Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 888: Making Nature Nonpartisan Again with Benji Backer and Ben Cassidy

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Ep. 888: Making Nature Nonpartisan Again with Benji Backer and Ben Cassidy · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
0:09
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
0:13
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the.
0:20
Speaker 3: Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I'm
0:23
Speaker 3: joined by Benji Backer and Ben Cassidy of the newly
0:27
Speaker 3: formed nonprofit Nature Is non Partisan, and we're discussing the
0:32
Speaker 3: importance of in the methods for making nature nonpartisan once again.
0:40
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
0:44
Speaker 3: brought to you by First Light and their Camo for
0:47
Speaker 3: Conservation initiative, and today we are continuing our Conservation Month series.
0:53
Speaker 2: We've talked white tales, We've.
0:55
Speaker 3: Talked public lands, and today we are taking things in
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Speaker 3: what I think is a really exciting direction, and I
1:03
Speaker 3: think it's a really important direction, because this is a
1:05
Speaker 3: conversation about bringing the environmental movement and conservation and public
1:12
Speaker 3: lands advocacy and all of these things, taking them out
1:16
Speaker 3: of the partisan football bickering, name calling our team versus
1:21
Speaker 3: your team kind of world in which they have lived
1:24
Speaker 3: for a long time, and instead looking for ways to
1:27
Speaker 3: bring this stuff back into the middle as a non
1:30
Speaker 3: partisan or bipartisan set of issues that all of us
1:33
Speaker 3: can engage in, whether you feel like you're on the
1:35
Speaker 3: blue side or the red side, or somewhere in between,
1:38
Speaker 3: regardless of who's in office. What can we all gather
1:42
Speaker 3: around and move forward on. That is the broad set
1:47
Speaker 3: of ideas and topics that we're discussing today. And we're
1:50
Speaker 3: discussing it with a couple folks who are doing something
1:53
Speaker 3: very excited, relate, or very exciting related to all this,
1:58
Speaker 3: and that is Benji Back and Ben Cassidy. Both of
2:02
Speaker 3: them are here from a brand new organization that is
2:05
Speaker 3: actually publicly launching today when this podcast drops on March twentieth,
2:10
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, and Benji is the founder of Nature
2:15
Speaker 3: as Nonpartisan and Ben is the chief policy officer for
2:20
Speaker 3: the new organization, and we're going to have them on
2:23
Speaker 3: here on the show in a moment to talk about
2:26
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of different things that I think are
2:28
Speaker 3: very relevant to people who hunt, or fish, or care
2:31
Speaker 3: about wildlife or open lands, public lands, the ability to hike, fish, camp, hunt,
2:37
Speaker 3: any of those things. This is stuff that is very
2:40
Speaker 3: pertinent to us that has a direct impact on our
2:43
Speaker 3: ability to do those things and have healthy wildlife and
2:46
Speaker 3: healthy wild places to do them in. So let me
2:50
Speaker 3: give you a little bit interesting background about these guys
2:52
Speaker 3: and why I wanted to have them on the show
2:54
Speaker 3: to have this conversation. So Benji, Benji has an interesting
3:00
Speaker 3: background in story that led to him, as a pretty
3:03
Speaker 3: young person starting a conservation organization, conservation organization called the
3:09
Speaker 3: American Conservation Coalition, and this was I think one of
3:13
Speaker 3: the very first right of center organizations focused on tackling
3:19
Speaker 3: environmental and climate related issues and looking at it through
3:22
Speaker 3: a lens of maybe more conservative values or ideas. And
3:27
Speaker 3: he started that and was wildly successful, you know, given
3:31
Speaker 3: maybe certain headwinds within that side of the aisle when
3:34
Speaker 3: it comes to those issues, he was able to gather
3:36
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of members to be involved in this
3:39
Speaker 3: organization and get focus in Congress and with our various
3:43
Speaker 3: parts of our elected officials to engage on these issues
3:47
Speaker 3: in certain ways. So he has this very interesting background there.
3:51
Speaker 3: Ben Cassidy came from another set of interesting ideals, ideas
3:56
Speaker 3: and backgrounds, and that he is a hunter himself. He
3:59
Speaker 3: is war worked as an executive vice president with the
4:03
Speaker 3: Safari Club. He also worked in the Department of the
4:07
Speaker 3: Interior during the first Trump administration, so he worked you
4:12
Speaker 3: back during that period, you know, within the government and
4:15
Speaker 3: saw what was done and how it was done and
4:17
Speaker 3: why things got done. Now, given those two perspectives that
4:21
Speaker 3: the both of them have, they saw that there were
4:24
Speaker 3: many things that were getting caught up in the partisan
4:28
Speaker 3: b yes my words, not theirs. But they saw issues
4:32
Speaker 3: and places and causes that they both cared about related
4:37
Speaker 3: to the environment and the natural world that got pushed
4:41
Speaker 3: one way or the other because Democrats were traditionally behind it,
4:45
Speaker 3: or because Republicans were traditionally behind it, or because the
4:47
Speaker 3: two parties couldn't get together and just have a conversation
4:50
Speaker 3: about this stuff. And so Benji decided to start an
4:53
Speaker 3: organization that would try to open this discourse, to bring
4:57
Speaker 3: these sides together, to find, as they call it, the
5:00
Speaker 3: Coalition of the Willing, that eighty percent in the middle
5:03
Speaker 3: who just care about these things and want to find
5:05
Speaker 3: ways to move them forward, regardless of you know, if
5:08
Speaker 3: it's a deal or r in the office. And so
5:11
Speaker 3: they started Nature as nonpartisan. The idea of it is
5:15
Speaker 3: something I'm really excited about. If you've been a longtime
5:17
Speaker 3: listener to this podcast, if you've been following me and
5:20
Speaker 3: in my career and my books and the different things
5:23
Speaker 3: I work on, you know that I strongly believe in
5:25
Speaker 3: this idea that we can achieve so much more when
5:29
Speaker 3: we put the partisan labels and bs aside and instead
5:33
Speaker 3: focus on our shared values and having open conversations about
5:37
Speaker 3: the things we care about and getting creative about solutions.
5:40
Speaker 3: Nothing gets done when we name call and finger point
5:45
Speaker 3: and get behind, you know, get behind enemy lines, or
5:48
Speaker 3: get behind our own party lines and point fingers at
5:50
Speaker 3: the other side and blame everything at them. You know,
5:52
Speaker 3: Calling Republicans evil demagogues who are going to destroy the
5:57
Speaker 3: world and then not engaging them with them on anything
6:00
Speaker 3: isn't getting anything done. Calling democrats crazy snowflakes and libtards
6:05
Speaker 3: or whatever kind of thing you want to call them,
6:06
Speaker 3: and saying we're never going to work with them because
6:08
Speaker 3: they're ruining the world, that's not going to help either.
6:11
Speaker 3: If we can instead remember that we are all just humans.
6:16
Speaker 3: We are all people that come from different perspectives. Our
6:20
Speaker 3: lives have been informed by different experiences and different stories
6:25
Speaker 3: that we've kind of learned about how the world works.
6:27
Speaker 3: We all have this different lens that we're looking at
6:29
Speaker 3: the world through. It doesn't mean we're evil, doesn't mean
6:31
Speaker 3: that we're bad. It just means we see things differently.
6:35
Speaker 3: If we can talk about it and be open to
6:38
Speaker 3: these different ways of seeing the world, we can probably
6:41
Speaker 3: find some common ground. We can probably find some ways
6:45
Speaker 3: to help achieve all sorts of different priorities. And that's
6:50
Speaker 3: I think what a lot of this comes down to
6:51
Speaker 3: when it comes to the politics of the environment and
6:55
Speaker 3: public lands and wildlife and clean air and clean water,
6:58
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, right, because we all have
7:00
Speaker 3: different perspectives, we all have different priorities, and the only
7:04
Speaker 3: way that we're ever going to get something done is
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Speaker 3: not by demeaning and attacking people simply because they come
7:12
Speaker 3: from a worldview or from a background that has different
7:14
Speaker 3: sets of priorities, but instead by talking about it, by
7:17
Speaker 3: working together, by doing the hard work of tackling issues
7:21
Speaker 3: that aren't necessarily easy but that can be overcome by
7:25
Speaker 3: people talking, people working, people compromising, people getting to understand
7:31
Speaker 3: where we're all coming from. That's how most good things
7:35
Speaker 3: in our country have gotten done over the years. And unfortunately,
7:38
Speaker 3: when it comes to the environment. That's not happened a
7:41
Speaker 3: whole lot. Sometimes it does, but a lot of the
7:43
Speaker 3: stuff's got pulled into one side or the other. And
7:47
Speaker 3: nature's nonpartisan. I'm very excited about this mission that they
7:51
Speaker 3: have is to really change that and to find ways
7:54
Speaker 3: to move the ball forward to get positive things done
7:57
Speaker 3: for the environment, no matter what parties in office. So
8:00
Speaker 3: they are going to work with Democrats, they are going
8:01
Speaker 3: to work with Republicans. If the Biden administration was around,
8:04
Speaker 3: they'd be working with them right now. The Trump administration
8:07
Speaker 3: is in right now, so they're going to work with
8:08
Speaker 3: the Trump administration. And interestingly, and what I think is
8:12
Speaker 3: a strong signal.
8:13
Speaker 2: Of the.
8:15
Speaker 3: Of what these guys are trying to do. They have
8:17
Speaker 3: a staff and leadership and board of directors and group
8:20
Speaker 3: of advisors that are split between more conservative conservative people
8:25
Speaker 3: and liberal people. So they are being directed, they are
8:27
Speaker 3: being informed, and they are building their plans from this
8:31
Speaker 3: bipartisan perspective. They have people with conservative ideas and liberal ideas.
8:36
Speaker 3: They've got people in the middle and all points in between.
8:39
Speaker 3: And I think that's a great idea. I think that's
8:42
Speaker 3: something that can lead to this thing actually working. And
8:46
Speaker 3: because of all that you know, I've volunteered my perspectives
8:49
Speaker 3: and ideas as a strategic.
8:52
Speaker 2: Advisor to their organizations.
8:53
Speaker 3: So I'm going to be stepping in and helping and
8:56
Speaker 3: hopefully being a voice for hunters and anglers within this organization,
9:00
Speaker 3: making sure that our interests are well voiced and that
9:04
Speaker 3: we can be doing good things for fish and wildlife
9:07
Speaker 3: and hunting and fishing and the natural world and all
9:10
Speaker 3: those other things that we care so much about. So
9:13
Speaker 3: that is a long winded way of giving you the
9:15
Speaker 3: background on how all this came to be, Why I'm
9:18
Speaker 3: excited about having this conversation, why I'm excited about you
9:20
Speaker 3: guys hearing this one today, because I think it will, hopefully,
9:24
Speaker 3: you know, not only introduce you to this organization, but
9:27
Speaker 3: also inspire you to think about things a little bit differently,
9:30
Speaker 3: to think about ways that we can engage no matter
9:33
Speaker 3: who our elective officials are, no matter who your neighbors are,
9:36
Speaker 3: no matter who the people are down the road. With
9:39
Speaker 3: a different flag flying, right, I've got some flags in
9:41
Speaker 3: my neighborhood that say nasty things about the past president.
9:46
Speaker 3: I've got some flags flying in my neighborhood that say
9:48
Speaker 3: nasty things about.
9:48
Speaker 2: The current president.
9:50
Speaker 3: I'm going to engage with any in all of them
9:53
Speaker 3: because I care a lot about these things that we're
9:55
Speaker 3: here to talk about today, hunting, fishing, fish, wildlife, public lands,
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Speaker 3: the natural and I'm going to do anything I can,
10:02
Speaker 3: and I would hope that a lot of you listening
10:04
Speaker 3: would do to help those causes, regardless of whatever political
10:08
Speaker 3: situation we're in. That's what we're going to discuss today.
10:12
Speaker 3: And as I promised last week during our podcast with Kel,
10:16
Speaker 3: that discussion with me and Ryan was all about defense.
10:20
Speaker 3: How do we play defense for public lands and the environment, again,
10:24
Speaker 3: regardless of who's in office.
10:25
Speaker 2: How do we make.
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Speaker 3: Sure that our elected officials are held accountable for potentially
10:30
Speaker 3: concerning or bad decisions when it comes to our environment
10:32
Speaker 3: or public lands. Now, today we're going to take the
10:35
Speaker 3: opposite approach, which is how do we go on the offensive.
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Speaker 3: This is something that thinks really cool about what Benji
10:42
Speaker 3: and Benn are doing. They're going to find ways they
10:44
Speaker 3: can move the ball forward. What are the wins that
10:47
Speaker 3: we can find rather than raising red flags, rather than
10:50
Speaker 3: raising concerns which are important, again, no matter who's in office,
10:54
Speaker 3: they are important. And other organizations and individuals can do that.
