Episode 23 - Rewilding Science and Stories

From the wonder of watching tiny, wild critters to the grand, complex world of international environmental research, this conversation spans worlds. It navigates the often-separate disciplines of science and stories, threading them together. Guest Kai Chan and host Alice Irene Whittaker discuss our responsibilities on Earth, heroic action, the value of nature, the connection between culture and conservation, what it is really like to work on those massive international climate reports, and rewilding a beautiful planet. 

Kai Chan is a scientist, professor, and cofounder of CoSphere, a Community of Small-Planet Heroes. He is the Canada Research Chair in Rewilding and Social-Ecological Transformation at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. He is an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented sustainability scientist, trained in ecology, policy, and ethics from Princeton and Stanford Universities. Kai led the pathways and solutions chapter of the recent ‘UN biodiversity report’ and has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals. As an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, Kai leads CHANS lab (Connecting Human and Natural Systems) and is a Lead Editor of the new British Ecological Society journal People and Nature. Kai strives to understand how social-ecological systems can be transformed to be both better and wilder.

Weaving threads between worlds, this episode of Reseed examines how the stories we tell can turn science into action, and takes a peek at the great lengths to which we will go for our one wild and wondrous home.