Regenerative Skills

I’ve been working on a very special project with Climate Farmers for the last few months and I’m proud to say we’re finally ready to announce our new Pioneer Program for farmers in Europe. For this round we’ve partnered with a long time hero of mine, Darren Doherty and his Regrarian’s platform, to bring the most complete regenerative farm training program together with our unique Carbon+ credits for transition finance assistance. The Regrarian’s online program is built around their expanded scale of permanence through which you’ll learn essential elements of Holistic Management, Keyline Design, farm infrastructure development, soil health, business and finances, and so much more. All of this will be accompanied by access to some of the biggest names in regenerative agriculture around the world through our Skill Exchange calls, Expert Panel Discussions, and a chance to get dedicated attention from some of the best ag consultants in your region, as well as guidance through the application process to the Carbon+ credits. Along the way I’ll be leading weekly coaching calls for the whole group, and you’ll be able to interact and ask questions to your peers and the whole regrarians network with access to their Workplace community. All of this amounts to the most thorough and robust program to guide you on your journey to profitable regenerative farming. Whether this is your first introduction into agriculture, or you’re a seasoned veteran who's been growing for decades, whether you’re only planning a small farm or you’re managing thousands of hectares, you’ll find everything here that you need to make the journey as smoothly and confidently as possible. Applications will only be reviewed until the 5th of November and there is a limit to how many people we can accept into the program, so don’t hesitate. Even if you’re not farming right now I’ll bet you know someone who could benefit immensely from this kind of guidance and training. For more information on how to apply to become a Pioneer farmer you can follow the link in the show notes or go directly to ClimateFarmers.orgIf you're not farming in Europe but still want to be involved with the Regrarian's program and work with me over the next few months, you can sign up through this link here. Welcome back everyone. Today we’ll be picking up where we left off last week in our three part series with Greame Sait. For a long time I’ve been working to connect the pieces between ecological health, regenerative methods of farming, and the health of the human body. Though many of you will find the connection between those three elements very intuitive, I’ve worked to find experts and practitioners who’ve illuminated some essential pieces of that puzzle. Up until now most of the discussions on this show have focused on just one of those elements at a time, but today we’ll continue with the second of the three part series with Graeme Sait who has made it his life’s work to marry these disciplines and train farmers, health care professionals, and ecologists around the world in the importance of caring for our bodies and our ecologies as a single organism that requires all of the pieces to be in place for optimal function. If you didn’t have the chance to hear the first part, I highly recommend it to give context to this episode, and I’ve linked to it in the show notes. For a quick recap, Graeme Sait is the internationally acclaimed author and educator who co-founded Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS) and Nutrition Matters as well as hosting the Nutrition Farming Podcast . He has written hundreds of published articles and the popular book "Nutrition Rules!". Graeme has formulated many of the soil health and human health products for which NTS are renowned and he has developed all of the nutrition programs that are the keystones of their proactive management approach. Greame also owns Nutrition Farm which comprises two distinctly different properties dedicated to the production of nut...

I’ve been working on a very special project with Climate Farmers for the last few months and I’m proud to say we’re finally ready to announce our new Pioneer Program for farmers in Europe. For this round we’ve partnered with a long time hero of mine, Darren Doherty and his Regrarian’s platform, to bring the most complete regenerative farm training program together with our unique Carbon+ credits for transition finance assistance. The Regrarian’s online program is built around their expanded scale of permanence through which you’ll learn essential elements of Holistic Management, Keyline Design, farm infrastructure development, soil health, business and finances, and so much more. All of this will be accompanied by access to some of the biggest names in regenerative agriculture around the world through our Skill Exchange calls, Expert Panel Discussions, and a chance to get dedicated attention from some of the best ag consultants in your region, as well as guidance through the application process to the Carbon+ credits. Along the way I’ll be leading weekly coaching calls for the whole group, and you’ll be able to interact and ask questions to your peers and the whole regrarians network with access to their Workplace community. All of this amounts to the most thorough and robust program to guide you on your journey to profitable regenerative farming. Whether this is your first introduction into agriculture, or you’re a seasoned veteran who's been growing for decades, whether you’re only planning a small farm or you’re managing thousands of hectares, you’ll find everything here that you need to make the journey as smoothly and confidently as possible. Applications will only be reviewed until the 5th of November and there is a limit to how many people we can accept into the program, so don’t hesitate. Even if you’re not farming right now I’ll bet you know someone who could benefit immensely from this kind of guidance and training. For more information on how to apply to become a Pioneer farmer you can follow the link in the show notes or go directly to ClimateFarmers.orgIf you're not farming in Europe but still want to be involved with the Regrarian's program and work with me over the next few months, you can sign up through this link here. Today is going to be the start of a unique journey with a very special guest. For a long time I’ve been working to connect the pieces between ecological health, regenerative methods of farming, and the health of the human body. Though many of you will find the connection between those three elements very intuitive, I’ve worked to find experts and practitioners who’ve illuminated some essential pieces of that puzzle. Up until now most of the discussions on this show have focused on just one of those elements at a time, but today we’ll begin with the first episode of a three part series with Graeme Sait who has made it his life’s work to marry these disciplines and train farmers, health care professionals, and ecologists around the world in the importance of caring for our bodies and our ecologies as a single organism that requires all of the pieces to be in place for optimal function. Graeme Sait is the internationally acclaimed author and educator who co-founded Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS) and Nutrition Matters as well as hosting the Nutrition Farming Podcast . He has written hundreds of published articles and the popular book "Nutrition Rules!". Graeme has formulated many of the soil health and human health products for which NTS are renowned and he has developed all of the nutrition programs that are the keystones of their proactive management approach. Greame also owns Nutrition Farm which comprises two distinctly different properties dedicated to the production of nutrient-dense, chemical-free food with forgotten flavors and enhanced medicinal qualities. One of these farms is based in a sub tropical zone on the Sunshine coast in Queensland,

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I’ve been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe. This is one of the many community building activities that I’ve been organising to help to connect farmers around Europe to some of the best emerging information available, and to get their most important questions answered from our experts around the world. In this session I had the chance to speak with Charles Dowding in Somerset in England. Many of you may already know Charles as an innovative gardener and author of nine books on caring for soil as well as productive ways to grow food with less weeding through no-dig management. At Homeacres, his small, intensive market garden Charles teaches, runs experiments and above all produces delicious food. Based on his experience of growing vegetables without tillage for 35 years he shows people from all walks of life how to grow more easily, enjoyably and in a time-efficient way. Before we get started I want to remind all of you who would be interested in attending one of these skill exchange calls live in the future, all you have to do is be a registered farmer in Europe to receive the invitations and call links that we have coming up. I’m planning the next session with Nigel Palmer, author of the book “The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments” later this month, so don’t wait too long. You can register now at climatefarmers.org Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://charlesdowding.co.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/?hl=en https://charlesdowding.co.uk/courses/ Check out pervious episodes on No-dig gardening https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-the-definitive-guide-to-no-till-organic-farming-with-andrew-mefferd-author-of-the-organic-no-till-farming-revolution-105/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-the-definitive-guide-to-no-till-organic-farming-part-2-with-andrew-mefferd-author-of-the-organic-no-till-farming-revolution-105/

Welcome to the 9th of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session I hosted a discussion on regenerative arable farming with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe.In this panel I invited three of the most experienced and influential educators in the field of arable farming from the USA, Brazil, and England. Arable farming is often the first agricultural practice that comes under fire with criticisms about industrial ag, the troubles of monocropping, tillage, chemical use, and many of the other management methods that need to be abandoned are most closely associated with large scale grain and legume production. Yet cultivation of annual crops, especially grains, are some of the oldest cultivars from the dawn of agriculture itself. Though it’s still common practice to destroy the ecology of a piece of land to produce these products, there’s still potential to regenerate that ecology if we can move beyond the paradigm of recent decades and learn from natural biological processes. Don’t forget that if you want to hear the full, unedited version of this interview with the entire Q&A session at the end, be sure to check out the different subscription options on the Regenerative Skills Patreon page.Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Links: https://soilhealthacademy.org/ https://groundswellag.com/speakers/ademir-calegari/ https://www.regenben.com/ https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-6-trees/alley-cropping-and-silvopasture/ https://www.agroforestry.org/the-overstory/337-overstory-261-alley-cropping https://regenerativeskills.com/eric-toensmeier-outlines-the-roadmap-to-implementing-the-carbon-farming-solution/

Today’s episode has been a long time coming for me. I’ve followed Eric Toensmeier’s work since I first started learning about permaculture and I found his first book “Paradise Lot” about his work in transforming a tiny suburban dirt patch into a perennial food oasis at his home in Massachusetts. Since then Eric has written many other titles that have kept an eerie pace with my own work and focus over the years. “Perennial Vegetables” was great fodder for my learning in Guatemala with indigenous plant cultures and companion plants to coffee and avocado. The Carbon Farming Solution” helped to turn my attention to the potential of regenerative agriculture at scale, and his contributions to “Project Drawdown” helped me to put agriculture in perspective with the rest of the essential steps to addressing the climate crisis around the world. In this session, because of its relevance to the work I’m doing with Climate Farmers, I decided to focus on the conclusion of “The Carbon Farming Solution” Part 5, which outlines the implementation of regenerative, perennially based, agriculture. We’ll explore Eric’s three point plan for scaling up carbon farming, his ideas for ways to support farmers and organizations in the transition, effective financing, removing policy barriers, as well as strategic next steps. We also cover some of his work with Project Drawdown in looking at the global picture and where regenerative agriculture stacks up in the priority list they’ve created to reverse the effects of climate change. There’s so much more I could say in an introduction to Eric and his work, but instead I’ll put all the links to learn more about him and the projects he’s involved with in the show notes for this episode and I’ll jump right into the first question to start this discussion off. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.perennialsolutions.org/ http://carbonfarmingsolution.com/ https://www.drawdown.org/

