Nature’s Genius is a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. For all the talk about the Age of Information, what we’re really entering is the Age of Nature. As we face the reality that, as humans, we have the capacity to destroy the conditions conducive to life, avoiding this fate requires a radical change in our relationship to nature, and how we view it. Looking to nature to heal nature, and ourselves, is essential. 

Traditional Indigenous wisdom and modern science show us that everything is connected and that the solutions we need are present in the sentient symphony of life. We can learn from the time-tested principles, processes, and dynamics that have allowed living systems to flourish during 3.8 billion years of evolution. 

In this enlightening series, we visit with scientists, ecologists, Indigenous practitioners of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, community organizers, and authors reporting from the frontlines of ecological restoration. They explore the intelligence inherent in nature and show us how to model human organization on living systems.

Guests featured in the series include: Jeannette Armstrong - Co-Founder, Enwokin Centre; Brock Dolman - Co-Founder and Program Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Erica Gies - Author and Journalist; Brett KenCairn - Founding Director of Center for Regenerative Solutions; Toby Kiers - Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Co-Founder of SPUN; Kate Lundquist - Water Institute Co-Director, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center; Samira Malone - Urban Forestry Program Manager, Urban Sustainability Directors Network; Teresa Ryan - Teaching and Learning Fellow, Forest and Conservation Sciences Dept., Univ. of British Columbia; Merlin Sheldrake - Biologist and Author; Suzanne Simard - Author and Prof. of Forest Ecology, Univ. of British Columbia; Rowen White - Seedkeeper/Farmer and Author from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
• Produced by Cathy Edwards
• Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Post Production Assistants: Monica Lopez and Kaleb Wentzel-Fisher
• Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

Imagine an underground web of mind-boggling complexity, a bustling cosmopolis beneath your feet. Quadrillions of miles of tiny threads in the soil pulsate with real-time messages, trade vital nutrients, and form life-giving symbiotic partnerships. This is the mysterious realm of fungi. Acclaimed visionary biologists Toby Kiers and Merlin Sheldrake guide us through the intricate wonders of the mycorrhizal fungal networks that make life on Earth possible.

This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.

Featuring

Toby Kiers, Ph.D., is the Executive Director and Chief Scientist of SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) and a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at VU, Amsterdam.

Merlin Sheldrake, Ph.D., is a biologist and writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He is currently a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, works with the SPUN, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
• Produced by: Cathy Edwards
• Senior Producer: Stephanie Welch
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Graphic Design: Megan Howe

Resources

Merlin Sheldrake – How Fungi Make our Worlds | Bioneers 2024 Keynote

Merlin Sheldrake and Toby Kiers – Mapping, Protecting and Harnessing the Mycorrhizal Networks that Sustain Life on Earth | Bioneers 2024 Panel Discussion

Interview with Merlin Sheldrake, Author of Entangled Life

Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature

Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter

SPUN (the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks)

Fungi Foundation

Water makes life possible. From the tiniest bacteria to the tallest tree, every living thing relies on this irreplaceable substance. Erica Gies, author of “Water Always Wins,” explores water’s unique role in the web of life, and how we might repair and reshape our relationship with it. Rather than telling water what to do, maybe we should start by asking what it wants?

This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.

Featuring

Erica Gies is an independent journalist, National Geographic Explorer, and the author of “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge.” She covers water, climate change, plants and wildlife for Scientific American, The New York Times, bioGraphic, Nature, and other publications.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Cathy Edwards and Kenny Ausubel
• Produced by: Cathy Edwards
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Production Assistance: Kaleb Wentzel Fisher and Monica Lopez
• Graphic Designer: Megan Howe

Resources

Erica Gies – The Slow Water Movement: How to Thrive in an Age of Drought and Deluge | Bioneers 2024 Keynote

Embracing Slow Water: Rediscovering the True Nature of Earth’s Lifeline | Excerpt from “Water Always Wins”

Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature

Earthlings: Intelligence in Nature | Bioneers Newsletter

Dr. Shane Gero, a visionary marine biologist, is angling to crack the code of sperm whale communication. His mind-bending research is transforming what we thought we knew about these ancient leviathans. It’s calling on us to embrace the reality that perhaps we’ve long suspected: Sperm whales are living meaningful, intelligent and complex lives whose cultures suggest that whales are people too. What can whale culture teach us, and can deep listening help us learn to coexist respectfully in kinship with these guardians of the deep?

Featuring

Shane Gero, Ph.D., is a Canadian whale biologist, Scientist-in-Residence at Ottawa’s Carleton University, and a National Geographic Explorer. He is the founder of The Dominica Sperm Whale Project and the Biology Lead for Project CETI. His science appears in numerous magazines, books, and television; and most recently was the basis for the Emmy Award winning series, Secrets of the Whales. Learn more at shanegero.com.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Teo Grossman and Kenny Ausubel
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Special Engineering Support: Eddie Haehl at KZYX

Resources

Shane Gero – Preserving Animal Cultures: Lessons from Whale Wisdom | Bioneers 2023 Keynote

Deep Dive: Intelligence in Nature

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the podcast homepage to learn more.

The influences of Africans and Black Americans on food and agriculture is rooted in ancestral African knowledge and traditions of shared labor, worker co-ops and botanical polycultures. 

In this episode, we hear from Karen Washington and Bryant Terry on how Black Food culture is weaving the threads of a rich African agricultural heritage with the liberation of economics from an extractive corporate food oligarchy. The results can be health, conviviality, community wealth, and the power of self-determination.

Featuring

Karen Washington, co-owner/farmer of Rise & Root Farm, has been a legendary activist in the community gardening movement since 1985. Renowned for turning empty Bronx lots into verdant spaces, Karen is: a former President of the NYC Community Garden Coalition; a board member of: the NY Botanical Gardens, Why Hunger, and NYC Farm School; a co-founder of Black Urban Growers (BUGS); and a pioneering force in establishing urban farmers’ markets.

