Dylan McDowell: Inside the Network Connecting State Lawmakers on Environmental Policy

Two filmmakers set out to walk all 211 miles of the proposed Ambler Road through Alaska's Brooks Range, and the plan fell apart by day five. Robert Lester and Ben Kaden tell Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds how illness, injury, and mosquitoes changed their film, Roadless, and why they wanted to show what is at risk instead of relying on generic Arctic imagery. They talk about what the largest intact stretch of wilderness in the United States feels like, whether images of wild places help protect them, what they hope viewers do after the credits, and why Lester says the debate over copper is about where mining happens, not whether. Plus, Anders and Bill trade movie casting and a new Nerd Word of the Week. The film tours the Pacific Northwest November 13 to 23 and arrives free on YouTube the day after Thanksgiving. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Most state lawmakers work with little or no staff, some for almost no pay, and on Election Day 83% of state legislative seats are on the ballot. Dylan McDowell, CEO of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, explains how a nonpartisan network of state lawmakers from all 50 states trades ideas across party lines, and what happens when a large new class arrives in January. He breaks down why data centers have become the biggest environmental policy story in statehouses, why outdoor access and funding bills draw support from red and blue states alike, and how local governments fit in. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

It's Halloween week, and Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds are in the same room in Missoula with a Ouija board. Within minutes, Bill is performing the ghost of Bob Marshall, the forester and principal founder of The Wilderness Society, and Anders has an interview he never planned. This is a scripted Halloween special, not an archival interview. Marshall died in 1939, and the character's lines are dramatization. Along the way the conversation covers real history: childhood summers in the Adirondacks, the winter in Wiseman, Alaska behind Arctic Village, the 1934 Knoxville drive that led to the Wilderness Society, the Forest Service roadless rules, and Marshall's push to open wild country to everyone.Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Sam Forstag spent eight years on the fire line, four of them as a smoke jumper, before he organized the response when the federal government cut the people who manage wildfires. Now he is running for Montana's First District with a campaign built on defending public lands and rebuilding the agencies that protect them. The conversation covers the personal cost of firefighting, a thousand-hour overtime season, a near-death jump near Fairbanks that he says grew from 30 acres to 60,000 in a day, and the Windy Rock fire that he says cost Montana $56 million. Forstag lays out what he would do on the House Natural Resources Committee, expanding prescribed fire, hiring fuels crews, and keeping firefighting inside the Forest Service rather than separating it into a crisis-response operation. He also explains why he believes public lands are a winning issue in Montana, and how he is running a campaign with former Republican legislators as allies. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.A note on this conversation: Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds live in Montana’s First District, where Sam Forstag is a candidate in the November 3, 2026 general election. The Wild Idea invited Forstag to talk about public lands policy and his experience in wildland fire and the Forest Service. This episode is not an endorsement of any candidate.

Cam Brensinger sewed a prototype from a bicycle inner tube after a bivy bag failed him on Mount Washington: this conversation explores what a gear maker owes the ground its products are used on. Brensinger explains why NEMO only brings products to market that improve the outdoor experience, how a bicycle inner tube and an inflatable kite shaped the company's first designs, and how a REI buyer's blunt criticism taught him to put the customer in the room. He talks about fifteen years of lobbying through the Outdoor Industry Association, the industry's 2017 withdrawal of its trade show from Utah over Bears Ears, and how business can connect jobs and economic impact to the conservation case. The episode also covers NEMO's sustainability commitments, a roughly forty percent cut in carbon intensity and fully recyclable products, and the challenge of selling those stories in 2026 after years of greenwashing fatigue. Brensinger argues that climbers, backpackers, hunters, and anglers share far more than their differences, and that showing up together in Washington represents the vast majority of the outdoor constituency. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer for the National Audubon Society, joins Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds to discuss how the Conservation Ranching Program aligns rancher livelihoods with grassland health. Johnson explains why ranchers were the easiest sell for a national certification effort and how birds act as diplomats connecting urban and rural communities. The conversation traces the program’s evolution from a small pilot to a national framework, highlighting collaborations with brands like Thousand Hills and Lifetime Grazed that carry the Audubon Certified Bird-Friendly Land seal. Johnson applies the concept of realpolitik to explain why voluntary Farm Bill incentives remain the viable path for passing legislation, despite concerns that regulatory measures might be more effective at reversing grassland bird declines. He notes that birds serve as sentinels for environmental health, revealing issues such as the decline of the Ogallala Aquifer years before human impacts become visible. The episode underscores the tension between the need for rapid conservation action and the slow pace of legislative change. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Amy Bowers Cordalis is a Yurok Tribe member, attorney, and executive director of Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group. She helped lead the fight to remove four dams from the Klamath River, the largest dam removal and salmon restoration project in U.S. history. In this conversation, she traces that fight from the first covenant of the Yurok creation story through her great-uncle's arrests for fishing on the Klamath, the Supreme Court case that followed, and the grassroots and legal strategy that turned a hostile utility company into a negotiating partner. She also talks about the day her father was saved by the cold waters of Blue Creek, watching salmon return to spawning grounds within days of the final dam coming down, and why she believes indigenous-led sovereignty, not colonial conservation, is the model the rest of the world needs. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Some of the highest-output rural counties in the country are losing population, even as public lands get pitched as the answer to everything from housing to the national debt. Mark Haggerty of the Center for American Progress and Dr. Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics, two economists who study what public lands do for the communities next door, join Bill and Anders to sort out what the numbers actually say. They cover why automation and stagnant wages have hollowed out extractive jobs, the "amenity trap" that can price teachers out of thriving outdoor towns, why selling public land is a weak fix for housing affordability, and what happened to the economy around Grand Staircase-Escalante after designation. Haggerty also lays out a proposal to replace annual federal payments to counties with a permanent fund, and both guests take on whether making the economic case for wild places risks losing the moral one. Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

Fitz Cahall has spent nearly twenty years telling other people's outdoor stories as the host of The Dirtbag Diaries. Now he's leading one himself: Save Public Lands, a coalition campaign racing to collect a million signatures against public land sell-offs, backroom deals, and giveaways before National Public Lands Day on September 26.Cahall talks with Bill Hodge about the throughline from The Dirtbag Diaries to organizing, including his and Becca Cahall's history with Bears Ears National Monument and the education center they helped build there after its boundaries were first rolled back. They discuss a proposed private resort inside Yosemite National Park, why the campaign's three demands were kept deliberately narrow, and why Cahall believes the fight for public lands isn't as partisan as it looks.Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee.Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.

In most Western states, wading a river through private land can get you arrested for trespassing. In Montana, it can't, and three guests join Bill and Anders to explain why. Jim Klug of Yellow Dog Flyfishing, journalist Hal Herring, and Alex Leone of the Public Land/Water Access Association trace Montana's 1985 Stream Access Law back to its roots in the state's 1972 Constitution and the landowner fights that tested it in court for decades, and explain what the law means for Montana's outdoor economy today. They also connect the dots to other current access fights, from corner crossing to last year's attempted sell-off of federal public land, and close with details on the Montana Stream Access Rally, a September 17 gathering in Bozeman meant to remind lawmakers that Montanans are still watching. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.Support our show with a one-time or recurring gift through Buy Me a Coffee.