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Mark Kreider on the wildfire suppression bias · A New Angle

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is A New Angle, a show about cool people doing awesome things in and around Montana.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Justin Angle.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: This show is supported by First Security Bank,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Blackfoot Communications and the University of Montana College of Business.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hey folks, welcome back, and thanks for tuning in.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is Climate Week here at Montana Public Radio,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: and we're just a short couple weeks away from Climate Smart Missoula's Climate
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Solutions Week.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So in that spirit,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: today I am speaking with Mark Kreider,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: a newly minted PhD in forestry from the University of Montana's Franke College of
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Forestry and Conservation.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Mark recently published some fascinating research on the consequences of suppressing wildfires.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond his academic research,
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Mark is a gifted science communicator using many media,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: including film,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: music,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: and photography.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Music without that extra element of humanity,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: that spark of creativity,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: is pretty dull and doesn't do much.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the same is true of science.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Mark, thanks for joining me today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us, where did you grow up and what did your parents do?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm from Kansas, originally South Central Kansas.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: So grew up in a land with a lot less trees, but lots of fire, grass fires.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad currently works in a museum, kind of building exhibits, doing exhibit design.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom was a pastor for a lot of my life.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was sort of in church administration.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to start out with a huge congratulations.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: You just earned your PhD.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: You've been a student a long time, and now you're sort of released into the wild.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe summarize your path as a student.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Most of my life, except for one gap here before undergrad, has been as a student.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really excited to,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: kind of spread my wings after this,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: but it's been a great,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: great journey.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: I did college in a small college in northern Indiana,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: studied,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: I guess,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: ecology and music,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: and then went to Utah State to do a master's in fire ecology.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: before finding myself here in Missoula, also studying fire and forest ecology.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how did you get interested in fire?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: During undergrad, we had some prairie restorations on campus.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so as part of classes, students would help burn those prairies in the spring.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just fascinating to see this process fire that is a very common process,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: very powerful process,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: and one that both kind of destroys and kills plants,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: but also paves the way for new growth.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I found that kind of juxtaposition really fascinating.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: How do you then sort of put together an academic program of study to pursue this interest?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the really cool things about fire,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: and this is true about many subjects,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: but I think particularly fire is that it draws in all these different reds,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: especially out here in the western U.S.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, of course, there's the ecological angle, which is kind of what my training is grounded in.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't really look at that without considering the human elements as well.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: So things like public health, politics, fire management, law and policy.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's a really, really interesting field because it draws all those elements.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so it kind of facilitates a well-rounded education and getting to work with a
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: lot of interesting people who are working on really different things,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: but that are all unified by this common problem,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: common process.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at what stage did you start to kind of understand that the human relationship
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: with wildfire is a complicated one?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's particularly,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to necessarily classify it as dysfunctional here in the American West,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: but it's certainly got its problems here in the West.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: learning about fire through education is through the history of fire management and
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: the history of how humans are related to fire in this place.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, that starts with native groups for thousands of years.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Once Western colonization occurs,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: quickly moves into a more kind of foe relationship,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: seeing fire as enemy,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: trying to suppress fire.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we're starting to come out of that.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think we still have definite vestiges of that
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's difficult.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: you get all these new added influences of humans living in places that burn,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: expansion of cities and communities.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's fascinating to see the history of fire and this thread of how we've related to fire.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's challenging.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's difficult.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's important to learn from folks who've been living with fire for thousands of years.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get right into this recent publication you and your colleagues have put out
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: there about the consequences of suppressing wildfire.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's sort of been some knowledge of the consequences of suppressing wildfires
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: for fuel accumulation and so forth.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you and your colleagues found something new, the suppression bias.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: First, what is the suppression bias?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And once we sort of define that, we'll talk about what it all means.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: The suppression bias arises from the fact that we don't suppress fires equally,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: and instead where it's much,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: much easier to suppress fires under kind of moderate and low weather conditions.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So when it's not windy,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: when fuel moistures are relatively high,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: it's much,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: much more difficult to suppress fires under windy,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: hot,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: and dry conditions.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: So what this leads to is that we suppress some fires very effectively.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the fires that escape,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: the fires that end up burning in most places are only these more extreme,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: more kind of fast spreading fires.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that this bias leads to sort of a disproportionate representation of the fires on the landscape.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a selection bias,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: meaning we're choosing to put out these fires under these certain conditions,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: or is it just a function of those sorts of fires under those conditions are easier