Welcome back everyone. Today I’m going to explore a topic that has been important to me for a very long time, but that hasn’t been explored much on this show so far. I’m talking about personal health and fitness. Now of course this is a very multifaceted subject, and everyone will have their own ideas of what diets, exercise plans, mobility routines, as well as mental and spiritual practices are essential, and that’s great. This interview is going to focus on physical fitness and what it means to integrate exercise and strength training into a holistic health plan that suits your own unique needs and goals. Those of you who’ve been following this podcast since it was called Abundant Edge will likely remember me talking about my own struggles with digestive health and how I’ve had trouble for most of my adult life due to gut dysbiosis and related symptoms. In the past when I’ve felt hopeless and that my nutritional health was beyond my control, I would focus on the areas that I could still influence. Since I was constantly traveling for most of the last 15 years, I focused on calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that I didn’t need any equipment for. As I began researching how to train my body without gym equipment or weights I quickly found the inspirational work of Anthony Arvantakis, the founder of Bodyweight Muscle and the author of many bodyweight training books. I was immediately drawn to his focus on whole body fitness and functional strength above aesthetics, and his own personal journey of transformation is truly heartwarming. Over the years Anthony’s exercise programs and online community have helped me to get out of various depressive funks which have had transformative effects on my life beyond just my physical fitness. The routines have helped me to manage my time better, gain motivation for other goals in my life, and focus on holistic fitness. These qualities, while not unique to any one health program, have served as the spark to recommit myself to many of the virtues that I hope to continue to improve upon and one day even exemplify. Together they all tie into a much more complete and robust concept of holistic health as a lifestyle rather than an end goal. In this interview Anthony shares his story of the accident that had him bed ridden and immoble for years, and the mind and body transformation that helped him regain control of his life. We talk about the mindset and discipline necessary for a holistically healthy life, and how to look beyond your physical fitness to strive for optimal health in many aspects. I’m hoping that this will be the first of many conversations on these topics and I welcome you to suggest other experts and perspectives for future interviews on the discord channel, but for now, I’m pleased to get this discussion started with Anthony. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdnGq7_Y2r8&t=2797s https://www.bodyweightmuscle.com/ https://www.instagram.com/bodyweightmuscle/ https://www.youtube.com/c/BodyweightMuscle

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I’ve been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe. This is one of the many community building activities that I’ve been organising to help to connect farmers around Europe to some of the best emerging information available, and to get their most important questions answered from around the world. In this session I had the pleasure of speaking with Harriet Mella, an independent research scientist from Austria known for her work uncovering the unexplained phenomena of plant growth and development. Informed by her background in microbiology, mycology, and biochemistry, Harriet has a unique capacity to describe little-known connections between emerging biological research and agriculture. Her objective is to use the scientific background that we have to introduce agricultural methods that are more resilient and low input for farmers.In this exchange call we take a look at a wide variety of topics surrounding plant health through soil biology. Harriet does a great job of summarising very complex aspects of cutting edge research into practical applications for work on the ground. At the moment, she’s probably best known for the Carbon Micro Cycling course that she teaches on the Agriculture community platform Kind Harvest. She has worked a lot with John Kempf from Advancing Ecological Agriculture and refers to him a few times during this interview. Before we get started I want to remind all of you who would be interested in attending one of these skill exchange calls live in the future, all you have to do is be a registered farmer in Europe to receive the invitations and call links that we have coming up. I’m planning a session with Charles Dowding about No-Dig market gardening at the beginning of October, so don’t wait too long. You can register now at climatefarmers.org Links: Harriet Mella on Linkedin https://kindharvest.ag/courses/ra-cc-carbon-course/ climatefarmers.org

Welcome to the 8th of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session I hosted a discussion on how to make and analyse high quality compost with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I invited three of the most experienced and influential educators in the field of compost production and biological soil amendments. This is an area where there is still a lot of contention as you’ll see in any online forum on the topic. Differences in opinion about bacterial or fungal dominant compost, hot thermophilic decomposition or cooler and slower techniques. Whether compost teas actually work or if prebiotic food is more important. This is a new and emerging field so there are new discoveries all the time, but rather than get bogged down in technicalities I organised this panel to cut through the confusion and talk about what really works and results in improvement of soil health for growers. Now one mistake that I have to own up to is that I screwed up a bit on the scheduling coordination with the speakers, and for that reason Charles Dowding and Adreinne Goldshalx didn’t show up until the end. We’ll get to hear a little bit from Charles in the last 15 minutes, but Adrienne only comes in during the Q&A portion which isn’t part of this episode. Don’t worry though, I have plans to do follow up interviews with them both so we’ll hear from them in some of the episodes coming up. Luckily Troy Hinke of Living Roots Compost Tea was a real hero and carried the discussion and all the questions I had all the way through. Don’t forget that if you want to see the video of the full event, you can check it out on the Climate Farmer’s Youtube channel through the link in the show notes for this episode. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Links https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9BQ2a952wEchjyRSZPV6-Q https://www.livingrootscomposttea.com/ https://www.instagram.com/livingrootscomposttea/?hl=en https://charlesdowding.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/?hl=en Check out these previous episodes on soil health https://regenerativeskills.com/gabe-brown-on-how-to-restore-soil-and-ecological-health-on-a-massive-scale/ https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/ https://regenerativeskills.com/robert-pavlis-soil/ https://regenerativeskills.com/matt-powers-regen-soil/

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I’ve been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe. In this session I had the good fortune of introducing Stefan Sobkowiak to our group. Many of you who’ve been listening to this show for a while will remember the last interview I did with Stefan in the last season during the series on agroforestry. Stefan is one of my favorite sources for practical and honest techniques for managing the whole ecology of an orchard from propagating new tree species through maintenance, pest management, harvesting and even processing and marketing your products. His film, the Permaculture Orchard has help people around the world to transition towards diversified, resilient, and more profitable models of running their tree crop businesses. His YouTube channel goes even more in depth as he’s always creating videos about the innovations and even struggles that are going on at his orchard Miracle Farm in Canada. In this session we cover a lot of ground in a short time.We talk about How to manage pests and diseases by improving soil health and biodiversity in the orchard. How to care for the health of your trees for better yields and profit. Integrating other crops and animals into the system for ecological and economic resilience. And how to adapt common methods to your unique climate and context. There’s a whole Q&A session that happens after the half hour interview on these skill exchange calls which are exclusive to the Climate Farming network here in Europe. So if you’re interested in attending these calls in person to have your own questions answered by the experts and tap into the growing community of farmers, consultants, and educators around Europe, you can register right now at ClimateFarmers.org Come and learn Syntropic agriculture and profitable agroforestry with me in Spain! This is the first announcement that I’m making for an exciting course that I’ve put together with my friend and Syntropic agriculture specialist Jacob Evans. I interviewed Jacob last season about his experience applying syntropic principles and design to the challenging ecology of Andalucia in southern Spain, and how even with the harsh heat and bone dry conditions that they face there he was able to establish an eden of productive perennial crops and support species on degraded former farmland. Since that interview Jacob and I have been looking for ways to collaborate and so I invited him to come and teach with me at the farm of our good friends and Climate Farmers, Carlo and Coralie. The two of them have been developing their new orchard a few hours south of me in Barcelona and are super excited to experiment with Syntropic agriculture for all the incredible benefits of mixed biodiversity and ecosystem services that it has the potential to develop. Together we’ll be hosting a group of learners for 5 days in which we’ll not only go through the principles and theory of how these systems work, we’ll be putting it into practice directly on the land as we install syntropic orchard rows on their site. I’ll also be going into the practical side of ensuring that this innovative way of planting matures into a profitable venture that can accelerate the development of your farm. We’ll cover soil testing and plant health, seed saving and plant propagation, alley cropping and animal integration, and a lot more. There will be team building activities, incredible food from the surrounding community, and much more in this 5 day intensive learning experience. So whether you’re excited to develop a large farm with agroforestry, or just see the opportunity to plant delicious fruit trees in your back yard or neighborhood, you’ll leave this course feeling confident to go out and start planting no matter what climate or bioregion you live in. You can find all the details of the workshop at thegreenrebel.org or find them on instagram at thegreenrebel.

Over the last handful of weeks I’ve had the pleasure of managing an ambitious new project in my role with Climate Farmers, an organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. We call it the Pioneer Program. What this is essentially is a collaborative effort between us and some of the most prominent and experienced educators in regenerative agriculture. In this first program we partnered with Richard Perkins of Ridgedale Permaculture in Sweden and his online masterclass to guide farmers from all around Europe to redesign and transition their farms and businesses towards regenerative models. Through the incredible education provided in Richard’s course and guided facilitation from our team and other knowledgeable practitioners around the world, we’ve helped our group to develop their holistic context, analyse new enterprise options, and map a course for a regenerative future for their land. In a short time we’ve seen dramatic transformations and progress in both the farm ecology and the mindsets of our program participants. During this journey I had the pleasure of interviewing Will Harriss of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia and guiding a Q&A session with our Pioneer farmers. Since Will does a great job of giving his own introduction early in this interview I’ll cut this preface short and jump right in. Don’t forget to stick around till the end where I’ll tell you how you can join the next Pioneer Program with Climate Farmers and now I’ll hand things over to Will Harriss. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://whiteoakpastures.com/ https://www.instagram.com/whiteoakpastures/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-6RVpGF4tM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTmheMIkvmt2T2k62oo-Yfw https://youtu.be/nnYR7onhwc4