10:58
Speaker 3: But Nature's non partisan is to take the approach of Okay,
11:01
Speaker 3: let's figure out what can get done and let's move
11:04
Speaker 3: that forward, no matter who we have to work with,
11:06
Speaker 3: let's get something good done. So that's we discuss. We
11:09
Speaker 3: dive into some specific opportunities, some specific places and ways
11:14
Speaker 3: that you know, the natural world and the environment and
11:17
Speaker 3: maybe public lands and wildlife can can get some wins
11:20
Speaker 3: over the next few years if we all do our
11:22
Speaker 3: job and inform our elected officials of what our priorities
11:25
Speaker 3: are and how these can help the administration achieve theirs.
11:29
Speaker 3: That's we discussed. So this is going to be a positive, optimistic,
11:34
Speaker 3: forward thinking conversation about how we can get good stuff
11:38
Speaker 3: done these next four years, and then no matter who
11:40
Speaker 3: wins the next election, we're going to keep the ball
11:42
Speaker 3: moving forward. And we're going to do that by bringing
11:45
Speaker 3: conservatives and liberals and independence altogether on the things we
11:50
Speaker 3: can agree on and the things we can move forward
11:53
Speaker 3: to make sure that we have fish, that we have wildlife,
11:56
Speaker 3: that we have clean air, clean water, open public lands
12:00
Speaker 3: and everything we all we need to keep this incredible
12:03
Speaker 3: set of traditions that.
12:04
Speaker 2: We have thriving and available for all.
12:07
Speaker 3: Of us into the future, as well as a healthy
12:09
Speaker 3: planet for all of us and our kids to live
12:11
Speaker 3: on too.
12:12
Speaker 2: Is that that much to ask for? I think not so.
12:16
Speaker 3: Without any further ado, I like to introduce you to
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Speaker 3: Benji Backer and Ben Cassidy of Nature is Nonpartisan. All
12:29
Speaker 3: right with me on the line, We've got Benji Backer
12:34
Speaker 3: and Ben Cassidy. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.
12:38
Speaker 4: It's great to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us. Mark.
12:41
Speaker 3: I'm excited about this one because, as both of you
12:46
Speaker 3: had to hear from at one point on the phone,
12:47
Speaker 3: as I rattled on about my thoughts around this topic,
12:51
Speaker 3: I have long wanted there to be a more bipartisan
12:56
Speaker 3: movement or nonpartisan movement around the natural world, the environment, hunting, fishing,
13:02
Speaker 3: public lands, all that kind of stuff. And it just
13:05
Speaker 3: seems like it's been too long since that's been the case.
13:08
Speaker 3: So I will open by saying thank you, I'm excited,
13:14
Speaker 3: and then to you, why why now? Why In this
13:20
Speaker 3: moment when the world seems more polarized than ever, the news,
13:24
Speaker 3: the social media, everything seems like a constant fire alarm.
13:30
Speaker 3: There are a lot of legitimate things going on that
13:33
Speaker 3: are caused for questions and debate and discussion and all
13:37
Speaker 3: that stuff. But it's a moment where maybe some people
13:42
Speaker 3: might think, why in the world would you try to
13:44
Speaker 3: launch something of this right now? So that's my question
13:48
Speaker 3: to you, I guess to start Benji's is why this
13:50
Speaker 3: right now?
13:52
Speaker 5: Well, I think the why is more important than ever before.
13:55
Speaker 5: I feel like, you know, the division that we're seeing,
13:58
Speaker 5: the polarization that we're seeing, is the exact reason why
14:01
Speaker 5: we need this organization. I mean, you go back to history,
14:04
Speaker 5: you look at the environment, and it was not caught
14:06
Speaker 5: up in culture wars. You know, it transcended that. We
14:10
Speaker 5: always use the statistic, but seventy eight percent of Americans
14:14
Speaker 5: self identified as environmentalists in nineteen ninety seventy eight percent,
14:18
Speaker 5: and today it's less than forty percent, and it's decreasing.
14:21
Speaker 5: And that's because the issue is being caught up in
14:24
Speaker 5: partisanship for far too long. And the reality is when
14:27
Speaker 5: you have that ping pong back and forth of like
14:30
Speaker 5: extreme right versus extreme left on any issue, but especially
14:34
Speaker 5: the environment, you don't get good results. Either get radical
14:38
Speaker 5: results that are undone by the next you know, governor
14:40
Speaker 5: or president or Congress, or you just don't get any
14:44
Speaker 5: action whatsoever. And our environment deserves better than partisan politics.
14:48
Speaker 5: Our environment deserves better than culture wars. Our environment deserves
14:51
Speaker 5: better than being ineffective every time that a preferred candidate
14:55
Speaker 5: wins or loses an election. And the reality is is that,
15:00
Speaker 5: like you know, we're in this moment of extreme division.
15:04
Speaker 5: No one thinks that it's possible for us to come
15:06
Speaker 5: together on any issue, let alone the environment. But this
15:10
Speaker 5: is an issue where we can do it. We're going
15:12
Speaker 5: to prove all those people wrong, and we're going to
15:14
Speaker 5: show maybe you know, politicians and others, that there's an
15:17
Speaker 5: incentive in doing the right thing. What we're going to
15:19
Speaker 5: do with Nature is nonpartisan. Is build the largest non
15:24
Speaker 5: partisan environmental organization that America has ever seen. We are
15:27
Speaker 5: going to evenly split everything that we do conservative to liberals.
15:30
Speaker 5: So for every conservative we have involved, we'll have a
15:33
Speaker 5: liberal person involved. Our grassroots based that we recruit will
15:37
Speaker 5: be similar to that, because when you have a evenly split,
15:41
Speaker 5: truly nonpartisan group, you can actually forge the change you want.
15:45
Speaker 5: You can actually get realistic solutions, and you don't leave
15:48
Speaker 5: people off the table. You know, for so long on
15:51
Speaker 5: this issue, conservatives have felt targeted by top down government
15:55
Speaker 5: regulation and like coastal elites telling them what to do.
15:58
Speaker 5: For far too long, liberals have felt left behind by
16:01
Speaker 5: conservatives not even being at the table whatsoever, and basically
16:04
Speaker 5: just trying to undo everything that the left has done,
16:07
Speaker 5: like neither side is being productive. We're wanting to change
16:10
Speaker 5: that incentive structure, and we're gonna make nature a nonpartisan
16:13
Speaker 5: issue again. And that includes environment, that includes conservation, that
16:17
Speaker 5: includes all these adjacent issues that have been unnecessarily wrapped
16:21
Speaker 5: up in this And the time couldn't be more perfect
16:24
Speaker 5: for this because of how polarizing it is.
16:26
Speaker 4: That's why we're starting this.
16:27
Speaker 5: The last thing I'll say on this is, you know,
16:30
Speaker 5: I don't need to start a nonprofit. I've already started
16:33
Speaker 5: one which we can get into Like that's I didn't
16:36
Speaker 5: have a dream of starting a second nonprofit. This is
16:38
Speaker 5: this is truly to fill avoid that exists. This is
16:41
Speaker 5: the this is the necessary time. It probably should have
16:43
Speaker 5: been started five or ten years ago, but we need
16:46
Speaker 5: to move fast to make this issue nonpartisan. And someone's
16:49
Speaker 5: got to do it. And why not the team of Ben,
16:51
Speaker 5: Benji Mark and everyone else that's involved.
16:54
Speaker 3: Well what about you, Ben, what's your take on this?
16:57
Speaker 3: Because you came from you know, previous successful positions as well.
17:01
Speaker 3: You didn't have to get yourself all tangled up and
17:04
Speaker 3: try to somehow balance the thoughts and ideas and voices
17:07
Speaker 3: of liberals and conservatives and you know, everyone in between.
17:10
Speaker 3: That doesn't seem like an easy way to spend your
17:12
Speaker 3: days as a father, no.
17:14
Speaker 5: But I mean it matters with the father right for
17:15
Speaker 5: the next generation and kind of just build off of
17:18
Speaker 5: what Benji was saying and being in Washington, d C.
17:22
Speaker 5: I've traveled all over the country. I mean there is
17:24
Speaker 5: an extreme disconnect I would say between you know, what
17:28
Speaker 5: people are saying and thinking and decisions that are being
17:31
Speaker 5: made in d C. I think that right now, a
17:33
Speaker 5: lot of the dialogue or environments kind of held hostage
17:36
Speaker 5: by a vocal minority. I think it ends up working
17:40
Speaker 5: to the detriment of the environment and just seeing you know,
17:44
Speaker 5: since the last you know, since the start of the year,
17:46
Speaker 5: getting involved with nature, conpartisan, joining the team, just seeing
17:50
Speaker 5: from people how excited they are to have a place
17:53
Speaker 5: to land, a place where you know, the conversation can have.
17:57
Speaker 5: I feel like this, you know, right now, there's a
18:00
Speaker 5: there's a cultural movement where people want to roll up
18:03
Speaker 5: their sleeves. They don't mind the hard work. They'll have
18:06
Speaker 5: those conversations to find a path forward. And that was
18:10
Speaker 5: really you know, my drive for this is I love
18:12
Speaker 5: being able to facilitate that wide spectrum of folks that
18:16
Speaker 5: care about something right to a level where it's they'll
18:18
Speaker 5: put differences aside and they'll work towards it. I mean
18:22
Speaker 5: my background comes the thing, you know, sportsman, and I
18:25
Speaker 5: always say it as a jug, would mean it's seriously too.
18:27
Speaker 5: It's like nobody can love the land, nobody loves wildlife
18:31
Speaker 5: more than a sportsman. You can love it as much
18:32
Speaker 5: as we do, but you can't love it more. And
18:36
Speaker 5: with that though, I have those conversations and like Betty said,
18:39
Speaker 5: like the team we have is made up of the
18:41
Speaker 5: full like political backgrounds. Right, I'm a conservative, we have
18:45
Speaker 5: folks on the team that are liberal. And it's been
18:48
Speaker 5: just amazing to just have just the daily interactions talking
18:51
Speaker 5: about what you know, ties us to nature, what inspires us,
18:56
Speaker 5: and then to just have in the like the culture
18:57
Speaker 5: of our team and just like this clear eyed vis
19:00
Speaker 5: you know this needs to be done and we will
19:03
Speaker 5: lead by example on it. And I really just command
19:05
Speaker 5: Benji for you know, really really taking the mantle with this,
19:09
Speaker 5: and it's inspiring to see, you know, what it's building
19:12
Speaker 5: in terms of support.
19:13
Speaker 4: So I would say, you know, there's never been a
19:15
Speaker 4: better time.
19:16
Speaker 5: Or or onto that bend like it's this is not easy,
19:20
Speaker 5: like even internally, you know, then we can admit, like
19:23
Speaker 5: it's not always easy having these conversations. It's actually very uncomfortable.
19:26
Speaker 5: But that doesn't happen anymore, right, Like we used to
19:29
Speaker 5: debate solutions and actually come to some sort of uh, compromise,
19:35
Speaker 5: such a bad word these days, so I you know,
19:37
Speaker 5: whatever synonym that is, but we used to come to
19:39
Speaker 5: some sort of compromise. I know, I wish, I wish
19:44
Speaker 5: compromise was not a dirty word. But we used to
19:46
Speaker 5: be able to do that and strike some sort of balance.
19:48
Speaker 5: We're doing that every single day on our team. Our board,
19:51
Speaker 5: like we have former Trump cabinet members and Obama Biden
19:55
Speaker 5: people on the same board. Uh, Sierra Club and Trump
19:58
Speaker 5: on the same board. Like it's it's from people on
20:00
Speaker 5: the same board. It's it's but people like, how does
20:03
Speaker 5: that work? It must be just absolutely nuts, I mean
20:05
Speaker 5: that must be. It was so funny on our last
20:06
Speaker 5: board call. You know, we had the former you know,
20:11
Speaker 5: Conservative leaders and the Sierra Club you know, former Sierra
20:14
Speaker 5: Club CEO all agreeing on something on the same call.
20:16
Speaker 5: And it's just like these sorts of things are, aren't.
20:19
Speaker 5: People don't realize how possible they are. But even when
20:21
Speaker 5: they're not, it's not some kumbay a bridge building thing
20:25
Speaker 5: for the sake of like building good relationships with each
20:28
Speaker 5: other because we want to be happy. It's like, no,
20:30
Speaker 5: this is to get things done. It's uncomfortable. There's some
20:33
Speaker 5: really tough conversations we've got to have. But if we're
20:36
Speaker 5: going to protect all of America, which includes rural communities
20:39
Speaker 5: and urban communities, which includes national parks and private lands,
20:42
Speaker 5: which includes state parks and wildlife corridors, which includes farmers
20:47
Speaker 5: and ranchers and people living in downtown New York City,
20:50
Speaker 5: if we're going to you know, protect all those places,
20:53
Speaker 5: conserve all those places, all those different people have to
20:56
Speaker 5: be represented in the environmental dialogue that hasn't happened in
20:59
Speaker 5: so long. So let's get uncomfortable, let's be a little
21:02
Speaker 5: bit out of our element. Let's put unlikely people together
21:05
Speaker 5: because it might not be easy, but we're going to
21:07
Speaker 5: be able to actually get some things done and put
21:10
Speaker 5: other issues aside to find a common goal.
21:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I guess I refer to it as a
21:16
Speaker 3: radically practical mindset where you need to set aside maybe
21:22
Speaker 3: labels or identity or political party or whatever other identifier
21:29
Speaker 3: you want and simply look at, hey, what's going to
21:31
Speaker 3: move the ball forward? What's going to get us closer
21:33
Speaker 3: to the goal line? And to your point, oftentimes it
21:37
Speaker 3: means a little bit of give and take, open communication,
21:41
Speaker 3: recognize and what our shared values are.
21:43
Speaker 2: And oftentimes if.
21:44
Speaker 3: You just push away and push aside all of these
21:47
Speaker 3: other preconceived notions. I'm sure you guys are seeing this
21:50
Speaker 3: within your own organization. You start to realize, oh, hey,
21:53
Speaker 3: we might not be able to do everything we all
21:55
Speaker 3: want to do, but we could probably move forward on
21:57
Speaker 3: seventy five percent of it and we'll get the faster
22:00
Speaker 3: more effectively together. But you know, you bring up one
22:04
Speaker 3: of the major questions that I had for you, which is,
22:07
Speaker 3: given all of that, given that that is all what
22:09
Speaker 3: we all three at least believe to be true, the
22:12
Speaker 3: how is you know, the devil's in the details, right,
22:15
Speaker 3: So internally, how are you guys negotiating and navigating some
22:22
Speaker 3: of the specifics around Hey, are we going to support
22:24
Speaker 3: this thing or this thing? You know, do we want
22:26
Speaker 3: to be against this thing and against that thing? Or like,
22:30
Speaker 3: how are you handling how? What I guess what I'm
22:33
Speaker 3: getting at is help us all learn to better work
22:37
Speaker 3: with folks that are different from us. What have you
22:39
Speaker 3: guys learned about that?
22:40
Speaker 4: Well?
22:41
Speaker 5: I think first of all, it's setting the intent. It's
22:42
Speaker 5: a really important question. And if we practice code, we'd
22:45
Speaker 5: be billionaires. And you know, teaching people how to work
22:48
Speaker 5: with each other and solving people's marriages and you know
22:51
Speaker 5: Thanksgiving dinners that they can't count their families at.
22:53
Speaker 4: Like, so we haven't.
22:54
Speaker 5: Figured you know, fully figured it out. But what I
22:57
Speaker 5: will say is that one thing that going to differentiate
23:01
Speaker 5: us that people are going to notice is that we
23:02
Speaker 5: are explicitly going to be four things. That is, that
23:06
Speaker 5: is what nature is. Nonpartisan is meant to be. There's
23:08
Speaker 5: enough groups pushing back, there's legal entities, there's litigation, there's
23:12
Speaker 5: you know, tac ads, all that stuff. It's easier to
23:14
Speaker 5: raise money for that stuff. Believe me, I could easily
23:16
Speaker 5: raise more money for a nonprofit if we did that
23:19
Speaker 5: we are going to be four things because it's easier
23:22
Speaker 5: to bring people together and get historic change done when
23:26
Speaker 5: you're working for something rather than against something, and you
23:29
Speaker 5: can actually build constituencies that way, and over the long.
23:33
Speaker 4: Haul, it actually gets more done.
23:34
Speaker 5: I understand that there are bad things that happen, right Benji,
23:37
Speaker 5: why would you why would you not at least oppose
23:39
Speaker 5: some of the most horrific things possible. Well, the reality
23:42
Speaker 5: is if we constantly are opposing things, it's distracting us
23:45
Speaker 5: from the time that we could spend being four things.
23:47
Speaker 5: And it's also burning bridges in the short term and
23:52
Speaker 5: in the long term rather than building bridges for the
23:54
Speaker 5: long term. And so that's that's a huge differentiator. The
23:58
Speaker 5: other differentiator is that we're not trying to aim for
24:00
Speaker 5: some big, like one goal, right, Like we're not saying
24:04
Speaker 5: we need a green new deal or we need to
24:08
Speaker 5: you know, undo that a green new deal. Right It's like,
24:12
Speaker 5: we don't have like one specific policy goal. We're saying, Okay,
24:15
Speaker 5: it's twenty twenty five, it's it's March. You know, what
24:19
Speaker 5: is the best opportunity for us to make the most
24:21
Speaker 5: impact on a policy level? Right now that we can
24:23
Speaker 5: advocate for that Americans agree on that will be that
24:26
Speaker 5: will look different in two years than it does right now,
24:29
Speaker 5: depending on who's president, depending on who's in Congress, and
24:32
Speaker 5: depending on who's the governor. Right, So, let's take the
24:35
Speaker 5: current moment we're in and try to maximize the amount
24:38
Speaker 5: of outcome that we can get. So you the good
24:41
Speaker 5: example of this at the federal level. You know, you've
24:43
Speaker 5: got a president who invested in national parks his last term,
24:47
Speaker 5: who talks about clean air and clean water, who talks
24:50
Speaker 5: about the importance of you know, outdoor recreation, and talks
24:53
Speaker 5: about the importance of farmers.
24:56
Speaker 4: Right, take take some of that.
24:58
Speaker 5: You look at you've got Republicans in congres, risks with
25:00
Speaker 5: slim majorities.
25:01
Speaker 4: Take that.
25:03
Speaker 5: Now, within those realities, what could you get done on
25:06
Speaker 5: a bipartisan basis That will be different if you know,
25:11
Speaker 5: you know, Kamala would have won in twenty twenty four
25:13
Speaker 5: and Republicans have the Senate and Democrats at the House
25:16
Speaker 5: or something. So trying to maximize the moment you're in,
25:19
Speaker 5: no matter who's in office, and being four things has
25:23
Speaker 5: been a huge unifier for our team because it allows
25:26
Speaker 5: us to say, you know, we can disagree on X,
25:29
Speaker 5: Y or Z, but eighty percent of Americans want action
25:33
Speaker 5: on protecting national parks and restoring you know, parklands. We
25:38
Speaker 5: as a team believe that too. Let's go and fight
25:40
Speaker 5: for that. So that's that's the sort of a.
25:42
Speaker 2: Proach of the app that makes a lot of sense.
25:55
Speaker 2: Then would you add anything there?
25:57
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would just say, you know, from like, I
25:59
Speaker 5: would lean on my past experience in working with you know,
26:03
Speaker 5: different groups to find common ground to work towards.
26:07
Speaker 4: And it goes a lot to to what Benji is saying.
26:09
Speaker 5: But you know, I previously worked at Department of the Interior, right,
26:14
Speaker 5: and I pretty quickly saw that you're gonna have to
26:16
Speaker 5: have full like buy in from conspectum. You're not gonna
26:20
Speaker 5: get full buy in, but you have to have it
26:22
Speaker 5: reflective of just like the American people and the variety
26:26
Speaker 5: of opinions there. And you know, I approached it with
26:28
Speaker 5: the baseline of hey, like baseline, we all agree that
26:31
Speaker 5: we want healthier environment, we all want more abundant.
26:34
Speaker 4: Wildlife, we want restored ecosystems.
26:37
Speaker 5: And then I would kind of speed date with a
26:38
Speaker 5: lot of you know, these large legacy NGOs and say, okay,
26:42
Speaker 5: speed date. You know, I want to meet with everybody
26:44
Speaker 5: top five priorities, you know, lay them out and I
26:47
Speaker 5: kind of like cross reference them and see where the
26:49
Speaker 5: common ground was, you know, and a lot of that
26:51
Speaker 5: would lead to good legacy wins that people you know
26:55
Speaker 5: that you wouldn't expect to be celebrating together were celebrating together.
26:58
Speaker 5: I talk about, you know, like a great American outdoors
27:00
Speaker 5: act or you know one that I'm super fond of
27:03
Speaker 5: his migration corridors, right, I mean, there's very different approach.
27:06
Speaker 5: There's a very different approach to migration corridors though.
27:08
Speaker 3: Right.
27:09
Speaker 5: You could have a land designation, or you could have
27:11
Speaker 5: states kind of lead and you know, private landowners and
27:14
Speaker 5: state authorities and all the different federal agencies working together.
27:19
Speaker 5: And we got to a place where Secretary Order of
27:21
Speaker 5: thirty three sixty two was signed that everybody was signing.
27:24
Speaker 4: Was it perfect for both sides?
27:26
Speaker 6: No?
27:26
Speaker 4: I mean they're sure.
27:27
Speaker 5: There were cattlemen that we're seeing black helicopters on it,
27:30
Speaker 5: but not trusting as seeing it as a land grab.
27:32
Speaker 5: There were folks saying this ought to be a land grab.
27:34
Speaker 5: It's not a land grab, you know, But at the
27:36
Speaker 5: middle and the actual majority was saying like, wow, this
27:39
Speaker 5: is awesome, and it was really cool. You know, when
27:41
Speaker 5: when Biden came into office and he put out his
27:43
Speaker 5: Executive Order on America the Beautiful, that was one item
27:47
Speaker 5: that carried over, you know, it was celebrated in there.
27:50
Speaker 5: It was a Trump initiative that then became, you know,
27:55
Speaker 5: a Biden initiative, and I you know, we see Congressman
27:59
Speaker 5: Ryan zing Key introducing legislation on and trying to codify
28:02
Speaker 5: and put more money into it. So it's wins like that,
28:04
Speaker 5: and like where those start though, are in the conversations
28:08
Speaker 5: across the board, not just with your friends, but also
28:11
Speaker 5: folks that you know, you normally don't talk to. They
28:13
Speaker 5: kind of just try to suss out where the common
28:15
Speaker 5: ground is.
28:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, in something you mentioned, Benji, I think is is
28:20
Speaker 3: really important back to kind of the practicality of a
28:23
Speaker 3: lot of this, and that being the fact that when
28:26
Speaker 3: certain initiatives get pushed through, especially by executive action, in
28:33
Speaker 3: if they are far to one side or the other,
28:35
Speaker 3: they tend to have this pendulum swing where something gets
28:37
Speaker 3: put in place and then a year later or two
28:40
Speaker 3: years later, it's gone, and then a new administration comes
28:43
Speaker 3: in and then something else is put in place, and
28:44
Speaker 3: then nothing really happens because it's just yo yoing back
28:48
Speaker 3: and forth. But you know, when you find things like
28:50
Speaker 3: that example right there, Ben that has support on both sides,
28:54
Speaker 3: it can be enduring and that's where real change actually happens.
28:59
Speaker 3: And I mean, you know, from all sides, there's some
29:01
Speaker 3: ideas that I wish got introduced and stuck around. I'll
29:05
Speaker 3: be bummed at some things disappear, and then there's other
29:06
Speaker 3: things like, hey, this is a great idea, and there's
29:08
Speaker 3: always going to be some of that no matter what.
29:11
Speaker 2: But all it's said.
29:13
Speaker 3: The next I think natural question then is because this
29:15
Speaker 3: idea sounds great in practice, the perspective, the aim, the
29:20
Speaker 3: approach makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.
29:24
Speaker 3: But I'm curious about how this actually happens. How do
29:29
Speaker 3: we influence folks, elected officials or whoever else we need
29:34
Speaker 3: to be talking to to get some of these things done.
29:37
Speaker 3: What is the nature is nonpartisan playbook? And I'm not
29:41
Speaker 3: looking for the specific opportunities right now, like I don't
29:44
Speaker 3: want to talk about this particular bill or that particular proposal,
29:47
Speaker 3: But what's like in your toolbox to influence whether it's
29:51
Speaker 3: the Trump administration right now, or if it's someone new
29:54
Speaker 3: four years from now or ten years from now, whoever
29:56
Speaker 3: it is, whatever party, what's the toolbock box that you
30:00
Speaker 3: guys are bringing to the table.
30:02
Speaker 4: It's a really good question.
