What is the origin story of the Wild Hope series and how did it get its name?
The name comes from a book called Wild Hope that was written by a Cambridge scientist, Andrew Balmford. The book profiled half a dozen or so inspiring stories in conservation, particularly in terms of either halting or reversing biodiversity loss. My colleagues at Tangled Bank Studios (a division of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a philanthropy supporting science), reached out to Andrew to secure the rights and start developing the idea of taking the perspective he coined in his book and expanding it to include more stories. They wanted to cast a wider net and highlight other extraordinary efforts being made not only by scientists, but also by community members, teenagers, or anyone who has an idea of what they can do right where they are to help the environment.
Sean B. Carroll, who ran Tangled Bank when this all started, is a biologist. One of the things Sean said that we all took to heart was, “Look at these intertwined challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. Climate change gets so much focus, but biodiversity loss doesn’t, and it’s equally grave.” What’s also interesting about biodiversity loss is that individuals and communities taking local action can have enormous impact on it. We find that a lot of these stories are kind of hyper-local and then have larger scale impact in effect.
The series is now in its third season. What do you know about your audience?
One thing that was central to what Tangled Bank wanted to do with Wild Hope was to make it free and available globally. We were able to partner with PBS Nature and put the show on their website and YouTube channel. It is not behind a paywall. Anyone, anywhere on the planet, can watch any of these episodes for free.
The scientists and communities we profile can embed their episodes into their websites and use them for fundraising and awareness building. We have been getting a lot of feedback directly from those people saying that the episodes are actually very helpful.
We also partner with different organizations. For example, we reached out to the National Association of Biology Teachers and screened some episodes at different festivals or conventions. You get thousands and thousands of biology teachers, each of whom have all of these biology students, and now all those kids are seeing this show. Through these partnerships, we’ve been able to reach millions of people.
That’s probably the most important and exciting thing for us: that these pieces actually can have a positive impact.
Many of our readers are involved in work that is improving biodiversity, climate resilience, environmental justice, and clean water. How can they share their stories with you and the Wild Hope community?
There is a form on wildhope.tv where anyone can submit a story. We do read those. We’re constantly casting a wide net to try to find stories. Some are brought to us by filmmakers, some by scientists, and some we simply stumble across from all the different Google searches that feed my inbox every morning while I’m having my coffee. By all means, if one of your readers has a story they think would fit, fill out the form.
I can give a couple keys to what we see in a story. Ultimately, it’s about a place where there is a vetted and proven success in reversing, or at least arresting, biodiversity decline. There are lots of great hypotheses and potential solutions. We try to show those that have been proven to work and could be emulated, broadcasted, or adapted. We’re always looking for that fusion between what works for people and for the environment because I think the idea of fortress conservation is long over. We are seeing this across the board in conservation, that community-engaged, community-mindful solutions are critical.
Can you talk about the power of culture and the arts in advancing biodiversity and climate action?
I think of reading Barry Lopez or Peter Mathieson when I was a young person…or seeing the films of Tarkovsky. There are so many different forms that the arts can use to connect us with the natural world and do so with different focus.
With Wild Hope, we want to make sure that the art and the science are being communicated together. We’re very fortunate to work with some highly skilled cinematographers, editors, producers, and writers who help us do that. Ultimately, we are connecting with audiences in a way that is familiar, comfortable, insightful, and relevant for them. There is something about meeting people around the world, seeing them as whoever they are, and connecting with their personal vision that helps make their story relatable.
Take, for example, Dr. Purnima Devi Barman, a scientist in northeast India, who noticed the destruction of habitat for the greater adjutant stork and said, “Let me get 10,000 women to support this locally endangered stork.” I think that sharing those stories can help others see possibilities wherever they are, and realize that no matter what their background is, they can get involved. We also provide a lot of information on our website about how people can take action, and we try to point out that there is no one way to do that. If one reader or one person decides to write a poem, make a painting, or create a film, do it! Share it!
There is a beautiful moment in a film we’re working on right now about an architect who was critical in Singapore’s movement from what was called a “garden city” concept in the ’60s, to what is now a “city in nature.” Here is this tiny island nation, and it’s a haven for critically endangered species living in a city of eight million people. How do you do that? The architect says, “When we started, we were the tree huggers. People derided us. Now everyone’s coming around to realize this is how we survive.”
We need intact ecosystems for us to have stability and withstand the pressures of climate change and an increasingly hyper-populated planet. There are plenty of ways that culture and the arts can speak to these messages. It is critical for us to put these stories out and find different ways to reach people. It doesn’t have to become rarefied, specialized, or just sort of put onto a news program or scientific paper.
How do you popularize those ideas? There are so many good science communicators and so many scientists who are themselves gifted communicators, and I think we’re all indebted to them. I have friends I met when they were PhD candidates, who now run their own film companies. There are different avenues for scientists who want to pursue that part of communication.
Where do you find the hope, courage, and motivation to do what you do?
I find it in a couple of different places. The first is in the people we are constantly meeting, whether they are people we are profiling or people who help us tell the stories. Not to be trite, but it does take a village to make these pieces, and all of the people who collaborate on this work say, “This satisfies me so much.” We buoy each other. Not only do we get to hear their stories, we get to be in the field with them and listen to the sound of an elephant together. That gives you a lot of … it just fills your well. These people are of all ages, races, and backgrounds.
All over the planet, people are making shit happen.
We have done almost 47 of these stories so far, and we’re already starting to look ahead to season four and planning another dozen. And for each one we put on, there are 10-20 more stories we’ve considered that haven’t yet made it onto the screen. When you start tapping into that, you realize that if you look for it, you find it, and that really buoys you.
