"The Wilderness Society was formed because the founders felt that other conservation groups were compromising too much and giving up too much good wilderness. Bob Marshall said we want no stragglers, fence sitters and those whos first instinct is to compromise. The irony is that the Wilderness Society has become one of those organizations today. I just feel that Aldo Leopold and Olaus Murie would be rolling in their graves.” - George Wuerthner on Wilderness Podcast
In this episode I have a sit-down conversation with long-time wilderness and public lands advocate George Wuerthner. His articles appear in publications across the country. He has published thirty eight books on wild lands and relate issues. George is the owner of Public Lands Media, a non-profit that disseminates science in digestible form and advocates for best environmental practices on public lands such as fire, timber and predator management. George has been instrumental in wilderness campaigns across the country since the 1980s. George is one of our foremost, most passionate wilderness advocates alive today.
We discuss his early years, career trajectory, working with Doug Thompkins (founder of the North Face), best practices for logging and fire management, what forest resiliency actually looks like, insights into the working of Forest Service timber sales, criticisms of modern conservation collaboratives, The Gallatin Range near Bozeman, MT, Wilderness history, political examples of successful long-shot wilderness campaigns and criticism of the how the Wilderness Society and other conservation groups are operating in Montana and across the country.