Doug Peacock has a solution to one of the West’s most pressing environmental issues—the decline of the Colorado River. In his editorial in Alta Journal’s Issue 24, the naturalist and author makes his case for removing the Glen Canyon Dam and draining Lake Powell. Peacock joins Alta Live to detail why proposed solutions from government organizations aren’t nearly enough to restore the Colorado River, and his suggestion might be a “wild dream” it’s now time to consider. Come with your questions, ideas, and enthusiasm—this will be an important conversation!

About the guest:

Author and naturalist Doug Peacock, a disabled Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret medic, was the real-life model for Edward Abbey’s George Washington Hayduke and has published widely on wilderness issues.

His books include Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness, ¡Baja!, Walking It Off: A Veteran’s Chronicle of War and Wilderness, and The Essential Grizzly: The Mingled Fates of Men and Bears (coauthored with Andrea Peacock). His latest book, Was It Worth It: A Wilderness Warrior’s Long Trail Home, won the 2022 National Outdoor Book Award and a 2022 award for literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Peacock received Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Lannan Foundation fellowships for his work on archaeology, climate change, and the peopling of North America, published as In the Shadow of the Sabertooth: Global Warming, the Origins of the First Americans, and the Terrible Beasts of the Pleistocene. Sabertooth won the 2014 High Plains Book Award in the Science category.

Peacock cofounded the Wildlife Damage Review, Vital Ground, and Round River Conservation Studies. For more than 25 years, he served as chairman of the board of directors for Round River, which works with Indigenous people and governments in Africa and North, South, and Central America to develop region-wide conservation strategies protecting and enhancing intact ecosystems. He’s also a co-founder of Save the Yellowstone Grizzly, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting for the survival of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states.

For his service in Vietnam, Peacock was awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Bronze Star. He lives in Emigrant, Montana, with his wife, Andrea, two collie dogs, and an orange tabby.•