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[instrumental music] Hey, y'all. Welcome to a special conversation that is part of our ongoing dialogue around our wild and changing world, what we call the Wild Idea podcast. I am one of your hosts for this shindig. My name is Bill Hodge, and as always, I will be joined by my dear friend, Anders Reynolds. Today, we are bringing you a conversation with Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer for the National Audubon Society. We first caught up with Marshall at the Old Salt Festival back in June, where he joined us on the main stage for a dive into that intersection of ranching and bird habitat. Marshall is one of the architects of Audubon's Conservation Ranching Program, helped build the program over the last, oh, almost two decades. The setting for our original conversation, the Manning- Mannix Ranch in Helmville, was just an amazing place to have the conversation. Unfortunately, with the last-minute move to the main stage, we had some technical challenges, and we wanted to make sure we brought you a high-quality conversation. And we're both happy to say Marshall was more than happy to sit down with us again, being the great guy that he is, and we got to have another great conversation with Marshall that we're gonna bring with you today. But before bringing Marshall into the conversation, let me bring in Anders.
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Oh, hi, Bill. Uh, like you, I'm so glad we get a second crack at this because Marshall is great, and the conversation at Old Salt was great. And it's a real shame it wasn't recorded because, you know, I think it's the only recording we've done where at the end, the audience broke out into, like, spontaneous applause and even-
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[laughs]
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... like, carried us off the stage. And the fact that that's just lost to time is-- makes me sort of sad 'cause that was like a, a seminal moment for me.
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Maybe somebody will find a video of the event. Like, it was, it was pretty special to carry us away, but-
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Mm. Yeah. Don't look too hard. There were a lot of technical difficulties.
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[laughs]
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But Bill, b- before we dive in, I want to tell you about, um, an event I attended last week, um, where a bunch of us got together on the Missoula County Courthouse lawn and shared stories about Montana's roadless areas.
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Yeah.
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The event was hosted by Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, American Rivers, Montana Backcountry Alliance, and Wild Montana, along with some other local partners. And I was really honored that they asked me to emcee. And we had six storytellers with us. These were outdoor writers, backcountry skiers, hunters, backpackers, photographers. We heard about tracking mountain goats in the Hoodoo, spending a snowy night on the Continental Divide guarding, uh, a harvested elk from grizzlies. Um, our friend Lisa Ronald, who's appeared on the show, told us a story about pack rafting the North Fork of the Blackfoot out of the Bob Marshall, which I know you love. And a really touching story from John Doty on a multi-generational backpacking trip far from any road. And the organizers even rolled out this 100-foot fake road across the courthouse lawn, which was about, [chuckling] you know, the most striking and, and honest way I could think of to show what's at stake. It was great. The stories were great, and the thing they had in common is that none of them would have been improved by a road.
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Um, and, you know, if listeners haven't figured out [laughs] why I'm bringing this up right now, today is October 6th. Today is the deadline to submit your comment to the Forest Service in opposition of their idea to rescind the roadless rule entirely. And if you're listening to this podcast today, on October 6th, you still have time to comment. It takes five minutes. Just simply go in and, and like the people did on the, uh, Missoula County Courthouse lawn, tell them a story about a time you've spent in a roadless area, or tell them a story you've heard about other people spending time in roadless areas. These places need your help to be protected. We'll leave a link in the show notes so you can do it. And if you already have done it, um, I thank you. Bill thanks you. Now, text a friend and tell them to do it, too. We really, really need your help, so please take action today. Today's the last day, October 6th.
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Ugh.
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[sighs] Okay, Bill, how about, uh, a much lighter note?
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[laughs]
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Um, we've got, uh, some news for listeners. The Wild Idea podcast has been nominated for a Signal Award. Tell us what's going on.
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Yeah, it's pretty exciting. We are a finalist for a Signal Award, uh, in the category of sustainability and environment. Um, and so there'll be a final judging, and we have a chance to take away a bronze, silver, or gold in that. But just by making that list, we also are in a position to also potentially pick up a Signal Award Listener's Choice Award. Uh, and so
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we would love for you all that enjoy our show to go vote for us in that. You can find a link for how to vote for, uh, the Wild Idea podcast on our website at thewildidea.com. You also can check out our socials. We'll probably be talking about this a little bit. We're, we're kind of excited, ki- ki- kind of a big deal, so... But yeah, it's, it's-- was pretty nice to wake up the other day to an email from the Signal Awards that we had made it, uh, to this list of finalists, and, uh, excited to see how this plays out. But mostly, I think it's just a testament to what an incredible
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array of guests we've been able to get to say yes to us, right? I mean, like, it's, um, it's just so many rich conversations made possible because people were willing to tolerate our stuff, right?
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Bill and I are really grateful for any support you can give us in, um, supporting the podcast. We don't record this podcast to win awards. We record this podcast to have interesting conversations with people- ... and tell interesting stories about our big backyards. And so if you've ever enjoyed one of those guests, if you've ever enjoyed one of those stories, we hope you will take just five minutes, go to the show notes, help us win this People's Choice Award. And I guess I should also note that, you know, today's intro, uh, includes two calls to action. I, I, you know, I said I'll take five minutes to, um, fight the Roadless Rule rescission, and I said it'll take five minutes, uh, to help the podcast. And I realize that's ten minutes of your time, and asking ten minutes of anyone's time is a lot to ask. But if it makes you feel any better,
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we spend way more time on this podcast. And you, you may be thinking in your head, "Yeah, I'm sure it takes an hour or two." No, no. The, the honest answer is that we record every episode two or three times. You know, once for all of Bill's mistakes, once for all of my mistakes, um, once for even more of Bill's mistakes, and then finally we get it right. So for every ten hours we spend on this show, we're hoping that you can just spend ten minutes. That's a, that's a pretty good return on investment. And, you know, I, I, I wish, I wish it didn't take so long, but, you know, for every hour of podcast you hear, there's about three hours of Bill saying, "Wait, let me start that again."
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[laughs] Well, I, I'll join you in thanking folks for taking any time out of their day to both comment on the Roadless Rule and to, uh, potentially vote for us, uh, on the Signal Award thing. I
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take a little exception to my disparagement there, but that's okay. We'll, we'll let, we'll, we'll let it slide. Uh, again, and thanks to everybody for, for commenting, uh, on the Roadless Rule and, and, uh, for just following along with what we do here with the Wild Idea podcast. Before we move into our conversation with Marshall Johnson, it is time for our new segment, maybe, possibly, tentatively, sort of, probably to be changed new segment called Anders' Nerd Word of the Week, giving Anders a challenge to slip some giant word that he would probably use in everyday conversation into our conversation today with Marshall Johnson. And Anders, that word this week is perspicacious. Perspicacious.
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Perspicacious. What a good pull. This one means like, um, shrewd or able to deeply perceive. It's a word I actually avoid because it's so easy to mess up. I feel like I'm always saying per-perspi-perspicacious or something. Um, but perspicacious. I'll have to work that one in. Marshall's pretty sharp. He may notice, but I'm excited. Let's dig in.
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Marshall, welcome back, I suppose, to the Wild Idea podcast. [laughs] Let's start with hearkening back to where we first met on the Mannix Ranch in Helmville, Montana during the Old Salt Festival. I assume you enjoyed that weekend all about the land as much as Anders and I did?
