Our Wild World

Executive Director since 2002 of the internationally renowned Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival Lisa Samford left a career in journalism to become an award winning documentary filmmaker, specializing in difficult and remote expedition projects. Working primarily for Discovery, PBS, National Geographic, and network television she has filmed across five continents on a diverse collection of projects exploring topics ranging from violent crime, espionage and ethnographic scientific exploration to intimate portraits of world leaders. She also leads the Jackson Hole Science Symposium, the Jackson Hole Conservation Summit and launched TEDx Jackson Hole. The Jackson Film Fest is an unparalleled industry gathering that happens every other year with more than 650 international delegates participating in an exceptional slate symposia and screenings from the cutting edge of wildlife conservation film making.

What is the whole? We daily face a whole host of challenges, decisions to make from the moment of waking to going to sleep. We see this as a natural continuum of moments of separate steps to be taken along the way, and together each of these myriad actions accomplish the over arching goal- and are, whole But, is this really what is happening? As we reduce the whole down into ever smaller parts…are we perhaps losing sight of the e whole and big picture- that which is greater than the sum of and because of all of its parts, and therefore also distinct. From food to lifestyle, Wholism: what does it look like and where can it lead us, and why how we get there is important!

There is and Elephant in the room that is dying. Join Eli with the Elephant in the Room production team, special guests Travis Fultion, Executive Producer; Vladimir van Maule, Director, Cinematographer; and Kire Godal, Producer and 2nd Camera. The EITR, who, with the support and funding through WildiZe Foundation, have just returned from Kenya for the making of a short film to draw attention to the elephant's plight. Elephants are in crisis like never before, it is an all out slaughter, especially in East Africa. In Kenya and Tanzania, 67-100 elephants are being killed PER DAY for their ivory which is shipped out through the various black market trade routes and pipelines, most of it headed for China with no end in sight. As China builds it's capacity and the middle class climbs the economic ladder and desire to reconnect with their history and culture to honor their ancestors and wealth and status, ivory, and thus dead elephants, are in ever more demand.

Over the many episodes of Our Wild World, we’ve shared the wonder of wildlife and wilderness through a variety of perspectives from scientific, to solutions based, to a naturalist view, from that which brings about collapse to that which reimagines ourselves and thus our world, and all the myriad beings and life-forms with whom we share multitudinous relationships and the natural laws that sustain our vitally. Today we’ll weave together selected readings from favorite authors illustrative of the every day spectacular happenings that surround, envelope and knit together the magnificence that is life, and the transformative role and influence of the individual human, and non-human being.

The urban wilderness: The bear, raccoon, beaver or the lion in your yard, patrolling your neighborhoods and nearby recreation areas, and rising numbers of risky and close encounters with the wild animals in our backyards, and those when we’re in what we have designated as 'their space.' These rising encounters signify changes both environmentally and culturally, of our rapidly growing human footprint causing fuzzy boundaries of our understanding and attitudes toward wildlife, and those between what belongs to whom–– is it our back yard or their living room? We are provided with many opportunities for increased awareness about human and non-human communities as to how to interact with each other while living side by side, and, sometimes in the same places at the same time. Today we'll explore some of the facets around these issues and what can happen when we forget there really are wild things out there.

When engaging in wildness through travel, work or vacation, there comes the time when one crosses the line from the urban mentality into heightened awareness where the wild things are- animals, habitats and ecosystems. How we choose to behave and live our lives in our urban and sub-urban life-ways and life-paths has a dramatic effect on how wildness, wilderness and wildlife thrive - whether we are engaging or recreating in it or not. Some stories of how folks behave when out of their element or comfort zone and in direct contact with wilderness; foolishness and foolhardiness when preparedness and attention will bring about healthier, happier and wiser and safer relationships between people to people and people to wildness.

