Leading from Being podcast about ecosystems

This was one of the most thrilling podcasts I’ve done in a while. It was my absolute pleasure to meet Marti Spiegelman and Todd Hoskins and talk on the Leading from Being podcast about ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More.

Marti and Todd’s insights, wisdom and knowledge far surpass my own. Todd also introduced with perhaps one of the best overviews of my writing anyone has ever given me. I’ve edited a transcript below.

It’s always exciting to do a podcast with people who you know you’ll learn from – I haven’t stopped thinking about what they said. They are also lovely people and a gift to our world. I’d like to repeat my thanks for having me on to chat : )

You can listen to the entire episode here.

Introduction by Todd Hoskins of Leading from Being

The age of catastrophe narratives

The planet is under stress. We’re not interested in toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing that false cheerfulness that refuses to acknowledge difficulty. But here’s what we’ve noticed. The catastrophe narrative has become so pervasive, so totalizing, that it’s preventing us from seeing what else is happening, and a lot else is happening.

Seeing the whole vs. seeing only collapse

In our capacity as humans to see the whole, we’ve become entranced by parts, specifically the parts that emotionally activate us while losing sight of the larger picture. We zoom in on wildlife populations declining and miss the story of recovery and we focus on forest burning and overlooked forests regenerating.

We count species going extinct, but don’t notice species returning, adapting, rebuilding their worlds in ways we haven’t been watching for. This isn’t about optimism versus pessimism. It’s about whether we can actually see reality in its fullness. If we can only see collapse, we can’t participate in regeneration. If we can only see endings, we miss the beginnings that are always simultaneously emerging.

Life doesn’t follow a program. It explores, experiments, plays with form. This isn’t neat or linear.

It’s messy, wild, creative, alive with possibility. So here’s a question. How do we know the world isn’t in a state of being reborn? Not metaphorically, but actually materially, ecologically being rebuilt by the intelligence of billions of organisms. Is there a massive regenerative moment happening alongside the real challenges we face? What if humpback whales are returning to rebuild ocean ecosystems? What if wolves are restructuring forest dynamics?

Participation vs. observation in landscapes

Not because of heroic human intervention, but because we finally step back enough to let them do what they’ve always known how to do. Participation is something different than observation or seeking to understand. We read about nature. We watch documentaries about ecosystems and we study climate data. But are we in conversation with the actual intelligence of the more than human world? What if we’re listening to narratives about the land, most of which are written by other humans who might be separated.

Simon recently published a book called How to Survive the Next 100 Years, Lessons from Nature. It opens with something that should stop us in our tracks. When researchers reanalyzed the famous living planet report data, the one that said 70% of wildlife has disappeared, they found something the headlines missed. After accounting for statistical outliers, about 50% of species are actually increasing.

50% recovering, growing, rebuilding their populations. This isn’t a footnote. This is a radically different picture of what’s actually happening. Yes, we have serious losses, we have species and crisis. We also have massive regeneration underway, and nobody is talking about it.

Why not? Well, Simon argues the conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More movement has become addicted to the catastrophe narrative. Leaders are afraid to share positive developments because they think people won’t act unless they’re terrified. But the relentless disaster messaging has created climate anxiety in over 50% of adults. People aren’t mobilizing, they’re more often shutting down, or they’re giving up.

Animals aren’t just residents—they’re the builders

Negativity is not working, it’s backfiring. Simon’s previous book, Wildlife and the Balance, introduced a revolutionary idea. Animals aren’t just residents of ecosystems, they’re the builders. The patterns of stability we depend on for food, water, and climate aren’t created by habitat alone.

They’re created by the behaviors, movements, and cultural knowledge of animals passing information across generations about how to structure a living world. The habitatsWhat is habitat for animals and people? Habitat, hence the word "habitable" describes the natural surroundings in which any animal (or human) lives, that houses basic needs, such as food and shelter. Vegetation, for example, is habitat for animals. On its own, habitat is not necessarily stable or sustainable, which is why it differs from an ecosystem. Habitat in disrepair More include the animals, the plants. Elephants don’t just live in forests, they create conditions for certain forest forms. Beavers don’t just use wetlands, they generate entire watershed dynamics.