It was a couple months ago that Nathan Fournier joined the Patreon community and we began a correspondence. I quickly realised that he had followed a similar path as I did in getting into ecological design. Nathan first studied engineering and pursued that career path only for a short time before realising that there was a lot missing in the pursuit. Fast forward to today where he’s running a successful ecological landscaping service offering edible gardens, tree planting, and much more to a wide range of clients in his community. I’ve often thought about getting into landscaping work myself and nearly started a company before some different opportunities came up, so I was excited to hear about Nathan’s journey into the profession and what he’s learned in the process. In this interview, we unpack all of the potential in offering ecological repair and optimisation services and just how many interests and skill sets that it can accommodate. Nathan gives some great insights into the business end of things which is often where permaculture design courses and other ecological learning leaves off. There are also a large range of side businesses that can help to support the transformation of whole communities through the production of high quality seeds, trees, compost, tools, and much more, so this really serves to open a range of options outside of just farming and gardening for people looking for career paths to support this movement. I really hope that you find some inspiring information here, but I’ll start from the beginning with the story of how Nathan got started. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLUh-ip5MTw Links: https://www.homeharvestcentralma.com/

Welcome to the seventh of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session I hosted a discussion on the importance of restoring proper hydrological function in a landscape and the steps to achieving it with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organisation working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got to speak with three of the most experienced and influential educators working on this from a farming perspective. Since landscape hydrology and its proper function is often overlooked in its importance in regulating global temperature, I wanted to focus on this specifically. I was lucky enough to bring together three of the experts that have most guided my learning in this field, Zach Weiss, Nicole Masters, and Mark Shepard.Don’t forget that if you want to see the video of the full event, you can check it out on the Climate Farmer’s Youtube channel through the link in the show notes for this episode. Zach Weiss is the protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, Zach is the first person to earn Holzer Practitioner certification directly from Sepp. Zach went on to create Elemental Ecosystems to provide an action-oriented process to improve clients' relationship with their landscape. Elemental Ecosystems is an ecological development, contracting, and consulting firm specializing in watershed restoration and ecosystem regeneration. The firm’s work includes Aquaculture, Agroforestry, Water Retention Landscapes, Terrace Systems, Spring Development, Natural Building, and more. Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Nicole Masters is is an independent agroecologist, systems thinker, storyteller, educator and author of the book “For the Love of Soil.” With over 20 years of practical and theoretical experience in regenerative agriculture, she is also recognised as a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker on the topic of soil health. Her team of soil coaches at Integrity Soils work alongside producers in the U.S., Canada and across Australasia supporting producers and organisations who cover over 24 million acres, to take their landscapes to the next level in nutrient density, profitability and environmental outcomes. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.integritysoils.co.nz/ https://www.elementalecosystems.com/ https://www.waterstories.app/ http://www.restorationag.com/Check out some of the previous expert panels: https://regenerativeskills.com/the-broad-applications-of-the-holistic-management-framework-expert-panel-6/ https://regenerativeskills.com/farm-economics-with-mark-shepard-and-michael-ableman-expert-panel-5/ https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/

Today’s session is an interview that I’d been looking forward to doing for a while. Since last year in fact, when I found Shane Simonsen’s blog and began corresponding with him online. That correspondence turned into one of the most popular and talked about episodes from that season due to the ingenious way that Shane approaches farming his land in Northeastern Australia. In that first interview Shane gave an overview of the experiments in biological succession and food production on his homestead. His blog follows these experiments and speaks from a deep understanding of plants and how they live. In my opinion, it’s one of the most original approaches to large scale food production that I’ve come across in a long time and asks the simple question of “how might we still be able to produce enough food for ourselves and our communities if we no longer had access to all of the inputs and fossil fuels of our modern times.” In this episode we get to pick up where we left off last time and see how some of these plant breeding efforts have paid off. Shane speaks about how he’s shifting phases at the homestead and focusing more on refinement of his system rather than broad experiments and the increase of diversity. Now that he’s seeing results from his consistent efforts over the last 5 years, he has a better idea of what thrives, what fails, and what’s worth pursuing to greater fruition with his limited time as the primary caretaker of his land. Beyond that we get to talk about a new book he’s writing which is something of a post post-apocalyptic future sci fi novel based on biological advancement rather than technological, which normally defines the genre. Though he’s still early in the manuscript, I loved talking about the concept of a post global collapse that envisions how our species might recover by returning to our reliance and relationships with the living world. This conversation meanders through a lot of topics so I hope it’s not too tricky to follow along. For plant nerds like Shane and I, I think it’ll be a real treat. So let's jump right in Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://zeroinputagriculture.wordpress.com/

This episode is the second part in our interview with the cofounders of Climate Farmers, an organization I’ve been working with for almost a year now that is working to build the infrastructure for regenerative agriculture in Europe. In the first part of the interview from last week we’ve covered the challenges of modern farming in Europe and the niche that Climate Farmers is hoping to occupy in the transition to a regenerative agriculture future in Europe. We talked about our own strategy of focusing on direct support for farmers through the different projects and departments within the organisation from the ever growing academy making quality educational resources easy to find, to the remote sensing team helping to gather data and metrics on the improvement of the soil and other ecosystem services as these farms transition to regenerative methods. To wrap up the conversation we’re going to go back to the beginning and recap the crazy turn of events that got us to where we are less than a year from launching. You’ll get to hear how this small agtech startup has gone from a loose idea to attracting collaboration and support from industries and farmers alike. The journey is certainly not over, in fact the really challenging parts are still ahead. If you haven’t yet heard the first part of this interview I’ll encourage you to go back and have a listen because it’ll give a lot more context to the wild story that’s about to come. So let’s check back in with Ivo Degn and Philippe Birker to see how this all started. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links:climatefarmers.org

If you’ve been listening to more than a few episodes this season, you’ll certainly have heard me mention a few times that I’ve been hosting the monthly expert panel discussions with Climate Farmers, an organisation that is working to promote regenerative agriculture in Europe. The truth is that there’s a much bigger story behind that collaboration and a whole lot more going on than just the panel discussions. Today I want to begin to share the story and the journey that my colleagues and I have been on for almost a year now. Until recently I’ve been a bit apprehensive to talk too much about the work I’ve been collaborating on with the team at Climate Farmers because it’s still a very new project and it’s taken us a while for us all to get clear about our direction, strategy, and path towards our goals. All of those have become much clearer in the last handful of weeks however and it’s time to unveil this ambitious project and the remarkable people that have worked together to get it off the ground. So today is going to be the first in a two part interview with Ivo Degn and Philippe Birker, the co-founders of Climate Farmers. In this first part, we’ll be talking about the concept of the organization, the current state of modern agriculture in Europe, and the goals that we’re working towards in order to directly assist farmers in their transition to more profitable and ecologically viable business management in a challenging and fast changing industry. Next week, in part 2, we’ll go back to the beginning and hear from both of them about the wild ride that has brought us so far in such a short time and all the brilliant people that make up the team that is making it all work, so be sure to stay tuned next week as well. But before we get into the bigger concepts, Let’s start by getting to know Ivo and Philippe, and the ideas that turned into this initiative. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links:climatefarmers.org

Welcome to the sixth of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more.In this session, I hosted a discussion on the holistic management framework with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.In this panel I got to speak with three of the most experienced and influential educators from the global network of Savory Hubs to share their knowledge about the wide applications of the holistic management framework. Since holistic management is often only associated with animal grazing, I wanted to hear from the women today about how relevant and influential it can be for people, not only in other types of farming businesses, but also in other aspects of life. In my work with the farming community that we’re building across Europe, the topic of holistic management keeps coming up because of this frameworks’ focus on managing the complexity that other forms of decision making work to simplify and reduce. In contrast to those methods, the idea of managing anything, from a business, to a community, relationship, or government, holistically involves understanding the whole and all the complexities within it. This is especially necessary when working with living systems and the unpredictable aspects that come with it.Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Precious Phiri: is a member of the Regeneration International (RI) steering committee and also serves as RI’s Africa coordinator. She is also a training and development specialist in regenerative environmental issues and community organizing. She recently founded an organization called EarthWisdom, a network which she formed immediately after her full time nine-year career with Savory hub in Zimbabwe. Her work focuses on training rural communities and collaborating with networks in Africa to reduce poverty, rebuild soils, and restore food and water security for people, livestock, and wildlife. Sheila Cooke: works to enable farmers to regenerate soils whilst attaining a higher quality of life. As hub leader for 3LM, Land and Livestock Management for Life, and an Accredited Field Professional with the Savory Institute, Sheila is developing a network of Learning Hubs, Accredited Educators, and Ecological Outcome Verified producers of food and fibre. Sarah Gleason: is a first generation bison rancher based in Hesperus, CO. She entered ranching after building a career first in consumer marketing and later in advocacy for regenerative agriculture and conservation. After working for multiple years with the Savory Institute and Holistic Management practitioners worldwide, Sarah launched into full-time ranching herself. She began her business in 2016, when she purchased her first 15 bred bison. Gleason Bison is a holistically managed, grass-fed bison operation committed to serving its community, regenerating the environment, and producing thriving animals. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: savory.global https://www.3lm.network/ http://gleasonbison.com/ https://regenerationinternational.org/

A topic that I’ve been exploring personally for a long time is the concept of regenerative travel. I’ve been travelling my whole life in some way or another from when I was born in Tokyo, Japan and then emigrated to the US with my family when I was 7, through moving 9 times as a kid to taking off independently when I was 17 and traveling and working around the world. Travel has been a lifestyle for me more than a hobby or vacation and I’ve often wondered if my actions and contributions to the places I’ve lived and visited could justify the environmental impact of that way of living. Through reading and mentorship, my understanding of the concept of regeneration has evolved. I now understand how true regeneration goes beyond the “do good” paradigm to development of the full potential of any whole system you’re working with. Luckily, a dear friend of mine from my time in Guatemala is working on exactly this challenge through an initiative called Naturally Smart Travel. Leilani Yats is the Founder of Naturally Smart Travel, a tour coordination company partnering with impact investors and social entrepreneurs in the developing world through immersive travel. Previously, her unique experience in the Los Angeles startup industry helped small domestic teams grow into international success. Since 2017, she’s focused on connecting individuals with resources to community and environmentally focused businesses in Guatemala to help all parties thrive. In this interview Leila walks me through the thought process that went into creating the tours and experiences that foster real connections and contributions that go both ways. She explains how tours can break out of the mold that often shows local and indigenous people as exotic and in need of help rather than fostering a deeper understanding of the lives of the people that you’re visiting. We cover some uncomfortable observations from having both lived in popular tourist areas in Guatemala for years and the patterns and assumptions that are often made by visitors who are just passing through. This is certainly only one part of a much longer conversation that I hope to continue to have around the subject of regenerative travel, but I think that Leila is the perfect person to kick off the dialogue through her work and experience. So let’s jump right in from the beginning. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Website: www.NaturallySmart.meFacebook: https://facebook.com/naturallysmarttravelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturallysmarttravel/Video: https://vimeo.com/566235203

