00:00:00
Speaker 1: Our world is changing. It always has, of course, but the pace of change that we’re experiencing today seems different. And for those of us whose lives revolve around the natural world, it’s obvious that change is coming for the things that we cherish too. Whether you hunt or fish, camp or climb, it’s impossible not to recognize that the wild world is under immense pressure. By one estimate, we’re losing more than two million acres of open wild space every single year. That’s the equivalent of an entire Yellowstone National Park of open space disappearing annually. Meanwhile, across the world, wildlife populations have declined on average seventy three percent over the past fifty years. Here at home, on America’s public lands, visitation and use as skyrocketed, reaching record levels year after year after year, with the most recent data showing nearly one billion recreational visits annually. But at the same time, staffing and budgets for the agencies stewarding these lands are being slashed, and the same thing is happening to the state and federal agencies managing our wildlife populations now. At the same time, though passionate advocates and sportsmen and women and conservationists of all types are engaging in new approaches to stewarding and protecting our wildlife and wild places, and exciting and more innovative ways than ever. All of this raises questions, very important questions. Where are we headed? What does the future hold for wildlife and wild places and public lands and waters? What will all this mean for the hunters and anglers and outdoor recreators of all types who depend on these wild things. The questions are obvious, the answers less so, and that’s why I’ve started this project. Eldo Leopold, more than seventy five years ago, wrote in his renowned book Sand County Almanac, that there are some who can live without wild places and some who cannot. That book and this podcast are for those who cannot. Future Wild is here to seek out the experts and insights that might help us all better understand what the future might hold for the wildlife and wild places that we hold deer and the outdoor pursuits that we’ve built our lives around. And so, as we begin this exploration, it seems that a good place to start might be with someone who’s been trying to answer these same questions. For himself and the broader public for more than fifty years. My guest today is a Von Schnard, the founder of Patagonia and an avid angler, kayaker, climber, and outdoor recreator of all types, has been and still is one of the foremost voices in the environmental, outdoor recreation and business communities, and over his many decades in the public eye, he’s championed two ideas that I think are of particular importance as we head into this murky future. The first of these is that by being thoughtful about how we conduct our lives and simplifying our outdoor pursuits, we might be able to better enjoy and engage with the natural world. And secondly, if we want to hike or hunt, or camp or fish on our home planet well into the future, we damn well better be doing something ourselves to make sure it stays in good shape. Today, I want to ask Yvon about both of these ideas, how he’s put them into action in his own life and the impact that’s had, as well as how we might as well. Thanks for being here. This is Future Wild presented by Conservation First Bank. Yvon, Thanks so much for joining me.
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Speaker 2: Are you welcome.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: This is a conversation I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, as I just mentioned a second ago, as so many of us have. I’ve followed your work and your words and your actions for many many years now and have really respected how you’ve led your business and your life, and how you engage with the natural world. I think is a particular interest of mine, and so I wanted to start by unpacking something that you wrote in not your most recent fishing related book, but the one just prior to that Simple fly Fishing. You wrote about simplifying your approach to fishing with a tool called a tankara rod, and you stated the following. I got to read you this quote, and I’d like your thoughts on it. You said, the lesson we learned from fishing with a tankara rod is that we shouldn’t fear that a simpler life will be an impoverished life. Rather, simplicity leads to a richer and more satisfying way of fishing and more importantly living. If I why is that the case.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: Well, it’s worked for me so uh. I mean, I’ve done a lot of different sports in my life, and I’ve always I’ve always worked towards simplicity in all of those sports. Like you know, I was a spear fisherman and I learned to scuba dive, but I didn’t like it. I preferred to, you know, sit at home and hold my breast and uh, in fact, in school I used to hold my breast in math class a lot and almost pass out. But uh, you know, train my body to dive and and you know, more naturally and act that if you’re spearing fish, it’s far more effective. And using a scuba tank because the mubbles steed the fish away. So and then climbing, you know, it’s the same, the same thing. It’s I’ve always felt like, you know, you start out, you do it ten day route on El Capitan and and then uh, pretty soon people are soloing the thing and it’s natural progression. Like I have a my family doctor in Jackson Hole. His son and his buddy a couple of years ago climb the nose of El Capitain naked, shoeless. Yeah at night.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Wow, that’s really taking things to the next level.
