For the Wild Spotlight
Ayana Young
For the Wild Co-founder, Project Director, and Host
Ayana is a lover and protector of wild nature. She was studying Ecology at Columbia University when the Occupy Wall Street movement began. Amid the burgeoning resistance in Zuccotti Park, she co-created the Environmental Working Group to help orient the movement to the realities of a suffering planet. From there she moved West to her beloved Cascadian bioregion, starting an organic farm and wild foods cartel on an Oregon mountaintop. In Portland, she had the fortune of learning from the herbalist Cascade Anderson Geller before her passing. Ayana is currently studying Restoration of Natural Systems in Victoria, BC, and creating an ecological research center and native species nursery in the Southern tip of the Cascadian bioregion. Along with the restoration of damaged landscapes, Ayana is committed to protecting intact ecosystems. In the summer of 2016 she lead a delegation of women to the Tongass National Forest in SE Alaska to spend time with the forest and learn from the local people to collaborate on a strategy to stop old growth logging. The Tongass film and campaign will launch in 2017.
Ayana hosts For The Wild Podcast (formerly Unlearn & Rewild) and teaches about empowered earth stewardship, leads biodiversity enhancement workshops and facilitates panels across North America.
Mission
For The Wild is an anthology of the Anthropocene; focused on land based protection, co-liberaton and intersectional storytelling rooted in a paradigm shift from human supremacy towards deep ecology.
Reconnect
Since the dawn of Empire, humanity has been increasingly severed from the natural world and coerced into economic serfdom. Our disconnection from nature has resulted in a mass psychosis that blurs our suicidal and ecocidal path. We are at the cusp of a great movement toward reintegration in nature, on a personal level, on a community level, on a global level.
There is much to be done and even more to be undone, but we are not alone. From the ecological design of permaculture to the insights of indigenous elders, many of the answers we are seeking are eager to be heard. Reconnection is not a quaint ideal. It is the bedrock on which to rebuild our home and restore our biosphere.
Renew
The reality of biotic collapse is undeniable. As the demands of modern societies intensify, we are headlong into the most rapid extinction event in Earth’s history. What’s left of wilderness exists mostly in isolated pockets too small to support biodiversity. As the human community continues its rampant growth, the challenges are fast becoming crises.
We must do more than just abandon destructive practices; we need to reverse the damage through ecological restoration, rewilding, grassroots carbon sequestration and bioremediation. We must reimagine a society that marries knowledge and wisdom, and makes restoring a flourishing planet its top priority
Resist
Our economic system is based on converting the living world into dead commodities and waste, while our political system is designed to safeguard this system. No amount of “reform” will ever reach the root causes of our crises. Some people will turn their backs on Empire and create a parallel reality, while others will fight to halt the destruction.
Whereas traditional protest is predicted and absorbed by the power structure, direct action seeks to interfere in a tangible way with the forces of destruction. There have been some victories: the last of ancient forests would have been logged if not for tree-sitters, and whales would have be slaughtered if not for Sea Shepherd activists. Solid resistance must be expected yet unpredictable, and together we discuss how to proceed as Earth defenders.
Revere
It is clear where reductionist logic has brought us: a streamlined, hyper-efficient and ugly world. As science moves into a new paradigm of interconnectedness and epigenetics, this logic is becoming obsolete. We stand before a vast opportunity to reimagine our relation to the whole, and to redefine happiness and progress.
As author and restoration ecologist Stephanie Mills suggests “cleaving to beauty can be great sustenance.” How can we regain our sensitivity to unseen realities, revive childhood wonder amid deep responsibility, and propel each other in Earth activism? These are among the many themes we explore on For The Wild Podcast. -March Young