For The Wild

What does it mean to practice hope in a changing world?

In the final episode based on A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes, newly revised and expanded by Heyday Books, Ayana Young and artist-naturalist Laura Cunningham explore how we might stay present to what can still be protected, restored, and cared for.
Laura reflects on the role of art and imagination in reconstructing California’s ecological past, describing her paintings as “visual hypotheses” shaped by science, historical records, observation, and a willingness to revise what we think we know. Together, Ayana and Laura consider the difference between optimism and what they call “honest hope,” a grounded commitment to protecting the particular places within our reach.
Their conversation moves through ideas of cyclical time, grassroots action, and the enduring possibility of ecological change. Laura shares her vision for a future Central Valley shaped by native grasslands, vernal pools, wildlife, and places where people can encounter the beauty of ecosystems that have often been overlooked. They reflect on the power of local communities to care for creeks, shorelines, parks, and small pieces of wild nature, and on the importance of tending to ourselves as we continue the work.
As this three-part series comes to a close, the episode leaves us with one of Laura’s formative field experiences: a flash flood that transformed a canyon in the Mojave Desert overnight, revealing the immense forces of geological time in a single moment. The experience became a lasting reminder that landscapes are always changing, sometimes slowly and sometimes all at once. We are left to deeply consider: what might it look like to meet an uncertain future with attention, imagination, and grounded care, allowing our relationship with place to become a lifelong practice?

Credits
Thank you to our series partner, Heyday Books.

🎵 The music featured in this episode is “Junglessa (w/ Dylan Golden Ayock)” by Lake Mary and “Sequoia” by Abby Litman.

Artwork © 2026 Laura Cunningham.

Audio and Visual Media Production and Publishing by For The Wild: Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Caitlin Breh

Get the newly revised book →
A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes (Heyday Books, 2026)

Our Series Partner
Heyday Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher founded in 1974 in Berkeley, California. We are a diverse community of writers and readers, activists and thinkers. Heyday promotes civic engagement and social justice, celebrates nature’s beauty, supports California Indian cultural renewal, and explores the state’s rich history, culture, and influence. Heyday works to realize the California dream of equity and enfranchisement.
Guest Biography
Laura Cunningham is an artist-naturalist who studied paleontology and biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked field biology jobs for the California Department of Fish and Game, the United States Geological Survey, and various universities, gaining experience with such species as Owens Valley pupfish, salmon and steelhead trout, Yosemite toads, Panamint alligator lizards, and tule elk. Simultaneously, she taught herself the arts of sketching and oil painting and pursued studies of California’s historical ecology. She currently works in the conservation nonprofit field. Her studio is next to Death Valley National Park along the Amargosa River. Learn more and support her work: https://www.patreon.com/Mesophyticum?

©2026 For The Wild Studio. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by any means without written permission from Laura Cunningham and For The Wild Studio.
Support the show
For The Wild is a slow media studio dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Founded in 2014, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.

Find us at www.forthewild.world →
Become a For The Wild Partner →
Follow us on Instagram →
Sign up for our Newsletter →
Join our Slow Earth Companion Practice Community →

Ayana Young and Laura Cunningham return to A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes, newly revised and expanded by Heyday Books. Laura shares how decades of research became a story-driven exploration of ecological memory, resilience, and recovery, offering a glimpse into what California has held and what may still return.

California has always been a landscape in motion. Water shifts across floodplains, rivers change course, fire renews forests and grasslands, and species like Chinook salmon have shaped the land through generations of abundance. In this conversation, they consider what it means to work with these living processes and make room for their continued movement.
They talk through the state’s once-vast wetlands and floodplains, the dramatic decline and gradual recovery of tule elk, and the astonishing abundance of salmon that once filled California’s rivers. Laura recounts a hard-won effort to remove part of a fence at Point Reyes, allowing tule elk greater freedom of movement. For Laura, this small victory became an example of what she calls an “honest kind of hope,” grounded in close attention to what is possible and the patience to keep working toward it. 

