Oil and Gas industry, Investigative Journalism, and the Permian Basin with Melissa Troutman

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Melissa Troutman, award-winning journalist and filmmaker about Oil and Gas industry, Investigative Journalism, and the Permian Basin.  Read her full bio below.

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Showtimes: 
0:58 - Laura on navigating career growth
6:10 - Interview with Melissa Troutman Starts
11:14 - Journalist confronting oil and gas
15:08- Fighting for policy change in an oil field
30:58 - Career advice and personal passions

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Connect with Melissa Troutman at https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-troutman-28234056/

Guest Bio:
Melissa Troutman is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and environmental policy advocate. In 2011, Melissa co-founded the investigative newsroom Public Herald and in 2019 received a Community Sentinel Award honoring her dedication and support for communities and ecosystems in oil and gas regions. After more than a decade investigating corruption and collusion in the oilfields of Pennsylvania, Melissa turned to policymaking in the highest yielding oil and gas extraction zones across the United States. Since 2022, she has served as Climate and Health Advocate for WildEarth Guardians with a focus on energy development in New Mexico and Colorado.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Sam asks about professional development. We interview Melissa Troutman about the oil and gas industry, investigative journalism in filmmaking, and the Permian Basin. And finally, to go along with that, here are some facts about the Permian Basin.

The Permian Basin is the largest, most prolific oil and natural gas producing region in the United States, spanning 75,000 square miles across West Texas and southern New Mexico. It produces over 4.1 million barrels of oil daily, accounting for almost half of the US oil. It contains stacked shale formations, making it a global energy hub, and according to our guest, there's even more to this story.

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Let's get to our segment.

All right, Sam, we don't have Nic here. So do you have a question or something I can talk about for a few minutes?

Yes, hi, Laura. My question is, at work, sometimes the employer wants you to do professional development that you either have to do it on your own time because you don't have enough time to do it while during working hours, which is kind of hard to do because you're already working 40+ hours a week and you don't necessarily want to spend your free time working on. Professional development, yada yada.

What do you think about that? How should we, I guess, not deal with it, but how do we attack that situation? How do you navigate this situation?

I think it's very common. It's not always training. It could be an extra project or, you know, review this thing or do this thing or, or even just extra work that you're like, this isn't, I'm already, I'm already doing all of the things. I don't have time left over, and I don't get overtime and all of that.

So, you know, it's unfortunately, like a lot of career questions. It depends, and I think for some people they'd be happy to do it. They don't really have something else going on, or they are into that kind of thing, like, I'm one of those people that I was probably reading leadership books to begin with, that kind of a dork.

But if it's not, if it's something that would be, feel like work to you, you know, afterwards, there might also be like somebody, one person who's given an extra project to do might love the chance to do it and not worry about getting paid for it.

Another person might say, I have this other, I volunteer, I do these other things. I don't have time to take away from those to do this extra thing you're asking me if it's not like super awesome.

So, but for someone who's like, seems like asking for too much, you know, I think you only ever have three options, and I'll take this from Eckhart Tolle. Accept it, change it or leave it.

And so I've been practicing this a lot lately. Even on a daily basis, I have started writing down the things that are bothering me, and I will put accept it, change it, or leave it. And then if it's a change it, I have to come up with, OK, how?

And if it's a leave it, then, you know, what are my steps for leaving that thing, even if it's just to drop it, um, accepting it. So that would be, OK, I'm gonna accept it, I'm just gonna do it.

Changing it would then put you with where the options lie, basically. So if you want to change it, that means either having a discussion with those people who are telling you you need to do these things, finding an hour during the workday and just saying like, OK, I'm gonna work faster on this, or skip this or rearrange something or not go to a meeting.

I mean, maybe if you told your boss like, hey, uh, there's this meeting that on Thursdays that I don't really need to be at, could I swap that and do this leadership thing for an hour at that point? Because I really don't want to do it at home.

So instead of, I guess. That actually makes a point for myself is, if you do want to tell your employer that you don't want to do it, bring them a different solution. So, I don't think that I want to do this. Can I do this other thing or do it differently, maybe instead, right?

Or if you're just going to, if you're gonna leave it, then that is like, I'm just gonna leave this, look for another company, do something else, you know, maybe the culture is just not right for you wherever you're at doing that.

So, yeah, how does that all sound to you?

I liked your idea of writing, writing what you don't like and then doing the accept it, change it, and I forget what the third one was.