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: to put out than the ones that sort of grow into the more severe wildfires?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: It is a selection bias, but it's definitely not, I guess, intentional.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: it just arises by the fact that if we try to suppress all fires,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: really we only end up suppressing some of the fires and some are essentially
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: impossible to suppress.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so downstream, what are the consequences of this?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: well,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: it leads to,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think here in the state of Montana,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: we suppress about 96% of fires before they reach 10 acres.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: So in many regards, fire suppression is highly effective, very successful.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: But those 4% of fires that are not suppressed under 10 acres,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: those end up accounting for much of the area burned.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And those fires tend to be high severity, tend to be more
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: more destructive and catastrophic fires that would potentially be easier to manage,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: be more productive in the landscape,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: not kill all the trees.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of get rid of those fires preferentially,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: and we're basically left with these fires that in many cases don't really meet
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: ecological needs,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: social needs,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: and instead kill trees,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: are destructive,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: and pose safety threats.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm hearing is that we're successful in putting out the fires that are relatively easy to put out.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the consequences of that are these fires that are relatively easy to put
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: out could also be useful to the landscape as far as fuels management,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: ecological value,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: so forth.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is that essentially part of the mechanism?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think you capture it well there.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the notes in the paper is that this effect,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: the suppression bias leads to more severe fires over and above the effects of mere
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: fuel accumulation and climate change.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the reasons people are starting to understand the sort of growing
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: severity of wildfires is climate change.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: That seems like an obvious one for people to get their head around.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the fuel accumulation piece is another one that people are starting to get their head around.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're proposing or finding,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: you and your colleagues have found,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: a new mechanism to sort of contribute to the severity that fires were experiencing.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's different in some ways than climate change and fuel accumulation because
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: those kind of raise the absolute levels of fire severity with more fuel,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: with hotter and drier conditions.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: The fire suppression bias doesn't change the maximum possible values,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: but by taking out all those low,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: kind of the low end of fires,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: it raises the average.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we find that it actually raises the average more over the course of about 100
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: years or so than what would happen from climate change or from fuel accumulation.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that, I mean, you mentioned 100 years or so.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about your methods because you use computer simulation.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: How does that all work when we're talking about fire on a landscape?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: one of the big issues with studying fire suppression is that it's very difficult to
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: get good data on how effective a suppression is.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: How would you even do that without a computer model?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like how do,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: we'll get to your video about the Bitterroot Cellway Wilderness in a moment,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: how do ecologists,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: how have they historically studied these sorts of questions?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: yeah,
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: you can look at how much money was spent to suppress a fire,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: which is in theory a proxy for how much effort was put into that fire,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: if it was kind of a hands-off approach or if it was all forces being called in.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Although probably a listener can understand the flaws with that measure, but it is a measure.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: It is a measure.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: And of course,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: there's many confounding factors,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: how rugged the terrain was,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: how much it cost to bring in engines and other things.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: It also depends on how many fires were burning elsewhere and how kind of limited resources were.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: So for all those big reasons,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: we chose to first kind of approach this question from a simulation standpoint where
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: we could control all the factors,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: kind of fine tune and keep everything constant except for fire suppression.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So basically our framework was we used mathematical models and we basically grew fires,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: a bunch of fires,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: millions of fires over like a wide range of weather conditions and fuel conditions.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then using these kind of identical fires, we changed just the dial of fire suppression.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: So in some cases,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: we would suppress fires as much as possible using models that relate how intense a
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: fire is with how effective different types of fire suppression are.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And these models are based on a bunch of historical data, essentially?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there's tons of data that goes into this across the globe.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then in other fires, we would maybe have a more hands-off approach.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: We wouldn't suppress fire at all.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Other times, we would let fires burn under low and moderate intensity conditions.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: But then once the weather got more fire-prone, then maybe in the model, we would kind of hit...