Whales don’t just swim in oceans, they fertilize and rebuild marine food webs from the bottom up. Even tiny animals like art barks, through digging the same paths over long, long periods of years, have literally shaped the African savanna. Animals are not decorations, aren’t ecosystems, Lego characters that we drop onto the landscape once we have built the walls.

They’re also the architects. And here’s where Simon’s work connects to our Landscape series. We’ve disconnected our internal landscapes from external ones. We’ve lost the cultural connection to land that allows us to simply know rather than constantly study.

Disconnecting internal landscapes from external ones

We’ve filled our awareness with mediated reality instead of actual relationship with the living world. And he proposes a paradox. The greatest obstacle to conservation might be the thing conservationists are most committed to, action, more doing, more programs, more intervention, more human control.

There’s something else I want to add here. This is not about humans being the problem or needing to disappear. As humans, we possess remarkable capacities.

Humans as stewards of consciousness

Humans can recognize patterns across vast scales of time and space. We can hold past, present and future in mind while imagining new possibilities.

Our species can create global networks of cooperation while staying grounded in local relationship. We can use our distinctive gifts, our capacity for symbolic language, our ability to transmit knowledge across generations, our neuroplasticity and service of life’s larger flourishing. We are also the stewards of consciousness. What we’re talking about is awakened partnership, not human dominion over nature, not self-flagellating guilt about our negative impact. Conscious participation as distinctive members of Earth’s living systems.

Awakened partnership, not human dominion

Using our unique capacities, not to control but to support life’s intelligence. Our job as humans isn’t to save everything through heroic effort. Our job is to remember how to participate in the landscapes we’re a part of. Today’s conversation will challenge some assumptions about what conservation means, about whether human action is always better than an action. And most fundamentally, about what it means to be human animals participating in ecosystems rather than trying to keep apart from them, trying to manage them.

Leading from Being Podcast timeline

• 01:00 Introducing guest Simon Mustoe
• 01:27 Todd’s introduction: The age of catastrophe narratives
• 02:28 Seeing the whole vs. seeing only collapse
• 03:35 What if the world is being reborn?
• 04:19 Participation vs. observation in landscapes
• 06:39 Animals aren’t residents—they’re the builders
• 07:51 Disconnecting internal landscapes from external ones
• 08:25 Humans as stewards of consciousness
• 09:32 Awakened partnership, not human dominion
• 10:08 How do our brains float above the planet’s surface?
• 10:49 The difference between plants and animals
• 13:18 We carry our intelligence with us—the air gap
• 14:33 Human migration as spreading knowledge
• 15:32 We were part of the creation process, not destroyers
• 17:25 Why AI can’t solve the planet’s problems
• 19:23 Intelligence vs. knowledge—playing with language
• 22:37 Collective knowing surpasses scientific prediction
• 24:49 Original human wisdom—listening to the world
• 26:21 Trees that walked—seeing into dimensions
• 26:48 There’s no subconscious—everything is conscious
• 27:57 Systems reset without us when we try to control
• 31:19 Connecting community values to ecosystem features
• 35:35 Original human wisdom—everyone is indigenous to someplace
• 36:41 Remembering our place in the great family of things
• 37:55 Wakatobi, Indonesia: A perfect restoration program
• 44:57 Authentic action vs. forcing outcomes
• 47:02 Getting beyond right and wrong
• 47:55 When awareness is woven into the world
• 48:43 Action vs. inaction
• 54:18 The monumental shift in how people are thinking
• 54:42 The fishers who wanted to restore community, not catch more fish
• 56:25 Encountering sperm whales in Fiji
• 58:41 Potentialities (Marti): A journey of awe
• 01:16:44 Takeaways
• 01:21:10 Closing and thank yous
• 01:21:33 Outro music and credits