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Oh, it was just so amazing to be out on the land. There's, there's really nothing quite like the Old Salt Festival, where the land, the food, the conservation, the economics, the love of land all comes together. Art, science, storytelling. In regenerative agriculture and conservation, there's nothing quite like getting away a little bit out at Old Salt.
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Yeah. Like you said, it's all about the land. We tend to talk a lot about wildlands here, but I think the beauty of that conversation was about the health of the land, how healthy working lands are just as vital as our wildlands, just one more part of that web that makes up healthy ecosystems. How has your time spent, not just on the Mannix Ranch, but other working ranch lands, influenced your conservation ethic?
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I didn't come up through sort of the classic biologist or ecologist, you know, doing the work out on, on the land. I studied business, not biology, which in hindsight I thought was a real disadvantage for me when I first knew that I had a passion for conservation of habitats and birds. And it took me a couple of years to figure out that, you know what, that was the best thing that happened to me because I learned the business and conservation through the lens of working ranches and the practical application and demonstration of y- what I sort of call useful conservation, conservation that can scale because it can be applied practically. And I learned that through my early work, uh, managing ranches, ranch lands that, uh, Audubon owns, and learning about it from actual ranchers. And it was a very practical, useful, on-the-job training for me.
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Marshall, in his introduction, Bill mentioned that you're one of the architects of Audubon's Conservation Ranching Program. And that initiative started with a really simple and elegant theory, a perspicacious idea, I guess, that healthy working lands can support people and wildlife at the same time, not one at the expense of the other. And a decade in, I w- I wrote down some numbers, a decade in, it's grown into Audubon's largest terrestrial habitat program. One hundred and fifty participating farms and ranches, four point five million acres, certified land showing an eight point four percent annual increase in bird friendliness over the surrounding acre- acreage, and a seventy-six percent gain since two thousand and sixteen. Those are really, really strong numbers. But I guess my question is, what did it take to get a rancher to say yes the very first time before there was any track record to any of this? You know, what part of the original pitch turned out to be harder to prove on the ground than you expected, and what turned out to be easier than you thought?
00:11:44,628 --> 00:12:51,559 [Speaker 2]
You know, I'm gonna surprise you with something here. And, and I, I was one of the, the, the, uh, group that was really starting, uh, this work. We actually didn't have really a working lands program. So conservation ranching, a market-based program, a certification seal was a hell of a gateway drug, uh, for Audubon's, uh, working lands work. And it really began with a pretty simple premise, right? If we want more birds, we need more healthy grasslands. If we want more healthy grasslands... We need ranchers who can stay on the land and have a productive, viable livelihood. And I didn't know that was sort of an issue or problem. But once you start to peel the onion back, you see the, the challenges. And so I'll surprise you by saying this, but it's the God's honest truth. When I think about the stakeholders that we needed to sell on a program such as this that really just didn't exist in the conservation space for, for grasslands, the
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easiest constituent, the easiest audience to convince were the ranchers. I kid you not. The premise, I remember, uh, Jerry Doan, a rancher out in central, uh, western North Dakota, um, I remember, you know, he had his sense of what environmental groups like Audubon were all about and didn't know why, why I was cold calling him. But hey, he figured, "Why not? I'll take five minutes and, and meet with this guy from the Audubon Society." And he wouldn't actually let me fully out of the car. Uh, so we met there in his driveway. He, he's giving me the impression that I've got a very little, uh, amount of time. And I unpack what our why. We believe in healthy grasslands. We believe that the primary stewards of the land are ranchers, and that there are economic, social, and other structural challenges for ranchers, and we can't solve them all, but we have two million-plus followers, members, and supporters, and we can help tell a story. And he stopped me, and he says, "I can't believe what I'm hearing. You want to come out here and build a program from the ground up that Audubon's going to put their name on?" This is fifteen, sixteen years ago now, and so ranching and conservation have come a long way as a partnership. It used to be, I don't like to say non-traditional partnership anymore. This is an essential partnership for the future of grasslands, and I used to always call it a non-traditional partnership because it was, but it, it oughtn't be. And I can tell you that was repeated time and time again, where ranchers just instinctively got what we were trying to do together. Other audiences, sometimes our members, like, "What is this? What are you talking about?" Our board, uh, initially, uh, senior executives, for all good reasons, "Wow, the National Audubon Society is going to create a certification program for ranch lands." Yeah, so yeah, the ranchers were the easiest sell.
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:29,800 [Speaker 1]
And over that fifteen or sixteen years, as the program has scaled up from a handful of ranches to the one hundred and fifty ranches we mentioned, what had to change structurally? You know, is the version of the Conservation Ranching Program running today still recognizable as the thing you started, or, or has it had to become something different to operate at this size?
00:15:30,340 --> 00:17:04,260 [Speaker 2]
Strangely, it is almost identical to our initial feasibility study. Uh, we worked with Dr. Allen Williams and a group of, now we, we know them as re-regenerative ag le- uh, agriculture leaders, um, but we, we worked with them early on to design a program that balanced this tension with... You know, if you have, you have some Cadillac sort of certifications that don't practically sort of work within ranching, then you get maybe ten or fifteen ranches in the program, and it can't scale. So we always wanted something that was practical enough to scale, but impactful enough that met a standard that our members and supporters come to expect when they see the Audubon name. And so we, we thought, we hoped that we were finding that balance. And I tell you, the program has not necessarily structurally... There are protocols or elements that have evolved with technology, evolved with the availability of alternative products that can be incorporated at scale across the ranches. But it's structurally what we thought it would be and hoped it would be, you know, now, uh, sixteen years ago, including our primary certifier, uh, which is Food Alliance. It, it, surprisingly enough, it is either a, a, a terrible thing or a great thing, it hasn't changed that much structurally.
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I mean, it's led to some recent collaborations with brands like Thousand Hills, Lifetime Grazed, which all eighteen of its ranches, uh, are certified and carries that Audubon Certified Bird-Friendly Land seal on their beef sold in more than two thousand, I think, retail locations nationwide. It demonstrates the growing demand for conservation outcomes that benefit both the producers and the wildlife, right? How hard is it to meet that standard of the program, and how have you secured so many participants in this relatively short period of time?