A lot of the farms that come to mind when I think of regenerative agriculture are smaller, more diverse and quite intensive, with many different crops and animals working in closer proximity with many stacked functions and a niche business model, but what can be done for all those vast fields of monoculture plantings of crops like corn, soy, and wheat that take up so much space in the heartland of the midwestern and western US? Are there regenerative solutions for these massive farms of thousands of acres? Is there hope for farming the plains and savannas through ecological management? For answers to these questions I reached out to Gabe Brown of Brown’s Ranch in North Dakota. A historically challenging environment for agriculture, North Dakota is a place dominated today by massive cattle ranches and monocultures stretching beyond the horizon of dry and windy plains. But in this challenging environment, Gabe has been a pioneer of the soil-health movement and has even been named one of the twenty-five most influential agricultural leaders in the United States. Gabe, his wife, Shelly, and son, Paul, own Brown’s Ranch, a holistic, diversified 5,000-acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota. The Browns integrate their grazing and no-till cropping systems, which include cash crops and multi-species cover crops along with all-natural, grass-finished beef and lamb, pastured pork, and laying hens. The Brown family have received numerous awards including a Growing Green Award from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and the USA Zero-Till Farmer of the Year Award. In this interview I asked Gabe about how he managed to persevere through some very challenging years in the beginning to develop the diversified and healthy landscape that his family manages today. He also tells me a lot about the invisible challenges to this way of farming such as the counter productive incentives of the US Farm Bill and the cultural stigma that can be difficult when making unconventional changes to your farming practices. We also dig into some crucial advice that Gabe has for farmers looking to make a transition to regenerative agriculture from industrial management. This interview gave me a lot of hope that the American plains can be restored without risking food shortages or spikes in food costs. I really hope that any of you listening to this will share this episode with someone you know who works in farming who perhaps hasn’t heard of these possibilities or who thinks that their mechanized monoculture operations can’t be converted or don’t lend themselves to ecological transformation. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Get the book From Dirt to Soilhttps://brownsranch.us/ understandingag.com soilhealthacademy.org Chelsea Green Publishing – the leading publisher of sustainable living books since 1985.

Three weeks ago I published the episode with Tomas Viguurs on circular mushroom production here in Catalunya and I gave a sneak peak at the second interview I did that day with Sven Kallen. Well today the wait is over and we’re going to dive into the details of Sven’s work of reforestation and agroforestry in some of the most degraded and endangered areas of Europe from the Iberian Peninsula which includes Spain and Portugal, and the Mediterranean basin. This includes many of the most popular vacation destinations on the continent, but also the most rapidly desertifying areas. As the effects of climate change increase and become more severe, we collectively need to rethink how we respond to the geographical zones on the front lines. Luckily, this is Sven’s specialty and life’s work, so I’ll let Sven introduce himself before we dive into the actionable steps to regenerate these high risk zones. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://landlifecompany.com/news/better-faster-stronger-the-new-cocoon-lid/ https://volterra.bio/ https://lifeterra.eu/

Welcome to the fifth of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session, I hosted a discussion on farm business finances with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got two of my favorite voices on the subject of farm economics and business advice to talk about how managing the whole ecosystem of their farms has saved them money and improved the profitability of their businesses. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our two panelists Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Michael Ableman: is a farmer, author, photographer and urban and local food systems advocate who has been farming organically since the early 1970′s and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. MIchael is the author of four trade published books: From the Good Earth, On Good Land, Fields of Plenty, and most recently Street Farm; Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.restorationag.com/ http://michaelableman.com/ Check out previous Expert Panel discussions https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/ https://regenerativeskills.com/exploring-regenerative-fashion-expert-panel-3/ https://regenerativeskills.com/the-potential-of-agroforestry-expert-panel-2/

Welcome to the second of the Regenerative Skill Building calls that I host with Climate Farmers, a new organization working to promote regenerative agriculture across Europe. These calls are specifically designed for our growing community of farmers around the continent and regenerative agriculture consultants. We listen to their interests and concerns online and then reach out to the experts who can best answer them and offer guidance. In this second call, I was joined by my good friend Zach Loeks who came to speak about his innovative permabed system of integrating perennial crops into the market garden for long term resilience in both the farm business and the site’s ecology. We cover skills for reading your landscape and imitating natural systems, and that’s all before we opened things up for listener questions. Zach has been a great contributor to this podcast over the years and was the first of my contacts to actually come out to Guatemala where I used to live and teach a permaculture design certification with me and the team at Atitlan Organics. So be sure to check out some of the previous episodes I’ve done with him in the past at regenerativeskills.com where you’ll also find links to where you can buy his books with an exclusive discount code in the show notes for this episode. So let’s get started. If you’re interested in signing up for any of the great courses from ecosystem.com including Food Guild Design, Home Garden Pro, Permabeds, and Community Food Security, I’ve got links to all of them on the show notes page for this episode. Full disclosure, I do get a small commission if you buy through this link, but you also get a significant discount and it’s a great way to support this show without having to donate directly. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Check out the great list of courses in ecosystemu.com and get big discounts by signing up through the links here. You'll love Food Guild Design, Home Garden Pro, Permabeds, and Community Food Security https://www.ecosystemsolutioninstitute.com/ zachloeks.com ecosystemu.com

I’ve been making some really cool contacts here in Catalunya recently, and even though site visits and trips out to projects have been stalled as the country only slowly starts to open up, I’ve been jumping at any chance to get back out in the field. One of the projects that I’ve been most excited to get back to see since my first visit back in December is the farm at Mas Rajols and the gourmet mushroom growing operation that it hosts called Mycelio. I first got invited to come to see them by my friend Sven Kallen who works with the European Commission’s Life Terra initiative and is the founder of Volterra, both of which are strongly involved with tree planting projects around the continent. Back then they were still just getting set up, but on this second visit just a couple weeks ago, I got to see just how far the operation has come in its development and in the setup of their production facilities. I’ve been blown away by just how well thought out the whole project is. They turn waste products from the leavings of the timber industry into multiple high value products and integrate them with the existing beef cattle operation on the farm that they collaborate with. In the interview in today’s session I got to sit down with Tomas Viguurs the product manager of Mycelio and Jason Statham lookalike (that's a joke, but check out his picture on our Instagram and you’ll see what I mean), to talk about all of the motivations and processes that they’ve connected to create a high value, gourmet product that also gives back to their environment and local community. So let’s jump right into things and I’ll let Tomas introduce himself. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://mycelio.eu/ https://www.instagram.com/myceliorganic/

Get Richard's Mini Series!And all the free resources that come with it There’s two quick things I want to mention before we get to the interview. The first is that these skills calls are a new feature of the show that I’ll be running with Climate Farmers in our ongoing effort to support and promote regenerative agriculture in Europe and are now going to be offered live every two weeks. These calls will feature interviews and presentations from experts and innovators in farming from around the world, but beyond the people we feature and the topics we cover, there are also extended listener questions and discussion sessions at the end that I won’t be publishing either on the podcast nor on our Youtube channel. The reason for this is that we’ve observed that there’s a reluctance in the farming communities to openly share mistakes and difficulties in their journeys with the public, and I completely understand that, There’s plenty of things I’ve screwed up on in this business and back when we were designing the farm back in Guatemala that I didn’t put out to the whole world. But in order for our members to feel secure in communicating honestly about the aspects of their lives and operations that they’d rather not show on social media and their own educational content, these sessions are always kept private. We also keep the attendance for the Skill Building calls capped at 25 participants per call so everyone gets a chance to share and ask questions if they want. So If you’re a farmer in Europe, regardless of whether you’re running a regenerative, an organic, or a conventional farm, we’d love to have you on a call and hear about what you’re working on or wrestling with so we can support you and connect you with others near you. We know it can be difficult, often working out in the fields alone or feeling isolated in rural areas, so come and join the Climate Farmer’s network where you’ll always be in good company. You can register to attend a live call through the links on our instagram account or on our website at climatefarmers.org The second opportunity I want to tell you about is that Richard perkins, The speaker on today’s episode, is now offering an intimate look into how he runs his highly successful farm in a new free mini series on profitable regenerative farming which includes some great resources including a downloadable guide on how to build his roll-away nest-boxes, an editable spreadsheet download for the financial modeling of his beef enterprise, and a lot more. The mini series is open now and is only available for a limited time. It’ll shut down on June 10th so don’t twiddle your thumbs on this one. Check out the link in the show notes for this episode and start your learning journey right away! Now with those announcements out of the way, lets jump into the episode Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/

