Manda Kalimian is the President of Rewilding America Now, which for over a decade has worked to rewild America’s wild horses and restore land to promote environmental and climate sustainability.

She is also the founder of the Birch Creek Dialogues, which aims to elevate civic discourse through the power of nature—bringing diverse voices together in the landscape to foster thoughtful dialogue, conservation awareness, and shared stewardship. Through this work, Manda has raised national awareness about America’s urgent need for conservation and the vital role nature plays in human flourishing.
Manda owns over 1,300 private acres and 70,000 federal grazing acres in Birch Creek Valley, Idaho, and is focused on ensuring its preservation as part of the critical Yellowstone wildlife corridor.

Manda is a staunch believer in traditional ecological knowledge and a founding member of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. She helped create and fund the first rewilding policy curriculum at the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy and spearheaded the inclusion of rewilding language for managing America’s wild horses in the FY2020 Interior Appropriations budget bill. She continues to partner with government entities on conservation initiatives and policy development.

She is the author of Born to Rewild: Triumphs of a Now Fearless Woman. In 2019 and 2025, she presented at the Conservation Forum at University of Cambridge. She also helped secure a scientific grant to fund research at McMaster University’s Poinar Lab on Quaternary ecosystems using environmental DNA drawn from sediment cores (sedaDNA), with a primary goal of collecting additional evidence regarding the last appearance times for horses in North America.

Brian May is a fourth-generation rancher whose roots run deep in the community. Raised in a family that has worked the land for generations, Brian brings a deep understanding of ranching, land stewardship, and the careful balance required to sustain both the land and the people who depend on it.

As an advisor to the Birch Creek Project, Brian contributes practical insight shaped by decades of hands-on experience in agriculture. He believes strongly in the importance of community and collaboration, and is committed to supporting initiatives that honor agricultural heritage while bringing people together to ensure the long-term health of the land and the communities it sustains.