Leave it, leave it, yeah, I like that.

So I think that is a good idea, and you can figure out just what your options are and how to go from there.

Yeah, leave it is harder said than done in some cases, you know, but it, but this practice applies across the board, whether it's a job or a relationship or whatever, whatever it is bothering you, those are the three options you have. There's nothing else.

So yeah, that, that's what I would do as far as this specifically, you know, see if you can find a way to squeeze something in. I mean, in the long run, it should benefit you. Is this like they're telling you the exact training or they're just saying you need to do something?

It's more broad, like, we want you guys to invest in your professional growth, and I'm just like, why? I already, I already work 45 hours I lost them.

Yeah, just nothing specific.

Yeah, well, and you can maybe see if you can turn that into an opportunity as well and see if there is something that you would be interested in, you know, maybe there's a way to find a certain type that fits your outside interests or something, you know, that's fair. Worth some research.

Yeah, well, today's interview was super interesting, so why don't we go ahead and get to that?

Cool. Welcome back to ER. Today we are joined by Melissa Troutman. Melissa is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and climate health advocate at Wild Earth Guardians. Welcome, Melissa.

Hi.

It is awesome to have you here. I'm really excited and I'm pretty much gonna throw the script out right from the beginning because I, I want to know. Uh, a little bit more about how investigative journalism fits into filmmaking.

So you've directed some exciting projects, and you worked on Triple Divide and Invisible Hands with Mark Ruffalo as one of the narrators. So how does a film like that come to life?

I started as a newspaper reporter that took me into investigative journalism. And then just as a way to reach more people because, um, not everybody reads long form investigative journalism. My creative partner. And business partner at the time and I decided, well, we'll we'll start turning these investigations into documentaries.

So that's what we did. And you mentioned Triple Divide. That was our first film. We did a sequel to that and then we did Invisible Hand, and they were all rooted in Uh, investigations of water contamination, collusion, corruption, and related to oil and gas, uh, fracking boom in Pennsylvania.

Right, so you have this thing that you've discovered and you want to tell the world about it. Do you sit down and write it out? How does it become a script? How does it go from like, this is the The concept and then how do we turn it into something people want to watch.

We decided to root what was happening in a specific place. And so that place kind of became the main character of the documentary. And all of the people experiencing water contamination, the collusion and corruption, all of the meaty journalistic stuff fed into this frame of the triple divide, which is a very unique place in North America, which happens to be in North Central Pennsylvania, where two continental divides come together and form. A massive triple watershed where rain falls on one mountaintop goes drains to three different parts of the continent.

And it's a really pristine ecosystem, and we start the film, we kind of root all of our reporting and journalism into this question of, does this unique ecosystem and the people who live in it get better protections from some of the incredibly industrial and polluting thing that oil and gas fracking is.

Does a place like this become more prote, is it more protected in law?

So the script is a combination of interviews we had with people who, humans who have voices in this ecosystem, right? But also really trying to bring to life the ecosystem itself, which of course doesn't have a voice and give a voice to a place that was really, really changed very rapidly over the course of several years.

Right. And then so once those are out, how do you feel the responses? And do you see, you know, some action taken because of it?

The documentaries were incredibly powerful, not just for, um, you know, at the time, around the time we started the film, I had actually been fired from the newspaper I was reporting at. Um, the publisher was connected to oil and gas. A big oil and gas company came in and essentially bought my job, but it gave me the opportunity to walk away and start my own thing.

So we started Public Herald, um, my partner Josh Prabani and I started Public Herald, and the reporting we were doing into film allowed us to, A, capture a bigger audience to not just inform them, but also bring them into our and create a community that supported independent journalism.

And so, you know, the folks that came to our screenings became members to support future reporting and future documentaries, which was how we were able to do the work.

And it also became an organizing tool for the community of people that it would bring together. You know, when you live in a rural area that becomes dependent on the oil and gas industry, it can be really hard for people to talk about the problems that they're having.

I mean, even though their water is brown and sludgy, it's a nerve-wracking thing to be public about that, um, because it can be really intimidating to say anything perceived as negative against the industry. It's creating this boom, right?

And so the people who were able to give interviews, and the film itself became something that, you know, kind of pulled people out of and gave them a little more courage to talk about their problem, which really just expanded the whole investigation in general.

As we toured the film around the state. And the neighboring fracking states around us, more and more people just came with more and more stories, which expanded the question and expanded the scope of our investigation.