30:04
Speaker 5: I think I would start out by saying, we want
30:06
Speaker 5: to make it cool in American politics to work across
30:10
Speaker 5: the isle on this stuff. You know, we want to
30:13
Speaker 5: show politicians that they will be rewarded by working across
30:17
Speaker 5: the aisle. We want to celebrate bipartisan wins. We want
30:19
Speaker 5: to have cool celebrities and influencers that people look up
30:21
Speaker 5: to engage. We want to have really amazing content and
30:26
Speaker 5: kind of a brand that people want to identify with,
30:28
Speaker 5: an optimistic, forward looking, truly you know, a brand that
30:32
Speaker 5: people in America are proud to identify with that they
30:34
Speaker 5: care about the environment. And just show politicians because right
30:38
Speaker 5: now they're incentive is to divide, right, their incentives to
30:41
Speaker 5: go on social media and say these great new deal
30:44
Speaker 5: radicals are coming for your land, or you know, these
30:47
Speaker 5: people are trying to drill on national parks and you know,
30:51
Speaker 5: take away all all of the environment that we have
30:53
Speaker 5: right like that, that's really those are the two messages
30:56
Speaker 5: that are incentivized. Right now, let's create a third incentive
30:59
Speaker 5: and incentive to get things.
31:00
Speaker 4: It's done.
31:00
Speaker 5: So we want to make it cool to be pro
31:04
Speaker 5: environment from a nonpartisan way it used to be. And
31:08
Speaker 5: I think that it's partially a branding thing. The other
31:10
Speaker 5: thing that I think, you know, the tactic we're going
31:13
Speaker 5: to use is really be a proxy for the entire
31:17
Speaker 5: conservation and environmental community. We have a goal by the
31:21
Speaker 5: end of this year to be the main driver of
31:25
Speaker 5: connecting people to other NGOs that are doing the on
31:28
Speaker 5: the ground work that people want to get involved with.
31:31
Speaker 5: You know, I think about my peer group of you know,
31:34
Speaker 5: millennial gen z, I'm kind of a sillennial or whatever
31:36
Speaker 5: they say. You know, people are really interested in getting
31:40
Speaker 5: involved on this issue. They have zero idea where to start.
31:43
Speaker 5: If you search local conservation group on Google, you're going
31:45
Speaker 5: to have eighty five different options. So we're going to
31:48
Speaker 5: build out a system software where people can very easily
31:53
Speaker 5: get tailored to a nonprofit that is relevant for their geography,
31:56
Speaker 5: for whatever interest they have, whatever politically they have, whatever
32:01
Speaker 5: you know, topic whatever. That that will be really helpful
32:04
Speaker 5: because a will be able to be a proxy for
32:06
Speaker 5: all these other NGOs that are doing great work, largely
32:10
Speaker 5: at the local level, but some of the national level too.
32:13
Speaker 5: But we'll also be able to maximize people's impact if
32:15
Speaker 5: they're interested in being involved. You know, you look at
32:17
Speaker 5: these like Nature Conservancy or Zero Club or these traditional NGOs,
32:21
Speaker 5: they have millions of members, but they don't actually do
32:25
Speaker 5: anything about it. And so our goal is to make
32:27
Speaker 5: it super easy for people to be active in the
32:29
Speaker 5: environmental community. So we want to make it cool, and
32:31
Speaker 5: we also want to make it easy to be active.
32:34
Speaker 5: And you know, at the end of the day, politicians
32:38
Speaker 5: react to fear and incentives, and we're not going to
32:44
Speaker 5: play the fear game, but we do want to show
32:46
Speaker 5: them that there's you know, by the end of this year,
32:47
Speaker 5: we said a million Americans we want in our network.
32:50
Speaker 5: Whether that's a million, ten million, you know, or all
32:54
Speaker 5: you know, a few hundred million that live in this country.
32:57
Speaker 5: We want people to in Congress to realize that there
33:00
Speaker 5: is a huge constituency out there that will support them.
33:03
Speaker 5: But the other thing is most people don't even know
33:05
Speaker 5: when something good happens, right Like most people out maybe
33:09
Speaker 5: the people listening to this to but the great American
33:11
Speaker 5: Outdoors Act. Most people have no idea that that happened.
33:14
Speaker 5: Most people have no idea that President Biden worked with
33:16
Speaker 5: Republicans on a pro nuclear policy last you know, last year. Like,
33:21
Speaker 5: those ideas don't sell, So in while we're building out
33:25
Speaker 5: our organization, we're also going to sell these big bipartisan
33:28
Speaker 5: wins so that people can actually hear about them and
33:31
Speaker 5: and be the sounding board for good news on the environment,
33:36
Speaker 5: not just for the sake of selling good news, but
33:38
Speaker 5: for the sake of rewarding people who deserve to be
33:41
Speaker 5: rewarded for doing the right thing.
33:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you mentioned this earlier, and I think right
33:46
Speaker 3: there it's worth bringing up again the fact that you know,
33:49
Speaker 3: there is this need for celebrating wins and for celebrating
33:53
Speaker 3: the potential and the opportunities. And there's also a need
33:56
Speaker 3: for accountability.
33:57
Speaker 5: Right.
33:57
Speaker 3: You need the other side. You need folks to play
33:59
Speaker 3: defense or call a beta s babe. I think it's
34:01
Speaker 3: important for the general public to do both, right. I
34:04
Speaker 3: think as an individual citizen, at least I personally feel
34:07
Speaker 3: a responsibility to talk to whoever my lawmakers are and
34:11
Speaker 3: say yes, I love this, no, don't love that so much.
34:13
Speaker 3: I think that's important, But from an organizational standpoint, I
34:16
Speaker 3: think it makes a lot of sense seeing that there's
34:18
Speaker 3: this opportunity, there's this vacuum where there's not a lot
34:21
Speaker 3: of people, you know, incentivizing doing the right thing. There's
34:25
Speaker 3: just a lot of the fear based thing which you mentioned,
34:27
Speaker 3: and that that's kind of covered. We've got organizations that
34:29
Speaker 3: are doing that on both sides in their own different way.
34:32
Speaker 3: So I'm glad that there's someone here who can fill
34:35
Speaker 3: that void. Now to you, ben as a follow up
34:39
Speaker 3: to what Benji was just discussing, to this toolbox, what
34:42
Speaker 3: levers are you guys gonna pull? What tools do you
34:45
Speaker 3: have at your disposal? I'm curious about that. And then
34:48
Speaker 3: also a little bit more around your maybe around like
34:52
Speaker 3: a theory of influence. Because you worked within the previous administration,
34:57
Speaker 3: You've seen this from the inside, and I'm curious about
35:01
Speaker 3: what you guys can do now given your experience and
35:05
Speaker 3: what you've seen, and also having people on your board
35:06
Speaker 3: who have you know, worked with both nonprofits and previous
35:09
Speaker 3: administrations and different things like that, how do you become
35:13
Speaker 3: the most influential, you know, conservation organization in this kind
35:17
Speaker 3: of way?
35:17
Speaker 2: What actually creates change.
35:22
Speaker 6: Ah, that's a great, great, great question.
35:24
Speaker 5: UH would say, you know, I think that the opportunity
35:27
Speaker 5: that lays in front of us is showing folks that
35:34
Speaker 5: when a president comes in, regardless who the president is,
35:38
Speaker 5: it doesn't mean that for a certain segment of population
35:41
Speaker 5: that the switch is on or off. There's always opportunity
35:45
Speaker 5: that there's willing folks and organizations that are out there
35:47
Speaker 5: right now that are always going to have the approach
35:50
Speaker 5: to be constructive and not obstructive. They're going to look
35:53
Speaker 5: for avenues to work through whatever the political makeup is
35:56
Speaker 5: to get our issues across. I think that the onus
35:59
Speaker 5: is on us to show that this is the winning issue.
36:02
Speaker 5: But I have all the faith in the world that
36:04
Speaker 5: it is just based off of again, where people stand
36:07
Speaker 5: on the issues and the coalition that we have in place.
36:12
Speaker 5: You know, first say like this current administration. You know,
36:16
Speaker 5: I make the point all the time, it's not mincing
36:19
Speaker 5: its words. They'll say what their number one priority is
36:22
Speaker 5: and they'll say energy dominance. That could be argued about elsewhere.
36:26
Speaker 5: But I also point out that you know, this isn't new.
36:30
Speaker 5: It was also the top priority during the first term, right.
36:34
Speaker 5: But what I point out is even if that being
36:37
Speaker 5: a top priority, it kind of plays out in the
36:40
Speaker 5: multiple use sort of fashion where you end up having
36:42
Speaker 5: a lot of conservation wins happen at the same time.
36:46
Speaker 5: So I challenge folks that care about you know, nature
36:49
Speaker 5: and the environment and conserving it for future generations to
36:53
Speaker 5: really take the opportunity.
36:54
Speaker 6: To express their voice and finding ways to be able
36:59
Speaker 6: to secure those wins during this period of time because
37:03
Speaker 6: it's happened before and we can do it even better
37:06
Speaker 6: this time around.
37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it just seems why throw your hands up
37:12
Speaker 3: and say, ah, you know, these next four years are
37:14
Speaker 3: gonna suck no matter who whatever, no matter what team
37:16
Speaker 3: you're on, right whether you know you're happy with this
37:19
Speaker 3: administration or not, it does not seem particularly productive in
37:23
Speaker 3: my view to say, well, everything's gonna go to hell.
37:26
Speaker 4: I hadn't just add to that for a sacon Like.
37:28
Speaker 5: I was on a call today with the potential funder
37:30
Speaker 5: and they were like, well, the first two months proved
37:33
Speaker 5: that nothing is possible over the next four years. And
37:37
Speaker 5: you know, that sort of thinking is so broken in
37:41
Speaker 5: American politics. That's like saying, Mark, because you had a
37:44
Speaker 5: bad morning today, you're gonna have a bad afternoon as well. Yeah,
37:48
Speaker 5: you know, like, just because you don't like something that
37:50
Speaker 5: someone did today doesn't mean that you can't get them
37:53
Speaker 5: to do something that you want them to do tomorrow.
37:55
Speaker 5: And it doesn't mean that you still can't call out
37:57
Speaker 5: the thing that you didn't like today. I think, like, yeah,
38:00
Speaker 5: you know, a really good example from from one of
38:04
Speaker 5: my travels recently was I was in Florida speaking at
38:06
Speaker 5: an event with one of the most far left members
38:08
Speaker 5: of the state legislature, and she goes, I hate Ron
38:11
Speaker 5: DeSantis on everything except for resiliency and conservation. I hate
38:17
Speaker 5: him on the other stuff, and and even within his
38:19
Speaker 5: own issue, you could dislike, you know, some of the
38:21
Speaker 5: stuff of it. But but you don't need to like
38:24
Speaker 5: write everything off because you didn't like something that somebody did,
38:27
Speaker 5: especially the first month or two of an administration. And
38:30
Speaker 5: I and that's true for conservatives too. They do the
38:32
Speaker 5: same thing when Democrats are in office. And you know,
38:36
Speaker 5: those two things are are not mutually exclusive.
38:39
Speaker 2: Yah.
38:39
Speaker 4: Can I just piggyback on that real quick too?
38:41
Speaker 5: I Mean, like, one thing that that I've learned, you know,
38:44
Speaker 5: having worked in and outside of government, is not to
38:49
Speaker 5: follow the assumption that an administration is a monolith and
38:52
Speaker 5: it all speaks with just one voice. I'll say, like,
38:55
Speaker 5: during my time an interior I have some of the
38:57
Speaker 5: most rewarding but difficult debates. I'm talking about bare knuckle
39:01
Speaker 5: brawls with other people that were also in the administration
39:04
Speaker 5: over policy issues, over land use issues. They're not all
39:08
Speaker 5: just agreed on and resolved, right. These things are dynamic,
39:11
Speaker 5: They're happening in real time, and you know, they need
39:14
Speaker 5: to be reflective of what people want because they're serving us.
39:17
Speaker 5: But yeah, a lot of folks would just think that
39:19
Speaker 5: it's just yeah, black or white, you.
39:20
Speaker 4: Know, red or blue.
39:22
Speaker 5: But a lot a lot of thought and fight goes
39:25
Speaker 5: into it, and it's the onus is on us is
39:27
Speaker 5: the community to have that voice at the table. If
39:30
Speaker 5: you're not sitting at the table, you're served on the table,
39:32
Speaker 5: right Yeah.
39:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, So with that beautiful framing in mind, then with
39:38
Speaker 3: us wanting to be sitting at the table and not
39:39
Speaker 3: on the plate, let's talk about opportunities. Let's talk about
39:43
Speaker 3: what is possible right now, because because yeah, I mean
39:47
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people who think what you just said,
39:49
Speaker 3: Benji is true, which is man, nothing great's going to
39:53
Speaker 3: happen for the environment right now because of the heavy
39:55
Speaker 3: prioritization on development and energy in the economy and stuff
39:59
Speaker 3: like that, which of course is all is all important.
40:01
Speaker 3: Other people can debate that and the details there, but.
40:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, there have been.
40:08
Speaker 3: Examples and various things proposed that seem concerning from environmental perspective.
40:13
Speaker 3: But there's certainly our opportunities to give me some good news,
40:16
Speaker 3: give me some some places where we can have wins
40:19
Speaker 3: if we do our jobs, if you guys do what
40:22
Speaker 3: you're gonna do, how do we turn frowns upside down?
