Matt Fidler

We continue touring California’s islands with a visit to Angel Island, a state park that’s also part of the Bay Area’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Now is a perfect time to visit Angel Island, given the political dramas being staged along the southern U.S. border and their wrenching human consequences. This is hardly the first time in U.S. history that nativist sentiments have reached fevered political pitch. Something quite similar once happened here, at a facility still sometimes known as the “Ellis Island of the West.”

Chico physician Dr. Kelley Otani combines what he learned in his medical training with healing practices from other sources. The principles in his book, Paradox of Conscious Healing, have been tested by his patients. He is joined in the studio with some of his patients who survived the Camp Fire on November 2019.

Dr. R. Kelley Otani is a board-certified physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation. He graduated from the University of California, Davis, and did his residency at the University of Washington.

Irish plantswoman Mary Reynolds has cultivated a deep love of her place in the mountains of Wicklow, Ireland - in all its complexity and mystery.  As a plantswoman and guardian/gardener - she listens to her place and works in partnership with her place to move us all forward towards a better world.

Mary is a nature activist, a self-described reformed Landscape Designer, the author of "The Garden Awakening", and the inspiration behind the 2015 movie Dare to be Wild – Cultivating Place revisits this BEST OF episode in celebration of NSPR’s Fall Membership Drive. Listen in!

Dave talks to longtime friend of the program, Josh Willis, the Principal Investigator for NASA's OMG (Oceans Melting Greenland) program. 

Josh was flying missions over the places where the glacial ice sheets meet the sea all summer and was joined by several major media outlets (like NBC with Al Roker pictured above) that highlighted the pace at which Greenlands glaciers are melting.

This week Cultivating Place is joined by award winning architect David Abelow. David asks us look at our gardens from the inside out and his exploration of our gardens as the “first next room” out of every door and window gets us re-viewing what our gardens are and can be. Listen in!

Geralynne Rader recounts the events of November 8, 2019 when she was serving her community of Paradise as a police volunteer.

Journalist Kathryn Reed has loved Lake Tahoe since she was a child. She put together a hiking guide to the trails, The Dirt Around Lake Tahoe: Must-Do Scenic Hikes for everyone who likes to explore the outdoors. Author and retired English professor Carol Burr makes the case for literature in the 21st century.

Smokey Bear is arguably the most effective advertising campaign in American history—but Smokey’s message created a fear in many of us that’s led to a misunderstanding of fire.

In this first episode of California Burning, we explore what Smokey got wrong, and we learn how a series of unprecedented wildfires in the early twentieth-century started forest management policies that have contributed to the catastrophic wildfires we’re experiencing today.

Native Californians used fire to maintain the forests that surrounded them for more than 14,000 years. This prevented future wildfires and supported many plants and animals that need fire to thrive. On the second episode of California Burning, Matt shadows a pyrogeographer and learns how the Yurok Tribe on the Klamath River and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Santa Cruz are bringing fire back to the land.

Wildfires are no longer isolated to our forests in California. They now also threaten our cities. On the fourth episode of California Burning, we focus on where urban and wild spaces meet and hear from people who have experienced some of the most tragic fires in California’s history.

How can we address all the different factors associated with the wildfires plaguing California? On the fifth and final episode of California Burning, we seek solutions. We learn about alternative building materials that can withstand fire, and we go to a fire-resistant house that was the only in its neighborhood to survive the 2018 Carr Fire.