Welcome to the fourth of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned in the past, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. If you’re a subscribing patreon member, you’ll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel.In this session, I hosted a discussion on regenerating agricultural soil with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.In this panel I got two of my favorite educators on the subject of soil science together to talk about how to build fertility and holistic health in agricultural soils. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our two panelists John Kempf has taken on the bold mission of having regenerative models of agriculture management become the mainstream globally by 2040.In addition to being a former grower himself, John is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, Crop Health Labs, Ozadia, and the Regenerative Agriculture Academy. He also hosts the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, where he interviews top growers and scientists about the principles and practice of implementing regenerative agriculture on a large scale. Dr. Ingham discovered the soil food web nearly 4 decades ago and has been pioneering research ever since. Widely recognised as the world’s foremost soil biologist, she’s passionate about empowering ordinary people to bring the soils in their community back to life.Dr. Elaine’s™ Soil Food Web Approach has been used to successfully restore the ecological functions of soils on six continents. She has helped to make soil health knowledge available to people with no relevant experience – making it accessible to individuals who wish to retrain and to begin a meaningful and impactful career in an area that will help to secure the survival of humans and other species. So let’s jump right in! Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://johnkempf.com/ https://www.advancingecoag.com/ https://www.soilfoodweb.com/

I remember distinctly the time that a storyteller came to my middle school when I was in 7th grade. At that point my school experience, like for many others, consisted of being talked to all day by someone at the front of the class while I struggled to pay attention and not fidget. But this was different. This woman’s story and the way she told it managed to hold an auditorium full of 12 and 13 year olds in silent attention hanging on her every word. I remember how she raised and lowered her voice to build tension. How she would quicken or slow her speech to convey energy and pace, and use emotion to transport us into the viewpoint of the characters and feel what they were feeling. I was truly impressed. Since then I’ve loved storytelling, especially live stories, and envy those people who’ve mastered their way of speaking to elicit real emotion and connection with an audience or even just in individual conversation. And that’s why, today I'll be exploring the importance of storytelling in our modern lives with one of my personal favorite authorities on the subject, Shannon Leahy is the cofounder of lighthouse storytelling and works with individuals and organizations to effectively communicate their stories through better writing and speaking. She told me right away just how far back storytelling has played a big part in her life and why it was so important from a young age. Before we go in deeper about techniques and strategies for better storytelling, lets establish a baseline of where we’re at as a storytelling culture, because digital and social media have changed the ways we tell stories through their various platforms. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.lighthousestorytelling.com/ Want to hear more episodes like this one? https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-ask-better-questions/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-loxley-and-rhapsody-of-the-story-connective/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-bill-reed/

If you don’t know her from her books, Fibershed and Harvesting Color you’ll likely remember Rebecca Burgess from the panel discussion two weeks ago that I hosted with the team at Climate Farmers in which she and Aroa Alvarez Fernandez spoke about the potential of regenerative fashion and textiles to transform the current clothing industry. After that discussion I felt compelled to speak to her again to explore some of the options that are available to everyone to rediscover the value in our wardrobes and care for our clothing as investments. This is no minor change. The fashion industry around the world is now second only to the oil industry as the largest polluter on Earth. This affects everyone and is tied to many aspects of our lives, from growing fibers, to processing fabrics and dying them, to the millions of people who work in the industry from farming to retail. It’s responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy intensive production, but even more severe is the industry’s impact on our water supplies. For example 85 % of the daily needs in water of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used just to grow cotton in the country, and yet it’s estimated that 100 million people there do not have secure access to drinking water. In most of the countries in which garments are produced, untreated toxic wastewaters from textiles factories are dumped directly into the rivers. The contamination eventually reaches the sea and then spreads around the globe. But while the destruction of the clothing industry is staggering, there are a lot of simple things that all of us can change in our consumption and care habits to do our part to fix this. Since this is certainly not my own area of expertise, I asked Rebecca what her own hierarchy of clothing purchases are and how she decides what garments to invest in. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://fibershed.org/ carboncycle.org https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/fibershed/ colorhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52510936-fibershed?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9GnJJbKvzv&rank=1

On this show I’ve often taken a strong focus on the actions that we can all take to restore ecosystem function and productivity, whether it be planting trees in an agroforestry system, repairing the hydrology of a landscape, or building our homes with natural materials. I’ve centered around these topics because frankly, they’re the ones I have most experience with and can speak about with some confidence, but there are also many other angles on regeneration that are equally important. Many of you will agree with me that, as essential as it is to get out there and work in nature directly, planting trees is only useful if there isn’t someone right behind you coming to chop them down. Worrying about how ethically your food is sourced doesn’t do much good when we waste a third of it. Oftentimes the harm of the industries and actions that we inadvertently support more than undo the positive steps we fight to take. That brings me to the focus of today’s episode which is on Regenerative investing, and the compelling story of Marco Vangelisti, the founding member Slow Money, a nonprofit that is centered around no-harm investing. We’ve long been told that we as consumers vote with our money. The decisions we make about what to buy is equivalent to what we support and what we want to see more of, but most of our daily shopping is a drop in the bucket compared to the amounts of money being invested in speculative markets and commodity trading. This is the money that often determines the expansion of industries and new operations. It’s the banking and investing sectors that are funding the destruction of our planet, but I’ll let Marco tell you how and when this all connected for him. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://ek4t.com/ https://ek4t.com/tanhi21Q2/ https://slowmoney.org/ https://ek4t.com/how-do-we-deal-with-climate-change-by-restoring-the-hydrological-cycle/ https://ek4t.com/greta-and-sallie/

Welcome to the third of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. If you’re a subscribing patreon member, you’ll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel. In this session, I hosted a discussion on regenerative fashion with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our three panelists. Rebecca Burgess is the executive director of Fibershed, chair of the board for Carbon Cycle Institute, and the author of both Fibershed and Harvesting Color. She is a vocationally trained weaver and natural dyer. Burgess has built an extensive network of farmers and artisans in the Northern California Fibershed to pilot an innovative fiber systems model at the community scale. Aroa Alvarez Fernandez is a sustainability entrepreneur who is one of the founders at Trace Collective & Trace Planet, an activist fashion brand and community organisation on a mission to make the fashion industry a driver of environmental regeneration, and to help communities reconnect with the products that they buy. Real quickly before we get to the panel, we had some technical difficulties when recording and lost the first minute of the call, so we jump into Rebecca’s answer a bit abruptly, but the question I asked in the lead up is, What does a global regenerative fashion industry look like in terms of fiber and material production? She started by stressing the need to take care of this at a local in order to better inform a global scale. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://fibershed.org https://www.thetracecollective.com/

Let's take a look at the 1st step in the process of creating a design for building your permaculture property. In working in regenerative design for a while and being connected with many other people who make their living this way, myself and a lot of others have begun to identify patterns in the questions and troubles that people reach out to us consultants and designers for. I haven't been in this line of work though nearly as long as the team at Verge Permaculture and so it felt really good to hear that many of the commonalities that they’ve seen from clients and students mirror my own experience. The truth is that permaculture is a very broad design philosophy that can feel overwhelming even with years of experience, especially at the beginning of a project when you’re still gathering information about your ecology and context and when you see so much potential in front of you. For this reason it can be extremely helpful to have a guide that outlines a process that can illuminate and simplify the options available to you and cut through the overwhelm. Throughout this season I’ll be teaming up with the members of Verge Permaculture to show you the process that they’ve outlined in their new book, Building your Permaculture Property. In five clear steps, their process can guide you through the minefield of choices and pitfalls while designing your project and then implementing the design. Step 0 inspect your paradigm Step 1 Clarify your vision, values, and resources Step 2 Diagnose your resources for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats Step 3 Design your resources to meet your vision and values Step 4 Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource Step 5 Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering In today’s episode I’ll be speaking with Takota Coen of Coen Farm in Alberta Canada about Step 0 and Step 1 to start you on the process of design and implementation. For those of you who want to get ahead of the game and learn from more than 15 of the biggest names in Permaculture on how to transform your property, the authors Takota, Rob, and Michelle will be hosting their online summit for the release of the book from April 23-25th. The summit is completely free and you can register at mypermacultureproperty.com So let’s get started at the beginning. Takota began our discussion by explaining the 5 common problems that he and the team at Verge repeatedly hear about which lead to the 5 step process in the book. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://vergepermaculture.ca/building-your-permaculture-property-summit https://vergepermaculture.ca/ https://www.coenfarm.ca/ Want to learn more about permaculture and regenerative design? Check out these previous episodes: https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-daniel-halsey/ https://regenerativeskills.com/https-www-abundantedge-com-abundantedge-daniel-christian-wahl/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-nelson-lebo/

With regenerative agriculture and agroforestry increasingly becoming popular topics in environmental and even political circles. I wanted to do a one-on-one session with one of my favorite speakers in this sphere, Patrick Worms. Many of you frequent listeners will remember him from the panel discussion on agroforestry two weeks ago that I hosted with Climate Farmers. I got to know Patrick’s work and perspective more intimately as part of the online course on ecosystem restoration design that we both teach on. Patrick is the Senior Science Policy Advisor at World Agroforestry, President of the European Agroforestry Federation, and trustee of the International Union of Agroforestry, he’s also a valued member of the advisory council with the Ecosystem Restoration Camps. In the courses and conversations I’ve seen with him, I’ve always been struck by the stories and compassionate understanding of the people that Patrick has met in his work and travels. In order to make some of these stories and insights available to you listeners, I let go of the usual focus just on actionable information to let this chat take its own course. Though we still cover a lot of practical advice in this talk, what I often take away from listening to Patrick is a renewed reverence for the individual people who are working to manage their lands and produce food around the world. It’s easy to think of agriculture and the food industry as these monoliths without faces, but the lives of the people who make up these systems, from those to tend the land all the way through the logistics, distribution, transportation, all the way to our kitchens are important to remember ad pay attention too as well. To get us started off with some background though, Patrick shed some light on the history of agroforestry and it’s deep traditions in Europe specifically. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.worldagroforestry.org/ https://www.cgiar.org/ https://euraf.isa.utl.pt/welcome https://www.iufro.org/ https://www.evergreening.org/ https://ejpsoil.eu/ https://www.renature.co/ Check out these other episodes on agroforestry! https://regenerativeskills.com/the-potential-of-agroforestry-expert-panel-2/ https://regenerativeskills.com/alfonzo-chico-de-guzman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-start-a-profitable-elderberry-farm/ Don't forget to check out

