How to Redefine “Wilderness”: From the Bronx to Mongolia with Dave Johnston

Dave Johnston surveys the “Land of the Big Sky.” In the Mongolia Earth Expedition, students leave the concrete jungle behind to experience a landscape where you can drive for days without seeing a single paved road.

Imagine driving a van across a landscape so vast it’s called the “Land of the Big Sky.” You have no GPS coordinates and no specific destination. You simply drive until you spot a white felt tent—a ger—on the horizon. You pull up, knock on the door, and ask a complete stranger, “Can we come in?”

In Mongolia, the answer is almost always yes.

This is the kind of immersive, human-centered conservation experience that Dave Johnston champions. As the Director of Professional Development at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Dave challenges the notion that conservation is just about counting animals in pristine forests. Whether it is students testing water quality next to a party on a pier in Brooklyn or sharing milk tea with nomadic herders, Dave believes that saving species starts with understanding people.

In this episode of Dragonfly Conversations, we discuss the hidden ecology of New York City, the power of the “teacher multiplier effect,” and why you don’t need to be a biologist to save the planet.

While often viewed as a concrete monolith, this view of the southern tip of Manhattan highlights the reality Dave Johnston teaches: New York is a “City of Islands” defined by its relationship with the water.

3 Key Takeaways

NYC is a “City of Islands” We often think of New York City as a concrete monolith, but Dave reminds us that it is a biodiversity hotspot built on an archipelago. The WCS Urban Ecology course uses Jamaica Bay—a massive wetland system near JFK Airport—as a living laboratory.Students quickly learn that ecology isn’t equal across the city. You can stand in one part of the bay and feel like you are on the Jersey Shore, and move a few miles away to find a biodiversity “cold spot” surrounded by dense development. It is a stark lesson in how urbanization creates ecological disparities within the same ecosystem.
The “Teacher Multiplier” Effect Dave is a conservationist, but he is also a social scientist. He argues that while teaching 30 children is valuable, teaching 30 teachers changes the world. If one educator reaches 100 students a year, training a room full of teachers can impact tens of thousands of minds over the course of their careers. By giving educators the tools to integrate conservation into standard curricula (not as an “add-on,” but as a lens for learning), we create a massive lever for social change.

Getting their feet wet in the “City of Islands.” Students in the use seine nets to sample biodiversity at Coney Island, Brooklyn, discovering that New York City is a living, breathing wetland ecosystem.

Conservation is a Human Discipline For decades, the field focused on biology—tracking elephants and counting salamanders. But Dave points out a hard truth: “Conservation is an anthropogenic issue. Humans caused the crisis, so humans need to solve it.” We need biologists, yes. But we also need lawyers to write contracts, social media managers to tell stories, and social scientists to understand economic drivers. If we only study the biological symptoms without addressing the human causes (like economics and culture), we will never solve the crisis.

Hidden Gem: The “Party on the Pier” Reality Check

We often romanticize fieldwork as solitary, quiet time in pristine nature. Dave bursts that bubble with a reality check about doing science in the urban and heavily populated landscape of New York City.

He shares a story about students conducting serious water quality testing on Canarsie Pier—right next to a raucous party. While the students are hauling up buckets and checking dissolved oxygen, locals are fishing and blasting music just feet away. It is the perfect illustration of Dave’s core philosophy: Urban ecology isn’t about finding nature apart from people; it’s about doing the work right in the middle of humanity.

Connecting the next generation to the wild. Dave argues that while conservation biology is vital, education is the lever for change. By training teachers at WCS facilities like the Queens Zoo, we ensure that the wonder children feel when seeing these bison turns into lifelong environmental stewardship.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out the full list of podcasts on our Dragonfly Conversations page.