The conversation also turns toward rivers, fire, and the knowledge carried through generations of stewardship. Laura reflects on Karuk and Yurok cultural burning practices along the Klamath River and what they have taught her about patience, observation, and respect for Indigenous knowledge.

This episode asks: what might conservation become when we care for a place by tending to its capacity for change?

Credits
Thank you to our series partner, Heyday Books.

🎵 The music featured in this episode is “Junglessa (w/ Dylan Golden Ayock)” by Lake Mary and “River Holy” by Høly River.

Artwork © 2026 Laura Cunningham.

Audio and Visual Media Production and Publishing by For The Wild: Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Caitlin Brehm.

Get the newly revised book →
A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes (Heyday Books, 2026)

Our Series Partner
Heyday Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher founded in 1974 in Berkeley, California. We are a diverse community of writers and readers, activists and thinkers. Heyday promotes civic engagement and social justice, celebrates nature’s beauty, supports California Indian cultural renewal, and explores the state’s rich history, culture, and influence. Heyday works to realize the California dream of equity and enfranchisement.
Guest Biography
Laura Cunningham is an artist-naturalist who studied paleontology and biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked field biology jobs for the California Department of Fish and Game, the United States Geological Survey, and various universities, gaining experience with such species as Owens Valley pupfish, salmon and steelhead trout, Yosemite toads, Panamint alligator lizards, and tule elk. Simultaneously, she taught herself the arts of sketching and oil painting and pursued studies of California’s historical ecology. She currently works in the conservation nonprofit field. Her studio is next to Death Valley National Park along the Amargosa River. Learn more and support her work: https://www.patreon.com/Mesophyticum?

©2026 For The Wild Studio. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by any means without written permission from Laura Cunningham and For The Wild Studio.
Support the show
For The Wild is a slow media studio dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Founded in 2014, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.

Find us at www.forthewild.world →
Become a For The Wild Partner →
Follow us on Instagram →
Sign up for our Newsletter →
Join our Slow Earth Companion Practice Community →

What becomes possible when we learn to see a place through the layers of its memory?

Host Ayana Young speaks with artist-naturalist Laura Cunningham about her newly revised and expanded book, A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes (Heyday Books, 2026).
Through field sketching, careful observation, and imagination rooted in research, Cunningham invites us to slow down and look closely at the birds, plants, waterways, and landscapes that shape a place. Together, they explore how drawing can deepen our attention, open our senses, and bring us into a more intimate relationship with the world around us.
Cunningham shares her practice of reconstructing California’s historical landscapes, bringing scientific evidence into conversation with field observation and imaginative inquiry. Together, they explore shifting baselines, the landscapes held in collective memory, and the ways our sense of what is possible is shaped by what we have witnessed ourselves. Looking to the past becomes a way of widening our vision, revealing the abundance and complexity that have shaped these places across generations.
This conversation is an invitation to slow down and look again, to become curious about what a place remembers, to let the past expand our imagination, and to consider how a deeper sense of belonging might shape our future.
Credits
Thank you to our series partner, Heyday Books.

Artwork © 2026 Laura Cunningham.

🎵 The music featured in this episode is “Junglessa (w/ Dylan Golden Ayock)” by Lake Mary and “Unseen Song” by Samara Jade.

Podcast Production and Publishing by For The Wild: Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Caitlin Brehm.

Get the newly revised book →
A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes (Heyday Books, 2026)

Our Series Partner
Heyday Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher founded in 1974 in Berkeley, California. We are a diverse community of writers and readers, activists and thinkers. Heyday promotes civic engagement and social justice, celebrates nature’s beauty, supports California Indian cultural renewal, and explores the state’s rich history, culture, and influence. Heyday works to realize the California dream of equity and enfranchisement.
Guest Biography
Laura Cunningham is an artist-naturalist who studied paleontology and biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked field biology jobs for the California Department of Fish and Game, the United States Geological Survey, and various universities, gaining experience with such species as Owens Valley pupfish, salmon and steelhead trout, Yosemite toads, Panamint alligator lizards, and tule elk. Simultaneously, she taught herself the arts of sketching and oil painting and pursued studies of California’s historical ecology. She currently works in the conservation nonprofit field. Her studio is next to Death Valley National Park along the Amargosa River. Learn more and support her work: https://www.patreon.com/Mesophyticum?

