🌎A New Era in Conservation: Understanding Landscape Conservation, Design, and Sustainability, with Rob Campellone and Tom Miewald
Hello…and welcome to…Issue #009!
Reading Time: < 5 mins.
TL; DR: We published our podcast's first episode: Empowering Landscape Partnerships: A Journey Towards Sustainability & Resilience.
Rob Campellone & Tom Miewald, Co-hosts, Designing Nature’s Half: The Landscape Conservation Podcast
“Podcasting is a great way to learn, be entertained, and stay current on a wide range of topics.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist, Author, and Science Communicator
Welcome to our corner of the world!
We are glad you’re here!
In the last issue of Designing Nature's Half: The Blog, we shared some of the milestones made in the development of Rob Campellone’s book, his author's website, and our podcast. In this issue, it's all about the podcast: Designing Nature's Half: The Landscape Conservation Podcast. We have some very exciting news to share: after three months of preparation, Rob and his old friend and work colleague, Tom Miewald, published their first podcast episode! You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts or jump over to our podcast episodes page.
A New Era in Conservation: Understanding Landscape Conservation, Design, and Sustainability
In the face of escalating environmental crises, there’s an urgent call for innovation...and, quite frankly, transformation. Designing Nature’s Half: The Landscape Conservation Podcast isn’t just another echo in the chamber of climate discourse but a clarion call for transformative landscape conservation and landscape conservation design (LCD). Co-hosted by Rob Campellone and Tom Miewald, this podcast series is more than talk; it’s about sparking cooperative action among landscape stakeholders who are ready to tackle the ‘Triple Planetary Crisis’ of pollution, climate boiling, and biodiversity loss...head-on.
Why Landscapes Matter
Landscapes are vast tapestries where life weaves its intricate patterns. But these patterns are fraying at their seams due to pollution, climate boiling, and biodiversity loss. It’s no longer enough to focus on isolated pockets of nature; we must think bigger—landscape-level big.
Historically speaking, our approach has evolved significantly since E.O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur introduced us to The Theory of Island Biogeography in 1967, which revolutionized how we understand species immigration and extinction rates in islands of habitat. Later on, Jared Diamond added his insights on reserve design in 1975 – pivotal moments that shifted our gaze from local patches of protected areas towards grander scales.
A Strategic Blueprint for Change
Designing Nature’s Half: The Landscape Conservation Podcast doesn’t just highlight problems; it offers strategic approaches toward sustainability and resilience through engaging discussions with experts across various fields within the realm of landscape conservation and design. The goal is ambitious yet clear: inspire landscape stakeholders to adopt sustainability and resilience as their mantra while raising awareness about landscape conservation design as a means to an end—a nuanced blend of art and science that builds trust, is science-based and facilitates cooperative decision-making focused on the form and function of socio-ecological systems.
This podcast aims to not only foster dialogue but also to build a community of practice where ideas and experiences are shared and where learning occurs from national and international efforts that are aimed at preserving nature’s half without sacrificing human prosperity—it’s all about balance.
Each episode promises rich content—stories of success (and learning curves), and innovative approaches like the identification of core conservation areas, buffer zones, and wildlife corridors. We will also delve into financing models that make landscape conservation partnerships viable long-term.
For those eager for more knowledge beyond audio, there’s good news! A companion resource titled Designing Nature’s Half: A Practical Guide to Conserve 50% by 2050, co-authored by Rob Campellone and Tom Miewald, will hit shelves in 2024 and offer additional guidance toward achieving these lofty but necessary goals.
In summary, if you’re part of this vital conversation — whether as an ecologist, planner, or simply someone who cares deeply about Earth’s future — then tuning into Designing Nature’s Half: The Landscape Conservation Podcast might just be your next step toward making meaningful contributions towards designing resilient landscapes capable of sustaining people, planet and prosperity well into perpetuity.
An Invitation
If you think you have something to offer to the conversation and would like to be a guest on our pod, drop me a note at: info@lcdinstitute.org and put "Guest" in the subject line.
Sharing is Caring
Please consider sharing this newsletter with your social contacts so we can build a community of folks who want to turn down the boil, and save our planet, and its inhabitants.
Join the Designing Nature’s Half Community
Sign up below to hear about what we have up our sleeves to save the planet and learn how you can get involved.
Thanks for your interest and support!
We will keep you posted on how our projects are coming along via future issues of Designing Nature's Half: The Blog.
Until next time,
America’s environmental protections are being systematically dismantled while climate change, biodiversity loss, and concentrated political and economic power continue reshaping the world. Conservation must fight back—but defense alone is not a strategy for the future. It’s time to build a conservation movement capable of shaping what comes next.