Today on the podcast we welcome environmental activist and earth warrior, Diana Oppenheim. Diana tells us about her love for the Point Reyes National Seashore on the coast of Northern California and the fight for the fate of the tule elk who live there. Ranchers lease the public land to use for breeding, grazing, and killing cows for their “grass-fed” flesh and “local” dairy products. The ongoing tule elk conflict is a fight for resources, water, and the very lives of the sensitive elk species.
Diana founded the grassroots campaign forELK.org to help save the tule elk. She just completed a trip to Washington, D.C. to present over 100,000 petitions to Secretary Haaland at the Department of the Interior to end ranching in Point Reyes and stop the proposed killing of the endangered tule elk on public lands. Hope and Diana discuss the issue with the elk as well as the larger environmental impacts of regenerative animal agriculture and the problems with local, grass-fed animal products.