Yeah, that's great. It seems like it would be a lot of fun to do a documentary versus just writing, which I'm sure you love both.

How did you get into journalism in the first place?

Totally by accident. I did not study journalism, and I did not study filmmaking at any point in any of my. But post high school grad, uh, you know, education.

I was singing in a band and bartending after taking a break from being a public school teacher. And I came up to Pennsylvania to visit my family. I was living in Virginia at the time.

And fracking was just moving into my small town. And I was like, What's fracking? And then of course, I started looking into it and I was like, uh, this might not be as good as everybody thinks it's gonna be.

And so at the same time that my mind is sort of being blown on a visit home, a job opened up at the local newspaper. And I said, I made my mom a promise that I would apply because she really wanted me to stay.

And I did. And I got the job with no journalism background.

But this is very rural for you.

Yeah, very rural area, not a lot of applicants. So Yeah.

And then I started covering fracking. And like I said, eventually, the industry bought my job at that very small paper.

And so I co-founded Total DIY. I never started a nonprofit before in my life. Just, you know, 2 years later, started my own nonprofit with a partner at the time.

And, and we did the same thing with filmmaking. We're like, Oh, we've never made a film before. We'll figure it out.

Yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's important. I think a lot of our listeners are. Just starting either their careers or trying to figure out what they want to do.

And, you know, there's a lot of even staying in a career track, there's a lot of standing up for yourself and, you know, advocating and taking a step forward of something you've never done before, maybe.

Does something draw you to that? Or are you just not afraid of it or move forward with the fears?

Well, I was more fearless when I was younger. You know, now that I've been in this career for 15 years, and I'm really good at it, and it pays all the bills, it's like, Even though I have actually, I have inklings of doing other things at this point in my life, it's much scarier to walk away from.

So it's kind of the inverse, I think, of what you're asking.

But I mean, I've always been kind of bold and rebellious as a person, I think my whole life, especially as a younger person.

And, but also, You know, it just felt very much like it was what I had to do, what had to be done in the moment.

You know, no media at that time was covering water contamination in any kind of real way in the state that was the #2 producer of natural gas in the United States and where oil drilling started for the first time in the world, commercial oil drilling.

And I was just astonished. And more and more people, when I was just a brand new reporter, seeing if this was going to be my thing, more and more people started coming to me, saying, my water's brown. Four days after they started fracking next door, everyone says, It's not that, but I know it is.

And so I was compelled to help people. And so I think another part of me is like, I'm just a really big helper.

If I see a problem, I see somebody having a problem, and they ask me for help, I'm going to do it. You know, sometimes I have a hard time saying no, but yeah, that's awesome.

Speaks a lot about your personality.

And but did you ever feel scared? Like this is a big industry you're, you're calling out facts about. Did you ever feel like, what if I don't do this?

Yes.

Even as I think back to how much anxiety I had about that in the early years, like I can feel my stomach getting tighter. When I recall the state of my nervous system at that time in my life.

So yes, it was really nerve-wracking, but I just, you know, bearing witness to people in really tough spots just is a great, it's really great at overriding. Fear.

So I had to be more careful, you know, I regularly checked in with my family, like, this is a small town. Are you OK with me doing these things and saying these things and being so public?

Just to make sure, you know, I wasn't doing harm unintentionally to anybody.

But also, the threat was real.

I mean, when we were shooting Triple Divide in, I think it was 2012. Uh, we were shooting drilling rigs at night on public land in pub in state forest, because they actually look really cool in the middle of a forest at night.

Like the big drilling rig with lights all the way up. It's like a vertical caterpillar in the middle of the forest. It's kind of actually divorced from what it's actually doing, kind of cool looking.

So yeah, we're filming at night, and all of a sudden, Two big, uh, frack water trucks pin us in on the little dirt road we're on.

Headlights blaring both directions from the front and the back. We can't really, we can't see who's there, how many people are there, because they're flooding us with light.

And one guy gets out of the truck and comes up and pushes me against the car and is trying to wretch my camera out of my hand.

Which I had, you know, I saw him coming and I just like turned in and hugged the camera to my chest to try to cover it up because I knew he was coming for it.

And eventually, my creative partner, Josh Prabani was there with me, um, at the time, and he had to pull the guy off of me and we all had some words.

And eventually, Luckily, they decided to get in their trucks and leave.