00:06:54
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean it’s it’s I know, I know, I mean talk about hunting. I know a guy who started elk hunting with you know, telescopic site rifle and everything, and he went then I was too easy, so he went to bowl hunting, and finally he went to spear. He hun elk with a spear. He just puts on a note costume, smear of musk over himself and spears him. I mean, that’s what the cave man did, I mean, or the early man. They used spears, and so I think it’s just a natural progression towards perfection. So I always believe that perfection is not attained when you can’t add anything more to what you’re doing, but you can’t take anything away. So that’s what I learned with the tin car rod is that, uh, when I learned to use it properly with soft tackles and stuff, and I was out fishing my friends or all the gear and stuff.
00:08:07
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I heard about Tenkara. It was probably ten to fifteen years ago, probably around when that last book came out, give or take a little bit, and I remember thinking that it was it was too simple. It almost seemed like all that wouldn’t be as much fun because it lacked everything that you have with the reel and the ability to reach out there and do different things. But now, over the last ten to fifteen years, as I’ve progressed as an angler myself, I’ve increasingly found myself more and more intrigued by it and seeing the appeal of that simplicity and being able to focus on a few fit things, but deeply. But I’m curious about this, Yvonne. When you look at the world we’re in today, it is increasingly digital, increasingly virtual, increasingly high speed, increasingly complex in so many different ways. I think there’s some people who would hear this and they would say, Ah, that’s that’s anachronistic, that’s that’s so old fashioned. That’s one reaction to this. But is it possible that because of the fact that our world is like that now today, so virtual, so digital, so complex, is this simple approach more important because it’s so different from the rest of life or not.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: Well, it’s not just different, but it’s a lot more satisfying. You know the guy, this old guy and in Italy that taught me how to take car fish. They’ve been doing it on this river since sixteenth century. And he, you know, he has a big old bamboo pole with a horse hair line that he makes himself. He ties his own flies without advice, and he can make that line go down four feet He could get his fly down four feet down, or he can make it float, depending on where he what he does with the current. And I mean, I’ve tried to duplicate that I can’t do it. It’s uh, I’m not there yet. And I’ve asked him how he happens to do that. He said, well, I could. I could tell you, but it’ll take all the the joy away from learning on your own. Mhm. And I’m always you know, I’ve played tennis. I’ve had one tennis lesson in my life. The guy just says, stare at the ball. I’m self taught in everything. I mean, climbing, kayaking, spearfishing, Yeah, all the different sports that I’ve done. I’ve always been I don’t like people telling me what to do, and I don’t like tell people what to do. So I found it’s pretty satisfying to learn all these things when you’re wrong, and to have all the answers figured out by this digital world. It just robs you of a lot of things.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: I think it’s it’s the simple analogy I guess is right that you can either you know Mount Washington or their New Hampshire. Right, you can take you can you can ride right to the top of the mountain see the exact same view. Or you can hike to the top of the mountain. Yeah, but the experience of that summit is dramatically different depending on which PRIs you went through to get there. Right, It’s all about that process and that journey. And it seems like in something like fishing, where the popular culture of the moment and of some number of years. I mean, this isn’t new, but it’s it’s obviously very focused on the outcome. It’s very focused on catching a lot of fish or catching the big fish. You have taken this alternative approach which is all about like how you catch the fish and how you learn to catch the fish and what that’s like. And in that first book it was about the rod and kind of tackle set up you used, and now this latest book, Peasant Tel Simplicity, it’s it’s about the actual fly choice and the fact that you’ve been able to simplify. You know, I know one year, a handful of years ago, you use just one fly the entire year for all of these different trips in these different species, all you did was adjust the size and some particulars. Can you can you tell me about that experience, how your growth as an angler progressed when you were forced to simplify in that way. You mentioned that that’s so satisfying, but I’d love to hear a little bit more about you know that that actual experience, and maybe there were some frustrations along the way too.
00:13:13
Speaker 2: Well. I think whenever you try to simplify your sport or your life or whatever, it forces you to be creative. And yeah, I mean when I when I started fishing with a tin car run I uh, you know, I I caught some Atlantic salmon with it, and forces you to not just stand there and grind down your your break on your reel, but you got to run.