40:26
Speaker 3: What are the places where we can get those wins?
40:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's a really good question because I mean,
40:30
Speaker 5: since since the election was over, you know, we've been
40:33
Speaker 5: putting our heads together with unlikely stakeholders to figure out
40:36
Speaker 5: what the opportunities really are. And you know, it's no
40:39
Speaker 5: secret that you know, and it's probably not popular for
40:42
Speaker 5: me to say this, but it definitely fits the bill
40:45
Speaker 5: of the non partisan nature of our organization. I haven't
40:48
Speaker 5: really enjoyed the last three elections and our options for president,
40:52
Speaker 5: and yet when the election was over, we were like, Okay,
40:56
Speaker 5: what can we make happen? Even though we haven't launched yet.
40:59
Speaker 5: Even though we aren't organization. We had I think one
41:01
Speaker 5: or two full time staff at the time. We barely
41:04
Speaker 5: he created the legal entity, and so we started meeting
41:07
Speaker 5: with Democrats in the Senate, in the House, Republicans in
41:09
Speaker 5: the Senate, in the House, and the Trump administration to
41:13
Speaker 5: figure out what those opportunities are. And there's actually a
41:15
Speaker 5: significant amount there now, you know, again kind of ignoring
41:19
Speaker 5: everything that's already happened and all the noise and all
41:21
Speaker 5: the rhetoric, President Trump did sign into law the last
41:27
Speaker 5: administration the largest investment international parks in recent history. He
41:31
Speaker 5: did block Bristol Bay from being developed from a mining perspective.
41:35
Speaker 5: He had a lot of you know, involvement in Everglades
41:38
Speaker 5: restoration and other conservation. He want, he and his team
41:43
Speaker 5: want to build on that legacy. And of course you
41:45
Speaker 5: can argue that he hasn't built on it during those
41:47
Speaker 5: first couple months of this year, you could argue that.
41:50
Speaker 5: But we are seeing substantial interest from the administration on
41:54
Speaker 5: buying into a historic investment and wildlife protection, in eco
42:00
Speaker 5: system restoration, in supporting farmers with sustainable agriculture, in you know,
42:05
Speaker 5: cleaning our air, in our water. Obviously it's part of
42:08
Speaker 5: his messaging in supporting rural and urban communities in terms
42:13
Speaker 5: of having more you know, supported green space and barriers
42:17
Speaker 5: against extreme storms, infrastructure for water. I mean, these are
42:21
Speaker 5: like big things that that need action, right and so
42:24
Speaker 5: climate people are going to be like, oh, that's not
42:26
Speaker 5: good enough, and you know we're not you know, setting
42:29
Speaker 5: aside enough land and we're not you know, scaling clean
42:31
Speaker 5: energy enough or whatever. And people on the right are
42:34
Speaker 5: when this hopefully happens, which I think it will soon
42:36
Speaker 5: in terms of him unveiling this agenda, and I believe
42:40
Speaker 5: that this will turn the discourse around as well. Whether
42:44
Speaker 5: the discourse has been fair or not is up to
42:46
Speaker 5: you know, up to debate, probably on a case by
42:48
Speaker 5: case basis. But like you know, this kind of he's
42:50
Speaker 5: tearing down everything for the environment I think will change
42:53
Speaker 5: once we have you know, this very positive progress made.
42:57
Speaker 5: But I mean, these are these are real issues that
42:59
Speaker 5: need to be so. I mean, our biodiversity is at
43:03
Speaker 5: risk increasingly more and more every single day. Our public
43:07
Speaker 5: lands are undermanaged and undervalued from a funding perspective, but
43:11
Speaker 5: they also are probably overmanaged from a red tape perspective.
43:15
Speaker 5: For lack of better term, we call it green tape
43:18
Speaker 5: to be able to actually go and manage those places
43:21
Speaker 5: and make sure that forest fires don't happen. I mean,
43:24
Speaker 5: all these are big ideas that need attention that the
43:27
Speaker 5: President is willing to work on that. We've seen so
43:30
Speaker 5: much interest on it, and it's genuine interest. It's not like,
43:33
Speaker 5: you know, a facade. They actually want to get this done.
43:36
Speaker 4: Now. I'm not going to applaud that until.
43:39
Speaker 5: It gets done, but I do want to just say,
43:43
Speaker 5: and I hope that this is true once, once it happens,
43:46
Speaker 5: If it happens. We've had so much interest from Democrat
43:50
Speaker 5: leaning organizations who say, look, I'm really upset with what's
43:53
Speaker 5: going on on this issue and others, but we will
43:55
Speaker 5: be there to support that if that can happen, and
43:59
Speaker 5: so many conserv who are like, thank goodness, we are
44:02
Speaker 5: so excited about having something to be for. People are
44:05
Speaker 5: excited about this, and you know, we're calling it make
44:08
Speaker 5: America Beautiful again. To also meet the moment and meet
44:11
Speaker 5: people where they're at. And the people who matter in
44:13
Speaker 5: this situation are the Republicans in leadership, and there's a
44:18
Speaker 5: real opportunity to kind of change the discourse. And if
44:21
Speaker 5: President Trump invested in this historic investment in all those
44:24
Speaker 5: different issues that I just outlined, I think it would
44:27
Speaker 5: make a huge meaningful change in changing the narrative nationally
44:31
Speaker 5: that this issue has to be partisan, because in so
44:33
Speaker 5: many people's minds, he is the least likely to do it.
44:36
Speaker 5: I would argue that there's a lot of proof that
44:38
Speaker 5: he is willing to engage on this stuff. But even
44:42
Speaker 5: if you think that or not, him acting on this
44:45
Speaker 5: with some Democrats, even just a few, would make a
44:48
Speaker 5: huge difference in changing the discourse of this for decades
44:51
Speaker 5: to come.
44:52
Speaker 3: I think yeah, And I think and you would hope
44:56
Speaker 3: that if this happens that you would see that celebration
45:01
Speaker 3: from the other side too, right, because look, we were
45:04
Speaker 3: talking earlier. At least I'll speak for myself as an individual,
45:07
Speaker 3: I think it's important to call a spade a spade
45:09
Speaker 3: when you're not happy with an elected official about something,
45:12
Speaker 3: regardless of if it's a deer r but vice versa.
45:15
Speaker 3: So hey, you know, if all of a sudden, we're
45:17
Speaker 3: going to see the person that we don't think is
45:19
Speaker 3: going to do something good for clean air, water or
45:21
Speaker 3: the public plans or whatever. If they do Heck, yeah,
45:24
Speaker 3: I don't care who does it. I don't care if
45:25
Speaker 3: you're wearing a rhetoric. I just want the thing. I
45:28
Speaker 3: just want the thing to get done. I think approaching
45:30
Speaker 3: these things from an issue by issue perspective is so
45:33
Speaker 3: much it makes a whole lot more sense than me
45:36
Speaker 3: to me, then this, uh, you know, is my team
45:38
Speaker 3: in the lead or your team in the lead. I
45:40
Speaker 3: don't think that's helping anyone that said the devil is
45:45
Speaker 3: in the details on this kind of stuff. So ben
45:49
Speaker 3: can you speak in any more detail on some of
45:52
Speaker 3: the specifics here, Like like Benji just said, Hey, we're
45:56
Speaker 3: getting interest from the current administration on doing good things
45:58
Speaker 3: for wildlife or doing things for clean air and clean water,
46:03
Speaker 3: et cetera. Can you you know you are you in
46:05
Speaker 3: a position to speak to any specific you know, bills
46:09
Speaker 3: that might be getting some extra support if they were
46:11
Speaker 3: to go forward on this or is there any you know,
46:14
Speaker 3: any proposal or executive order or or anything tangible that
46:18
Speaker 3: you guys are pushing for right now that you think
46:21
Speaker 3: has a pathway to success in the near future.
46:25
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I just backtracked to what Benji is saying too,
46:27
Speaker 5: and about meeting the moment, I would say, you know,
46:29
Speaker 5: one thing that's going to happen during the next four
46:32
Speaker 5: years is the is the the two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
46:35
Speaker 5: I think like what that is going to do for
46:37
Speaker 5: the country has really raised the conversation around patriotism, what
46:41
Speaker 5: it means to be American, and I think a lot
46:44
Speaker 5: of people forget and it's a great time to re
46:46
Speaker 5: educate or educate folks on it is. You know, stewardship
46:50
Speaker 5: is American. It was a revolutionary what we did in
46:54
Speaker 5: this country when you go back to Teddy Roosevelt's legacy,
46:58
Speaker 5: you know, in creating the National Park, to some wildlife refuges,
47:02
Speaker 5: just the North American model of conservation. These are some
47:05
Speaker 5: of our greatest exports.
47:06
Speaker 7: You know.
47:06
Speaker 5: I've traveled all over the world and talked to wildlife
47:09
Speaker 5: management authorities and you know, they look to us as
47:11
Speaker 5: being that gold standard. And I really think it's a
47:14
Speaker 5: chance to you know, give the current state of things
47:18
Speaker 5: a silver eyed view of where issues need to be
47:20
Speaker 5: addressed and then work towards solutions towards them. So in
47:25
Speaker 5: terms of like specifics on policy, I'm not going to
47:28
Speaker 5: dictate them, you know, from our perch but we're going
47:30
Speaker 5: to find that common ground policies to move forward on.
47:33
Speaker 5: I would say, you know, starting points though, would be
47:35
Speaker 5: building off of successes that we saw in the in
47:38
Speaker 5: the last administration that carried through this administration. I would
47:42
Speaker 5: also look at, you know, natural solutions to a lot
47:48
Speaker 5: of the crisis that we face. Now you know where
47:51
Speaker 5: nature turns on us in a way, you know, in
47:53
Speaker 5: a superpower sort of sense, is dangerous talking about like wildfires.
47:57
Speaker 5: You know, we saw if you want to have specific legislation,
48:01
Speaker 5: like in the House, the Fixer Forest Act, you know,
48:03
Speaker 5: one of the first bills that was even voted on.
48:06
Speaker 5: I think that it came one vote short of being
48:09
Speaker 5: able to pass on suspension out of the House, and
48:12
Speaker 5: it would have had you know a number of Democrat
48:15
Speaker 5: members not been back in their districts, you know, dealing
48:18
Speaker 5: with the aftermath of of the buyers. We'll see that
48:23
Speaker 5: move over to the Senate. Now imagine you know, in
48:26
Speaker 5: their own you know fashion, they'll they'll get it out
48:30
Speaker 5: of there and over to the President's desk. You know,
48:33
Speaker 5: there's unfinished business from the last term. If you look
48:35
Speaker 5: at like trillion trees, there's an executive order on that
48:38
Speaker 5: workout of e p A on on A on Ocean plastics,
48:43
Speaker 5: Great American Outdoors Act that's up for reauthorization. You know,
48:47
Speaker 5: there's going to be a sober look at it, right.
48:48
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know if the math change or
48:51
Speaker 5: or or what went into it, but the Deferman's backlog
48:55
Speaker 5: is doubled since it was passed, and that was really
48:57
Speaker 5: what it was meant to address, or a big portion
49:00
Speaker 5: of it. So how can we direct those funds more effectively?
49:05
Speaker 5: I don't think that the list of opportunities.
49:09
Speaker 4: Is short at all.
49:10
Speaker 5: It's a matter of again coalescing folks that are representing
49:14
Speaker 5: millions of hunters, anglers, conservationists, outdoor enthusiasts and finding those
49:20
Speaker 5: solutions to push forward. And really, you know, a lot
49:23
Speaker 5: of with Benji's put together, here is that chorus that's
49:26
Speaker 5: going to celebrate and to remind folks in DC that
49:29
Speaker 5: this is the voice of the people, this is what
49:31
Speaker 5: we expect. We want a government to work for us.
49:34
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, the key first step to
49:36
Speaker 5: unlocking a lot of this because a lot of a
49:38
Speaker 5: lot of these ideas are being proposed in bipartisan policies.
49:42
Speaker 5: People don't realize it and as a C three. We
49:45
Speaker 5: can't like lobby for those, but you know, telling the
49:48
Speaker 5: public that they're out there. There's a lot of bipartisan
49:50
Speaker 5: bills on this stuff. They often don't get through because
49:52
Speaker 5: it's not as big of a priority as flamming the
49:56
Speaker 5: other side or you know, playing in the partisan sandbox
49:59
Speaker 5: on other issues. Our goal is to have the President
50:02
Speaker 5: gave a mandate to not a mandate to that's from
50:07
Speaker 5: him to dictate all the environmental action, but to say, hey, Congress,
50:10
Speaker 5: we want you to act on these core subjects, some
50:12
Speaker 5: of the ones that I talked about earlier. You know, Hey,
50:15
Speaker 5: Cabinet secretaries, we want you to act on this, so
50:17
Speaker 5: that he's basically setting the precedent that he wants this
50:21
Speaker 5: to be a priority during the next two and four years.