But, you know, we filed a lawsuit and we won. You know, they were found guilty of false detainment and all the things, and I always was always watching my back after that because being in a small area, like everyone knew where I lived.

Everyone knew where all my family members lived.

And yeah, the intimidation tactics are real because this industry literally is one of the industries running the world, and they're not going to have like a little mosquito like Melissa Troutman buzzing, buzzing too loudly.

Well, kudos to you for being brave enough to do that and to share these stories. And now, maybe giving other people some courage and guidance to do these things.

But let's go back to or forward to what you're doing now with Wild Earth Guardians.

Sure.

So, I did the journalism, documentary, filmmaking thing for about 12 years, and then I transitioned into the world of policymaking and legislative lobbying, these kinds of things.

So, you know, it kind of got frustrating after a while. You know, after a decade of reporting the same problems and seeing the same problems over and over and over, I was like, you know, maybe I can contribute something to creating better laws.

And I've been doing that since about 2018 now as the climate and health advocate at Wild Earth Guardians.

Guardians is headquartered in New Mexico. It works all over the American West. Protecting wild places, wild rivers, and public health.

And so, New Mexico is significant, and that's primarily where, like the bulk, the vast majority of my work is focused on New Mexico, because You know, all the problems I saw in Pennsylvania are now happening all over again in New Mexico because New Mexico is part of the Permian Basin, the Permian oil field, which is the highest producing oil field in the world.

And the reason why the The United States is the world's biggest oil and gas producer.

Oil wells are being drilled at a faster rate in New Mexico than anywhere else in the country.

So this is really the Permian Basin is ground zero for continued new oil production when, you know, we're having the hottest years on record, and climate catastrophes left and right.

So.

So what I do now is I do a lot of things. I track oil and gas pollution and report on that.

I coordinate a coalition called the Permian Basin Climate Justice Coalition, which is, you know, a decently sized group of local, state, and national. NGOs and some folks who live in the Permian Basin, we get together once a month and we talk about, you know, what to do and how our work helps or hinders the folks living in the Permian and also how do we slow production and make sure it's cleaned up properly and make sure that, you know, People and wildlife and water are protected in a place that is really the hottest oil field in the world right now.

It's not easy.

I can't imagine. It's not easy.

And actually, you know, I was just talking to some legislators from New Mexico yesterday, and they were like, you know, this is such a difficult place to work and get any protections in place.

And so we're strategizing and I was like, you know, I think it's really important to elevate the role of the Permian globally.

I mean, the Permian is a global carbon and methane bomb in 2026, when we are where we are, um, ecologically and from a climate perspective.

So like, this oil field. Affects everyone across the world and I would like to see that reflected more in policymaking decisions, um, in DC in, you know, national nonprofit media rooms.

It's a wild place in a wild time.

Right, so, take that down to our most basic level.

So, When you're talking about, it's a, it's a global issue, do we just think that, you know, one oil field, one oil rig is kind of contained within itself, but the real case is that it's actually a risk for everyone with whatever it releases during the process or what is, how does that translate to like what people should really know is happening?

Well, as I mentioned, the perm scientists refer to the Permian as a global carbon bomb, and that means like oil and gas is being produced at such a rate and in such a way. That it is releasing massive, massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the air.

So, all of the good measures that we're doing in other places, maybe in other oil fields, in areas where we're switching to renewables off of oil and gas, those good things are hindered by the Permian, which could be You know, 1000 miles away or more. Right?

So, does that answer your question?

Yeah, absolutely. That makes total sense.

So, in the broader scope, if I'm dedicating my life to reducing carbon emissions with my company, in my state, in my city, it's all for naught if New Mexico is just pumping out carbon left and right.

Yeah, it's all for naught on, you know, on a climate scale, right, which of course affects different bioregions differently.

But yes, it affects much more than the Permian Basin, it affects much more than New Mexico and Texas, it affects much more than the United States.

Right.

Yeah, this is important stuff.

So, what type of work you're doing the trying to get legislative changes, is that right?

What other things, is there anything that anyone listening can do, should do?

Hm, that's a great question.

I'm pretty hyper focused on the Permian. I think that there's already so much to do. I hesitate to ask folks to, I don't know, kind of zoom into the Permian, but to the extent that you can, here's the thing, I'm going to make this really magical, OK?

I'm going to wave a magic wand.

Yes, let's do it.