00:17:36,960 --> 00:20:12,296 [Speaker 2]
We, we constantly think about, and we do pulse, uh, surveys with our ranchers, um, where we, uh, ask them all the questions, "Give us your honest feedback on the program and what can be improved." And if there's something that has structurally not changed but evolved, it's the way we think about value back to the ranch. You know, ranches do not pay to be in the program. This is something that is a, a article of faith for me. Um, I, I think our credibility as an organization is one of the biggest things that we have going for us. And so making this transactional was always problematic for the group of us who started, started the program. And that... That bears a certain financial cost, right? We have to shoulder the, the nearly four, five million dollar annual cost for the program. But we really expanded... This really drove the creation of the Working Lands Initiative at Audubon. We were doing a smattering of, of different things with landowners and forests, uh, forest managers and, uh, rice growers and some ranchers, more education, uh, partnerships and more transactional partnerships. Well, this really spurred the creation of our Working Lands team. And what that really did for us was give us more tools that we could offer as a value to the ranchers. So, um, started really as a market-based program and our, our number one, and it still re- remains our driving goal, is to return financial value back to the landowner in exchange for bird-friendly management, right? So that's the big idea, and it's still the big idea. And it'll never quite be as successful as I want it to be. So we, we still have a lot of work to do there. But we now have an assortment of different technical assistance and other incentives that we distribute back to the ranchers enrolled in the program. Some ranchers want to apply prescribed fire, and we're, we're, we're in a position of cost share that in many of our, our landscapes, fencing and other infrastructure improvements, we're able to assist our ranchers with either finding resources for those projects or being able to cost share that ourselves. And so
00:20:13,516 --> 00:21:22,296 [Speaker 2]
I think it's the, the sort of soup to nuts support through our Range Ecologist program and our partners that help deliver the program, like Montana Audubon, that has really expanded the value of the program. That's what we hear from our ranchers. Some of our ranchers would like to do soil carbon monitoring and, and explore, uh, carbon markets that are growing. And so in many cases, we cost share or outright pay for that monitoring, which on average is between four and seven thousand dollars per ranch per year. And so there are other sort of myriad of stacked benefits that we wanna bring to the table while never losing sight of this was a... The big idea is leveraging our brand and the bird-friendly standards to help ranchers capture a premium for their bird-friendly management. That is still... I can't say that we are all the way there yet, but that is still, um, sort of the big idea about conservation ranching.
00:21:22,636 --> 00:21:26,316 [Speaker 0]
More of the conversation after a word from those who support Wild Ideas.
00:21:27,516 --> 00:21:32,796 [Speaker 3]
I'm Frank Vitale, Columbia Falls, Montana, and you're listening to The Wild Idea.
00:21:33,336 --> 00:22:08,856 [Speaker 1]
Marshall, I wanna talk policy. If I remember correctly, as soon as the Old Salt Festival wrapped, you were heading to DC to engage, uh, on the current Farm Bill. I played a very small role drafting the 2008 Farm Bill, um, when I was on the Hill working for a member of the House Ag Committee. And in 2019, Bill and I were both wrapped up in the Farm Bill, um, when we were working to include wilderness language in a Farm Bill for the very first time. And as I'm sure most folks in the audience know, the, the Farm Bill is the legislation
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most responsible for actually funding and shaping working lands conservation nationally, and it represents the largest investment in voluntary conservation on private land in the country. But Marshall, you've emphasized that many of its incentive programs just aren't strong enough to meet the demand from farmers and ranchers who want in. And so my question is,
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where's the problem? Or, or what's the problem? Is it that the programs are underfunded relative to their demand, or that the design of the programs themselves don't match how producers actually wanna operate?
00:22:47,936 --> 00:24:15,836 [Speaker 2]
I think it's a little of both. Um, there are programs that are over-prescribed, so underfunded. There's more that we can do. We can be more innovative with Farm Bill. Farm Bill, it has so much inertia that it doesn't change [laughs] because it's sort of this built-in political tension that gets it across the finish line with bipartisan support. But I think we're leaving a lot of innovation on the table. Um, I think that we've learned a lot, um, about regenerative agriculture and soil health that isn't necessarily reflected in the Farm Bill. But the Farm Bill is just now living on a stopgap, uh, measure. You know, the Farm Bill is outdated, technically expired in 2023, right? And so here we are in 2026, and we're just sort of rolling it over. So we're really hopeful that this Farm Bill can be a regenerative Farm Bill, can be a Farm Bill that we're incorporating, um, virtual fencing, we're incorporating these things that could not scale in 2023 or 2018, but are available to us and, and available to our landowners now. And so I think Farm Bill can go further. Um, we can do more. We can be more innovative. But again, it gets across the finish line because it doesn't change all that much. And I think that we can do better. We should do better.
00:24:16,376 --> 00:24:33,808 [Speaker 1]
Okay, so you, you mentioned inertia, and, and you sort of hint at this balance, this partisan balance that it takes to pass the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill's conservation programs are voluntary by design, and voluntary programs are something with which you have a history of success.
00:24:33,808 --> 00:25:08,388 [Speaker 1]
So using the phrase you used earlier with Bill, let's talk about the big idea. The whole conservation title of the Farm Bill rests on this incentive-based model rather than a regulatory one. And given how fast things are moving, given, given the inertia you mentioned, do you think that voluntary frameworks can, can actually move fast enough on their own terms, or is voluntary, in quotes, really just like a political ceiling? Are we focusing on language that, that can just pass Congress rather than focusing on policies that would actually reverse the declines we're seeing?
00:25:08,788 --> 00:25:58,828 [Speaker 2]
The word that comes to mind, right, is realpolitik, right? That, that-- And again, I think that's a different way to, uh, talk about or illuminate the tension that exists in public policy, uh, making. And I think that's a reality, that there are regulatory measures that could probably be more effective. Could they be law for, uh, any la- uh, period of time without the political support from farm and ranch, uh, communities? No, right? And so the incentive model, I think, is the model that works in the real world. You know, we're not living in a [chuckling] Soviet, uh, republic from the si-sixties. It's not a command and control. Uh, we're a democracy, and so there is a realpolitik reality at play. You have to win that political support.
00:25:59,268 --> 00:26:47,008 [Speaker 0]
You know, Anders mentioned that things are moving fast, uh, but sometimes they're not moving fast enough to keep up with the decline, um, particularly in grassland bird populations. Marshall, one of the things that makes your work especially interesting to us is the way you see birds as connectors, birds that connect cities and rural communities, they connect producers, like we've been talking about here. You know, they connect producers and conservationists. They connect local stewardship to continental migration routes. They connect the health of a ranch in Montana, like the Mannett's Ranch, for example, to the experience of a birder in Minneapolis or Chicago or New York. Um, they're also incredible storytellers in their own right, revealing what's happening on the landscape in ways that people can see, hear,
00:26:48,028 --> 00:26:54,448 [Speaker 0]
understand. Could you talk a little bit about how you view that, that role of birds as connectors?
00:26:55,268 --> 00:28:46,848 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. You know, I think, uh, one of the powerful things, as you alluded to, uh, there, Bill, is, you know, birds are really powerful, right? And they are powerful connectors of far-flung, uh, communities. Um, you know, they have this ability to connect people who might otherwise never see themselves on the same team. Ranchers and conservationists connected through birds and habitat. Rural, urban connected through birds, habitat, uh, food, obviously. Hunters and birders, producers, consumers, public lands and private lands, science and culture. Um, I think birds are-- Uh, I think of birds as, as, as great diplomats that bring people together, uh, because people have very similar experiences with birds. Um, and we mark the time and the seasons by the coming and going, the song and the color that birds bring to our backyards, whether we're in central North Dakota or Chicago. Uh, and so I think birds are incredible diplomats for bringing people together, and they have an extraordinary, demonstrated, proven, uh, uh, uh, power in that way. And they don't-- Birds don't recognize political boundaries, property lines or state borders. And so there's this shared stewardship of birds, and I think responsibility to birds, uh, that is truly powerful. That same meadowlark that nests on a Montana ranch may spend part of the year in Mexico. Uh, that same, you know, grassland that supports li-livestock production and, and also can support wildlife, and birds remind us of that in, I think, a really, uh, powerful way. Birds remind us that, you know, everything is connected.