00:13:52
Speaker 1: One of the things that I’ve thought about when I was reading you know, in the past about your experiences and I’ve heard you talk about in the past, and then more as I was preparing for this, I got to thinking that by simplifying, not only is it more satisfying because of that process, but I imagine it is also maybe more enjoyable in the moment because you are not paralyzed by indecision. Maybe this is just me, But I’m curious if you ever had this. You know, I’ll be on the Snake River, or I’ll be on the Grosvant or something there. I spend a lot of time out in that neck of the woods too, and I’ll sit there and if it’s not the obvious easy thing going, if there’s not an obvious hatch going and the fissure cooperating with whatever I threw out there at first, I might find myself cycling through idea after idea after idea, and all these different flies, and you could drive yourself crazy thinking through my you know, six different boxes I can look through, and all the different iterations. And when I read about you know what you did with with these pheasantel variations or these wet hackle flies that you’ve used, you know all throughout the year. That must be so freeing to release yourself from that, at least that part of the decision making, and then you can instead just focus on where are the fish, what’s the proper presentation, where in the water column? Does that just relieve a whole level of stress or anxiety or or confusion in the fishing experience and just lets you enjoy it all more.
00:15:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, it absolutely does. You’re replacing all those flies and all that gear with knowledge. And you know, I say in the book, a nine foot five weight rod after you cash, it’s just a stick in your hand, whereas a ten car rod after you cash is when the action begins because you work in that tip and making the fly look like a living insect instead of you know, I mean dry fly fishing with duns. Yeah, you want a dead drift, you don’t want any action. But if you’re using hoppers, you want that hopper to be moving around or a mouse or or an emerger. And you can’t do that with a modern stiff rod. And so you know what I learned from Tikka, I now fish with a cane rod mostly which has really good action, or I use a ten foot two eight rod which has that good tip action. So after I cast, you know, I found that the most important aspect of a fly is action. It’s not and then have to that it’s the size of the fly, and then after that it’s it’s the type of fly. But action is what’s the most important. Crowd are predators just like your cat or grizzly bear or whatever, you know, grizzly love it when you run right, Yeah, don’t do that. And uh, you know you can draw uh toy mouse across the room in front of your cat and then go into and it’s uh, stare at it, stare at it, at it, and then you stop it and give it a twitch and that’s when the cat bounces. Yeah, And that’s what I do with with that ten foot rod or my cane rod. And uh, it’s a it’s another way of fishing. And we’ve gotten pretty specialized. I have friends that are only drive fly fishing, or are they only type lives, or are they’re only nimb fishermen, or or they only streamer fishermen. And but you know, if you’re a dry fly fisherman, there’s hardly any hatchets anymore. Have you noticed that? It’s different if you if you go to New Zealand, or if you go to Italy or something where there’s patches, you’re amazed at how many insects there are. You go to Henry’s Fort, there’s nothing going on anymore. And so if you’re only a drive fight fisherman, you got about an hour a day of action and then what do you do the rest of the day. I mean, that’s fine, if you live next to the river, you can go out that one hour. But if you’ve driven a thousand miles to get there, and so, you know, you gotta you gotta be more than one trick, bony andeah. But I think what we’ve done, Uh, what I tried to get across from this book is that fish the water the way it should be fished. And you know, fish if it’s fast running water. Forget the drive and you don’t know where the fish are to get. Forget the dry fly. You know, use use a soft tackle or something and you can cover a lot of ground. Or if the fish are down twenty feet down, better than implement. They’ll never come up for a dry fly or even a soft tackle or anything. So fish the water it should be fished. And that’s similar to climbing. You know, you adapt according to the type of rock and the steepness and and uh. But it forces you to look at rivers in a different way. It forces you to look for little eddies and currents and feed lines. You know. Uh, it opens up a whole of the world. Instead of shitting on a drift boat with a marber and a couple of flies, it’s just you know, being oblivious about what’s going.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: On in this most recent book. And I don’t remember where in what context this was, but but I remember you mentioning something that I’ve heard you you speak about before too, which is how this kind of approach can help lead to deep knowledge. And as I read this book, I couldn’t help but think that this book, it is about fishing, but it’s almost about a whole lot more. I could see how you how somebody could look at this book and if they took out the you know, specifically how to tie certain flies, and if they just look at the broad philosophy, this is almost a book that could have been changed a little bit and could have been about climbing, or could have been about surfing, or could have been about backpacking or hunting or spearfishing. As you mentioned, there’s so many different places where I think this pursuit of deep knowledge could be of value. And I think that’s something you’ve advocated for for a lot of folks. But could you tell us a little bit more about what that is deep knowledge and what that might look like across all these different pursuits that folks like us have.
