Native Peoples Episodes

Gilberto Manzanarez of Valle Imperial Resiste explains why Imperial County residents are demanding a moratorium on data centers until officials address their enormous energy, water, noise and community impacts.

Chris explores desert quiet as an ecological soundscape rather than emptiness, showing how noise pollution masks wildlife, displaces animals and makes ecological loss harder for people to recognize.

Andrea Hoerr explains why 27 miles of border wall through the San Rafael Valley would fragment a major wildlife corridor, damage waterways and threaten exceptional grassland biodiversity—and how residents are organizing resistance.

During the 2025 federal shutdown, Chris urges visitors to avoid understaffed national parks because reduced protection increases risks to landscapes and people, while suggesting nearby public lands and local businesses as alternatives.

For his father's 91st birthday, Chris revisits an essay connecting a formative 1966 desert journey, the mutual dependence of Joshua trees and their moths, and the literal kinship joining every generation of life.

A monsoon in Twentynine Palms becomes an exploration of how scarce water shapes desert land and life, why rain smells so extraordinary, and how to stay safe when celebration turns into flash flooding.

Brendan Cummings explains California's Western Joshua Tree Conservation Plan, the compromises behind the 2023 law and the difficult work of protecting climate refugia while development and fire continue.

Poet and former wildland firefighter Ruth Nolan reads work about Ruby Mountain, the Dome Fire, invasive grasses and renewable-energy development, joining personal memory to the desert's ecological wounds.

Rubén Martinéz reads an essay connecting the deadly U.S.–Mexico border desert with the spiritual desert of monastic retreat, exploring migration, silence, trauma, faith and the possibilities of refuge.

In the 99th episode, Chris explains how the elimination of federal public-broadcasting grants threatens rural and tribal stations that provide emergency information, local culture and community connection across the desert West.

Prompted by the loss of the Grand Canyon Lodge, Chris shares nine desert destinations he hopes to experience—from Kofa and El Pinacate to the Ruby Mountains and the Wave—and reflects on visiting while we can.

Basin and Range Watch co-founder Kevin Emmerich explains how Nevada's Greenlink West transmission project threatens desert tortoise habitat, rare plants, cultural sites and intact landscapes while serving industrial growth.