50:24
Speaker 5: That's kind of the first step. So that mandate, you know,
50:27
Speaker 5: is something that we're seeing a lot of interest on
50:30
Speaker 5: just because it sets a vision, right, It allows everything
50:33
Speaker 5: to be packaged underneath the same sort of vision, and
50:36
Speaker 5: it allows people to work within it, and it sets
50:38
Speaker 5: some goals and parameters that are a little bit more
50:40
Speaker 5: broad like I talked about earlier, but only anything's off
50:42
Speaker 5: the table, really, like we're seeing a lot of interest.
50:45
Speaker 5: There's a laundry list of ideas. There's a lot of
50:47
Speaker 5: great mngos that have put together great ideas. We're basically
50:51
Speaker 5: giving the administration, Hey, here are a lot of great ideas,
50:54
Speaker 5: and you know, we don't need you to buy into
50:57
Speaker 5: every single one of them or like every one of them,
50:59
Speaker 5: but which ones do you like? And so we'll have
51:00
Speaker 5: a little bit more clarity on that in the next
51:02
Speaker 5: few weeks. You know, we've got some clarity that we
51:05
Speaker 5: probably shouldn't speak on. But like there's before, it's actually
51:09
Speaker 5: you know, permanent. But I think people who care about
51:12
Speaker 5: conservation and the environment will be very happy with the
51:14
Speaker 5: types of ideas that we're talking about. And they're not
51:18
Speaker 5: just like little crumbs to support public lands or just
51:21
Speaker 5: for wildlife or whatever. These are big steps, like historic
51:24
Speaker 5: achievements that could be celebrated by all And that's the
51:28
Speaker 5: goal that we have and and honestly, we want it
51:31
Speaker 5: to be a four year project that to Ben's common
51:36
Speaker 5: earlier about one item the Wildlife Quarters that went from
51:39
Speaker 5: Trump to Biden, that becomes a decade long project of
51:43
Speaker 5: you know, presidents making this a priority every time they
51:45
Speaker 5: go into office saying that they're going to work across
51:47
Speaker 5: the aisle to do it. And so this isn't just
51:50
Speaker 5: a twenty twenty five thing. This is a multi decade
51:52
Speaker 5: long thing. And so whenever we get done this year,
51:54
Speaker 5: we can build on next year and just keep making
51:57
Speaker 5: this a priority going forward.
52:10
Speaker 3: How do you guys think about getting mental space within
52:17
Speaker 3: the administration and other folks right now? Given everything else
52:21
Speaker 3: in the air, given all the other priorities, given you know,
52:25
Speaker 3: a clear mandate to cut costs. A lot of the
52:28
Speaker 3: things that folks that are interesting conservation wins are asking
52:33
Speaker 3: for is funding for the National Park Service backlog, or
52:37
Speaker 3: for grants to support habitat management, or for a million
52:40
Speaker 3: different things. Right a lot of this stuff costs money.
52:43
Speaker 3: And right now, you know, for all sorts of reasons,
52:46
Speaker 3: there is cutting of staff, cutting of budgets, et cetera.
52:49
Speaker 2: How do we.
52:50
Speaker 3: Move the ball forward given that climate, like the political
52:54
Speaker 3: climate we're in around that, you know, I could see
52:57
Speaker 3: that being particularly challenging, and.
53:00
Speaker 4: It hasn't been easy.
53:03
Speaker 5: I think in any first couple months of any administration
53:06
Speaker 5: it would be easy. Obviously, President Trump has come in,
53:10
Speaker 5: you know, for better or for worse, depending on how
53:12
Speaker 5: you look at it, like just with a huge amount
53:16
Speaker 5: of work that he's unloading on to different agencies and
53:19
Speaker 5: different people, and so it's it is a clouded room
53:22
Speaker 5: right now. Obviously, I think it really speaks to our
53:26
Speaker 5: model though of showing the incentive of doing something on this.
53:30
Speaker 5: So you know, we we are offering the ability for
53:35
Speaker 5: the President and Democrats and Republicans to achieve a historic
53:39
Speaker 5: win that is a legacy for all of them, right,
53:43
Speaker 5: that has celebrities and influencers that they look up to
53:46
Speaker 5: affiliated with it, that has America celebrating it, that has
53:50
Speaker 5: really good visuals, and just like you know, a moment
53:53
Speaker 5: in time that they'll look back on and be proud of.
53:56
Speaker 5: And that's the sort of incentive that we're giving, right
53:59
Speaker 5: We're giving them the grassroots, we're giving them the cultural
54:03
Speaker 5: and we're giving them kind of like the personal legacy aspect.
54:08
Speaker 5: We're not going to them and saying if you don't
54:10
Speaker 5: do this, you know, the world's going to burn, if
54:12
Speaker 5: you don't do this, we're going to come after you
54:14
Speaker 5: or whatever. We're providing a very positive incentive. And yes,
54:17
Speaker 5: we haven't gotten through fully in the first two months
54:20
Speaker 5: to the point where I could tell you that we've
54:22
Speaker 5: already had all these accomplishments, but we made a ton
54:25
Speaker 5: of progress in two months with that more positive approach
54:28
Speaker 5: with not just the Trump administration. I keep hammering on this,
54:31
Speaker 5: but like also Democrats as well and Republicans who are
54:34
Speaker 5: like so excited about this more incentive based approach to
54:37
Speaker 5: do the right thing. And so that's how you got
54:39
Speaker 5: I mean, I think over time that just compounds and
54:44
Speaker 5: it allows you to build momentum because every time, like
54:47
Speaker 5: we're providing value to legislators to do the right thing right,
54:52
Speaker 5: they will be rewarded for doing the right thing.
54:53
Speaker 4: So they want to do it.
54:54
Speaker 5: They want to have their picture taken, you know, celebrating
54:57
Speaker 5: a massive success, so that they can tell their can
55:00
Speaker 5: situents and so that they can reach a new demographic
55:03
Speaker 5: of Americans. So this is this is this is kind
55:05
Speaker 5: of our model at work right away. Uh, you know,
55:08
Speaker 5: we're launching you know, you know this spring, but we
55:12
Speaker 5: don't we We've already had this body of work that
55:15
Speaker 5: proves the model out even in the first few months
55:17
Speaker 5: of this year. And I would just say that the
55:20
Speaker 5: other thing that people need to realize is that you know,
55:23
Speaker 5: in addition to to sort of this incentive based approach,
55:26
Speaker 5: the President and his team, again like it or not,
55:29
Speaker 5: are burning things down to try to you know, balance
55:34
Speaker 5: the fiscal budget and kind of reset the government and
55:36
Speaker 5: all that stuff. They're they're not gonna do that forever.
55:38
Speaker 5: They're they're gonna want to build back with better and
55:40
Speaker 5: more efficient ways to do things. And that's a great
55:44
Speaker 5: opportunity for people who care about the environment to go
55:46
Speaker 5: and say, Okay, this is how we rebuild conservation and
55:49
Speaker 5: make it more efficient, and make it more effective, and
55:51
Speaker 5: make it more you know, balance between private landowners and
55:54
Speaker 5: public landowners and ranchers and hunters and farmers and anglers
55:58
Speaker 5: and hikers and like like, there's a way to kind
56:01
Speaker 5: of you know, through the dust, have it settle to
56:05
Speaker 5: a better outcome. Because this is this isn't just like
56:08
Speaker 5: going to be dusty for the next four years. We
56:10
Speaker 5: are going to get through it and then we're going
56:12
Speaker 5: to rebuild. And you know, we're in a really good
56:15
Speaker 5: spot to be doing that, and fairly shortly, fairly shortly.
56:20
Speaker 3: One of the kind of tenants, I guess you could
56:22
Speaker 3: call it of your of the approach I think you
56:24
Speaker 3: guys are taking I've seen it listed on you know,
56:26
Speaker 3: some documentation or your website somewhere. But this idea of
56:30
Speaker 3: utilizing and in fostering big civic engagement, I'm curious if
56:38
Speaker 3: if you could speak a little bit more about that,
56:40
Speaker 3: what that means and what that can mean at an
56:43
Speaker 3: individual level. So by that, I mean for somebody listening
56:47
Speaker 3: right now, how can they act in such a way
56:51
Speaker 3: that they can be involved in big civic engagement? That
56:53
Speaker 3: actually makes a difference because I think a lot of
56:55
Speaker 3: people that care about these things that are hunters or
56:59
Speaker 3: anglers or client or bikers or whatever, and they love
57:01
Speaker 3: wild places and wildlife.
57:03
Speaker 2: And clean air and clean water all those things.
57:06
Speaker 3: A lot of the decisions made about that seems so
57:09
Speaker 3: outside of their influence and so beyond them that you
57:14
Speaker 3: can have this kind of throw your hands up in
57:16
Speaker 3: the air feelings sometimes because you don't seem like you
57:19
Speaker 3: have any agency. How do we reclaim that with big
57:22
Speaker 3: civic engagement? And I guess benjiel lets you kick that
57:25
Speaker 3: one off, But I want to hear your thoughts too, Ben.
57:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'll let it go over to Ben too,
57:29
Speaker 5: because I've been talking a lot. But yeah, I would
57:31
Speaker 5: just say, like hyper specific is better. Like, you think
57:35
Speaker 5: about all the different issues that we have in this
57:37
Speaker 5: country environmentally, and they're all I think the environmental movement
57:41
Speaker 5: has been kind of difficult to make an impact with
57:45
Speaker 5: because they're so broad. It's like, you know, we want
57:48
Speaker 5: climate action, Okay, well what does that actually look like?
57:51
Speaker 4: You know? Or we want we want public lands to
57:53
Speaker 4: be protected.
57:54
Speaker 5: Okay, what does that actually look like? Because each case
57:56
Speaker 5: by case example is different. Right, if you're talking about
57:59
Speaker 5: a land in Georgia, the different need from a policy
58:03
Speaker 5: perspective than the deserts of Arizona where I live, Right, So, like,
58:07
Speaker 5: let's let's have advocacy around issues that people care about
58:11
Speaker 5: in a hyper specific way. If you care about wildlife corridors,
58:14
Speaker 5: you know, have have your legislator hear you on that.
58:18
Speaker 5: If you care about a national park being created in Georgia,
58:21
Speaker 5: which I was just reading about, you know, instead of
58:25
Speaker 5: having it be a mind like advocate about that, like,
58:28
Speaker 5: be as specific as possible about what you're for, because
58:33
Speaker 5: it allows your legislator to actually do something about it.
58:36
Speaker 4: Like, all, we want you to care about the environment.
58:38
Speaker 5: Okay, well you know that that kind of like they
58:41
Speaker 5: still hear it and they still care to hear it,
58:43
Speaker 5: but they don't really know what to do about that.
58:45
Speaker 5: And you know, the more that people can hear about
58:47
Speaker 5: specific indiatives, the better. So I think that that's where,
58:50
Speaker 5: you know, we're going to try to really build out
58:51
Speaker 5: our model for people is allow people to advocate for
58:54
Speaker 5: specific issues that they care about. Some people care about
58:57
Speaker 5: climate change, some people care about clean energy, some people
58:59
Speaker 5: care about hunting and fishing, and some people care about
59:02
Speaker 5: ecosystem restoration, and some people care about none of those things. Right,
59:04
Speaker 5: So trying to make it as easy as possible because
59:07
Speaker 5: everyone's why for carrying out the environment is somewhat different,
59:10
Speaker 5: and advocating for something that you personally care about rather
59:15
Speaker 5: than trying to do some broad push A will get
59:17
Speaker 5: more people involved, but B will make it a lot
59:19
Speaker 5: more effective.
59:20
Speaker 4: Ben Yeah, I think you put it really well, Benji.
59:25
Speaker 5: But I love that idea of big citizenship, and I
59:27
Speaker 5: think you know, I think it is originally kind of
59:30
Speaker 5: coined as like a counter a foil to like big government.
59:34
Speaker 5: But when I talk about like big citizenship just in
59:36
Speaker 5: the last couple of months, I guess it goes back
59:38
Speaker 5: a few more months.
59:39
Speaker 4: In a couple of months, but like we've talked.
59:40
Speaker 5: To like Senator Martin Heinrich, also talk to you know,
59:43
Speaker 5: Vice President JD. Vance that really espouse the importance of
59:47
Speaker 5: it and sees tremendous value in it. I saw Secretary
59:51
Speaker 5: Burgham a few weeks back and he made a comment
59:54
Speaker 5: about nobody loves the habitat or the wildlife of North
59:58
Speaker 5: Dakota more than you know, the management authorities.
1:00:01
Speaker 4: There in North Dakota.