00:21:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, like I said, the average person driving by a river or something. They just see flowing water and that’s it. You know, there’s a lot to a river. Knowing that the upper part of the current is flowing at a different speed than the center down in the middle of the river, and in fact, on the bottom it could be going the opposite way, a reversal, and thinking in three D like that is different than you know, your average person looking at a river. And it’s the same thing with a rock climber driving down the road. He sees a cliff and he can tell immediately whether it’s climbable, whether it’s good rock. He can see lines on it, and and it’s no different than a bird watcher, you know. It’s it’s all that deep knowledge that is so satisfying when you get that. It’s the ten thousand hours of learning any craft, they say, you know, and yeah, for me, that’s that’s what I’m looking for and whatever sport I do.
00:22:50
Speaker 1: Was there a moment von when you came to that realization that this is what you were looking for? You know, I know that you wrote about clean climbing and all of that at a relatively young age, but was this just something like that is just who you are naturally from day one when you were a kid, you were wanting to simplify or did it take a while for you to start excelling in many of these things and having success in many of these things and then realizing, Oh, I don’t want to take the path that everybody else is taking. I want to take this different path. Does one of those two different scenarios line up with your actual experience?
00:23:28
Speaker 2: Well, I came across it, you know, organically, and but I didn’t understand it so well. So I started reading like books on zen, you know, Zen philosophy, and then it all started making sense and I I wrote about this in is one book I did about just Zen and how I was a whitewater kayak and I’ve been all over the world doing first ascension. We were and stuff from New Guinea to all over California and at different places South America. And the day to day I really learned to kayak is I did? I did the Grovant in Jackson at high water, which is a class for river. Yeah, it’s a it falls, I don’t know how many feet per mile, but it’s really fast, hardly any eddies. And I used to do that and one day I decided I had learned to do an eskimo role just with my hands, no paddle, and so I thought, well, I’m going to do this river by myself and not take a paddle. And I did, and wow, it’s it to do that. I had to look further ahead than I normally do instead of you know, waiting till the last second and then doing a big defect stroke or something going around the rock. So I had to look way ahead. I had to bank the boat on its edge to make it turn. You know. It’s like a pair of skis, it’s it’s rounded, you know. So I had to put it on its edge and go around and then keep my hands in the water. And when I went over a drop, I had to make sure I didn’t, you know, just go backwards on the drop. I had to go into the drop. And that day I learned to kayak. I learned to use the river and not depend on this paddle, which is a really powerful tool. And I did a perfect run that’s absolutely perfect around. It’s like I was a fish going down the river. So that’s kind of a little zen zen thing that I learned through that sport, you know.
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I could see how there’s some different version of that probably for any one of our outdoor pursuits. Right, it’s that I guess it’s a version of that flow state that sometimes people talk about. I imagine that this approach is a much cleaner way to find that flow state. I would guess.
00:26:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, you know, I went back to kayaking again, but I used a paddle, but in a different way. Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: So you make a very clear case for why a simpler approach to fishing or climbing or kayaking or anything, why that’s better for us the user. But I wonder is the simpler engagement with the nature, is the simpler approach to whatever kind of outdoor pursuits we have, Is that better for the future of the natural world?
00:27:05
Speaker 2: Well, you know, people are asking me all the time what can they do to save the planet? You know, And I tell them, I mean, I’m a real pessimist. I tell them, Until we get a spiritual connection with nature, nothing is going to happen. As long as we think nature is over there and we’re over here and we’re separate, we’re not going to do anything. And so how do you get that deep connection with nature? What of the ways is through bird Wactually one of the ways is through sport, And I think sport is anybody can do this and get outside and be in nature. You don’t have to be a tree hugger. But the more you’re in nature, the more you learn to appreciate it, the more you realize that we are not only dependent on nature. We’re animals. Of course, we’re just animals. And as we destroy nature and all these other animals are going extinct, we’re facing the same problems ourselves. And so that’s something anybody can do. Yeah, And I really believe in getting people out and doing these sports.
00:28:25
Speaker 1: So I feel the same way. I’ve always thought that, you know, the only way you could save something, or care for something, or work for something is if you love it right, And you can only love something that you know intimately and have experienced and engaged with. So I’ve always thought that’s a really strong case to introduce as many people to the outdoors as possible, to give them that connection, like you mentioned. But the Devil’s advocate would say to me, and might say to you, well, the more people that are out there, the more pressure we put on the landscape. The more hunters are at the trailhead the more runners are on the trail, the more anglers are in the river pounding these fish on warm days. There’s a lot of concerns, real concerns about loving these things to death too. How do you square that? How do you reckon with that?