©2026 For The Wild Studio. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by any means without written permission from Laura Cunningham and For The Wild Studio.
Support the show
For The Wild is a slow media studio dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Founded in 2014, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.

Find us at www.forthewild.world →
Become a For The Wild Partner →
Follow us on Instagram →
Sign up for our Newsletter →
Join our Slow Earth Companion Practice Community →

“I’d  like to propose a toast to the garden, to this beautiful planet, and to the gardener. You know,  some people have gardens, some people don't. But, they need to have a garden because Grandfather used to say, “We are all a garden in the world." So, I give thanks to the garden and the gardener.” —Carlo Montesanti
And so, we have gathered to the final course in this banquet, Dolce. Dessert. Here at this table, we reflect on inheritance. Returning once more to conversations with Carlo Montesanti, Jessie Jowers, and Arianna Gelpke, this episode lingers on to ask if we can remember landscapes, and if we can do so over a shared meal. What does it mean to grow (food, family, and tradition), in a world that has increasingly been shaped by speed, extraction, automation and touristic ideals? Amidst these changes, what remnants will we be able to conserve? 
In "Dolce," we continue our walk at Slow Life Family Farm, moving between memory, archaeology and rituals made at the dinner table and reflect on the legacy of slow food—that it is not a cuisine and, maybe even, not exclusive to the romantic imagings of Italian provincial life. Perhaps, it is about the way we attend to Earth and care for its continuity, asking not what we can take from it, but what we can give in return. We also join Arianna at Corzano e Paterno to discuss the process of "reading the grapes" and the factors that influence wine-making. 

This episode contemplates sweetness as something more than a flavour, as a longing for ways of living that keep us in relation to one another and the land which feeds us. 

Fat of The Land is a series that asks us what we mean when we look for connection between people and the land. Following a desire for real relation, for deliciousness, and for slowness, each episode traces what happens when we follow this desire. 

This episode is brought to you by generous sponsorships from Ritū and Terra Elaÿa. 
Music and sound design in this episode is brought to you from the For The Wild Studio.
Thank you to Carlo and Jessie of Slow Life Family Farm and Arianna of Fattoria Corzano and Paterno  for joining us in conversation.

Biographies
Carlo Montesanti: Born in Siracusa, Carlo is an esteemed English-speaking guide in Eastern Sicily, known for his work with BBC nature documentaries and Netflix’s Chef’s Table series.
Jessie Jowers: With a passion for the traditional uses of plants, Jessie brings a wealth of knowledge about local crafts, foods, and medicines to our farm’s daily life. 
Arianna Gelpke: Arianna Gelpke is a representative of Fattoria Corzano and Paterno, working in the family farm, and wine, cheese and oil production. She is passionate for nature and working with the land in the pursuit of sustainable agriculture and high-quality artisan produce. Since Wendelin Gelpke purchased Corzano in 1971 and the subsequent addition of Paterno in 1974, the two-hundred-hectare farm has developed along three different lines: wine and oil production, artisanal sheep's cheese production, and “Agriturismo.”