1:00:02
Speaker 5: You know, all these folks can come, folks can come
1:00:05
Speaker 5: and visit, but they don't have that and that appreciation.
1:00:08
Speaker 4: So what what that means to say is, you know, people.
1:00:11
Speaker 5: Love their backyards more more than anybody else. And there's
1:00:14
Speaker 5: real untapped potential there. And we're looking at you know,
1:00:17
Speaker 5: the administration has a stance today where it's really you know,
1:00:20
Speaker 5: considering the role of government and what it plays and
1:00:24
Speaker 5: you know, how it should be deployed, and they're really
1:00:26
Speaker 5: looking towards empowering states, empowering local communities.
1:00:30
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
1:00:31
Speaker 5: How do we how do we you know, have policies
1:00:33
Speaker 5: that really allow for folks to be more front and
1:00:37
Speaker 5: center in direct hands on stewardship, you know, like gets
1:00:40
Speaker 5: merit and law and and how that's implemented. So I
1:00:44
Speaker 5: think that that's a that's a really big one where
1:00:47
Speaker 5: we have a huge opportunity you know, and talking you
1:00:50
Speaker 5: know with folks that are working on the celebration, the
1:00:52
Speaker 5: two hundred and fiftieth birthday celebration. It's going to be
1:00:55
Speaker 5: one of the core pillars of it is it is volunteerism,
1:01:00
Speaker 5: is service. I think that you know, for for our
1:01:03
Speaker 5: needs on our public lands, on our private lands, in
1:01:06
Speaker 5: our environment, I think that plays a direct role where
1:01:09
Speaker 5: we can really step up and fill in.
1:01:11
Speaker 4: I mean, just just quickly.
1:01:12
Speaker 5: I'm like, let's just take forest management for example. The
1:01:17
Speaker 5: need for civic leadership is obviously critical to like make
1:01:22
Speaker 5: force management and better care of our forces happen from
1:01:25
Speaker 5: a policy standpoint, But what Ben was just talking about
1:01:28
Speaker 5: for the for the government to empower local communities to
1:01:31
Speaker 5: help take care of those forests, right for states to
1:01:34
Speaker 5: be involved.
1:01:35
Speaker 4: It's not for states to go clear cut it.
1:01:37
Speaker 5: I think that's like the misnomer, like there's a there's
1:01:38
Speaker 5: a middle ground between like selling off public land, which
1:01:41
Speaker 5: is not what we're raavigating for, and like letting local
1:01:45
Speaker 5: stakeholders have more of a stake in it, right, have
1:01:47
Speaker 5: more of a voice. So that sort of like involvement
1:01:51
Speaker 5: from like everything for the environmental community has seemed like
1:01:54
Speaker 5: it's come from d C and been told by d
1:01:57
Speaker 5: C to as a directive to the people. And what
1:02:01
Speaker 5: I think we can do with this more like civic leadership,
1:02:04
Speaker 5: big civic leadership idea is trying to make environmentalism and
1:02:07
Speaker 5: conservation a truly all American thing again, something that we
1:02:12
Speaker 5: all share and are all involved with, whether that be
1:02:15
Speaker 5: because you're involved with your local gardening club or because
1:02:18
Speaker 5: you're a local forest forest firefighter, or you are a
1:02:24
Speaker 5: duck hunter who's helped restoring a habitat in coastal Louisiana,
1:02:28
Speaker 5: or you're a trash picker upper at a beach in Florida.
1:02:32
Speaker 5: That sort of leadership is what actually makes changes for
1:02:35
Speaker 5: the environment rather than like trying to rely all on DC.
1:02:38
Speaker 5: And I think the more that we can involve all
1:02:40
Speaker 5: Americans in this the better.
1:02:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, And man that on the ground, local work not
1:02:46
Speaker 3: only makes you know, not only does it make a
1:02:48
Speaker 3: difference to the specific cause that you're working on, but
1:02:51
Speaker 3: it also does a whole lot for your peace of mind,
1:02:55
Speaker 3: your state of mind, your sense of agency. The feeling that, Okay,
1:02:59
Speaker 3: I actually can do something. I was just this past
1:03:02
Speaker 3: weekend down in Kentucky volunteering on the Daniel Boone National Forest.
1:03:05
Speaker 3: We planted one three hundred trees on the National Forest,
1:03:09
Speaker 3: and I felt a whole lot more effective on that
1:03:12
Speaker 3: one day that I felt in weeks making phone calls
1:03:16
Speaker 3: or sending emails. So a little bit of on the
1:03:18
Speaker 3: groundwork is just very good therapy, let alone just tangibly
1:03:22
Speaker 3: good too. Now that said, the phone calls, the emails
1:03:26
Speaker 3: needing both exactly. So, Ben you worked in the Department
1:03:32
Speaker 3: of the Interior, you were involved with the previous administration.
1:03:37
Speaker 3: For people who want to be more effective at communicating
1:03:40
Speaker 3: with their elected officials or folks, what makes effective communication?
1:03:45
Speaker 3: What makes for a public comment or a phone call
1:03:49
Speaker 3: or whatever communication method we're talking about, how do you
1:03:52
Speaker 3: actually get through and make a difference? Ben Benji mentioned
1:03:55
Speaker 3: a few things earlier, but I'm curious from you know,
1:03:57
Speaker 3: giving your experience there, if we want to either advocate
1:04:02
Speaker 3: foreign issue or against a particular thing, how do we
1:04:05
Speaker 3: be more effective as individuals in doing that?
1:04:09
Speaker 7: Okay, So my take on it is government is huge, right,
1:04:14
Speaker 7: It's massive, So it doesn't have the ability sometimes to
1:04:17
Speaker 7: get down to the level of just a single individual person.
1:04:21
Speaker 4: So I believe that there's always power in numbers.
1:04:23
Speaker 5: I don't want to be a total like salesman for
1:04:26
Speaker 5: like n G O s, but I've experienced it firsthand
1:04:30
Speaker 5: when people cobble together, you know, as a group and
1:04:35
Speaker 5: and have like thoughtful comments and send them over that
1:04:39
Speaker 5: they're they're better received, you know. So I think you
1:04:42
Speaker 5: like it depends on you know, what you care about
1:04:45
Speaker 5: right in terms of issues, But there's always a group
1:04:47
Speaker 5: out there that you can trust, you know, that that
1:04:51
Speaker 5: that that tells it like it is, you know, and
1:04:53
Speaker 5: going with them to get your to get your comments through.
1:04:56
Speaker 5: And I think that's a really big piece of like
1:04:57
Speaker 5: what we're building with nature nonpartisan, is that large mass
1:05:01
Speaker 5: of people that we're going to tell them, you know,
1:05:04
Speaker 5: like it is where the opportunities are and be able
1:05:07
Speaker 5: to interface with government, letting them know where you know,
1:05:10
Speaker 5: a massive folks stand.
1:05:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I could agree more. And I think like.
1:05:15
Speaker 5: You need a vehicle, whether it be a local group
1:05:18
Speaker 5: or a national group to help kind of with the
1:05:20
Speaker 5: power numbers thing. I've talked to members of Congress especially
1:05:24
Speaker 5: who and I think state legislators it's very similar who
1:05:28
Speaker 5: hate being called out specifically on social media, like they
1:05:33
Speaker 5: read everything, and so I think, like I would actually
1:05:36
Speaker 5: flip that and say, how about I mean people as
1:05:40
Speaker 5: an organization, we are going.
1:05:41
Speaker 4: To be four things like we talked about earlier.
1:05:43
Speaker 5: But I mean, if you can reward people too for
1:05:46
Speaker 5: doing the right thing on social media, provide an echo
1:05:49
Speaker 5: chamber of support when they do the right thing, it's
1:05:51
Speaker 5: even more powerful. Sometimes if you're on the other side,
1:05:54
Speaker 5: you say, hey, I didn't vote for you, but I
1:05:56
Speaker 5: really appreciate that you did this, like even just that
1:05:59
Speaker 5: sort of thing, and obviously if it's from your own side,
1:06:01
Speaker 5: it's great too. So I think it's it's it's a
1:06:04
Speaker 5: mixture of not just like pushing against people, but pushing
1:06:08
Speaker 5: for people and joining, like, you know, organizations that can
1:06:12
Speaker 5: represent your values. And that's actually kind of full circle
1:06:16
Speaker 5: of why Nature's on artisan exists, which is that there
1:06:20
Speaker 5: is really no organization that I believe someone could join.
1:06:23
Speaker 5: And I'm not trying to throw my NGO friends under
1:06:25
Speaker 5: the bus here, but like that advocates for the environment
1:06:28
Speaker 5: in a way that actually represents the whole of America.
1:06:31
Speaker 5: Like I can't think of anybody. And again it's not
1:06:35
Speaker 5: a knock, but it also used to exist, so it
1:06:38
Speaker 5: can exist. It's proof that it can exist, and we
1:06:42
Speaker 5: are going to do and Ben just described to try
1:06:44
Speaker 5: to make sure that everyone's represented at the table and
1:06:47
Speaker 5: that we make it easy, right, Like people don't enough
1:06:49
Speaker 5: time to go and advocate like you and I might
1:06:52
Speaker 5: because it's partially our job, but it's one hundred percent
1:06:55
Speaker 5: my job, So it's you know, but it's it's our
1:06:58
Speaker 5: job as an organization to represent the people that are
1:07:00
Speaker 5: part of our network. And so if people have sixty
1:07:02
Speaker 5: hour work weeks and kids at home, that they can
1:07:05
Speaker 5: be part of Nature's non Partisan, but we can help
1:07:07
Speaker 5: represent them if they don't have the time to advocate
1:07:09
Speaker 5: for themselves.
1:07:09
Speaker 4: So I think it's a mixture of both.
1:07:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, So tell me this over the next twelve months
1:07:14
Speaker 3: or so, you know, today when this podcast drops, it
1:07:17
Speaker 3: will be the launch date of the organization, the public
1:07:20
Speaker 3: launch day of the organization. So over the next twelve months,
1:07:23
Speaker 3: what does involvement with nature Is Nonpartisan look like for
1:07:28
Speaker 3: an individual, So someone listening right now, if they were
1:07:32
Speaker 3: to head over to your website and you know, pop
1:07:35
Speaker 3: in their email address, sign the pledge, whatever, what would
1:07:40
Speaker 3: their engagement with your organization look like over this next year.
1:07:43
Speaker 3: What are you going to ask of them and or
1:07:46
Speaker 3: provide them and or have them be aware of over
1:07:50
Speaker 3: this next year.
1:07:51
Speaker 5: Well it's a really good question, and we're going to
1:07:53
Speaker 5: build this out a lot over the next couple months.
1:07:54
Speaker 5: But there's two clear, two clear reasons to join us
1:07:57
Speaker 5: from a logistical standpoint, and then also from one from
1:08:00
Speaker 5: a mission standpoint, which is already clear. So from the
1:08:03
Speaker 5: logistical standpoint, we are going to do two things. One,
1:08:06
Speaker 5: we are going to have a really easy to use
1:08:09
Speaker 5: advocacy hub that allows people to advocate for the issues
1:08:11
Speaker 5: that they specifically care about two elected officials, and make
1:08:15
Speaker 5: it super seamless, not a lot of steps, and again.
1:08:19
Speaker 4: Tailored to their issues that they care about.
1:08:22
Speaker 5: Second, we also are going to connect them with aligned
1:08:26
Speaker 5: center left, center and center right nonprofits that are tailored
1:08:30
Speaker 5: to them as well. If they if they choose, you know,
1:08:32
Speaker 5: they don't need to be connected to another nonprofit if
1:08:35
Speaker 5: if they don't want to be, but if you have,
1:08:37
Speaker 5: if there's a local group in your area that's doing
1:08:39
Speaker 5: amazing work and is truly living up to the nonpartisan ethos,
1:08:42
Speaker 5: and actually doing that on the ground work, and you
1:08:44
Speaker 5: want to work with them, we're going to help you
1:08:45
Speaker 5: find them.
1:08:46
Speaker 4: So that's that's kind of like, those are the two things.
1:08:48
Speaker 5: Our advocacy hub and helping connect you to other groups
1:08:52
Speaker 5: as well that are more on the ground than us
1:08:54
Speaker 5: as a national group, so that both of those I
1:08:57
Speaker 5: don't think really exists. Advocacy is really hard right now.
1:09:00
Speaker 5: It's kind of difficult to even find a way to
1:09:02
Speaker 5: do it in your own authentic way. We're going to
1:09:04
Speaker 5: fix that. And then it's also really hard to find
1:09:06
Speaker 5: other groups too, and we're going to fix that. But
1:09:08
Speaker 5: the other thing that sets us apart is that we
1:09:11
Speaker 5: are the only national group that's working on this stuff
1:09:14
Speaker 5: that is truly trying to do this from a non
1:09:16
Speaker 5: partisan standpoint. Everything we do will be evenly split conservatives
1:09:19
Speaker 5: of liberal.