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: hit the fire harder.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, we had all these different types of suppression.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then we could look at the output and look at how,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: the average fire severity,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: estimated number of trees killed,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: like a bunch of metrics that we can use to quantify sort of what are the impacts of
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: this fire.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: How are you conceptualizing landscape and distribution of species and things like that?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are you sort of modeling a particular piece of land?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you somehow merging a bunch of different types of landscapes?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: There are models that can do actual,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: like you basically build a model landscape with trees in certain locations and
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: rocks and slope angles and stuff,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: like all sorts of mountain features.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Those models take a very, very long time to run.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: They're very complex.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so for this project,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: since we wanted to simulate millions of fires,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: we went with a much simpler approach where basically we're
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: running fire through a landscape that's flat and comprised of kind of one fuel type for that whole fire.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we do this for all sorts of different types of landscapes.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: So different amounts of fuel, different weather conditions.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: But this sort of assumes that fire can spread as long, as far as possible.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no fuel breaks across this imaginary landscape.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of one slope angle the whole way through.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to make some simplifying assumptions to make it actually doable in some ways.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, from like processing time and things like that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But there are folks definitely working on,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: very,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: very complex physics-based models that almost,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: they almost run slower than real life.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's pull the lens back a little bit,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: because we've gotten a little in the weeds of methodology and whatnot,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: but...
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: key takeaway we mentioned already is that there's this component of selection bias
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: in the fires we decide to put out.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of those fires that we're successful in putting out would have utility to
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: the landscape and the ecosystem.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: What other kind of...
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: translate some other policy implications from from your study like how do you think
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: about our current approach to wildfire with what you've learned not only through
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: this work but your other work about how could we actually try to do things better
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: i'm a fire scientist and so i i obviously
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: know the need of science and hope that there is a need of science going forward.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think that in large part, the issues we face aren't scientific in nature.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: We already have a really good grasp on how fires burn,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: how they interact with climate and fuels and things like that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: How we expect fires to change going into the future.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I think much of the kind of issues of this fire crisis that we face are political,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: are social,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: are kind of psychological as well.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we need good science to inform decisions.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: But,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think we already know,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: and this paper kind of adds a new angle to it,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: but we already knew before that the fire suppression as kind of a blanket policy
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: everywhere all the time has major consequences and probably isn't going to get us
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: out of this problem.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back to my conversation with Mark Kreider after this short break.
• 13:56
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• 13:59
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• 14:00
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• 14:03
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• 14:06
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• 14:09
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• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hi,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: this is Anya Jabbour,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Regents Professor of History at the University of Montana,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: and you are listening to A New Angle.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to A New Angle.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking with fire scientist Mark Kreider about the consequences of wildfire suppression.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably a useful time to transition into some of your other modes of communication.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like not only are you often running as a fire scientist,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: you also are an accomplished musician,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: budding filmmaker with successful modes of communication across a variety of media.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about that aspect of your life and how you choose to communicate about wildfire and other domains.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that as scientists, it's easy.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: we have to share our work in certain ways in the field through academic papers,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: such as we were talking about just now,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: through presentations at conferences and things like that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I think these modes of communication,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: while essential and important,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: definitely are kind of limited and don't necessarily reach most people.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: The main goal behind my communication projects is to expand the audience,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: expand the folks who are interacting with fire science,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: thinking about these topics,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: maybe in new ways and with up-to-date new research.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: So like you said,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: I've done that through music recently,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: performed a piano recital of fire inspired pieces that related to different
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: components of fire from the fire triangle to a piece about climate change and
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: increasing fire activity.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: all these things are kind of ways to invite people to approach a topic that they
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: probably know a lot about,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: if you live in the Western US,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: but approach it in kind of a new perspective,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: create a space that maybe isn't as charged or political by having people see things
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: with new curiosity,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: perhaps.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that can help start conversations and help open kind of avenues of dialogue.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk about some personal experiences in that space?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure going through the review process in an academic paper,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: presenting your paper at a conference,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: that's one set of experiences.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: But like the intersection of your music with a live audience or your film being