OK. And I'm going to say every American, every, every American, especially if you're a voter. We should experience the Permian oil fields because it's important as we vote, not just for our local and state elections, but especially for our federal elections.

It's really important to vote for people who are going to protect our public lands and also protect from pollution.

And that under our current legal regime is not incredibly easy to do, but the more voices, the louder we are, and the more we can move people making decisions that affect. These things.

Most of the pollution happening from the Permian is happening on public lands, federal and state public lands.

Federal lands are the most polluted in the Permian Basin.

So every American's public land is being currently polluted in the Permian Basin.

And like I said, if I can make it possible. For every person to go to the oil field and experience that firsthand.

I lead tours in the Permian, by the way. If anybody wants to visit, just reach out. I'd be happy to take a group of people on a tour of the Permian.

But when you experience it firsthand, it will change you. It will absolutely change you.

And You know, to just experience that what being number one in oil production in the world looks like, smells like, feels like, it's really compelling.

Yeah, I think that for a lot of people, we're told or meant to believe that it's in the Middle East, it's not here.

Yeah, fracking brought oil production back home. And it also brought with it all of the problems that inherently come along with oil and gas extraction.

So yeah, we're number one in oil producing production right now. We're also, you know, we're also a major contributor to the pollution.

Of course, all of those impacts that were happening other places, you know. have come home.

And I guess if there is, this is weird to say, but if there is a silver lining to the oil and gas in the United States, we now can feel and smell the pollution firsthand, and we can bear witness to the stories of people that are sacrificed for this resource extraction right in our own small towns.

You know, and if we're going to be using it, we should probably understand what the full impact of it is.

Right, that makes sense.

We get to choose now whether our food is organic, vegan, vegetarian, where is it sourced from. Probably should be thinking about that when we're filling our tanks too, right?

We have more choice, but you know, the more privilege you have, the more choice you have, obviously.

You know, I don't, I do not have the luxury of switching to an electric vehicle, you know.

And the awareness, you know, isn't to say that it, it befalls on us to do something about those impacts directly because sometimes we can't.

But what we can do is be aware, and that is Nothing happens if you're not aware. So, get aware and then do what you feel you can with what you have.

Right, exactly.

Nic and I talked about that a few weeks ago about green guilt. There's just, there's nothing you can touch or do that in today's world doesn't have an impact on something somewhere.

So before we move off of this topic, just one last thing.

So, because I think a lot of people in this field, after a while, or even when they start initially getting into it. You open your eyes to a lot of things, a lot of realities about that, you know.

Is there stuff that you do to kind of keep your, your mental, you know, you'd be happy even while you're working on these projects?

Yes, I garden, I grow food, I grow plants, and I grow medicine. That is essential for me. If I'm not doing that, we're going to go downhill break. OK?

So that is a huge plus for me. Literally, watch planting seeds and watching them grow. It's Magic.

Love that.

It's very simple.

And then I have to kind of really be careful and make sure I'm, sometimes I feel like I have to force myself to do the second thing enough, but just spending time with my friends, like, I think a lot of us in this work can get really wrapped up in the work and relationships can be maybe back burnered a little bit.

And to feed this sense of urgency over the reality of the, the problem, the scale of the problem, you know, it feels really urgent.

But those relationships are also key, you know, spending time with friends, doing fun things.

Even though at the time you might think that you don't have time for that, you have to make time, make time.

Yeah. OK, I love that.

You produce leak of the week videos. What are those? And where do people find them?

Yeah, Lee of the Week is a video series. It's kind of a bit of a pause right now, but we'll be doing weekly videos once again very soon.

And you can follow those at Wild Earth Guardians on Instagram, at Wild Earth Guardians on YouTube and on TikTok and all of the other things that I don't play with.

But, you know, I wanted to break through this. narrative that the oil and gas industry has that it's clean and responsible.

Because once you get to the Permian oil field, you quickly realize that is not the case.

And then of course, years of bearing witness to the cover-up of water contamination will show you that too.

Anyway, so, but this rhetoric really works with lawmakers, you know, it really works with decision makers who have never been to the oil fields.

They don't know what it's like. So, companies can say they're clean and responsible all day. And that's believable.

So, the idea behind leak of the week is to showcase an oil and gas spill every single week, because just in New Mexico alone, there is a toxic liquid oil and gas leak every 6 to 7 hours.

There is a gaseous leak or spill of mostly methane every 15 minutes.

And these are spills reported to the state by oil and gas companies themselves.

