Society (TWS) was instrumental in this fight and continues to do great work for public lands to stay public.  Contact or connect with Ben: [email protected]   How to protect the Arctic: https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/5-questions-how-protect-arctic-oil-drilling  Here’s a brief press release for the victory: https://archive.bredl.org/MHA/may96pr.html

Serenella Linares is a naturalist at Mt Rainier Nature Center and also on the board of The Mycological Association of Washington, DC. (MAWDC for short)  This episode we talk about mushrooms. When we think of mushrooms, most of us think of the edible ones we can buy at the grocery store, but really they are everywhere and are vital to our ecosystems. First to give some mushroom terminology , mycelium is the root-like structure of a fungus that has networks underground, then fungi is ​​any of a group of spore-producing organisms feeding on organic matter which includes mushrooms, mushrooms are then what we normally think of as a growth with a domed cap. They are all critically important in most earthbound ecosystems as they provide life-sustaining mineral nutrients to plants while decomposing their remains, and recycling both organic and inorganic byproducts throughout the biome as they grow and reproduce. Through mycelium, mushrooms help other plants share nutrients and communicate through chemical signals. Fungi make nutrients available to plants either through decomposition and nutrient cycling, or by directly transporting nutrients to the plants, or in some cases, both processes occur. With Serenella we speak about the history of mushrooms, myco-remediation, fungal DNA sequencing, identification and more. MAWDC: https://www.mawdc.org/  Mushroom articles: https://phys.org/news/2022-08-mushrooms-main-character-ecosystems.html#:~:text=Fungi%2C%20which%20produce%20mushrooms%2C%20are,as%20they%20grow%20and%20reproduce.

Andres Chang is the Senior Research Specialist at Greenpeace. Just last year in 2023, Greenpeace came out with a report that Andres was the lead writer on, called Dollars VS. Democracy. The report talks about how Americans overwhelmingly support government action on the climate crisis. As a result, the fossil fuel industry has expanded its playbook to delay the transition to clean energy and protect its profits through efforts that undermine our right to free speech. Since the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock in 2016, oil and gas companies have played a key role in the creation and spread of anti-protest laws with provisions specifically intended to stifle protest near fossil fuel facilities. 18 states accounting for roughly 60% of oil and gas production have enacted sweeping versions of such legislation. Another four states have enacted narrower versions of the same legislation, which could be exploited by prosecutors seeking to issue trumped-up charges against peaceful protesters.  Within the episode we talk about all this report, from the creation of it, key points, its significance, and what their plans for it are. BREDL sent documents to Greenpeace to use in this report, so we discuss that as well. The Anti-Slap petition that Andres mentions in the episode will be linked in the show notes below, so please sign on to that as well as a link to the full report. FULL REPORT: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/dollars-vs-dissent/   SIGN THE ANTI-SLAP PETITION: https://engage.us.greenpeace.org/kuCKizua206SG48Bs-kTFg2