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: seen at a festival or talk about those experiences and how you've interacted with
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: your audience in different ways.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm accurate in saying that no paper that I've ever written has brought
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: folks to tears.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: But that does happen with music.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there are all these really cool ways of communicating that we have as
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: humans that bring in the more
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: more emotional side, which as scientists, we're often taught not to do that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: for a good reason,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: we want to be objective and make sure that the questions we're asking and how we're
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: answering them aren't kind of clouded by our own goals or what we want to see.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I think in art, those things don't matter as much.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, it's much more okay to sort of have a goal through art.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people can gain a lot more from that sort of thing that they can't from these other avenues.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: So,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: yeah,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: it's been really fun to talk with people afterwards,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: interact with people from the film,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: from recitals who have been touched by that music or by those stories.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: you've grounded yourself in a culture and a reward system where academic research
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: is the coin of the realm.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yet within that, you've allocated a lot of energy and creative force to these other areas of your life.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: How have you allocated your time and effort knowing that you're,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: as a scientist,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: you're in one system of rewards,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: yet you're sort of playing in other systems as well?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Those reward systems are good to a point.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think we are hopefully kind of changing what we prioritize beyond just publishing.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to think that going into the future,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: it's more accepted that lots of your time and energy might also be spent
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: interacting with the public,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: with communities,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: making podcasts such as this or other ways of sharing research and work.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: I've been very well supported here during my PhD from my advisor and many others
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: through kind of unconventional means of sharing research.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I would also say that,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: for me personally,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: part of it at least is just because it's fun and it makes me,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: a more happy scientist being able to do these other things.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: and we've framed this as if your science informs your other forms of art,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: whether that's film or music or photography.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Does that causal mechanism run the other way?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do your artistic pursuits sometimes inform your scientific thoughts and questions you're asking?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, I would say that they definitely share lots of overlaps.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've been studying piano for almost 25 years or so at this point.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: there's a high level of precision in music,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: and in this case,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: piano,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: that is shared in science.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: We have to be
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: um very good at coding and all these kind of hard hard skills but also music
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: without without that extra element of humanity that spark of creativity is pretty
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: dull and doesn't do much and i think the same is true of science um where we have
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: to have you know really grounded methods and frameworks but also there's a whole
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: bunch of creativity um in science and so yeah i would say that definitely have been
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: inspired by my other interests and other pursuits has it made you a better writer
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: In the sense that story is very important, especially in filmmaking and other forms of art.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, journalism, obviously.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I think in science,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: often,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: again,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: we're not always taught from an early age the importance of story because stories
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: are often seen as,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: you can tell a story many different ways and there should be just one correct
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: scientific true way.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: people are realizing more and more that stories are how humans make meaning of things.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's been a big area where my artistic side has helped.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love in our remaining time to ask some questions about a different area of research for you.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: You do work on equity in access to wilderness and other equity issues in wild spaces.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about that area of inquiry.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: What sort of questions are you interested in?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think as folks who study natural landscapes and recreate on natural landscapes,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is some sort of responsibility to ensure that those benefits from
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: those places are not just available to us or to a select few,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: but that these public lands were really designed to be available to all.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so in this work,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: we've been helping to create maps looking at where people have good access to
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: public lands,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: where the access is very low,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: and then what steps we can maybe take with that data to help ensure that every
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: American and every person in general has access and benefits from natural spaces.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: By design, we're supposed to be equal owners of the resource, so we should have equal access.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: some of that is driven by where we choose to live and so forth,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: to the extent we have choice in that decision.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: But any big surprises in that work or particularly pernicious findings that you've found,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: or I shouldn't necessarily categorize them as pernicious,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: but what are some of the most interesting findings you've come across in that space?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say the first is that access, I think, has kind of two major angles.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, there is the geographic component.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: So if you live here in Missoula,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Montana,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: you kind of right off the bat have really good access.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Just by virtue of living very, very close to lots of public land.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: However,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: and by contrast,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: if you grew up somewhere in like Iowa,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: for instance,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: potentially there are not really many national forests there.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Certainly not many national parks or wilderness areas close by.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that the issue of access goes deeper than that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's the second kind of component, which is more social access.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so all these various barriers and boundaries that folks have to overcome in