00:29:16
Speaker 2: Well, that is a toss up, but it’s also on how you do your sport. You know, if if you’re in this drip bow with a guide paying you know, one thousand dollars a day, and you’re just staring at a bobber and every fish you catch, the guy puts it in the net, hauls it out, and you take a picture out of the water, and you well, you’re destroying You’re destroying these this river. You’re destroying the fish. And if you you know, you even using lead a nympher using lead weights. I mean some of the best fishermen around an im fishermen, they’re using lead weights, which one one babie in a swan will kill it, you know. I mean that’s what’s happening with the condors, or you know, a hunter using lead bullets. I mean, it goes all through the whole chain of animals, and you know, finally you’re killing bald eagles and you’re so it’s all on how you do it. And I think, you know, there’s not much we can do about the population, and but we can be more responsible in how we do these sports. And I think by simplifying what we are doing well. First of all, you know, I’ve been telling people just not consume irresponsibly, consume better, which means buying few products but the best that you can buy that will lasts a lifetime. You know, don’t don’t buy a banana cutter, for God’s sakes. Anybody can cut a banana. But I wrote a bad piece for The New York Times that I thought that we should The answer to what to do with petroleum is we should just use the petroleum that causes the least amount of damage. I don’t know where that is. Maybe it’s Saudi Arabia where it’s all desert anyway, and leave the tarzans alone, you know, leave the Amazon alone. So just and slowly work our way out of using petroleum altogether. But start with the the worst quality petroleum and stop using that. And I think it’s the same thing. You know, somebody said poor people can’t afford cheap stuff. You know, you buy a blender that as soon as you put ice cubes and it blows out, and you got to buy another one, another one, another one. You know, buy something that will last you the rest of your life. And I use I use the example when when my wife was twenty one, I gave her a chef knife on a carbon steel And you know, I’m a blacksmith, so I know steel, and I know stainless steel makes the worst knives conceivable, whether it’s a hunting knife or what. And carbon steel you can sharp and raise the sharp, you can ship with it. And we’ve had this knife for fifty three years and it’ll be handed down to my kids and grandkids and so, you know, one knife instead of buying a bunch of stuff. So I really think that that’s something anybody can do in their lives. I mean, we’re using up their resources as what seven planets or something. Well that leads to bankruptcy. I mean, that’s so obvious that we can’t do this forever. So we got to consume less and uh, you know, one of these days the population will go down naturally or unnaturally, but it will go down. And but right now we should just uh you know, buy used clothes. That’s the most responsible thing you can do as far as clothes go. And in fact, we’re trying to make that fashionable, to make it cool for young people to go out and buy you just clothes. And it’s happening, it really is.
00:34:14
Speaker 1: I do love the fact that you guys have been willing to to push back on the typical narrative of bye bye bye more and more and more. And obviously it’s it’s it’s been great for your business telling folks not to buy your jackets, but also you’ve gone beyond that and actually put together programs to help support the second hand use system and repairs, and so I’ve always appreciated that you guys have really led in that way. I want to I want to circle back to something you brought up a moment ago, which is something I’ve heard you say many times before, and it always struck me. You you’ve frequently said that you’re a pessimist about the future or about the natural world. And at the same time, though you have been so action oriented, you’ve always it seems like watching from Afar, you’ve always taken strong action, you know, leading action, just action, action action, your you know. I listened to a podcast called The Dirtbag Diaries for many, many years, for the last fifteen years or whatever. And you used to have an advertisement at the beginning of that every episode in which you were quoted saying something like, you know, the greatest cure for depression is action. And that has stuck with me as a mantra of sorts ever since. Every time I’ve ever felt discouraged or worried about the future of these these places and these animals and these opportunities that I care so much about, I always go back to that action. Like everything now is action oriented. So I’m curious for you. You know, most pestimists, most people who think that the world is shot, just throw their hands up and say, well, screw it, Nothing I do will make a difference. So I’m just gonna, you know, bury my head in the sand. Why have you taken a different approach? How do you square the fact that you say you’re a pessimist, but you are so relentlessly action oriented and seem determined to do something about this so personally.