Since last week’s episode was an expert panel discussion on agroforestry, I wanted to expand on that theme and help to bring some practical and actionable information on how to plan your own reforestation project. I reached out to Michael Pilarski first since I’m helping to organize and launch the knowledge exchange platform for Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and as an advisory council member, Michael has a ton of experience and knowledge on this subject. In today’s episode we’ll cover the most important steps in designing and implementing a reforestation project, whether it’s for a conservation project, or a profitable agroforestry enterprise. So let’s dive right in with Michael’s calculations on the feasibility of doubling the world’s forest cover within our lifetimes. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://friendsofthetrees.net/ https://globalearthrepairfoundation.org/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNPSTkjWIrl7FD31xbJ5STg https://www.ecosia.org/ https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/news/cocoon-tree-growing-counters-desertification-mediterranean Check out these other episodes on reforestation! https://regenerativeskills.com/alfonzo-chico-de-guzman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-state-of-the-worlds-forests/ https://regenerativeskills.com/11-inspiring-examples-to-give-you-hope-that-the-worlds-forests-can-be-regenerated/ https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-grow-a-healthy-native-forest-in-record-time-with-afforestt-founder-shubhendu-sharma-146/

Welcome to the second of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned last time, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. If you’re a subscribing patreon member, you’ll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel. In this session, I hosted a discussion on agroforestry from three distinct perspectives with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I’ll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our three panelists Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ecosia-regenerative-agriculture.com/ https://new.worldagroforestry.org/ https://einhorn.my/einhorn-condoms/

It's time we take a look at How To Make Biochar Enriched Compost For Epic Veggies. A lot of what I spend my time on these days, between working with Ecosystem Restoration Camps, Climate Farmers, and running this show, is researching techniques and solutions for people who are working to regenerate damaged landscapes, either for generally healthier environments or for rich and abundant farmland. Since a lot of both of these goals revolve around the health of the soil as a foundation for mycorrhizal and plant life, I continually come back to the power and potential of pyrolyzed carbon, more commonly known as biochar. There are tons of examples of people making this remarkably simple product all around the world and using it to restore health to poor and degraded soils, but since I’ve been here in northeastern Spain for a while now, I wanted to hear from someone nearby whose worked biochar into a profitable and ecological business. Meet Christer Söderberg, the gentleman behind Circle Carbon Labs on the island of Mallorca. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://circlecarbon.com/ https://www.permachar.net/kon-tiki-biochar-kiln/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9k0_sX1xU

How To Start A Profitable Elderberry Farm. Since I first arrived in the northeast of Spain a year and a half ago, I’ve been obsessed with getting to know the native plants in my area. I’ve been blown away by just how many edible and medicinal plants are all around me and growing in the most unlikely places, from cracks in the concrete and the edges of parking lots to erosion gullies and whole forests of rosemary and thyme. I’m sure anyone who has studied plant medicines knows that some of the most resilient and persistent pioneer plants that conventional gardeners are always at war with also happen to be some of the most potent medicines and nutritious foods. One in particular that I found growing in some really harsh conditions was elderberry. When I first arrived in August a lot of the bushes were transitioning from flower to fruit and I took the opportunity to harvest some, not really knowing how I was going to process it. Luckily I found some help from books and friends in my network who had more experience and ended up making enough elderberry syrup to last me until know and all of the pandemic paranoia self medicating at the first sign of a stuffy nose that came in between. For that reason I was thrilled to see an old buddy of mine from Minnesota, Pete Widin, start putting out content about elderberry as a profitable business venture. Many of you might remember Pete from previous season of the Abundant Edge podcast where he came on to talk about attracting clients to your permaculture business and unlocking your potential in regenerative business, and while he still works a lot in permaculture landscape design and business consultation, I invited him back this time to share his knowledge about Elderberry as a profitable and resilient agroforestry business with some really incredible potential. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.instagram.com/petewidin/ https://www.artisanenvironments.com/ Hear more from Pete Widin: https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-pete-widin/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-the-key-to-client-attraction-for-your-permaculture-design-business-with-pete-widin-of-artisan-environments-llc/

In today’s episode I spoke with Van Clothier about an innovative and subtle water erosion mitigation technique, and how to build a one rock dam. I know this might seem oddly specific, but after an interview with Brad Lancaster last season, he talked about how he’s been learning from people like Van and his mentor Bill Zeedyk about smaller, less intrusive interventions that can have profound effects on the health of a watershed. The truth is that there are so few watersheds and water bodies left around the world that aren’t highly degraded and in need of restoration. Many of the communities most affected by this damage don’t have the resources to hire engineers and professionals to do survey and undertake large expensive restoration projects. A lot of what Van promotes flies in the face of these large professional technical projects and teaches people how to understand their watersheds and identify the small and gradual work that can be done to improve their health. The one rock dam is a great example of this and so today we’ll be exploring what it is, how it can be installed, and most importantly, how to educate yourself on how to interact and intervene in a damaged waterway in an effective way that doesn’t cause further damage in the long run, like many of these big professional projects do. So a little background information. Van Clothier’s firm, Stream Dynamics, Inc., specializes in turning runoff and erosion problems into water harvesting opportunities with water harvesting earthworks, urban stormwater retrofits, and riparian and wetland restoration in both urban and wildland settings. Van has worked extensively in New Mexico and Arizona on a variety of restoration projects with regional drylands stream restoration and water harvesting experts including Bill Zeedyk, and Brad Lancaster. He is the co-author with Bill Zeedyk of the book Let the Water Do the Work: Induced Meandering, an Evolving Method for Restoring Incised Channels, Recent projects include designing water harvesting stormwater retrofits for the City of Santa Fe, and restoring a very large ciénega (desert marsh) in the bootheel of New Mexico. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://streamdynamics.us/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/let-the-water-do-the-work/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX8rPv-YKIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9PXRcduGo For more episodes about watershed regeneration, check these out https://regenerativeskills.com/galen-fulford/ https://regenerativeskills.com/brad-lancaster/ https://regenerativeskills.com/mark-shepard/ https://regenerativeskills.com/zach-weiss/

Welcome to the first edition of our monthly expert panels. This first edition starts off strong by addressing one of the most talked about issues of our time; understanding the future of regenerative agriculture. For this panel I teamed up with my friends and collaborators at Climate Farmers. Together we're working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. For this panel we assembled and all-star list of some of the most prominent voices in the movement today. Benedikt Bösel joining us from Germany, is the managing director of Gut&Bösel, board member of Soil Alliance, Chairman of the AgTech platform Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V.Richard Perkins, joining us from Sweden, is the co-owner and director of Ridgedale Permaculture and leading expert and educator on small scale regenerative agriculturePatrick Worms, joining us from Belgium, is the Senior Science Policy Advisor at World Agroforestry, President of the European Agroforestry Federation, and trustee of the International Union of Agroforestry Today we’ll be exploring the potential of regenerative agriculture. Not only to address and reverse many of the environmental problems we face around the world, but also revive local economies, improve our health, and reconnect us to the ecologies that we depend on as our natural roles as stewards of the land. We’ll also look into some of the important actions we must take to shift the farming industry as well as identify hurdles that must be overcome. Lastly we'll dive into how all of us listening can take part in this transition to a regenerative farming future. Don't forget that these podcasts are just the beginning. The discussion continues on our dedicated Discord server. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/# https://www.gutundboesel.org/ https://worldagroforestry.org/ If you enjoyed this — or any! — episode of the Regenerative Skills podcast, please leave a review of the show! Reviews help boost the show in rankings, which makes it more visible… and that means more listeners! It’s a great way to spread the word about Regenerative Skills!

How to start a school garden program For this week’s episode I reached out to Kaci Rae Chirstopher, the author of the new book The School Garden Curriculum, about how to create a school garden program Kaci is the volunteer Farm and Garden Educator for Oregon's Redband Ranch. She was also previously the School Garden Coordinator for the Springwater Environmental Sciences School and the Outdoor Educator for ERA. Her passion is fostering a healthy land ethic, personal empowerment, and environmental literacy in children of all ages through outdoor immersion and skill building. As a bonus to today’s episode I’m going to be giving away a free copy of the book The School Garden Curriculum to a lucky member on our discord channel. All you need to do to be eligible to win is to send me a message via Discord and if you win I’ll either send you out a hard copy of the book if you live in the US or Canada, or a digital copy to your inbox if you live anywhere else in the world. Today we’re going to break down what it takes to get a school garden program started, how to overcome some of the common hurdles and pushback to keeping it running, explore some simple lesson plans to get you started and challenge you to push the boundaries of what a school garden program can be and subjects you can explore with a garden classroom. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://newsociety.com/books/s/the-school-garden-curriculum https://www.theschoolgardencurriculum.com/ For more episodes about gardening, check these out https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-lee-reich/ https://regenerativeskills.com/steps-to-food-security-saving-seeds-with-james-ulager-author-of-beginning-seed-saving-for-the-home-gardener/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-zach-loeks/ Check out the full archives of the podcast here https://regenerativeskills.com/podcast-2/

