Gregg Treinish spots a wolverine track on a research expedition in Mongolia. Nonscientists can help with conservation and environmental research. Did you know that ants taste like lemons? Or that worms could lay a thousand eggs in a single human heel (my heel to be specific)? Over the years, in my adventures around the world as a conservationist, I’ve been blinded for weeks by gorilla scat I was collecting (on purpose), survived landslides and been charged by hippos. I have always felt called by the wild, and still am despite having had more near-death experiences than my mom has ever been comfortable with. Science has always been at the forefront of my adventures. I engage with wild spaces because I want to see them protected. And to protect them, we have to understand them. Now, in the wake of the November election, I’m hearing from many of my fellow conservationists, explorers and climate advocates that all the work they’ve done — all the danger they’ve put themselves in — might be undermined. I get it. As carbon dioxide levels hit records yet again, U.S. leadership on green issues is under threat. Project 2025 — a widely disseminated policy blueprint for the incoming Trump administration — calls for environmental deregulation, less protections for public lands and big cuts to climate research. Lee Zeldin and Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominees to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior respectively, have championed big oil and vowed to act on the president-elect’s vision to roll back environmental protections. It’s easy to feel hopeless and demotivated in the face of such challenges. But for those of us who love wild spaces, we can’t afford to give into despair. Thankfully, there’s a way to take the future of conservation and environmental and climate […]