00:36:18
Speaker 2: Well, actually, you know, I know, I know quite a few really well known environmentalists and scientists and stuff working on global warming, and they’re all pessimists. They’re not optimist at all. And it’s because that’s the reality. I mean, that’s just the way it is. However, David remain active. So it’s it’s not a dichotomy or saying it’s it’s a you know, if if you’re an optimist to say, oh, well, I’m not going to do anything because everything’s going to turn out okay, nothing gets done right, it’s better to be a pessimist and as an activist. So that’s that’s what I am, and I sleep at night knowing that I it’s it’s what I can do. And like I wrote, I don’t know about the other guys in a Peasant Tail book, but for me, there was a way to to uh processize simplicity and and proved. You know. It’s like I use a metaphor of Italian cooking. Classic Italian cookie uses five ingredients. That’s it. Olive oil doesn’t count, Garlic doesn’t count, but the five ingredients. And I’ve gotten some pastas down now to one ingredient besides the pasta. I mean, I caramelize an onion, big cook it in olive oil till it’s caramelized, and put it on the positive is what ingredient. It’s fantastic and U or you know, you used to anchoby or something, so that’s that should be the direction, not you know, complex sauces all of that stuff, and so it applies to everything in life. I think it’s just to work towards simplicity, and I think we can do something to save the planet by doing.
00:38:33
Speaker 1: That, by having this, for lack of a better way to describe it, just this relentless action focus with this set of problems. What does that do for you as an individual? Because I gotta believe there’s a lot of folks who have something they care about that’s not doing very well right now, and it leaves them in a negative, discouraging place. Right You love fishing and you see the rising water temperatures and you see your favorite rivers being shut down year after year for portions of the year and you can’t fish because of that. Or you love hunting upland birds and sage grouse that are disappearing, or lesser prairie chickens are listed. Or you love public lands and you’re seeing your favorite public land spot being threatened to be sold or whatever it might be. There’s all these different examples. No matter what your thing is, I think we can all point to some example that’s worrisome to us, or it could change the way we live or change how we interact with these things we care so much about. So I’ve always understood, you know, having that action oriented approach that you’re talking about here, possibly being a pessimist, but being an active pessimist. I can see how that practically is like the only way we ever made things better. But what does it do for you as an individual? How does that impacted like your sanity or your sense of Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know what does that do for you personally? I have some thoughts on what it’s done for me, But I’m curious for somebody like you who has lived this for you know, for many decades, how has that changed the way you live, the way you feel about your life, the way you can sleep at night.
00:40:20
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it’s pretty depressing seeing the fate of the planet, seeing all these great species go extinct. You know, when I was born, there was two billion, five hundred million people on the planet. Come on, I mean that’s eighty seven years ago, But I mean that’s shocking you then, yeah, and uh, and you know, I when I used to drive from California to Wyoming to go fishing or finding in June. You know, I’d had to stop my car ever once a while to clean the wind, you know, because of so many bugs. And you know, we’ve lost seventy percent of the winged insects in the world. Seventy percent already.
00:41:09
Speaker 1: Wow, we were.
00:41:11
Speaker 2: We hired a guy to do a book on may flies, disappearing mayflies. Unfortunately, halfway through the book he died. But I got to find someone else to finish that book. But I mean, over and over again. You just especially if you go around the world and you see it. I just I just on a trip to Patagonia with some friends and we loaded a truck up with twelve days of camping gear and food and our goal all go Ten years ago, as a friend of mine told me about this couple shallow rivers way down in the South that someone had put rainbows in there and it got so big because it’s all alkali water and they’re eating freshwater shrimp and stuff that they’re eating endangered hood at greepes, maybe greeens, these rainbows are eating maybe greens, I thought, I said, well, maybe I can help with that. So that was the purpose of our trip. You know, you need a purpose, right, as useless as it may be. And so we spent ten days getting down there. By the time we got there, they had four days of almost one hundred degree temperatures in January and it killed all the fish. All these giant rainbows are all dead. So I either missed it by ten years or by one body anyhow you look at it, I mean, and that’s that’s happening everywhere. I mean, what you know, we only have a couple of decades more of cold water fisheries worldwide, and that’s it, and it’s over. You’re going to be fishing for carp and walleye. So that can get you down and depressed unless you’re still active. And I just say, well, you know, that’s that’s the way it is. But I’m doing what I can and I don’t get depressed about it. I get sad about it, but not depressed. Yeah.
