Uniting People : To protect america's wild places (interview with melyssa watson of the wilderness society)
Melyssa Watson is the Executive Director of The Wilderness Society (@wildernesssociety), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect the wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places.
In this podcast episode, Melyssa sheds light on how much our political climate really affects the conservation work of our wild spaces; how we can turn our public lands, which surprisingly, currently contribute a lot to our national carbon emissions, into a key part of the solution to addressing our ecological breakdown and climate change; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Melyssa and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Mission to Earth by NYADO
“If public lands were their own country, they’d rank as the fifth largest, worst carbon emitter in the world.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological balance, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app to stay informed and updated on our latest episodes.
On the high levels of carbon emissions that come from the U.S.'s public lands:
“Public lands actually account for nearly one-quarter of the U.S. carbon emissions—that comes from oil, gas, and coal extracted from public lands.
To say that another way, if public lands were their own country, they'd rank as the fifth largest, worst carbon emitter in the world.”
On using public lands to help fight climate change and species loss:
"We have less than ten years to stop the worst impacts of climate change and avoid irreversible losses of wildlife, facing the possible extinction of up to a million species globally.
But our public lands really offer solutions to both of those big issues, and if we could think about managing those lands for their conservation, climate, and community benefits—and not for the benefit of oil and gas companies and corporations—we could really make a huge impact on those big problems that we face, not only in the U.S. but globally as well."
On informing people about the connections between our environment and the human species:
"The impacts of climate change and species loss on human communities are so dramatic.
It's important that we help people understand that wilderness protection is not just the right thing to do, but it's essential to our very existence, and we can't think of people in communities as separate from nature—they're really so integrally connected."
Final words of wisdom:
“There's really no substitute for the power of people and communities coming together around shared values and shared solutions. In fact, that's the only thing I've ever seen make truly enduring change.
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