00:28:47,568 --> 00:28:49,888 [Speaker 1]
Oh, I love it so much, Marshall. That's great.
00:28:51,048 --> 00:29:10,508 [Speaker 1]
Um, for m-my last question, I wanna go back to the Old Salt Festival. Um, Audubon's Conservation Ranching program and Old Salt are both, in their own way, betting that working lands can be good for the people on them and the wildlife above them, let's say. But
00:29:11,588 --> 00:29:40,288 [Speaker 1]
they're doing it at completely different scales, right? Y-yours is, is an, a national program built on certification and data and policy, and theirs is four ranches and a festival. So when you look at what Old Salt is doing, does it feel like a small-scale version of the same theory of change you've spent your career on, or is it actually just solving a completely different problem than the one conservation ranching is built to solve?
00:29:40,668 --> 00:29:48,708 [Speaker 2]
That's a great question, Anders. You know, I, I would say, I sort of think about... You know, you ha- Everything starts with a spark, right? And,
00:29:49,828 --> 00:30:56,344 [Speaker 2]
um, I think in concepts, uh, Audubon, over the last five years, um, under Dr. Elizabeth Gray's leadership, our CEO, um, has ex- followed birds, right, to a hemispheric versus national or, or just local, um, vision and strategy. And it's very natural to us because we're just following birds where they go and connecting landscapes and conservation and resilient lands across the hemisphere. But sometimes that kind of talk can scare people because it feels like you're pivoting away from something. Um, how I like to think about it is, and it's, um, uh, this is how I would, uh, would, would speak to that question. Um... The hemisphere, or in this case, the ranching or grasslands, uh, is a mosaic of those stories. Um, Old Salt, the co-op, ranchers on the ground, they are the thousands of blocks on the map that
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undergird the grassland story. They are the story. If you double-click on a picture of grasslands, you find a ranch, right? If you double-click on a picture of this ecosystem, it's made up of these very real working stories and, and people out on the landscape. And so, I don't think it's a this or that. It's the same story. It's just a more, um, in-focus view of the, of a part of the story. And I think the, the message that Old Salt is, is, is sharing and, and setting the table with, so to speak, for people is, you know, they're helping tell a story that Americans need to hear, that working lands can be conservation lands, and how to think about land differently. Land is kin. How would you think about land if it were your kin? How would you think about land if it was a family member? Um, would you poison the land? Would you deg- degrade the land? Would you neglect the land? Well, a lot of those things are happening right now in, in terms of, of, uh, you know, uh, the insecurity that ranchers are feeling, so much so that there's a deep reticence to grow the herd back to a level that can sustain grasslands. And so we have to really... This is a, this is a real crisis point, and everybody's at the table, right? Um, food, ranchers, conservation. Because once, you know, n- no cows, no grass, no birds. And so we, we, we do have a real crisis on our hands, and it's the power, the intentionality of the stories and the table setting that a group like Old Salt, um, are providing that, that, that to me can be the most powerful thing. It's the catalyst for something, um, uh, that can be transformational in grasslands and ranching and food.
00:33:05,704 --> 00:33:13,824 [Speaker 0]
We have been talking with Marshall Johnson, the Chief Conservation Officer with the National Audubon Society. Marshall, when somebody wants to lean into,
00:33:14,984 --> 00:33:24,384 [Speaker 0]
uh, what Audubon is doing, whether it's specifically the, the Conservation Ranching Program or other things, how, how do they stay in touch with what, what, what Audubon has going on?
00:33:24,964 --> 00:34:48,764 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, I would definitely go on our website and look at Flight Plan, our, our five-year strategic plan. And it tells you everything about our why, our how, and our where, um, and to what end. And it's to bend the bird curve, right? Because we feel that, uh, birds are the sentinels and symbols of environmental health and resiliency. And since 1970, we've lost three billion birds, right? One-third or one-fourth of all birds in North America. Si- similar story in South, Central and South America. And so birds are not just some side story. I think it's a fundamental story. Birds need water. We have a water crisis in the West. Birds need habitat. Uh, we have whole landscapes that are, um, uh, ecosystems that are failing to work anymore, right? Failing to function anymore. Um, we are... I think at last count, we have pulled the, uh, uh, Ogallala, uh, Aquifer down 50, more than 50%. These things are having impacts to us, but we're sort of a lagging indicator. Birds are really sensitive. They tell us something years, even decades in advance. And if we listen, birds will tell us.
00:34:48,764 --> 00:34:54,084 [Speaker 0]
Marshall, we can't thank you enough. This has been such a great conversation. We got to have it twice.
00:34:54,084 --> 00:34:54,184 [Speaker 2]
[laughs]
00:34:54,184 --> 00:34:55,484 [Speaker 0]
We got to have it on the stage
00:34:56,524 --> 00:35:28,744 [Speaker 0]
at the Old Salt Festival, and we got to have it here with you, uh, to make sure we could bring it to our audience, uh, writ large. I just wanna thank you for, for working with us twice on making this conversation happen. Those who are listening, if you're relatively new here, you maybe heard us reference many, many times there's something called Old Salt. I would point you back to a Wild Idea episode back in March we had with Cole Mannix, and another episode that we did while we were at Old Salt with Brooks Lamb, uh, that came out in July. But Marshall, thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us. It's been such a great conversation.
00:35:28,744 --> 00:35:30,144 [Speaker 2]
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
00:35:30,144 --> 00:36:06,144 [Speaker 0]
[music] Coming up on the Wild Idea podcast, we chat with Cam Brezzinger from NEMO, and a couple of election-focused conversations coming your way as well. We love bringing you these explorations of the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. If you enjoy the show and you wanna support our continued efforts, you can buy us a coffee, which is a link on our website at thewildidea.com. Any gift of support helps. While you're there, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and take a minute to recommend us to a friend. Let's all get out our binoculars, head out in the field, and find us some birds. And when we do, we will see all of you on down the trail.
00:36:06,144 --> 00:36:44,744 [Speaker 3]
[music] The Wild Idea is a production of Wild Idea Media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bryn Russell at Podlad. Digital support by Holly Wilkoszewski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack, is from Railroad Earth and was composed by John Skehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find The Wild Idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating. And if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at thewildidea.com. [music]
[instrumental music] Hey, y'all. Welcome to a special conversation that is part of our ongoing dialogue around our wild and changing world, what we call the Wild Idea podcast. I am one of your hosts for this shindig. My name is Bill Hodge, and as always, I will be joined by my dear friend, Anders Reynolds. Today, we are bringing you a conversation with Marshall Johnson, Chief Conservation Officer for the National Audubon Society. We first caught up with Marshall at the Old Salt Festival back in June, where he joined us on the main stage for a dive into that intersection of ranching and bird habitat. Marshall is one of the architects of Audubon's Conservation Ranching Program, helped build the program over the last, oh, almost two decades. The setting for our original conversation, the Manning- Mannix Ranch in Helmville, was just an amazing place to have the conversation. Unfortunately, with the last-minute move to the main stage, we had some technical challenges, and we wanted to make sure we brought you a high-quality conversation. And we're both happy to say Marshall was more than happy to sit down with us again, being the great guy that he is, and we got to have another great conversation with Marshall that we're gonna bring with you today. But before bringing Marshall into the conversation, let me bring in Anders.
