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Q&A: Mountain & Prairie Host Ed Roberson [1]
['Ilana Newman', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-07-04
Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
Ed Roberson is a podcast host and storyteller who tells stories about the American West. His podcast, Mountain & Prairie, interviews changemakers from around the West about topics like land, water, and conservation.
I first met Ed during a river trip, last summer, on the Rogue River in Oregon. We spent the week floating and chatting about how storytelling and media can make a difference in the world, and about how to tell nuanced stories. The stories told on that trip still inspire me daily, and Ed’s humor and humility bring a lot to every conversation he participates in.
In this interview we talk about how Ed started his podcast, and some of the biggest issues the West is currently facing, based on what he’s gathered from his own conversations.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ilana Newman, The Daily Yonder: You came to the world of land conservation and Western storytelling from an interesting background, starting in finance and real estate development. How would you describe your origin story? What led you to the work you’re doing today?
Ed Roberson: Today, almost all of my work is somehow connected to themes of conservation, land stewardship, and sustainability, but for the first ten years of my career, I was on the far other end of the spectrum. I spent many years working as a commercial and ranch real estate broker, and actually went to graduate school with the intention of becoming a developer. But halfway through my MBA program, I had a serious health scare that shook me up and made me reevaluate my priorities and how I wanted to spend my professional life.
From there, I started to apply my professional and educational experiences to land conservation – first working with conservation groups on a number of open-space acquisitions and eventually moving full-time into the non-profit conservation world, where I was the Conservation Director at a regional land trust. I found that I enjoyed (and was much better at) the conservation work, and many of my skills in real estate, business, and sales were transferable into the conservation space.
In 2016, while still in the real estate business, I started my podcast, Mountain & Prairie, as a nights-and-weekends creative project. For many years, nobody other than my wife and mother listened, but it slowly found an audience and eventually grew into a full-time job. By 2022, the podcast was making enough money that I could go all-in on it, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. While I do miss the on-the-ground conservation work, I think the podcast is having a very positive and widespread impact across the West.
DY: Your podcast, Mountain & Prairie, comprises conversations with changemakers around the Western United States, but you’re originally from North Carolina. How do you see conversations around land differently in the Southeast vs. the West?
ER: The most obvious difference is public land – 14.6% of North Carolina’s land is public, versus 43% of Colorado’s. In the West, it’s impossible to have any meaningful conversation about land use, natural resources, or conservation without considering how public lands fit into the equation. So much conservation work out here requires collaboration between private landowners, governmental agencies, Tribal nations, and non-profit organizations – it’s an entirely different beast than East Coast conservation.
Another obvious difference is water quantity – there’s simply not enough water in the West to support today’s growth. (Whereas where I grew up, there’s often too much water!) Water is the constraining factor of everything in the West, from agriculture to economic development to public health to outdoor recreation… and on and on. Much of my nonprofit conservation work revolved around creating tools that allow water to be more efficiently shared between agriculture and municipalities in the Arkansas River Basin, and many of my podcast episodes examine the challenges of over-appropriated water in the Colorado River Basin. It’s an endlessly fascinating topic.
Ed Roberson interviewing novelist David James Duncan at the 2023 Old Salt Festival. (Photo by Anthony Pavkovich)
DY: In a complicated media landscape, how is Mountain & Prairie a tool for making change and bringing people together? How do you choose who to feature, and what types of stories you want to tell?
ER: When I started the podcast, I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and was doing real estate work with ranchers, so I was straddling the world of progressive environmentalism and conservative land stewardship. One day I’d be out working with a fifth-generation rancher who most likely voted straight Republican, and the next day, I’d be chatting with my hardcore Democrat neighbor who I’d describe as a militant environmentalist. I realized that when I ignored the labels and political affiliations, these two people seemed to agree on 85% of the same things when it came to land, natural resources, and conservation.
So most of my interviews focus on the people – who they are, how they grew up, why they have devoted their lives to their particular type of work. Once listeners can understand these folks’ life stories, they can connect with them as individuals, see that they are good people, and better understand their motivations. Then, even if the listener may disagree with the specifics of the guest’s stance or approach, they can respect them as a person and perhaps learn something new.
As for how I pick guests, there is no rhyme or reason other than what I’m interested in at the moment. I love learning from a wide variety of voices, and I love to have my assumptions and beliefs challenged – the more diversity of opinion, the better. In the last few weeks, I’ve talked to leaders from the Blackfeet Nation, Montana’s first Jiu-Jitsu instructor, a Navy SEAL-turned-cannabis entrepreneur, a National Geographic photographer, and a world-renowned rock climber. It’s all over the place.
DY: You’ve spent a lot of time recreating outdoors in rural areas around the Western U.S., and many of the conversations you have with podcast guests revolve around this intersection of land and recreation, and conservation. What do you see as the most important issues rural Western communities are facing that might rely on recreation or be surrounded by public lands?
ER: Given that so much of my career is focused on real estate, I can’t help but be concerned about the influx of highly paid digital nomads into rural recreational hubs throughout the West. So many once-low-key Western towns have become completely unaffordable for the locals who do the work that makes the towns so desirable in the first place. I don’t blame knowledge workers from the coasts for wanting to move to places like Missoula or Bozeman or Salida – when I moved West back in 2005, I was one of them. But when property values and the cost of living explode to the point where service workers or tradespeople can’t afford to live there anymore, we’ve got a serious problem on many, many levels. I wish I had an easy or effective solution to offer, but I don’t. However, I know there are many smart people out there working to solve this challenge.
DY: Who has been your favorite person to talk to on the podcast so far, and why?
ER: It would be impossible to pick just one. No exaggeration, I’ve absolutely loved 99% of the episodes I’ve recorded, and I’ve learned so much from every single interview. Again, I only interview people whom I’m extremely excited to speak with, and every person brings a unique perspective and life story to the conversation. I will admit that I especially enjoy chatting with authors of all types – historians, novelists, adventure writers, journalists, biographers, and more. I am a voracious reader, so when I get to talk to authors like Douglas Brinkley, Hampton Sides, Betsy Gaines Quammen, or Chris La Tray, it’s like a basketball fan getting to shoot hoops with Jordan or Lebron.
DY: Where would you recommend new listeners to start with Mountain & Prairie?
ER: I had the great pleasure of interviewing the actor, author, woodworker, and humorist Nick Offerman, who is best known for his character Ron Swanson, on the TV show Parks and Recreation. But what many people may not know is that he is a fierce advocate for regenerative agriculture and recently wrote a bestselling book about conservation and his love for the wide-open spaces of the West. He’s also a superfan of Aldo Leopold and Wendell Berry, and has narrated a few of Berry’s audiobooks. That episode is equal parts hilarious and insightful, and it’s a good representation of the types of things I enjoy discussing on the podcast.
This interview first appeared in Path Finders, a weekly email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each Monday, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Join the mailing list today, to have these illuminating conversations delivered straight to your inbox.
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