Zach Loeks, author of the edible ecosystem solution have you ever wondered what the difference between a garden and an edible ecosystem is? Do you want to know how you can create one in you own yard? In this episode with author Zach Loeks from the Ecosystem Solutions Institute, you learn all that and more. We'll walk you through how to choose your site, even if all you have is a 5ft by 5ft patch of earth. From there we'll look into orienting the garden spot, improving the soil, and choosing your plants for form, function, and potential. The coolest part is that this system is modular and you can expand it from a tiny spot in an urban yard to a whole farm with the permabed system. Don't forget to check out the Discord channel to see how others are creating their own edible ecosystems, and get the resource packet on our PATREON to bring the step by step guide with you anywhere. While there are tons and tons of tips and information in Zachs book on edible ecosystems, the smallest and most basic form revolves around the modular permabed system that he pioneered in his first book. Starting with a 5”x5” patch of earth, you mound compost or topsoil like you might in a garden bed, with the low sides being on the south and north ideally to create tiny microclimates that favor different types of plants. in the center row at the height of the mound you can plant your key plant, which will usually be a fruit tree or berry bushes. This creates a center point with full access to sunlight and space around to plant your support species. I’ll use the example of a pear tree guild from the book. in the center is the pear tree, ideally a bare root sapling which will cost less than a potted on and is less likely to be root bound. Along with the tree on the top of the mound you could plant grape vines on either side which will use the tree as a trellis as they grow taller. strawberries are a great perennial ground cover which will help to shade out weeds and bear delicious fruit on the south side where it gets full sun. on the shadier south side of the mound you could grow a few asparagus shoots. they’re a highly nutritious perennial vegetable that will keep coming back year after year. Some echinacea planted around the top by the pear and grapes will offer some visual beauty from the flowers, attract pollinators, and is a powerful medicine too. This is just one example of a micro edible ecosystem. If you have more space you can group multiple 5x5 squares into a row, or add multiple rows in what Zach calls a triad. play with different combinations of plants that can support one another and explore the full diversity of what grows in your climate. The options are almost limitless. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://newsociety.com/books/e/the-edible-ecosystem-solution https://www.ecosystemsolutioninstitute.com/ https://www.zachloeks.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-lEXobdDZgOzJqeHKynhA https://www.instagram.com/zachloeks/

To kick of the new season of the Regenerative Skills podcast I wanted to set the tone by highlighting the invisible secret to all the successful design decisions I've ever made. Learning how to ask better questions has so much power to reshape the way we see the world and how we audit our own processes and choices. In this first episode I speak with two women who've been inspirations to me as a designer. Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio and Carol Sanford, the author of "The Regenerative life" shed wisdom from years mastering the art of crafting good questions and share tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your own enquiries. Each episode in this season will be accompanied by resource packets to take your learning to the next level. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://sustainableworldradio.com/ https://carolsanford.com/

After last week’s session with Matt Powers, I want to add a second perspective on soil and the new science behind how we can restore it to health in our own gardens. For that perspective I got back in touch with Robert Pavlis who was first on this show a few seasons ago to talk about building natural ponds. Robert has been an avid gardener for over four decades. He is the owner and developer of Aspen Grove Gardens, a 6-acre botanical garden that features over 3,000 varieties of plants. As a specialist in soil science, he has been an instructor for Landscape Ontario and is a garden blogger, writer, and chemist. He teaches gardening fundamentals at the University of Guelph and garden design for the City of Guelph, Ontario, where he lives. One of the things I most appreciate about Robert’s work is that he’s not afraid to challenge any entrenched gardening belief or myth. He is always looking to get to the bottom of what helps plants to grow and what’s just marketing scams. In this episode we really dive in deep on the fundamentals of soil composition and understanding the nutrients that plants need to thrive. We talk about looking at soil as an ecosystem unto itself rather than a living material, and why striving for ideal soil is not as important as making sure that you have the components necessary for the life inside it. Robert also helps me to understand what happens in the ground after tillage, mulching, and other amendments. We go over simple tests you can do to diagnose your soil without special equipment or needing to pay for laboratory testing, and by the end, how to use the results of those tests to develop your own personalized soil plan. This episode alone is like a short but thorough course on soil health, so you might want to keep a notebook handy. For those of you who want to really expand your knowledge on soil science, I’ve teamed up with New Society Publishers to give away a free copy of this book. If you want to win a copy of Soil Science for Gardeners, just message me through our dedicated facebook group called Abundant Edge weekly regenerative skills and write a post about why you want to amend the soil on your site. I’ll select a winner one week after this episode comes out and send a hard copy of the book to you if you live in the US or Canada or a digital copy if you live anywhere else in the world. It’s that simple, plus you’ll be joining an incredible group of listeners like you who are sharing their regenerative living journey and learning experiences with the community. Resources: http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-robert-pavlis/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJfYCNSWCIuOB2sltDh5ZjQ https://www.robertpavlis.com/books/ https://www.gardenmyths.com/ https://www.gardenmyths.com/garden-myths-book-1/ https://newsociety.com/books/s/soil-science-for-gardeners https://www.atitlanorganics.com/online-permaculture-design-certification Join the Climate Farmer's launch party and panel discussion!

Now that I've wrapped up the series on waterway regeneration, I wanted to transition into a two episode deep dive into an essential component of water cycle health and how it affects the land by analysing the most elemental component of a healthy ecology, and that of course is soil. There’ve been a ton of new developments and research in this field in a very short time as scientists and agronomists alike are uncovering new insights into mineral cycles, the soil food web, plant and mycological relationships, and so much more. Now you could sort through a small library of work to get a complete picture of all of these new developments, or you could save time and find them all in one brilliant new book called Regenerative Soil by my good friend Matt Powers, the author of many well known volumes including the Permaculture Student volumes one and two, Unstoppable Enthusiasm, and now even volumes for children including the newest, The Forgotten Food Forest which can all be found on his website along with many online courses at thepermaculturestudent.com But of course today, we’ll be focusing on the cutting edge of soil science and how these new discoveries can help you in a very practical way to improve the health of the soil on your land and grow the highest quality food anywhere. In this session Matt unpacks and simplifies concepts like Eh and redox scales, Exclusion zone water, and soil amendments for any kind of deficiency. We also talk about how this new information has changed the way he manages his own garden and his advice for some of the best practices for large scale soil improvement. Resources: https://www.thepermaculturestudent.com/ https://abundantearthfoundation.org/

We’ve covered a ton of angles to this topic already, from fixing broken water cycles on the land with keyline planning and earthworks, to marine ecosystem restoration through conservation and even farming. In today’s episode I got to speak with Bruce Kania of Floating Island International which developed their patented Biohaven floating island technology as a solution to algae-ridden and nutrient impared waterways since 2005. Since then they´ve launched over 9,000 island systems worldwide as solutions to a variety of problems facing contaminated water. In this interview Bruce breaks down the chemical and biological processes that happen in the water when there’s a heavy nutrient load and how it affects the balance of oxygen and the lifeforms that depend on it. He tells me how the floating islands that he’s helped to develop work to cycle the nutrients of polluted waterways back into the food web that then fosters the beneficial life forms that are emergent elements of healthy water ecosystems and that mature to help the whole system and surrounding ecology to thrive. We also take a look at the case study of Fish Fry Lake in Montana and how it’s gone from a polluted lake with regular algae blooms to become the most productive wild fishery in Montana where people can even swim and snorkel! Be sure to stick around till the end of the interview as Bruce explains just how big the potential of these floating wetland systems is as he’s looking to develop inhabited floating islands that help to filter and clean the great plastic garbage patches in the Pacific ocean and the possibility of creating floating solar farms that function as new real estate as well. Resources: Main Website https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/solutions/ Dos and don’t of waterway stewardship https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/the-dos-and-donts-of-waterway-stewardship/ Ted talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPIUUnoRPcY&feature=emb_logoInternship link https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/internships-available/

Welcome back friends and family to this ongoing series on waterway regeneration. In the past three episodes I focused on marine regeneration through conservation as well as farming. Today we're going to take a look at fresh water systems and specifically, how to decontaminate them through biological methods. I'll be sure to put a link to that interview in the show note on the website in case you missed it. Some of you may remember an interview I did with Tom Duncan about his floating wetlands and how they can be used to clean up excessive nutrients and pollutants back in season 1. Today I'll be expanding on that technique since it´s gained a lot of traction and floating islands are popping up all over the world to help deal with contaminated rivers, lakes, and ponds. I'll be sure to put a link to that interview in the show note on the website in case you missed it. For this episode I reached out to Galen Fulford, the managing director at Biomatrix Water, a biological technology company working on solutions for waterway and wastewater treatment based in Moray, Scotland. In this interview, Galen explains the science behind waterway contamination evaluation and the calculations they do to determine the restoration approach and techniques that are appropriate for each site. He also breaks down how their floating wetland systems work and how they compare and differ from traditional wetlands in the way they decontaminate water and provide habitat and sanctuaries for wildlife. We also explore the challenges that installing floating wetlands in urban environments can entail as well as some of the novel solutions in engineering that Biomatrix Water have developed to help their installations withstand events like floods and heavy contamination loads. This is a great episode for people who really want to understand the biology and engineering behind some of the most promising natural waterway remediation techniques being pioneered today. Make sure you listen all the way till the end too when Galen explains how these floating wetland systems are being applied to ecological sewage treatment and municipal water purification. Resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3Ml1HOwno https://www.biomatrixwater.com/natural-wastewater-treatment/ https://www.biomatrixwater.com/living-water-cities/ https://www.biomatrixwater.com/water-restoration/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bEhm_Zs3bk http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-tom-duncan/