00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:34,740 [Speaker 1]
Oh, hi, Bill. Uh, like you, I'm so glad we get a second crack at this because Marshall is great, and the conversation at Old Salt was great. And it's a real shame it wasn't recorded because, you know, I think it's the only recording we've done where at the end, the audience broke out into, like, spontaneous applause and even-
00:01:34,740 --> 00:01:35,000 [Speaker 0]
[laughs]
00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:43,300 [Speaker 1]
... like, carried us off the stage. And the fact that that's just lost to time is-- makes me sort of sad 'cause that was like a, a seminal moment for me.
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:48,540 [Speaker 0]
Maybe somebody will find a video of the event. Like, it was, it was pretty special to carry us away, but-
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:51,740 [Speaker 1]
Mm. Yeah. Don't look too hard. There were a lot of technical difficulties.
00:01:51,740 --> 00:01:52,140 [Speaker 0]
[laughs]
00:01:52,160 --> 00:02:10,940 [Speaker 1]
But Bill, b- before we dive in, I want to tell you about, um, an event I attended last week, um, where a bunch of us got together on the Missoula County Courthouse lawn and shared stories about Montana's roadless areas.
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:11,580 [Speaker 0]
Yeah.
00:02:12,540 --> 00:03:19,500 [Speaker 1]
The event was hosted by Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, American Rivers, Montana Backcountry Alliance, and Wild Montana, along with some other local partners. And I was really honored that they asked me to emcee. And we had six storytellers with us. These were outdoor writers, backcountry skiers, hunters, backpackers, photographers. We heard about tracking mountain goats in the Hoodoo, spending a snowy night on the Continental Divide guarding, uh, a harvested elk from grizzlies. Um, our friend Lisa Ronald, who's appeared on the show, told us a story about pack rafting the North Fork of the Blackfoot out of the Bob Marshall, which I know you love. And a really touching story from John Doty on a multi-generational backpacking trip far from any road. And the organizers even rolled out this 100-foot fake road across the courthouse lawn, which was about, [chuckling] you know, the most striking and, and honest way I could think of to show what's at stake. It was great. The stories were great, and the thing they had in common is that none of them would have been improved by a road.
00:03:20,520 --> 00:04:20,940 [Speaker 1]
Um, and, you know, if listeners haven't figured out [laughs] why I'm bringing this up right now, today is October 6th. Today is the deadline to submit your comment to the Forest Service in opposition of their idea to rescind the roadless rule entirely. And if you're listening to this podcast today, on October 6th, you still have time to comment. It takes five minutes. Just simply go in and, and like the people did on the, uh, Missoula County Courthouse lawn, tell them a story about a time you've spent in a roadless area, or tell them a story you've heard about other people spending time in roadless areas. These places need your help to be protected. We'll leave a link in the show notes so you can do it. And if you already have done it, um, I thank you. Bill thanks you. Now, text a friend and tell them to do it, too. We really, really need your help, so please take action today. Today's the last day, October 6th.
00:04:21,279 --> 00:04:21,820 [Speaker 0]
Ugh.
00:04:21,820 --> 00:04:25,040 [Speaker 1]
[sighs] Okay, Bill, how about, uh, a much lighter note?
00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:25,940 [Speaker 0]
[laughs]
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:33,720 [Speaker 1]
Um, we've got, uh, some news for listeners. The Wild Idea podcast has been nominated for a Signal Award. Tell us what's going on.
00:04:34,080 --> 00:05:00,860 [Speaker 0]
Yeah, it's pretty exciting. We are a finalist for a Signal Award, uh, in the category of sustainability and environment. Um, and so there'll be a final judging, and we have a chance to take away a bronze, silver, or gold in that. But just by making that list, we also are in a position to also potentially pick up a Signal Award Listener's Choice Award. Uh, and so
00:05:01,900 --> 00:05:33,360 [Speaker 0]
we would love for you all that enjoy our show to go vote for us in that. You can find a link for how to vote for, uh, the Wild Idea podcast on our website at thewildidea.com. You also can check out our socials. We'll probably be talking about this a little bit. We're, we're kind of excited, ki- ki- kind of a big deal, so... But yeah, it's, it's-- was pretty nice to wake up the other day to an email from the Signal Awards that we had made it, uh, to this list of finalists, and, uh, excited to see how this plays out. But mostly, I think it's just a testament to what an incredible
00:05:34,540 --> 00:05:47,160 [Speaker 0]
array of guests we've been able to get to say yes to us, right? I mean, like, it's, um, it's just so many rich conversations made possible because people were willing to tolerate our stuff, right?
00:05:47,660 --> 00:06:34,068 [Speaker 1]
Bill and I are really grateful for any support you can give us in, um, supporting the podcast. We don't record this podcast to win awards. We record this podcast to have interesting conversations with people- ... and tell interesting stories about our big backyards. And so if you've ever enjoyed one of those guests, if you've ever enjoyed one of those stories, we hope you will take just five minutes, go to the show notes, help us win this People's Choice Award. And I guess I should also note that, you know, today's intro, uh, includes two calls to action. I, I, you know, I said I'll take five minutes to, um, fight the Roadless Rule rescission, and I said it'll take five minutes, uh, to help the podcast. And I realize that's ten minutes of your time, and asking ten minutes of anyone's time is a lot to ask. But if it makes you feel any better,
00:06:35,368 --> 00:07:11,928 [Speaker 1]
we spend way more time on this podcast. And you, you may be thinking in your head, "Yeah, I'm sure it takes an hour or two." No, no. The, the honest answer is that we record every episode two or three times. You know, once for all of Bill's mistakes, once for all of my mistakes, um, once for even more of Bill's mistakes, and then finally we get it right. So for every ten hours we spend on this show, we're hoping that you can just spend ten minutes. That's a, that's a pretty good return on investment. And, you know, I, I, I wish, I wish it didn't take so long, but, you know, for every hour of podcast you hear, there's about three hours of Bill saying, "Wait, let me start that again."
00:07:11,928 --> 00:07:23,048 [Speaker 0]
[laughs] Well, I, I'll join you in thanking folks for taking any time out of their day to both comment on the Roadless Rule and to, uh, potentially vote for us, uh, on the Signal Award thing. I
00:07:24,108 --> 00:08:05,888 [Speaker 0]
take a little exception to my disparagement there, but that's okay. We'll, we'll let, we'll, we'll let it slide. Uh, again, and thanks to everybody for, for commenting, uh, on the Roadless Rule and, and, uh, for just following along with what we do here with the Wild Idea podcast. Before we move into our conversation with Marshall Johnson, it is time for our new segment, maybe, possibly, tentatively, sort of, probably to be changed new segment called Anders' Nerd Word of the Week, giving Anders a challenge to slip some giant word that he would probably use in everyday conversation into our conversation today with Marshall Johnson. And Anders, that word this week is perspicacious. Perspicacious.
00:08:06,748 --> 00:08:27,648 [Speaker 1]
Perspicacious. What a good pull. This one means like, um, shrewd or able to deeply perceive. It's a word I actually avoid because it's so easy to mess up. I feel like I'm always saying per-perspi-perspicacious or something. Um, but perspicacious. I'll have to work that one in. Marshall's pretty sharp. He may notice, but I'm excited. Let's dig in.
