When we talk about exploration when it comes to how it's represented in how it's their marketing,

recreation, it's one direction.

It's conquering.

It's bagging peaks, checking off trails, checking out places that you're going to go.

That conquering language is directly related to a very real era of exploration in American past,

one that was connected to real violence and connected

to the history of genocide in the United States.

You're listening to Green Dreamer, and I'm your host, Kamea Shane.

Today we're speaking with Dr. Joseph Witson, a political ecologist and marketing strategist

who writes about public lands, the outdoor industry, and environmental justice issues.

I was curious to speak with Joseph because of his

background working as part of the outdoor recreation industry which really

shaped the soils for his book marketing the wilderness. So we'll be chatting

through some themes discussed in his book looking at how the outdoor industry

profits off of marketing a

specific image of the so-called wilderness, which Joseph names as another form of extraction for

consumption and this romanticized experience of the great outdoors that obscures its colonial roots.

If you want to first learn about the history behind the creation

of national parks and the concept of the pristine wilderness, I highly recommend our past episode

with Matisse historian Mark David Spence. We'll be really building on that history here to talk about

the commercialization of that image of the wilderness.

Before we begin, I want to quickly mention that Green Dreamer is a listener-supported show. So,

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