So, Yeah, leak of the week.

Once a week, we show you an oil and gas spill and link it to, you know, a, a rulemaking or a policy or some kind of action that you might be able to take to, yeah, try to get some of this pollution reined in.

All right. Well, if someone listening is like, I want to be a part of this. They're feeling like, I would like the risk of this. I would like to do this exciting work and I want to make a difference.

What would you say to someone who wants to get into this type of storytelling or journalism?

Talk to people who are already doing it.

You know, the oil fields can be a really dangerous place. For example, when I lead tours in the Permian, I have hydrogen sulfide monitors, alarms. I have escape masks for everyone because you can run into, I mean, you'll see signs everywhere, you know, danger at H2S.

Hydrogen sulfide is a gas. That comes up with oil and gas production. And if, if you get caught in a cloud of it, you have about 2 minutes before you're done.

So, there's a lot of considerations like that.

You know, myself and others have been leading tours in the oil fields for years.

Not all oil fields are as dangerous like that as the Permian, you know, older oil fields like, you know, maybe the ones in New York or the ones in Like Oklahoma, there might be different hazards, but talk to people who have been.

The oil and gas industry is also very radioactive. So you have to know what you're walking into.

Just start there. Talk to people who are living, breathing, and working in these areas on the regular.

All right, yeah, I think it sounds like a field you would want to have some connections in for sure.

And then let's get to, uh, we're kind of getting to the end here, but you mentioned earlier that there were some other things that you were interested in getting into, and one of them is race car driving.

I feel like you like to live on the edge.

Yeah, well, you know, it was, yeah, it's dwindling a bit.

Yeah, I did not grow up wanting to do this work, Laura. It fell on you.

As surprising as that may seem, but what I did want to do when I was growing up is be a race car driver, because I grew up in a racing family.

I sold high octane racing fuel in the pits. Of racetracks. Uh, that was my first job growing up, you know, so I grew up.

Feeling the rumble of a 750 horsepower engine. And that is an experience.

Yeah, it is in my bones.

So yeah, I still love going to races. Um, my family's, parts of my family still are involved in racing. And um yeah, I just love it.

And I got to tell you, one of the things that I would like to do, probably not so much driving the cars these days, but I would love to share the story of how racetrack driving actually got started in the world, which is a really fascinating story.

In fact, and the one piece I'll share with you here is that the first track race ever in the world. It was won, not by a gas-powered car, even though they were in the field, it was won by an electric car.

What?

Yes. The first race, it's going to be so mad he's not here.

Yeah, yeah, the electric car beat the gas powered cars.

So obviously the technology has changed on both sides since then, but I have to wonder, you know, I feel like electric cars. If introduced to NASCAR would really just take the flag.

They'd take that checkered, right?

We may find out one of these days.

But do you have a dream car or a sport, F1, NASCAR rally racing, dirt track racing, dirt track.

It's dirty. It's a little mean, like maybe.

Well, that's OK. I'm also sweet and I'm a helper, remember?

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. That's great.

Well, is there anything else you'd like to mention or talk about before we, we, I say we, I let you go.

Yeah, one more thing.

You know, throughout my life, I've come to realize that the root of all of these environmental problems, and the struggle to change them, to fix them, lies in The fact in two things.

One is our disconnection from the natural world, of course, we all know this.

But the other one that maybe not everybody kind of feels and knows is that, you know, nature is defined and characterized in our law, in our legal system as either property or a resource, not as a web of living entities.

And that Legal system, that legal reality makes this work so hard.

And so one of the things that I've been doing outside of my full-time job is I'm still making a documentary films, but it's about our relationship to nature and trying to weave together and trying to just invite people to think more about their personal relationship with the natural world.

Because I think until we kind of do that level of healing and get that level of understanding about ecosystems and how they work, we're not going to gain much ground.

And so, there's a, one of my most recent films is called Lake Erie, Our Kin, K I N.

And it's viewable for free on demand on PBS PBS.org.

So if you go to PBS.org and just search for Lake Erie Arkin, you can watch my latest there and get a sense of, yeah, the other stuff I'm working on.

Very cool. That is awesome.

And if someone does want to chat with you more about any of these things, where can they get in touch with you?

Well, I think the best place right now is my email at guardians, which is just MTroutman@wildearthguardians.org.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Melissa. This has been really great.

Um, yeah, it's been awesome for me too. Nice to meet you.

You as well.

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