Kaitlin de Varona: Stewardship as a Form of Advocacy

The Wild Idea · Jun 9, 2026 · 51m · transcript

Kaitlin de Varona is the executive director of Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS), the nonprofit that has spent more than a decade building a community of skilled, committed wilderness stewards across the Southeast. In this special episode, she joins Bill and Anders — both former SAWS leaders who helped shape the organization — for a wide-ranging conversation about what it takes to keep wild places healthy and accessible for generations to come.

From the passage of the Tennessee Wilderness Act in 2018 to the harrowing weeks following Hurricane Helene in 2024, SAWS has repeatedly…