00:08:28,348 --> 00:08:43,548 [Speaker 0]
Marshall, welcome back, I suppose, to the Wild Idea podcast. [laughs] Let's start with hearkening back to where we first met on the Mannix Ranch in Helmville, Montana during the Old Salt Festival. I assume you enjoyed that weekend all about the land as much as Anders and I did?
00:08:44,228 --> 00:09:10,108 [Speaker 2]
Oh, it was just so amazing to be out on the land. There's, there's really nothing quite like the Old Salt Festival, where the land, the food, the conservation, the economics, the love of land all comes together. Art, science, storytelling. In regenerative agriculture and conservation, there's nothing quite like getting away a little bit out at Old Salt.
00:09:10,348 --> 00:09:36,828 [Speaker 0]
Yeah. Like you said, it's all about the land. We tend to talk a lot about wildlands here, but I think the beauty of that conversation was about the health of the land, how healthy working lands are just as vital as our wildlands, just one more part of that web that makes up healthy ecosystems. How has your time spent, not just on the Mannix Ranch, but other working ranch lands, influenced your conservation ethic?
00:09:37,388 --> 00:10:39,608 [Speaker 2]
I didn't come up through sort of the classic biologist or ecologist, you know, doing the work out on, on the land. I studied business, not biology, which in hindsight I thought was a real disadvantage for me when I first knew that I had a passion for conservation of habitats and birds. And it took me a couple of years to figure out that, you know what, that was the best thing that happened to me because I learned the business and conservation through the lens of working ranches and the practical application and demonstration of y- what I sort of call useful conservation, conservation that can scale because it can be applied practically. And I learned that through my early work, uh, managing ranches, ranch lands that, uh, Audubon owns, and learning about it from actual ranchers. And it was a very practical, useful, on-the-job training for me.
00:10:39,768 --> 00:11:44,408 [Speaker 1]
Marshall, in his introduction, Bill mentioned that you're one of the architects of Audubon's Conservation Ranching Program. And that initiative started with a really simple and elegant theory, a perspicacious idea, I guess, that healthy working lands can support people and wildlife at the same time, not one at the expense of the other. And a decade in, I w- I wrote down some numbers, a decade in, it's grown into Audubon's largest terrestrial habitat program. One hundred and fifty participating farms and ranches, four point five million acres, certified land showing an eight point four percent annual increase in bird friendliness over the surrounding acre- acreage, and a seventy-six percent gain since two thousand and sixteen. Those are really, really strong numbers. But I guess my question is, what did it take to get a rancher to say yes the very first time before there was any track record to any of this? You know, what part of the original pitch turned out to be harder to prove on the ground than you expected, and what turned out to be easier than you thought?
00:11:44,628 --> 00:12:51,559 [Speaker 2]
You know, I'm gonna surprise you with something here. And, and I, I was one of the, the, the, uh, group that was really starting, uh, this work. We actually didn't have really a working lands program. So conservation ranching, a market-based program, a certification seal was a hell of a gateway drug, uh, for Audubon's, uh, working lands work. And it really began with a pretty simple premise, right? If we want more birds, we need more healthy grasslands. If we want more healthy grasslands... We need ranchers who can stay on the land and have a productive, viable livelihood. And I didn't know that was sort of an issue or problem. But once you start to peel the onion back, you see the, the challenges. And so I'll surprise you by saying this, but it's the God's honest truth. When I think about the stakeholders that we needed to sell on a program such as this that really just didn't exist in the conservation space for, for grasslands, the
00:12:52,660 --> 00:15:05,100 [Speaker 2]
easiest constituent, the easiest audience to convince were the ranchers. I kid you not. The premise, I remember, uh, Jerry Doan, a rancher out in central, uh, western North Dakota, um, I remember, you know, he had his sense of what environmental groups like Audubon were all about and didn't know why, why I was cold calling him. But hey, he figured, "Why not? I'll take five minutes and, and meet with this guy from the Audubon Society." And he wouldn't actually let me fully out of the car. Uh, so we met there in his driveway. He, he's giving me the impression that I've got a very little, uh, amount of time. And I unpack what our why. We believe in healthy grasslands. We believe that the primary stewards of the land are ranchers, and that there are economic, social, and other structural challenges for ranchers, and we can't solve them all, but we have two million-plus followers, members, and supporters, and we can help tell a story. And he stopped me, and he says, "I can't believe what I'm hearing. You want to come out here and build a program from the ground up that Audubon's going to put their name on?" This is fifteen, sixteen years ago now, and so ranching and conservation have come a long way as a partnership. It used to be, I don't like to say non-traditional partnership anymore. This is an essential partnership for the future of grasslands, and I used to always call it a non-traditional partnership because it was, but it, it oughtn't be. And I can tell you that was repeated time and time again, where ranchers just instinctively got what we were trying to do together. Other audiences, sometimes our members, like, "What is this? What are you talking about?" Our board, uh, initially, uh, senior executives, for all good reasons, "Wow, the National Audubon Society is going to create a certification program for ranch lands." Yeah, so yeah, the ranchers were the easiest sell.
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:29,800 [Speaker 1]
And over that fifteen or sixteen years, as the program has scaled up from a handful of ranches to the one hundred and fifty ranches we mentioned, what had to change structurally? You know, is the version of the Conservation Ranching Program running today still recognizable as the thing you started, or, or has it had to become something different to operate at this size?
00:15:30,340 --> 00:17:04,260 [Speaker 2]
Strangely, it is almost identical to our initial feasibility study. Uh, we worked with Dr. Allen Williams and a group of, now we, we know them as re-regenerative ag le- uh, agriculture leaders, um, but we, we worked with them early on to design a program that balanced this tension with... You know, if you have, you have some Cadillac sort of certifications that don't practically sort of work within ranching, then you get maybe ten or fifteen ranches in the program, and it can't scale. So we always wanted something that was practical enough to scale, but impactful enough that met a standard that our members and supporters come to expect when they see the Audubon name. And so we, we thought, we hoped that we were finding that balance. And I tell you, the program has not necessarily structurally... There are protocols or elements that have evolved with technology, evolved with the availability of alternative products that can be incorporated at scale across the ranches. But it's structurally what we thought it would be and hoped it would be, you know, now, uh, sixteen years ago, including our primary certifier, uh, which is Food Alliance. It, it, surprisingly enough, it is either a, a, a terrible thing or a great thing, it hasn't changed that much structurally.
00:17:05,020 --> 00:17:36,520 [Speaker 0]
I mean, it's led to some recent collaborations with brands like Thousand Hills, Lifetime Grazed, which all eighteen of its ranches, uh, are certified and carries that Audubon Certified Bird-Friendly Land seal on their beef sold in more than two thousand, I think, retail locations nationwide. It demonstrates the growing demand for conservation outcomes that benefit both the producers and the wildlife, right? How hard is it to meet that standard of the program, and how have you secured so many participants in this relatively short period of time?