1:09:19
Speaker 4: There's no other organization that has that intention.
1:09:22
Speaker 5: And so if you want to join an organization to advocate,
1:09:26
Speaker 5: to learn, to celebrate wins, to get things done, all
1:09:29
Speaker 5: the things that we're going to do, and you and
1:09:33
Speaker 5: you want to know for sure that they are actively
1:09:36
Speaker 5: balancing the political spectrum to get just good results. That's
1:09:39
Speaker 5: how you get good results is when you have a
1:09:40
Speaker 5: collaboration of ideas, this is your home. And if you
1:09:44
Speaker 5: don't want that, if you want to play partisan politics,
1:09:46
Speaker 5: this is not your place. And you know, we don't
1:09:49
Speaker 5: want radical right and radical left people who are part
1:09:52
Speaker 5: of the problem. We want the eighty percent of America.
1:09:54
Speaker 5: They can be conservative, they can be liberal, they can
1:09:56
Speaker 5: be proud Republicans and proud Democrats, but on this issue,
1:09:59
Speaker 5: they're willing to understand that we have a common goal
1:10:01
Speaker 5: and to get to the common goal, we have to
1:10:04
Speaker 5: work with each other. And that doesn't mean compromising your values.
1:10:07
Speaker 5: It means coming to a solution that works for everybody
1:10:09
Speaker 5: to the best of its ability. And that's something that
1:10:12
Speaker 5: will set us apart from everyone else. In addition to
1:10:14
Speaker 5: those kind of like nuts and bolts advocacy things.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you add anything to that, Ben.
1:10:21
Speaker 5: No, just having a hub too, to just show you
1:10:23
Speaker 5: know where where the issues lie and where the solutions
1:10:27
Speaker 5: are being provided. And again it's telling people how they
1:10:32
Speaker 5: can engage right, how they can do something proactive and
1:10:37
Speaker 5: be a part of the solution.
1:10:39
Speaker 4: Because again, yeah, it's.
1:10:40
Speaker 5: Like depending on where you are on inspectrum, Like some
1:10:43
Speaker 5: people are just saying, you know, I want to sit out.
1:10:46
Speaker 5: I feel like my voice doesn't matter, you know. So
1:10:48
Speaker 5: this is creating a space where no, we found the
1:10:51
Speaker 5: common ground. We found an item that you can push
1:10:54
Speaker 5: and make great progress on it, and it'll.
1:10:55
Speaker 6: Make a difference to feeling that you'll feel at home.
1:10:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, so imagine this. Imagine we are a little bit
1:11:03
Speaker 3: less than four years in the future. The next election
1:11:07
Speaker 3: is coming around, people are debating everything all over again,
1:11:10
Speaker 3: and you know, you know how it goes. I'm wondering
1:11:14
Speaker 3: if you can imagine that time period in a world
1:11:18
Speaker 3: in which nature is nonpartisan, has been a wild success,
1:11:23
Speaker 3: in which you have achieved your goals as much as
1:11:26
Speaker 3: you possibly could in three and you know, half years
1:11:28
Speaker 3: or so, and you are sitting there looking back on
1:11:32
Speaker 3: what you accomplished from now until then, what would have
1:11:38
Speaker 3: gotten done?
1:11:39
Speaker 2: What would that.
1:11:40
Speaker 3: Future look like if that were to actually play out?
1:11:44
Speaker 3: And I'll let I'll let ben you lead with that one,
1:11:47
Speaker 3: and then Benji you can have the final word.
1:11:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, a successful four years is having folks that can
1:11:55
Speaker 5: look back and know that they were apart and achieving
1:11:57
Speaker 5: restored and thriving ecosystems, resilient, healthy, abundant wildlife, that they
1:12:05
Speaker 5: were an active participate participant in democracy, in seeing greater
1:12:10
Speaker 5: protections happen and in a better future for our wild
1:12:14
Speaker 5: places and our wild things. And then from there saying
1:12:20
Speaker 5: we're not gonna stop. We're gonna get our friends to
1:12:22
Speaker 5: join as well. We're going to get Dee to make
1:12:24
Speaker 5: the difference, no matter who sits in the White House,
1:12:26
Speaker 5: no matter who's in Congress, and it will completely change
1:12:30
Speaker 5: the way the environment has talked about and approached, the
1:12:32
Speaker 5: whole shift in the dialogue. Yeah, and to build on that,
1:12:36
Speaker 5: I think, you know, we'd love to see historic bipartisan achievements,
1:12:39
Speaker 5: things that you could look back on, like you could
1:12:41
Speaker 5: look back on the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act,
1:12:43
Speaker 5: in Diinjured Species Act. Obviously those were long lasting and
1:12:48
Speaker 5: they do need some amendment, I think, but like they've
1:12:52
Speaker 5: lasted fifty ish years because they were bipartisan, right so,
1:12:57
Speaker 5: and they were massive landmark achievements.
1:12:59
Speaker 4: I think he could accomplish a few of those, and
1:13:01
Speaker 4: I would really like to see that happen.
1:13:03
Speaker 5: I'd also love to be able to ask the average
1:13:04
Speaker 5: person on the street do you see the environment as
1:13:06
Speaker 5: a partisan issue in America right now? And have them
1:13:09
Speaker 5: say no, because right now it would be an absolute yes,
1:13:12
Speaker 5: and that is something that we all know, and it's
1:13:14
Speaker 5: trackable just by the fact that we all know it,
1:13:16
Speaker 5: and I think we unanimously should be able to say
1:13:20
Speaker 5: that that's not true any longer by the end of
1:13:23
Speaker 5: the next four years. And then I would also just
1:13:26
Speaker 5: say that this becomes the norm in policy, right Like
1:13:31
Speaker 5: you know, I think back to when I went to
1:13:33
Speaker 5: Richard Nixon's library to speak about my book about a
1:13:36
Speaker 5: year ago, and one of his old campaign team members,
1:13:39
Speaker 5: one of his young ades was Who's still Alive, was
1:13:42
Speaker 5: there and he was showing me the campaign booklet where
1:13:46
Speaker 5: the environment was listed last in the campaign booklet, and
1:13:50
Speaker 5: I asked him, you know why is this listed last?
1:13:53
Speaker 5: You guys had some of the biggest environmental achievements in
1:13:55
Speaker 5: American history. And he said, because it was an expectation
1:13:59
Speaker 5: that Americans had for us to lead on it. We
1:14:01
Speaker 5: didn't need to campaign on it as our top issue
1:14:04
Speaker 5: because people knew that we would, that we would work
1:14:07
Speaker 5: on it either way, and that if we didn't, we'd
1:14:09
Speaker 5: be hell accountable and if we did, we'd be rewarded.
1:14:12
Speaker 5: That needs to be the norm very soon, and not
1:14:16
Speaker 5: to say that we don't debate it. Not to say
1:14:17
Speaker 5: it's not a priority, because it absolutely needs to be.
1:14:20
Speaker 5: But in twenty twenty eight, could Nature's nonpartisan host a
1:14:22
Speaker 5: presidential debate about the environment and conservation and they're debating
1:14:26
Speaker 5: the solutions like they used to. That would be an
1:14:28
Speaker 5: awesome norm to have, and I think it's it's very
1:14:31
Speaker 5: reasonable to get there in that short amount of time.
1:14:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would love I would love for that to
1:14:35
Speaker 3: be the case. I would love to see both sides
1:14:37
Speaker 3: legitimately debating solutions, with creative and innovative solutions on both sides,
1:14:43
Speaker 3: and we can we can find what the middle ground is,
1:14:46
Speaker 3: but everyone at the table on that. That would be tremendous.
1:14:49
Speaker 3: And I think, as we've all been discussing here, a
1:14:53
Speaker 3: big part of making that happen is from us as
1:14:57
Speaker 3: individuals and organizations showing our life that this matters that much,
1:15:02
Speaker 3: that it should be a priority, that it should be
1:15:05
Speaker 3: discussed and prioritized, that it's not just some you know,
1:15:09
Speaker 3: backwater issue, but something that is, you know, something you
1:15:12
Speaker 3: can get elected on. And we've got to show them
1:15:15
Speaker 3: that with whether it be the stick or the carrot,
1:15:17
Speaker 3: whatever approach you want to take in your guys' approach
1:15:19
Speaker 3: the carrot is a very effective approach and uh, man,
1:15:22
Speaker 3: I'm excited about it. So if people listening to this
1:15:25
Speaker 3: are also excited about it, can you can you walk
1:15:28
Speaker 3: me through, Benji where they can learn more about you guys,
1:15:31
Speaker 3: how they can get involved and uh and what to
1:15:33
Speaker 3: expect in the short term.
1:15:34
Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate that a lot.
1:15:36
Speaker 5: In me. I don't think that we meet the goals
1:15:37
Speaker 5: that you just outlined, are the goals that then I
1:15:39
Speaker 5: outlined with have nature is on partisan existing. This will
1:15:41
Speaker 5: be a movement for every every American and not just
1:15:44
Speaker 5: you know, a select few, And I think that that's it.
1:15:47
Speaker 5: I kind of wish I would have, you know, started
1:15:49
Speaker 5: this five or ten years ago or someone else had.
1:15:51
Speaker 5: But we you know, we're going to make this happen
1:15:53
Speaker 5: very quickly, and so we we need but we need people.
1:15:55
Speaker 5: We need Americans to be part of our movement. And so,
1:15:58
Speaker 5: you know, and each and visual is going to be
1:16:00
Speaker 5: critical for this because each part of the country has
1:16:03
Speaker 5: a different need in terms of action, like we talked
1:16:06
Speaker 5: about earlier, so to get involved. You know, we're going
1:16:09
Speaker 5: to keep building out our model over the next few months.
1:16:12
Speaker 5: But currently we've got our pledge signed online, the Nature's
1:16:16
Speaker 5: non Partisan Pledge. That's kind of the initial interest form
1:16:20
Speaker 5: of like you want to be involved with Nature as
1:16:21
Speaker 5: non partisans. We're building out the rest of the more
1:16:24
Speaker 5: robust tools that can be found on natures Nonpartisan dot
1:16:27
Speaker 5: org more on social media. If you search Nature as
1:16:30
Speaker 5: non Partisan on all the platforms and really just stay
1:16:34
Speaker 5: in touch because we're gonna have a lot coming out
1:16:37
Speaker 5: over the next three to six months and you're not
1:16:39
Speaker 5: gonna want to miss it. It will be really helpful
1:16:42
Speaker 5: if you care about this stuff, and no matter which
1:16:44
Speaker 5: side of the aisle you come at it from or
1:16:45
Speaker 5: what topic you come at it from, and you know,
1:16:48
Speaker 5: stick with us as we build I think the most
1:16:50
Speaker 5: effective environmental movement.
1:16:52
Speaker 4: We'll ever see. And you know it's going to take
1:16:54
Speaker 4: all of us to do that.
1:16:55
Speaker 5: It's not just going to be Ben or I or
1:16:56
Speaker 5: you Mark, It's going to be all of us, and collectively,
1:16:59
Speaker 5: we're gonna get this thing done.
1:17:00
Speaker 4: So we need people.
1:17:02
Speaker 5: We need individuals who care about this, who want to
1:17:06
Speaker 5: put partisan politics aside and actually find solutions. And we're
1:17:09
Speaker 5: starting now and we need you now.
1:17:12
Speaker 3: Well, I'm certainly appreciative of you guys doing this leading
1:17:15
Speaker 3: the charge. I'm excited about it, and I think a
1:17:18
Speaker 3: lot of other folks will be too, So thank.
1:17:21
Speaker 4: You, Thank you, Mark. Thanks Mark.
1:17:28
Speaker 3: All Right, and that's a wrap for our show today.
1:17:31
Speaker 3: Hope you guys enjoyed this one and left a little
1:17:34
Speaker 3: bit better informed on how we can move the ball
1:17:37
Speaker 3: forward for the natural resources and wildlife and wild places
1:17:41
Speaker 3: that we care about right now, how we can find
1:17:43
Speaker 3: some wins, how we can you know, encourage our elected
1:17:46
Speaker 3: officials to do the right thing, and how we can
1:17:48
Speaker 3: find those areas of shared values between you know, the
1:17:52
Speaker 3: left side and the right side and get something done.
1:17:54
Speaker 3: It's not always going to be perfect, it's not always
1:17:56
Speaker 3: going to be everything we want, but let's get some wins,
1:17:59
Speaker 3: let's find some silver linings. Let's make sure that we
1:18:03
Speaker 3: are getting good things done for the wild life, the
1:18:08
Speaker 3: wild places, and the wild experiences that so many of
1:18:11
Speaker 3: us care about. So until next time, thank you for
1:18:15
Speaker 3: being here, and stay wired tongue