Bryant Terry is the Chef-in-Residence of MOAD, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, and an award-winning author of a number of books that reimagine soul food and African cuisine within a vegan context. His latest book is Black Food: Stories, Art and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora. 

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Kenny Ausubel and Arty Mangan
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Production Assistance: Monica Lopez
• Additional music: Ketsa

Resources

The Farmer and the Chef: A Conversation Between Two Black Food Justice Activists

Karen Washington – 911 Our Food System Is Not Working

Working Against Racism in the Food System

Black Food: An Interview with Chef Bryant Terry

The Food Web Newsletter

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

As author Michael Pollan observes: “The two biggest crises humanity faces today are tribalism and the environmental crisis. They both involve the objectifying of the other – whether that other is nature or other people.” How do we re-weave that web of relationships, and focus on our likenesses rather than our differences?

In this program, racial justice advocates john a. powell, Eriel Deranger and Anita Sanchez explore how overcoming the illusion of separateness from nature and each other requires building bridges rather than burning them. They say the fate of the world depends on it.

Featuring

• john a. powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.
• Eriel Deranger (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation), Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action.
• Anita Sanchez, bestselling author, consultant, trainer and executive coach specializing in indigenous wisdom, diversity and inclusion, leadership, culture and promoting positive change in our world.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Kenny Ausubel
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant shares her personal odyssey as a wildlife ecologist, conservation biologist and co-host of the famed TV nature show “Wild Kingdom.” As a scientist dedicated to protecting and conserving the diversity of the web of life, she reminds us that, as human beings, we are part of nature. It’s all connected, and it’s high time to bring about peaceful coexistence, not only with nature, but with one another.

Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., is a wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist, creator of the award-winning podcast “Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,” co-host of Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom,” and author of “Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World.”

Resources

Rae Wynn-Grant – Wild Life: How Personal Journeys are Essential to Sustainable Leadership in Environmental Science | Bioneers 2024 Keynote

Rae Wynn-Grant – Becoming a Wildlife Ecologist in a Rugged World | Excerpt from “Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World”

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Leo Hornak and Kenny Ausubel
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Production Assistance: Leo Hornak and Monica Lopez

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.Saving Nature Means Saving Ourselves | Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant

We are told that our personal health is our individual responsibility based on our own choices. Yet, the biological truth is that human health is dependent upon the health of nature’s ecosystems and our social structures. Decisions that negatively affect these larger systems and eventually affect us are made without our consent as citizens and, often, without our knowledge. Dr. Rupa Marya, Associate Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco, and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, says “social medicine” means dismantling harmful social structures that directly lead to poor health outcomes, and building new structures that promote health and healing.

Learn more about Rupa Marya and her work here.



What would it feel like to live in a world where our built environment was as elegant as nature's designs? What if our living and working spaces nurtured our human communities and quality of life? Architect and designer Jason F. McLennan takes the revolution from the heart of nature and the human heart into our built environment. He is shifting the fateful civilizational inflection point we face - from degradation to regeneration - from fear to love. 

Featuring Jason F. McLennan, one of the world’s most influential visionaries in contemporary architecture and green building, is a highly sought-out designer, consultant and thought leader. A winner of Engineering News Record’s National Award of Excellence and of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize (which was, during its 10-year trajectory, known as “the planet’s top prize for socially responsible design”), Jason has been showered with such accolades as “the ‘Wayne Gretzky’ of the green building industry and a “World Changer” (by GreenBiz magazine).

Resources

Jason McLennan Keynote Bioneers 2022 – From Reconciliation to Regeneration

Deep Community Resilience: Preparing for the Coming Age, Place-By-Place | Jason F. McLennan

Child-Centered Planning: A New Specialized Pattern Language Tool | Jason F. McLennan

Visit the episode page for transcript and more information.

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

If people are to find creative ways of living together and healing both culture and nature, the awakening of individual genius may be the deepest and most imaginative way to approach the seemingly impossible tasks that face contemporary cultures.

Renowned storyteller, performer, author, activist and scholar Michael Meade weaves threads of timeless wisdom traditions into myths for today’s global crisis. Meade says each of us is woven into the soul of the world, and we’re uniquely needed at this mythic moment to become active agents in the co-creation, re-creation and re-imagination of culture and nature. With: Michael Meade and John Densmore.

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Erosion and evolution. Shadow and light. Death and rebirth. These are some of the strands that the acclaimed author, naturalist and activist Terry Tempest Williams weaves together in the face of today’s broken world. Standing in the lineage of the greatest nature writers, she links her deepest inner experiences with the state of the web of life. In this program, Williams asks: How do we find the strength to not look away at all that is breaking our hearts? Hands on the earth, we remember where the source of our authentic power comes from. We have to go deeper. She also explores histories of privilege, religion, and identity in Utah, and how reconciling her experiences with these cultural strands have helped unleash and shape her voice as a storyteller who translates the voice of nature and speaks for justice.

Featuring

• Terry Tempest Williams, one of the greatest living authors from the American West, is also a longtime award-winning conservationist and activist, who has taken on, among other issues, nuclear testing, the Iraq War, the neglect of women’s health, and the destruction of nature, especially in her beloved “Red Rock” region of her native Utah and in Alaska.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Monica Lopez and Kenny Ausubel
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris

Music

Theme music is co-written by the Baka Forest People of Cameroon and Baka Beyond, from the album East to West. Find out more at globalmusicexchange.org.

Additional music was made available by:

• Jami Sieber at JamiSieber.com
• Music From Memory at MusicFromMemory.com

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.