It’s never been clearer that now is a crucial moment for the global environment and that how we address this moment in our history will impact the future human experience on our planet, especially in the case for Africa and it’s precious wildlife. Guillaume has decided the best way to communicate and bring these problems to international attention is to undertake a systematic visual record of the continent’s vanishing wilderness, documenting how man is erasing 300 million years of evolution for personal gain, “Only 50 years ago man had to be protected from the beasts; today the beasts must somehow be protected from man.” These words, written back in 1965, never sounded truer than they do today. Yet when Peter Beard first expressed these concerns forty-five years ago, he would not have guessed how bad things would become for Africa’s wildlife and its habitat.

We've been on the road through the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Bighorn Canyon, and Devils Tower. Last week we gave a bit of history of the area, and this week well have some stories of the journey and from folks we talked with along the road. We stopped off at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range and met two wonderful young women, Kassie Renner and Sydney Tyaeck who will join us today to tell us more about their work, the wild mustangs they protect. This road trip has been a fabulous excursion out into our wild world.. it may often seem like everything has been paved over, but let us tell you… there is a lot of beautiful open country and landscapes with fabulous wildlife sitings just waiting for you to get out there on the road! links: http://www.pryormustangs.org, http://www.nps.gov/deto/index.htm, http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm, http://www.gtnpf.org

We’re taking this show on the road through some of our west’s greatest natural wonders- Yellowstone, Montana, and hopefully into the Dakotas! We’ll be bringing you the voices of fellow travelers we meet along the way, their thoughts about some of the hot topics of today and about our wild world. We just don’t know what surprises and comments we’ll encounter til we get there.. so, tune in for this special on the road journey through our wild world.

So many critical efforts are happening right now! The CITES meeting in Bangkok, Thailand may well decide the future for elephants and rhinos around the world. The US. Wildlife Services are under fire for unethical killing of our wildlife- both endangered and non-targeted species. The USFW is working hard to keep up with the Environmental Protection Act and government policies, and we are facing global biodiversity tipping points everywhere we look. Our policies and politics and our everday choices do make a difference, both here at home and around the world. Despite all this, there is Hope, and it’s right beneath our feet - we just need to focus by each of us taking some small actions in our everyday lives to protect the future that our ancestors left to us and which we will leave to our children.

Today, we're taking conservation processes out of the forum and onto the ground with more news about ongoing projects covering elephant, rhino and lion projects in Kenya, Botswana and S.Africa and bring you up to date on ground breaking decisions being made that are both positive and possibly very scary. There is a huge shift happening in conservation policy and politics locally and globally, and we’ll highlight how they work together in real world applications and also how the real world happenings will be affecting every species- us and a whole host of others, for our very near future.

Today we’ll highlight news happening in wildlife conservation around the world, where communities are engaging new models and considerations in living with their wild and non-human neighbors, and each other. We’ll highlight WildiZe funded projects and updates, and programs and projects elsewhere that are bringing the much needed attention and solutions for endangered species survival, including on-the-ground efforts, awareness raising efforts and how we are forging relationships between cultures and nations.

Today we are highlighting what seem to be the miraculous milestones in shifts of consciousness and policies around the world that recognize the importance of and relationships with, the other earthlings we share space with. We’ve scoured the news headlines to find emblems of hope that underscore how far we have come, and the questions we must yet answer. We are in a poignant time where we have genuinely and often radically, moved the paradigm shift of redefining and reimagining our place in the concert of life, and how we relate to the other life forms of our incredible world. From evolution to renaissance, we are broadening our definition from ‘what’ to ‘who’ deserves rights, and this is putting us well on the way to a brighter future.

Over the many episodes of Our Wild World, we’ve shared the wonder of wildlife and wilderness through a variety of perspectives from scientific, to solutions based, to a naturalist view, from that which brings about collapse to that which reimagines ourselves and thus our world, and all the myriad beings and life-forms with whom we share multitudinous relationships and the natural laws that sustain our vitally. Today we’ll weave together selected readings from favorite authors illustrative of the every day spectacular happenings that surround, envelope and knit together the magnificence that is life, and the transformative role and influence of the individual human, and non-human being.