00:17:36,960 --> 00:20:12,296 [Speaker 2]
We, we constantly think about, and we do pulse, uh, surveys with our ranchers, um, where we, uh, ask them all the questions, "Give us your honest feedback on the program and what can be improved." And if there's something that has structurally not changed but evolved, it's the way we think about value back to the ranch. You know, ranches do not pay to be in the program. This is something that is a, a article of faith for me. Um, I, I think our credibility as an organization is one of the biggest things that we have going for us. And so making this transactional was always problematic for the group of us who started, started the program. And that... That bears a certain financial cost, right? We have to shoulder the, the nearly four, five million dollar annual cost for the program. But we really expanded... This really drove the creation of the Working Lands Initiative at Audubon. We were doing a smattering of, of different things with landowners and forests, uh, forest managers and, uh, rice growers and some ranchers, more education, uh, partnerships and more transactional partnerships. Well, this really spurred the creation of our Working Lands team. And what that really did for us was give us more tools that we could offer as a value to the ranchers. So, um, started really as a market-based program and our, our number one, and it still re- remains our driving goal, is to return financial value back to the landowner in exchange for bird-friendly management, right? So that's the big idea, and it's still the big idea. And it'll never quite be as successful as I want it to be. So we, we still have a lot of work to do there. But we now have an assortment of different technical assistance and other incentives that we distribute back to the ranchers enrolled in the program. Some ranchers want to apply prescribed fire, and we're, we're, we're in a position of cost share that in many of our, our landscapes, fencing and other infrastructure improvements, we're able to assist our ranchers with either finding resources for those projects or being able to cost share that ourselves. And so
00:20:13,516 --> 00:21:22,296 [Speaker 2]
I think it's the, the sort of soup to nuts support through our Range Ecologist program and our partners that help deliver the program, like Montana Audubon, that has really expanded the value of the program. That's what we hear from our ranchers. Some of our ranchers would like to do soil carbon monitoring and, and explore, uh, carbon markets that are growing. And so in many cases, we cost share or outright pay for that monitoring, which on average is between four and seven thousand dollars per ranch per year. And so there are other sort of myriad of stacked benefits that we wanna bring to the table while never losing sight of this was a... The big idea is leveraging our brand and the bird-friendly standards to help ranchers capture a premium for their bird-friendly management. That is still... I can't say that we are all the way there yet, but that is still, um, sort of the big idea about conservation ranching.
00:21:22,636 --> 00:21:26,316 [Speaker 0]
More of the conversation after a word from those who support Wild Ideas.
00:21:27,516 --> 00:21:32,796 [Speaker 3]
I'm Frank Vitale, Columbia Falls, Montana, and you're listening to The Wild Idea.
00:21:33,336 --> 00:22:08,856 [Speaker 1]
Marshall, I wanna talk policy. If I remember correctly, as soon as the Old Salt Festival wrapped, you were heading to DC to engage, uh, on the current Farm Bill. I played a very small role drafting the 2008 Farm Bill, um, when I was on the Hill working for a member of the House Ag Committee. And in 2019, Bill and I were both wrapped up in the Farm Bill, um, when we were working to include wilderness language in a Farm Bill for the very first time. And as I'm sure most folks in the audience know, the, the Farm Bill is the legislation
00:22:09,936 --> 00:22:32,876 [Speaker 1]
most responsible for actually funding and shaping working lands conservation nationally, and it represents the largest investment in voluntary conservation on private land in the country. But Marshall, you've emphasized that many of its incentive programs just aren't strong enough to meet the demand from farmers and ranchers who want in. And so my question is,
00:22:33,996 --> 00:22:47,716 [Speaker 1]
where's the problem? Or, or what's the problem? Is it that the programs are underfunded relative to their demand, or that the design of the programs themselves don't match how producers actually wanna operate?
00:22:47,936 --> 00:24:15,836 [Speaker 2]
I think it's a little of both. Um, there are programs that are over-prescribed, so underfunded. There's more that we can do. We can be more innovative with Farm Bill. Farm Bill, it has so much inertia that it doesn't change [laughs] because it's sort of this built-in political tension that gets it across the finish line with bipartisan support. But I think we're leaving a lot of innovation on the table. Um, I think that we've learned a lot, um, about regenerative agriculture and soil health that isn't necessarily reflected in the Farm Bill. But the Farm Bill is just now living on a stopgap, uh, measure. You know, the Farm Bill is outdated, technically expired in 2023, right? And so here we are in 2026, and we're just sort of rolling it over. So we're really hopeful that this Farm Bill can be a regenerative Farm Bill, can be a Farm Bill that we're incorporating, um, virtual fencing, we're incorporating these things that could not scale in 2023 or 2018, but are available to us and, and available to our landowners now. And so I think Farm Bill can go further. Um, we can do more. We can be more innovative. But again, it gets across the finish line because it doesn't change all that much. And I think that we can do better. We should do better.
00:24:16,376 --> 00:24:33,808 [Speaker 1]
Okay, so you, you mentioned inertia, and, and you sort of hint at this balance, this partisan balance that it takes to pass the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill's conservation programs are voluntary by design, and voluntary programs are something with which you have a history of success.
00:24:33,808 --> 00:25:08,388 [Speaker 1]
So using the phrase you used earlier with Bill, let's talk about the big idea. The whole conservation title of the Farm Bill rests on this incentive-based model rather than a regulatory one. And given how fast things are moving, given, given the inertia you mentioned, do you think that voluntary frameworks can, can actually move fast enough on their own terms, or is voluntary, in quotes, really just like a political ceiling? Are we focusing on language that, that can just pass Congress rather than focusing on policies that would actually reverse the declines we're seeing?
00:25:08,788 --> 00:25:58,828 [Speaker 2]
The word that comes to mind, right, is realpolitik, right? That, that-- And again, I think that's a different way to, uh, talk about or illuminate the tension that exists in public policy, uh, making. And I think that's a reality, that there are regulatory measures that could probably be more effective. Could they be law for, uh, any la- uh, period of time without the political support from farm and ranch, uh, communities? No, right? And so the incentive model, I think, is the model that works in the real world. You know, we're not living in a [chuckling] Soviet, uh, republic from the si-sixties. It's not a command and control. Uh, we're a democracy, and so there is a realpolitik reality at play. You have to win that political support.
00:25:59,268 --> 00:26:47,008 [Speaker 0]
You know, Anders mentioned that things are moving fast, uh, but sometimes they're not moving fast enough to keep up with the decline, um, particularly in grassland bird populations. Marshall, one of the things that makes your work especially interesting to us is the way you see birds as connectors, birds that connect cities and rural communities, they connect producers, like we've been talking about here. You know, they connect producers and conservationists. They connect local stewardship to continental migration routes. They connect the health of a ranch in Montana, like the Mannett's Ranch, for example, to the experience of a birder in Minneapolis or Chicago or New York. Um, they're also incredible storytellers in their own right, revealing what's happening on the landscape in ways that people can see, hear,
00:26:48,028 --> 00:26:54,448 [Speaker 0]
understand. Could you talk a little bit about how you view that, that role of birds as connectors?
