Today I am sharing a conversation with fire mitigation specialist and trained wildland firefighter Ruth Massera. Ruth works out of Crestone, Colorado for a nonprofit called E3KFM. Their work is centered around wildfire mitigation through regenerating healthy forests and restoring the watershed. A lot of Ruth’s work recently has been centered around an initiative to reintroduce beavers to the watershed. Additionally, they have been working with the Sacred Water Mountain Society out of Taos to learn the ancient indigenous practice of water planting.

This is a great episode for you if you are interested in ecological restoration, beavers and the impact of keystone species, wildfire mitigation, reciprocity, and indigenous land management practices. Regardless of what brought you here, this interview will leave you with plenty to chew on.

Links:

E3KFM

Sacred Water Mountain Society

Outro

If you enjoyed today’s episode, please like the show and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Special thanks to Lisa Wimberger for introducing me to Ruth for this episode.

For additional features like video, you can find transcribed versions of this and future episodes at my personal Substack, Echoing Earth.

The music for this podcast is Siesta by Ikson, part of the “Tell Your Story” project—a library of free music for content creators. Visit ikson.com to explore the full catalog.

It’s projected that by 2050, 7 out of 10 people in the world will live in urban areas, totaling 6 and half billion people. The ecological footprint of these cities will be vast, and the more we can do to make these areas self-sufficient, the more habitable the entire planet will be. Today’s guest offers a novel solution to this challenge. Inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the stratification of an old-growth forest, Dr. Jennifer Bousselot studies the benefits of combining solar panels with green roofs. This method - called agrivoltaics - brings agriculture and photovoltaics together in a shared space. Growing food under the shade of solar panels has some surprising benefits, which are being revealed through research institutions like Colorado State University, where Dr. Bousselot serves as a professor of horticulture and landscape architecture.

In her 2020 TED Talk, Dr. Bousselot coined the term “rooftop agrivoltaics”, referring to an innovative approach that integrates solar panels with green roofs. I recently toured the rooftop agrivoltaics site at CSU Spur, one of several agrivoltaics projects that Dr. Bousselot oversees. Touring this site gave me a new perspective on how rooftops can be utilized to produce energy, grow food, manage stormwater, and cool our cities. This conversation is for anyone curious about renewable energy, urban agriculture, green roofs, or sustainable design. Whether you are just discovering agrivoltaics or are already invested in the intersection of energy and ecology, I think you will find this conversation illuminating. Please enjoy!

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Episode Links:

• CSU Spur Agrivoltaics
• NREL
• Green Roofs for Healthy Cities
• Journal of Living Architecture

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If you enjoyed today’s episode, please like the show and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

For additional features like video, you can find transcribed versions of this and future episodes at my personal Substack, Echoing Earth.

The music for this podcast is Siesta by Ikson, part of the “Tell Your Story” project—a library of free music for content creators. Visit ikson.com to explore the full catalog.

If you want to understand Colorado and the American Southwest, you have to understand our most limited and valuable resource - WATER. That’s why I am excited to share this conversation with Blake Mamich, a water conservation expert and Program Director for the Colorado Water Trust. The Colorado Water Trust is a homegrown nonprofit that focuses on instream water flow restoration, a topic that Blake expounds on throughout this interview. Blake has been working for the Trust since 2022, focusing on streamflow restoration and reservoir release projects.

This interview is an overview of not just the work of the Colorado Water Trust, but of broader water policy and conservation in Colorado. I put Blake on the spot throughout this conversation, with a broad range of questions about water in Colorado. Some of the ground we cover includes the history of water rights, beneficial uses of water, key projects the Trust is currently working on, and a notable water rights acquisition currently going down on the Western slope with a price tag just under $100 million.

While this conversation is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the topic of water in Colorado, I am heartened to know that there is an organization out there doing deep water conservation work at a time when there is so much upheaval, specifically in terms of environmental regulation and investment in ecological health.

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Colorado Water Trust

Donate to the Trust - Anyone who signs up for a monthly recurring donation gets a free Water Trust hat!

Colorado Rapids - Colorado Water Trust is the Colorado Rapids official community partner this season and will be featured in their April 12th game. Come cheer on the Raptors and learn more about CWT!

⁠RiverBank⁠ - The main event this year is held September 30th at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Join the fun and check out the Fall displays!

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If you enjoyed today’s episode, please like the show and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

For additional features like video, you can find transcribed versions of this and future episodes at my personal Substack, Echoing Earth.

The music for this podcast is Siesta by Ikson, part of the “Tell Your Story” project—a library of free music for content creators. Visit ikson.com to explore the full catalog.

Photo Credit - Yampa River / Eliza Nolte