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: order to access public land.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: So that could be, do you have access to a car?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have time off from work on the weekends?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: It takes time and money to access and recreate land.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Are you part of a community that has historically been marginalized within the park system?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: does it feel like a national park or a wilderness area is a space for people like you?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's all sorts of reasons why folks might not feel safe in outdoor spaces.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so many folks maybe,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: if you've grown up accessing public lands,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: you might not really feel these barriers,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: but for a lot of people,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: these barriers kind of compound on one another and effectively,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: I guess,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: reduce the possible area within which you might be willing or able to travel.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Do we know anything about interventions that sort of help reduce some of this
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: disparity that you're describing?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: there's very kind of tangible on the ground infrastructure ways,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: like,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: for instance,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: good public transport out of cities,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: for instance.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: For example,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: Salt Lake City is an example of,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: investing in infrastructure to get folks into the mountains if you don't have a car.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I think even more important than that is changes in culture.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Having diverse staffs who are managing public lands is important.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Having opportunities for youth and other folks who might not have grown up in
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: families that,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: where they learn skills of how to go outdoors or outdoors.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: might not even want to go outdoors if it hasn't been something that was prioritized.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important for opportunities for folks like that.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: So groups that help people get outdoors,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: help overcome those financial barriers,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: since a lot of the toys that people use are hugely expensive.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: It can be a big barrier there as well.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mark, what's next for you?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: You just walked across the stage and earned that PhD, a long, hard-fought battle to do that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're off to a postdoc position.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll be staying here in Missoula.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm working as a forest scientist with the Nature Conservancy on a project in
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: collaboration with the Forest Service that kind of seeks collectively to explore
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: old growth and mature forest across the whole U.S.,
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's part of a much,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: much larger project to kind of identify where these old forests are and then
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: identify risks to these forests.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we might mitigate those through things like active management,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: prescribed fire,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: and other kind of climate adaptation strategies.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And do you have ambitions to join a faculty somewhere?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or what's your long-term vision of how you're going to put your skills to work?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think certainly a faculty position is of interest to me.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a really cool environment to work at a university where you can easily
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: collaborate with folks across colleges,
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: across disciplines.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Also, it's a place to collaborate, for instance, with music faculty and do cool projects like that.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm interested right now to get some experience working with a nonprofit and with federal agencies.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think those are hugely important partners in many of the land management challenges that we face.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so for the time being, I'm really excited to work with those folks.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: going forward,
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: well,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: who knows,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: but I have many,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: many interests and I hope to be able to,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: implement those.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've opened a lot of doors in your young career.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you have a lot of, you know,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have options, which I love to see.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So as you kind of think about this next step and as you allocate efforts going forward,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: how would you describe the biggest questions that you can contribute to?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think the biggest overriding goal is to help society anticipate what we might
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: expect going forward with all these big sources of change,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: climate change,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: changing patterns of where folks live,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: and help to develop tools and frameworks with which to best address those and best
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: adapt to those.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Mark,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say you've demonstrated a lot of flexibility and opportunity for growth
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: and dynamism in your young career.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to see what you do next and applaud you for just using your
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: skills across a broad array of media to engage with people about important topics.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So keep it up, and I hope we can check in down the road.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad to be here and been supported by so many people here during my career from
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: my advisor and my committee and all the many,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: many collaborators.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I also would be remiss to not thank them.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure they're very proud.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Mark, all the best.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk soon.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Our presenting sponsors are First Security Bank,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Blackfoot Communications,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: and the University of Montana College of Business.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly Larson is our producer.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maddie Jordan is our production assistant.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: VTO Jeff Ament and John Wicks made our music.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Jeff Meese is our master of all things sound.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot and see you next time.