This Mother’s Day we’re celebrating the tenacity and tenderness of animal mothers, from crocodiles to leopards to whales. Aletris Neils is the executive director of Conservation CATalyst and joined Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb to share why observing mother orangutans inspired her own journey to becoming a mother.

This week, Living on Earth Contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss new Indigenous reserves in the Brazilian Amazon totaling a million and a half acres. They also unpack how in the U.S., Indigenous care for the forest, including traditional burning, has been disregarded and contributed to massive wildfires in California. In history they look back to the man who gave Cape Cod its name.

The 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize winner from North America went toe-to-toe with one of the largest petrochemical companies in the world, Formosa Plastics, and won a $50 million settlement over its illegal dumping of toxic plastic waste. Diane Wilson joins Host Steve Curwood to share her story of dogged truth-seeking and holding a major polluter accountable for spoiling the biodiverse landscape of the Texas Gulf Coast.

An intricate web of roots and fungi connects life in an old growth forest, allowing ancient “Mother trees” to nourish and protect their kin. Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard studies these connections at the University of British Columbia and takes readers into the field with her in her book, Finding the Mother Tree. She joins Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering to share her research findings and reflects on how these trees helped her through the challenges of motherhood and a cancer diagnosis.

The 2023 Africa recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize brought a UK based mining company to justice for polluting a river in Zambia with waste from an open pit copper mine that sickened locals and killed fish. Prize winner Chilekwa Mumba joins Host Paloma Beltran to share how he organized the community and persuaded a UK based law firm to take on the case.