00:26:55,268 --> 00:28:46,848 [Speaker 2]
Yeah. You know, I think, uh, one of the powerful things, as you alluded to, uh, there, Bill, is, you know, birds are really powerful, right? And they are powerful connectors of far-flung, uh, communities. Um, you know, they have this ability to connect people who might otherwise never see themselves on the same team. Ranchers and conservationists connected through birds and habitat. Rural, urban connected through birds, habitat, uh, food, obviously. Hunters and birders, producers, consumers, public lands and private lands, science and culture. Um, I think birds are-- Uh, I think of birds as, as, as great diplomats that bring people together, uh, because people have very similar experiences with birds. Um, and we mark the time and the seasons by the coming and going, the song and the color that birds bring to our backyards, whether we're in central North Dakota or Chicago. Uh, and so I think birds are incredible diplomats for bringing people together, and they have an extraordinary, demonstrated, proven, uh, uh, uh, power in that way. And they don't-- Birds don't recognize political boundaries, property lines or state borders. And so there's this shared stewardship of birds, and I think responsibility to birds, uh, that is truly powerful. That same meadowlark that nests on a Montana ranch may spend part of the year in Mexico. Uh, that same, you know, grassland that supports li-livestock production and, and also can support wildlife, and birds remind us of that in, I think, a really, uh, powerful way. Birds remind us that, you know, everything is connected.
00:28:47,568 --> 00:28:49,888 [Speaker 1]
Oh, I love it so much, Marshall. That's great.
00:28:51,048 --> 00:29:10,508 [Speaker 1]
Um, for m-my last question, I wanna go back to the Old Salt Festival. Um, Audubon's Conservation Ranching program and Old Salt are both, in their own way, betting that working lands can be good for the people on them and the wildlife above them, let's say. But
00:29:11,588 --> 00:29:40,288 [Speaker 1]
they're doing it at completely different scales, right? Y-yours is, is an, a national program built on certification and data and policy, and theirs is four ranches and a festival. So when you look at what Old Salt is doing, does it feel like a small-scale version of the same theory of change you've spent your career on, or is it actually just solving a completely different problem than the one conservation ranching is built to solve?
00:29:40,668 --> 00:29:48,708 [Speaker 2]
That's a great question, Anders. You know, I, I would say, I sort of think about... You know, you ha- Everything starts with a spark, right? And,
00:29:49,828 --> 00:30:56,344 [Speaker 2]
um, I think in concepts, uh, Audubon, over the last five years, um, under Dr. Elizabeth Gray's leadership, our CEO, um, has ex- followed birds, right, to a hemispheric versus national or, or just local, um, vision and strategy. And it's very natural to us because we're just following birds where they go and connecting landscapes and conservation and resilient lands across the hemisphere. But sometimes that kind of talk can scare people because it feels like you're pivoting away from something. Um, how I like to think about it is, and it's, um, uh, this is how I would, uh, would, would speak to that question. Um... The hemisphere, or in this case, the ranching or grasslands, uh, is a mosaic of those stories. Um, Old Salt, the co-op, ranchers on the ground, they are the thousands of blocks on the map that
00:30:57,364 --> 00:33:05,704 [Speaker 2]
undergird the grassland story. They are the story. If you double-click on a picture of grasslands, you find a ranch, right? If you double-click on a picture of this ecosystem, it's made up of these very real working stories and, and people out on the landscape. And so, I don't think it's a this or that. It's the same story. It's just a more, um, in-focus view of the, of a part of the story. And I think the, the message that Old Salt is, is, is sharing and, and setting the table with, so to speak, for people is, you know, they're helping tell a story that Americans need to hear, that working lands can be conservation lands, and how to think about land differently. Land is kin. How would you think about land if it were your kin? How would you think about land if it was a family member? Um, would you poison the land? Would you deg- degrade the land? Would you neglect the land? Well, a lot of those things are happening right now in, in terms of, of, uh, you know, uh, the insecurity that ranchers are feeling, so much so that there's a deep reticence to grow the herd back to a level that can sustain grasslands. And so we have to really... This is a, this is a real crisis point, and everybody's at the table, right? Um, food, ranchers, conservation. Because once, you know, n- no cows, no grass, no birds. And so we, we, we do have a real crisis on our hands, and it's the power, the intentionality of the stories and the table setting that a group like Old Salt, um, are providing that, that, that to me can be the most powerful thing. It's the catalyst for something, um, uh, that can be transformational in grasslands and ranching and food.
00:33:05,704 --> 00:33:13,824 [Speaker 0]
We have been talking with Marshall Johnson, the Chief Conservation Officer with the National Audubon Society. Marshall, when somebody wants to lean into,
00:33:14,984 --> 00:33:24,384 [Speaker 0]
uh, what Audubon is doing, whether it's specifically the, the Conservation Ranching Program or other things, how, how do they stay in touch with what, what, what Audubon has going on?
00:33:24,964 --> 00:34:48,764 [Speaker 2]
Yeah, I would definitely go on our website and look at Flight Plan, our, our five-year strategic plan. And it tells you everything about our why, our how, and our where, um, and to what end. And it's to bend the bird curve, right? Because we feel that, uh, birds are the sentinels and symbols of environmental health and resiliency. And since 1970, we've lost three billion birds, right? One-third or one-fourth of all birds in North America. Si- similar story in South, Central and South America. And so birds are not just some side story. I think it's a fundamental story. Birds need water. We have a water crisis in the West. Birds need habitat. Uh, we have whole landscapes that are, um, uh, ecosystems that are failing to work anymore, right? Failing to function anymore. Um, we are... I think at last count, we have pulled the, uh, uh, Ogallala, uh, Aquifer down 50, more than 50%. These things are having impacts to us, but we're sort of a lagging indicator. Birds are really sensitive. They tell us something years, even decades in advance. And if we listen, birds will tell us.
00:34:48,764 --> 00:34:54,084 [Speaker 0]
Marshall, we can't thank you enough. This has been such a great conversation. We got to have it twice.
00:34:54,084 --> 00:34:54,184 [Speaker 2]
[laughs]
00:34:54,184 --> 00:34:55,484 [Speaker 0]
We got to have it on the stage
00:34:56,524 --> 00:35:28,744 [Speaker 0]
at the Old Salt Festival, and we got to have it here with you, uh, to make sure we could bring it to our audience, uh, writ large. I just wanna thank you for, for working with us twice on making this conversation happen. Those who are listening, if you're relatively new here, you maybe heard us reference many, many times there's something called Old Salt. I would point you back to a Wild Idea episode back in March we had with Cole Mannix, and another episode that we did while we were at Old Salt with Brooks Lamb, uh, that came out in July. But Marshall, thank you, thank you, thank you for joining us. It's been such a great conversation.
00:35:28,744 --> 00:35:30,144 [Speaker 2]
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
00:35:30,144 --> 00:36:06,144 [Speaker 0]
[music] Coming up on the Wild Idea podcast, we chat with Cam Brezzinger from NEMO, and a couple of election-focused conversations coming your way as well. We love bringing you these explorations of the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. If you enjoy the show and you wanna support our continued efforts, you can buy us a coffee, which is a link on our website at thewildidea.com. Any gift of support helps. While you're there, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter and take a minute to recommend us to a friend. Let's all get out our binoculars, head out in the field, and find us some birds. And when we do, we will see all of you on down the trail.
00:36:06,144 --> 00:36:44,744 [Speaker 3]
[music] The Wild Idea is a production of Wild Idea Media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bryn Russell at Podlad. Digital support by Holly Wilkoszewski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack, is from Railroad Earth and was composed by John Skehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find The Wild Idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating. And if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at thewildidea.com. [music]
