anthrodish transcripts: dr. phil loring

how can we create win-win food systems for people and land?

This month’s AnthroDish Transcript is with Dr. Phil Loring, an ecological anthropologist and the current Global Director of Human Dimensions Science at The Nature Conservancy. In this interview, we explore the idea of sustainability—what does it really mean within food systems, and how do reconciliation movements connect to these efforts? Phil looks to what he calls “win-win” scenarios for sustainable ecosystems, and we touch on some key ideas from his book, Finding Our Niche. His approaches to human and ecosystem wellbeing are always really inspirational to me, and I’m very excited to share this conversation with Phil!

The episode first aired on October 7 2019. The following is an abridged transcript of the show, lightly edited for clarity. If you want to listen instead, you can check out the audio link below, or on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

“We don't want the concept of sustainability to just become the next version of manifest destiny. Or the next version of civilized or modern where we have a bunch of academics or managers, policy makers going around saying, well, what you're doing is not sustainable enough, therefore you need to change. You know, the power of the sustainability paradigm is that it's pluralistic. There's no one right answer, there's no panacea. And we need to recognize that the strength and the sustainability comes from the diversity and that people doing different things, things in different ways that you may not always agree with.”

- Dr. Phil Loring, Global Director for Human Dimensions Science at The Nature Conservancy