00:43:34
Speaker 1: So I heard, speaking of Patagonia, I heard your friend Chris Tompkins say something once that that also stuck with me. And it’s it’s curious because it connects your action focused, your action focus to a to another sentiment that I’m wondering is hard for you to find. Maybe not. But Chris said that hope is action. So you you have said that the greatest cure for depression is action, and Chris said that hope is action. So being a self described pessimist, but also considering what Chris said there that hope is action, is there anything that does give you hope about the future of wildlife and wild places? And if so, what is that?
00:44:26
Speaker 2: Well, I think hope without action is worthless. I it it just it just assumes that someone else is going to take care of the problem. You know. AI Maybe Uh nah, I don’t. I don’t believe that it.
00:44:54
Speaker 1: Is there something though, that with action paired with hope, you do see is giving you some some encouragement for the future.
00:45:05
Speaker 2: Well, there’s a lot of young people that are challenging the way we’re living right now. And uh, you know, you get Blake in Jackson. You’ve got those trophy homes where these rich guys built it after the kids have gone. They built it giant, you know, multi room trophy homes, and then they realize, you know, Jesus, it’s pretty lonely in this house, and they want to move to a smaller house and try to give the house to their kids. The kids won’t take it. No, we don’t want this big piece of shit, and and and you know it’s it’s I mean, the only hope is with the newer generation. I mean, our existing generation is hopeless that we’re not going to we’re not. I mean, look who we vote for these days, unbelievable. You know, who’s got the government we deserve and we’re not going to change. But the younger people that, yeah, I would say that gives me some hope. And it’s happening worldwide too. They want a simpler life and they they see the problem. You know, if if you know, if you agree that global warming is happening, and you choose not to do anything about it, then you really don’t believe it’s happening, because if you did, then you’d do something about it, because it is. The consequences are so grim and it’s not going to happen one hundred years from now. It’s happening right now. I mean, the Gulf Stream is already starting to reverse itself, which puts Europe in another glacial ice age. D you know, the birds, the number of birds have fallen like crazy.
00:47:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:47:17
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, as a fishing and you see it, you see them, there’s no bugs anymore. Yeah, so yeah, yeah.
00:47:27
Speaker 1: It is. It is interesting as as somebody who hunts or fishes or or you know, gets out there in any kind of capacity. But but maybe I’m biased, but I do feel like hunters and anglers especially have a really deep, tight connection to the land and the animals. It’s really hard not to see this stuff. You have to really be in denial to not recognize that things are changing in many different ways, right, whether it’s whether it’s climate, or it’s development and loss of habitat or whatever. You pick your poison. Metaphorically and literally speaking, I guess, but we are truly bearing witness to this because we are out there in it, almost more than anybody else. But at the same time, I feel like we live in this era where it feels like so much is decided above us and outside of our hands, and that the ways that our world is changing, the reasons why rivers are getting too warm, and the older migrations are being cut off, and public lands are being developed or threatened to be sold, all these different things, it can very quickly feel like it’s beyond us and beyond our ability to make a difference. If I’m listening to this podcast and I hunt, or I fish, or I climb or a kayak, and my name is not Yvon Schnard, and I don’t own a great big company or used to own a great big company. If I don’t have a huge platform, if I don’t have a bunch of resources, it’s really easy to think, well, yeah, I can take action, but it probably won’t make a difference, because all you know, what what could I possibly do? I’m just me, what do you say to that person? What what kind of tangible actions could any any individual citizen make you know, this week, or this year or this decade, What do you say to somebody like that who has those concerns?
00:49:23
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, flow off your lawn, get rid of that lawn. Plant native species, especially species that attract moths and butterflies, and and you know, we got an insect problem that it could It could even if you don’t have a lot, if you even if you have you know, ten square feet, do that and it’ll make you feel a hell a lot better. And anybody can do this. Yeah, you know, we’re trying to save thirty by thirty or or whatever it is. Yeah, fifty by fifty. Uh. You know, Chris Tops working in Chile and Argentina. Chili is is up to twenty six percent now one of the highest, the third highest in the world besides Cosa American and Russia. Russia only because they don’t have any people there. The US is sixteen percent. We got a long long ways to go. But if every homeowner got rid of their lawn and planted native plants and stuff, that’s that could be included in this thirty by thirty.
00:50:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s forty million acres really yeah, yeah, pretty big chunkle end we could we could make a difference on Yeah.
00:51:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, So.