Partners
 Ritū
Fat of The Land is a series about what it means to be in relationship with land, food, and the people who tend both across generations. Ritū was made with the same kind of care; six ancient plants, ground and blended into a morning cup that honors the land it comes from, delivered in a compostable bag that returns to the earth.
Ritu built a custom landing page for us and would like to offer For The Wild listeners 25% their first month with a discount code FORTHEWILD25. 
To order yourself some Ritu, head to: 
drinkritu.com/forthewild 

Terra Elaÿa
Thanks also to Elaÿa for the support of this series. Terra Elaÿa is a sanctuary where ancient ways meet the needs of our time. We emerge at this time of crossroads, standing as a space for the transformation, renewal, and re-enchantment of the human spirit. Located in the heart of southern Italy, we provide a place to come into a deeper relationship with life: to slow down, listen, and restore embodied wisdom.
Head to terraelaya.com to learn more upcoming Elaÿa experiences or to host an event.  
Support the show
For The Wild is a slow media studio dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Founded in 2014, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.

Find us at www.forthewild.world →
Become a For The Wild Partner →
Follow us on Instagram →
Sign up for our Newsletter →
Join our Slow Earth Companion Practice Community →

“Mother Earth is really asking us to touch the soil… it’s not just enough to pray. We need to put our hands in the soil.”  —Carlo Montesanti
Contorni. The side dishes, or the surroundings. In this fourth episode of our series Fat of The Land, we turn towards the question of taste: how it is cultivated and remembered. Through conversations with Carlo Montesanti and Arianna Gelpke, the episode traces the shifting contours of Italian food culture amid tourism, commercialisation, supermarket convenience, and the global appetite for an imagined “Italian cuisine.” What happens to taste when food becomes spectacle, an export or a brand? And, what tastes are lost? Can they ever be reclaimed?
Moving across Sicily and Tuscany, this episode reflects on taste as not just as a matter of preference but as a way of reading the earth. Contorni provokes us to consider taste in all of its forms: sensorial, cultural, economic and ecological. What desires for taste reveal about hunger itself: hunger for nourishment, nostalgia, identity, and connection to a place past… or of the now. 
Fat of The Land is a series that asks us what we mean when we look for connection between people and the land. Following a desire for real relation, for deliciousness, and for slowness, each episode traces what happens when we follow this desire. 
This episode is brought to you by generous sponsorships from Ritū and Terra Elaÿa. 
Music and sound design in this episode is brought to you from the For The Wild Studio.
Thank you to Jessie of Slow Life Family Farm and Arianna of Fattoria Corzano e Paterno for joining us in conversation.

Biographies
Carlo Montesanti, born in Siracusa, is an esteemed English-speaking guide in Eastern Sicily, known for his work with BBC nature documentaries and Netflix’s Chef’s Table series.
Arianna Gelpke is a representative of her family's farm, Fattoria Corzano e Paterno. She is passionate for nature and working with the land in the pursuit of sustainable agriculture and high-quality artisan produce. Since Wendelin Gelpke purchased Corzano in 1971 and the subsequent addition of Paterno in 1974, the two-hundred-hectare farm has developed along three different lines: slow wine, olive oil, and artisanal cheese production, along with “Agriturismo.”

Partners
 Ritū
Fat of The Land is a series about what it means to be in relationship with land, food, and the people who tend both across generations. Ritū was made with the same kind of care; six ancient plants, ground and blended into a morning cup that honors the land it comes from, delivered in a compostable bag that returns to the earth.
Ritu built a custom landing page for us and would like to offer For The Wild listeners 25% their first month with a discount code FORTHEWILD25. 
To order yourself some Ritu, head to drinkritu.com/forthewild.

Terra Elaÿa
Thanks also to Elaÿa for the support of this series. Terra Elaÿa is a sanctuary where ancient ways meet the needs of our time. We emerge at this time of crossroads, standing as a space for the transformation, renewal, and re-enchantment of the human spirit. Located in the heart of southern Italy, we provide a place to come into a deeper relationship with life: to slow down, listen, and restore embodied wisdom.
Head to terraelaya.com to learn more about upcoming Elaÿa experiences or to host an event. 

Support the show
For The Wild is a slow media studio dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. Founded in 2014, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.

Find us at www.forthewild.world →
Become a For The Wild Partner →
Follow us on Instagram →
Sign up for our Newsletter →
Join our Slow Earth Companion Practice Community →