The other thing is just the resilience of nature itself. In so many cases, things bounce back: the ecosystems, the species, the individuals, whatever scale you want to measure it on. There’s an incredible resilience in the natural world that, if given a chance, can really resurge. Again and again, and increasingly, we are seeing creative and insightful people finding ways to do what is good for nature that is also good for the community that lives beside and within it. And not seeing a separation between human and natural.
I just came back from shooting an episode in Indonesia, where a young person from Australia met a shark hunter who ran boats harvesting sharks. She went to make a film excoriating him and instead, they became friends. They now have a dozen boats that don’t go hunting sharks anymore, but instead take tourists to go swim with the sharks. It’s stories like this where people can connect, rethink, and find different kinds of solutions. Ultimately, we’re trying to communicate that these solutions are there. Any one only does so much, but in aggregate they actually are very powerful.
Is there one story that you’ve worked on that really stands out in your mind, or impacted you more powerfully than the others?
That’s a hard question to answer because it’s like a “Which is your favorite kid?” kind of thing. One of the things that happens for a lot of us working on this series is that we connect with any story we’re working on. Since I’m looking at all of them, I feel connected to all of them, whether I was in the field or not. In the first season we did an episode called Does Nature Have Rights? and looked at the way in which the rights of nature were enshrined in the constitution of Ecuador. We’re at this point in our species’ history where we’re recognizing that we are not separating from nature; that an indivisibility exists; that we aren’t the only sentient being on the planet; and that other things have rights as well. So just in terms of human evolution, I find that story particularly inspiring. We were looking at the way a youth-funded and run reserve was using that law to protect itself against mining.
But to me, there’s something about that idea that we’re actually using all over the world. Different nations or communities are finding ways of using legal systems. Which is a little abstract, but it’s still very inspiring.
And another one was a story about Mary Reynolds, a former gardener and garden designer in Ireland. She runs We Are The Ark, where she basically encourages anyone, with whatever kind of piece of land they have—whether it’s acres and acres of farmland or a window box in a city—to give half of it back to nature. Just leave it be, let it go, and let nature do what it does. In creating these pockets, you are creating chains of resilience: pathways and corridors. You’re supporting biodiversity.
That’s like a microcosm of E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth idea …
Obviously in the Wilsonian sense, you want those big patches of land, so you’re getting massive amounts of species. There’s no question that that’s important, but we’ve looked at a lot of stories about connectivity between spaces and the importance of corridors and all of that and just allowing a little bit of space here and there to suddenly become these little pockets. Now, things can flip from one to the other.
Years ago, when I was making films about nature in cities, I remember filming coyotes in downtown Chicago. The scientists we worked with said that there was no major metropolitan area in North America that did not have resident coyotes. So we were filming a coyote that lived inside the loop in Chicago. They don’t just pass through it. They reside there. And there was a mom raising her pups in a scrap of crappy little bushes next to a parking lot. And she was thriving. We filmed them in the middle of the polar vortex hunting rabbits. We were standing in industrial wasteland and here are these coyotes making it. I think nature, if we give it the chance, can come back, but we have to be conscientious and thoughtful about what we do.
What’s exciting about working on these stories is meeting all these people who are thinking and leading that way. Find someone you want to support or be that person.
What is the best way for people to see your work and support and amplify the work of the people you’re showcasing?
In terms of seeing this stuff, it is really easy. It’s all on YouTube, so you can go to PBS Nature’s YouTube page. Our webpage, wildhope.tv, has links to all of the episodes, as well as lots of other information. It’s sort of a hub that also has bespoke journalism. There are links to other journalistic articles, there are newsletters, there’s all sorts of articles and links about what you can do and how you can get involved.
In terms of supporting the people profiled in the show, we have information about how you can do that as well. You could also look around you and see what’s happening in your area. Is there a local organization or person that you can support that might just need some help?
There’s a beautiful story we’re working on now, about the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. They basically never received a reservation, and now they have purchased 350 acres of their ancestral land. It is the location of one of the deadliest massacres of Native Americans by the U.S. Army in U.S. history [the Bear River Massacre] but now they’ve taken back that land and they are rewilding it. They’re releasing the river to run freely again from the culverts it was put in. They’re removing invasive trees and restoring wetlands. They had a place where they wanted to plant something like 10,000 saplings, but they were worried. They were sitting there at 6:00 AM on the day they were supposed to plant wondering, “Who’s going to show up? Because I can only plant so many myself.” Hundreds of people showed up and planted them all. There are opportunities to do that, to show up like that right where you are. There is no limit on what you can do if you want to do something.
And any final words of encouragement for folks who are out there doing stuff, but maybe facing concerns about funding or the recent U.S. presidential election?
That’s obviously of significant concern, and the attempts to delegitimize science across the board at the extreme right and the extreme left are very unnerving. I think community is key—leaning on each other in these times and putting word out to find alternate funding sources. You can’t really replace the federal government and what it could do in terms of funding basic science, and what I’m doing doesn’t give me access to where the hope lies in that right now. But I do know that in story after story, we are seeing people finding ways to make impact happen where they are or by supporting others where they’re not. I think we can get through this time, and that a very large majority of people—certainly on a planetary basis, but also within the nation—are already on board with all of this. We all live on this one planet. Living here in rural Virginia, I certainly know that there is a lot of opportunity for overlap and commonality. Unfortunately, sometimes these things get politicized as if environmental issues are political issues when they’re really not. I tune that stuff out because it runs counter to what I’m actually seeing in the real world.