00:51:06
Speaker 1: I wanna I want to wrap this up kind of by going back to where we began. We talked, you know, about your most recent book, Pheasant Tel Simplicity. We talked about the book prior to that, relay to fishing, that being simple fly fishing. We’ve talked about how these ideas of simplification can apply to fishing or hunting or climbing or spearfishing or anything. Right. We’ve talked about why that’s you know, both going to lead to more satisfying experience and also maybe be you know, lead to a deeper knowledge and actually help you master those things too. But as we’ve continued and we’ve talked about more broadly in the state of the natural world and where we’re headed, I’m curious if this philosophy of simplicity could also be applied to our endeavors as conservationists. Is there a war world in which simplifying or looking at our work as environmentalists or conservationists through this through this approach of simplify, simplifying to that in some way work as well, And if so, what would that look like?
00:52:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, at some point in saving lands like Chris Tapkins did in Chile and Argentina, at some point it’s not all virgin land. There’s people on there, like in the Amazon. It’s full of people, and you can’t exclude people from those lands. But we have to make sure that whoever’s living on those lands, whether it’s indigenous people or whether it’s settlers or or just households, they could live there in peace with the natural world if they lead some whole lives. New Zealand, they had all these rich billionaires from Silicon Valley and stuff go down to New Zealand buy these big properties. The first thing they do is they fence it off. That’s an American thing, fencing everything off, and so that fences off wildlife. And so it’s how you live on the land is what’s important. I don’t know how we do that, but we have to allow people to live on the land where they’ve always lived, but somehow make sure that they don’t cause harm to the native species and stuff.
00:53:46
Speaker 1: I imagine that’s just as true whether you’re in the Amazon or Chili, or you know, living near a wood lot in southern Michigan, or living adjacent to the Target National Forest in Idaho or the Everglades of southern Florida, no matter where you are, whether you’re in America in a highly developed country or a less so developed I imagine there’s some version of that that could be true. Right we can. We could all, as you’ve said, cause no unnecessary harm.
00:54:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:54:18
Speaker 3: I love I love what they do, like in Sweden and some other Scandinavian countries, where you’re allowed to go on anyone’s land as long as you don’t cause damage.
00:54:30
Speaker 2: You can pick blueberries and so there’s no fences, and I mean, look at our rivers. By god, we’ve privatized our rivers completely. A young kid now can’t walk down to a local river with his king pole and a can of worms and fish because it’s private. You know, in Wyoming, it’s landowner orange to the middle of the river. So it forces you to have to flow, forces you to pay a thousand dollars a day for a guide. Young people can’t can’t do that. And uh, this privatization of of the land is it’s insidious, It’s awful.
00:55:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Our public land system and our public water rights where we have them are are such an amazing gift where we have those things, and we’ve got to we’ve got to fight hard to keep that. You know, as we’ve been having this conversation about what I keep coming back to in my mind is how you know there’s no way to cover everything I want to cover with you in an hour. There’s so many questions I’ve had over the years as i’ve as I’ve seen what you’ve done with your life, and I’ve read books about you, and I’ve I’ve read your own words and have listened to that, and in an hour, of course, we can’t cover all that. And probably you couldn’t cover everything you have wanted to tell the world across all those books and interviews and films you’ve been and all these different things. But the saying is very true that actions speak louder than words. And I think for anyone who’s listening to this today, who is hearing your thoughts on the future of the natural world and how do we live alongside of it, and how do we make sure there’s some better future, and how do we live in such a way that we simplify our connection to nature and cause no unnecessary harm. I think my greatest suggestion I’d give to people is to not only listen to what you had to say here today, but also to look at your actions over the years. I think that has been a wonderful model for all of us of how to walk the walk and not just talk it. How to do the two things that you said, one being connect deeply with nature, because that’s going to give you the energy and the hope or the drive to do something. It’s also going to cure whatever discouragement or just depression you might have. And then finally to just turn to action over and over and over again. And I am so appreciative that you have modeled that for us over the years. So I just want to thank you for speaking with me today about this stuff, but then even more than that, for giving us a lifetime worth of actions to learn from. So thank you very much.
00:57:29
Speaker 2: Well you’re welcome, right. I mean, I’m a pretty simple guy, That’s why I like simplicity.
00:57:36
Speaker 1: I’ve got a lot to learn on that front, but I think you’ve given me a good place to start. So, in all seriousness, thanks for this conversation, Von and for all that, and I hope we can do it again sometime soon.
00:57:48
Speaker 2: Thank you.
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