Join us today with special guest, investigative journalist Julian Rademeyer as we discuss his book Killing For Profit, which reads like an international thriller, but is a terrifying true story of greed, corruption, and ruthless criminal enterprise centered around the illegal trafficking of rhino horn and wildlife. This is a compelling, meticulous and revelatory account of one the worlds most secretive trades aiding in the decimation of one of our world’s unique endangered species, the Rhino. Since publication, Mr. Rademeyer attended the CITES 2013 in Bangkok, reporting first hand the human folly and convoluted international conservation policies, politics, players and loopholes which undermine the global efforts to save the rhino from extinction.

Over the many episodes of Our Wild World, we’ve shared the wonder of wildlife and wilderness through a variety of perspectives from scientific, to solutions based, to a naturalist view, from that which brings about collapse to that which reimagines ourselves and thus our world, and all the myriad beings and life-forms with whom we share multitudinous relationships and the natural laws that sustain our vitally. Today we’ll weave together selected readings from favorite authors illustrative of the every day spectacular happenings that surround, envelope and knit together the magnificence that is life, and the transformative role and influence of the individual human, and non-human being.

When asked to summarize his work Ian Redmond says, “I am a naturalist by birth, a biologist by training, and a conservationist by necessity. But conservation for me isn’t just about saving species. On a larger scale, the planet needs us to save functioning eco-systems; on a smaller scale, we must also recognize that species are made up of individual animals. For me, it became personal when I had the privilege of getting to know individual wild animals in the wild... I can truthfully say that some of my best friends are gorillas, and I care passionately about them and the future of all life on Earth. His career shifted from research to conservationist when one of his subjects was killed. His work on behalf of animals was recognized in 1996 when presented with PAWS Humane Achievement Award, and appointed O.B.E. in 2006 at the Queen’s Birthday Honours

Over the various episodes of Our Wild World, we have been highlighting how important it has become that we re-engage with each other through a variety of perspectives from our many guests that tell us we are not alone in our understanding of how critical it has become to inspire each of us to hold our earth in our hands and bring us all to begin being the people and the world we want to be. Over the past one hundred years, the conservation movement has undergone dramatic changes- from a living in harmony ‘as is and at will’ concept through a series of models of protectionism to community based, from little research and knowledge to major technological and scientific understandings. Where has this led us today? And where is conservation as a lifestyle and model headed into the future? We'll discuss some of the history of how conservation came about, the changes it is had to face and must undergo to face the challenges of tomorrow.

It’s never been clearer that now is a crucial moment for the global environment and that how we address this moment in our history will impact the future human experience on our planet, especially in the case for Africa and it’s precious wildlife. Guillaume has decided the best way to communicate and bring these problems to international attention is to undertake a systematic visual record of the continent’s vanishing wilderness, documenting how man is erasing 300 million years of evolution for personal gain, “Only 50 years ago man had to be protected from the beasts; today the beasts must somehow be protected from man.” These words, written back in 1965, never sounded truer than they do today. Yet when Peter Beard first expressed these concerns forty-five years ago, he would not have guessed how bad things would become for Africa’s wildlife and its habitat.

Conservation is not a linear path but compares to a jigsaw puzzle of multilayered pieces that must fit together for the whole to work. It is easy to think that conservation is something going on in places so far away and exotic that it seems unimaginable that one person here anywhere in the world could have significant impact on the greater outcome of a child, a community or even an entire species. Our Wild World’s goal is to advance knowledge for our listeners about the bigger picture of what is involved in making conservation happen through providing a platform to engage people as to how anyone can get involved in making a difference- for your life and our future as a whole, as we face a rapidly changing world, and finding a place for living with wildlife in our backyards, where ever your yard is!