Welcome back friends and family to this ongoing series on waterway regeneration. We’ve covered so many approaches to this subject up until now, and over the last two weeks I’ve been exploring regenerative solutions to the environmental degradation of marine ecosystems. Today we’ll be looking closely at some creative ways of protecting and even reseeding coral reefs in my interview with Celia Gregory. Celia is the founder of the Marine Foundation, an Eco-arts organisation that uses art for change - not only in awareness and education, but also directly on the restoration of coral reef habitats, fish stocks, and associated provision of livelihood. Celia has over twenty-five years directing and managing a varied selection of creative projects around the world. Having completed her padi pro dive master in Costa Rica in 2004 she was inspired to take her creative process under the sea, developing ‘art in symbiosis with marine conservation. She created “The Living Sculptures In the Sea” program, an international series of underwater sculptures and a creative collaboration of local communities, conservation organisations, science and the creative arts. Through The Marine Foundation Celia has successfully developed projects in several international locations, facilitating programs for local communities. Now, I first got to know Celia as a co-instructor with me on the Ecosystem Restoration Design course with Gaia Education, and I was fascinated by her unique approaches to community collaboration through culturally representative art. In this interview, though we certainly talk a lot about specifics of coral habitat restoration and the urgent need to create reserves and sanctuaries to revive coastal areas that have been destroyed, we also focus a lot on Celia’s remarkable stories from the communities that she’s worked with to accomplish these projects. I myself have worked mostly with local communities in countries that were foreign to me and I really connected to the compassionate and inclusive approach that Celia speaks to from her own experience. I’ve always found that the community aspect of regenerative projects is the most overlooked in the design and planning stage. While some enterprises eventually find success with weak community integration, the ones that create long lasting and holistic solutions are the ones that are built around the needs, wants, and cultural nuance of the places where they’re based. Ownership and responsibility centered around the people of that place are points that Celia makes and that I’ve learned to emphasize in all of the projects that I work with too. This is one of my favorite chats from this series, and I hope it encourages you to reflect and re-evaluate as much as it did for me. Resources: https://www.themarinefoundation.org/ https://youtu.be/l2OlicbbBsk https://vimeo.com/397072200

Continuing today with this ongoing series on waterway regeneration and a deep dive into marine ecosystems, I had the pleasure of speaking with Brian Von Herzen. Brian is an ocean scientist, engineer and entrepreneur, though much of his career has been in Silicon Valley where he developed innovative technical solutions for companies like Pixar, Dolby and Microsoft. Brian is also the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit The Climate Foundation, an institute working to regenerate life in the world’s oceans and reverse global warming within our lifetimes. Through Brian’s work with the Climate Foundation, he’s been promoting the concept of marine permaculture through ocean seaweed and kelp farming in a way that could potentially revitalize areas of degraded coastline as well as spark a whole new economy around marine ecosystem stewardship. In this interview, Brian starts by explaining just how immense and important the kelp forests of the world are by describing the impact that they've had on the ecology of the west coast of the United States. I think it’s so important to regain reference to what our healthy and intact biosphere used to be, because all of us alive today have almost no reference to what our natural world even looked like before humans started to alter and degrade it so severely. Brian also breaks down what it could mean for the economy and health of the west if these underwater forests could be regenerated and cared for. We also explore some of the challenges in getting sea farming and ocean permaculture projects started and especially funded, since the initial costs are often much higher than land based initiatives. We cover a lot of ground in this talk and even touch on topics like how marine farming fits into a regenerative economy and what those of you listening can do to support and even start your own marine permaculture projects, so be sure to stick around for some great action steps by the end. Resources: https://www.climatefoundation.org/

Over the last month, I’ve been focusing on interviews with people who are pioneering the repair and regeneration of the water cycle as it pertains to landscapes. We’ve explored the installation of ponds and dams, permaculture earthworks and water retention landscapes as well as keyline design and planting the rain in drylands. These are all great interventions at the beginning of the water cycle’s journey, but today I want to start a deeper dive, literally, by going to the furthest point downstream, where water enters the ocean. Marine ecosystems are much less understood by the general public for a variety of reasons, but our actions on land have a direct effect on the health of our oceans too. Luckily there are incredible teams of people looking to address these issues with promising new solutions and over the next couple of episodes I’ll be highlighting a few of them. To get things started I spoke to Joost Wouters, an entrepreneur, speaker, author and the ‘Sea’EO of the Seaweed Company. I got to know Joost first as a co-instructor with me on the Ecosystem restoration design course through Gaia Education. I was fascinated with his presentation and the compelling data on the potential regenerative effects that seaweed and kelp can have in bringing back the health of coastal areas. In his role with the Seaweed Company, he and his team aim to implement CO2-reducing seaweed-based business models at large scale. It turns out that seaweed is the fastest growing biomass in the world. Seaweed farming itself, if done responsibly, has the power to address many of the ecological challenges we face today, without the use of land, fertilizer, or freshwater. It reduces ocean acidification, promotes marine biodiversity, and even absorbs vast quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere. Seaweed can also create highly valuable end products. It is a nutritious food source for both people and animals and can be used as an environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum-based fertilisers and plastics. At the moment it's a unique untapped resource, and the goal of the Seaweed Company is to unlock the potential of this wondrous resource to benefit both people and the planet. In this episode Joost starts by explaining some of the urgent issues facing marine environments and how seaweed farming can help to address them. We go over the advantages that growing seaweed has over terrestrial agriculture, the high value products that can be made from different types of seaweed, the many pilot projects around the world that his company has helped to start and much more. Towards the end we also examine the roadblocks that are holding this solution back from being more widely adopted and how those of you listening can learn more and get involved. I’ve personally been learning a lot about marine ecosystems through these interviews and truly hope that a greater awareness will begin to be built around just how essential the health of our oceans is to the health of all life, even to ecosystems that are far inland and away from any saltwater. I’m really excited for this and the next few episodes for this reason. Resources: https://www.theseaweedcompany.com/

In the last handful of episodes we’ve explored permaculture earthworks for water harvesting landscapes and keyline design on large scales. As a complement to those topics I got in touch with Brad Lancaster, the author Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, volumes one and two which have recently been re-released as expanded new editions.Brad is an expert in the field of rainwater harvesting and water management whose work I’ve been following for a long time. He is also a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant and co-founder of the non-profit Desert Harvesters, which teaches the public how to identify, harvest, and process many of the native-food plants people are propagating in their areas. He’s also been instrumental in helping to change water management policy and government incentives in the City of Tucson to help others implement water wise catchment and reuse features on their properties. In this interview we cover a wide range of topics from the difference between active and passive harvesting technology and reading the landscape to determine how to work with the natural surroundings, to the increasing importance for water stewardship in non-arid climates and why it’s so important to connect and invest in the place you already live rather than thinking that moving to another place will solve your environmental worries. Brad also gives great advice on home scale water harvesting and storage which are all topics that are covered extensively in his books. He’s done an incredible job with the help of many experts and collaborators to compile tons of resources that are available to help you get started on his website Resources: https://www.desertharvesters.org/ https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/ http://www.dunbarspringneighborhoodforester.org/ Check out the Global Regeneration CoLab TEDx event here!

Since the last two episodes focused on earthworks, specifically water retention and catchment features, I wanted to revisit one of my favorite interviews that really helped me to understand the fundamentals of keyline design and how many different configurations it could take, even on the same piece of land. The keyline system was pioneered of course by PA Yeomans in Australia back in the 1950’s and has been a guide for farmers and land restorationists ever since. Back at the beginning of this season I spoke with Mark Shepard, right after the release of his latest book Water for Any Farm. A culmination of decades of work on his own property as well as consulting and designing for others around the US and the world. Mark’s no-nonsense approach to permaculture and restoration agriculture have been attractive to me since I first got interested in these topics more than a decade ago. In this interview we start by talking about how the mismanagement of land and water has created the conditions we have today all over the world where topsoil is constantly eroded and water quickly becomes a destructive force rather than a rejuvenating one if it's left to run over bare landscapes. Mark goes into a lot of detail to describe how to read your landscape and identify key points that can be used as references for keylines to direct water all across your land in a way that slows it down and rehydrates it. We talk about what machinery and tools he recommends for major earthworks, the installation of different types of ponds, building soil over large acreage, and much more. I’m lucky to get sent a lot of books to look over and review before speaking with authors, and I often don’t have time to read them very thoroughly, but Mark’s latest book, Water for Any Farm is one I really took the time to understand because of the incredible potential that this system has for increasing the productivity and resilience of any landscape, not just from an agricultural perspective. Adjusting the water harvesting capacity of your terrain can have an important impact on any kind of regeneration project and help with weathering severe climate events too. It’s especially relevant to reforestation and agroforestry because the earthworks method outlined in the book is how Mark was able to regenerate a degraded farm surrounded by monoculture corn crops into the highly productive oak savannah mimicking ecosystem based around the pillars of hazelnut and chestnut orchards. I highly recommend you check it out. I’ve put links to where you can get the book and learn more about Mark and his work in the show notes for this episode on the website. Resources: Resources: Welcome to New Forest Farm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSoKv2x4H0o Tying in perfectly with last week’s interview with Zach Weiss about building ponds and water harvesting features, I spoke with David Spicer, affectionately known as Doc Spice, an accomplished permaculture designer who has specialized in earthworks installation. Having taught and worked on various projects extensively within Australia and internationally, in places such as Morocco, Jordan, Palestine and New Caledonia, Doc has worked in a broad array of different soil types, topographies and climatic zones. He’s also a valued member of the Permaculture Sustainable Consulting team headed up by Geoff Lawton and is registered Teacher #5 with the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. Doc is a master of practical and logical mainframe permaculture design and he's pioneered the design of water harvesting and storage earthworks which frames all regenerative farming. In this episode we talk about why it’s so important to invest early on in a project to get your earthworks right because of what it can mean for the health of your land. Doc also shares some insights on his personal design process and what he looks for in a landscape to give him clues as to the most effective interventions on the form of the land. We also cover some of the risks of improperly installed features, the need to draw from as many sources of knowledge as possible and he also gives some valuable advice for people who are new to earthworks on how to get started. I’ve put some pictures of the projects that Doc has done to help to illustrate some of the concepts and techniques that he talks about so don’t forget to check those out along with further links on the show notes for this episode on the website. Resources: https://www.docspicepermaculture.com/about-us https://www.docspicepermaculture.com/ https://www.instagram.com/docspice_permaculture/ https://www.facebook.com/Docspicepermaculture/

Welcome back to the ongoing series on waterway regeneration. Today’s interview is the second conversation I’ve had with Zach Weiss, the Protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer and founder of Elemental Ecosystems, a company that designs and implements water harvesting landscapes and features for clients around the world. Zach is best known for blending a unique combination of systems thinking, empathy and awareness, in his projects. In the last interview I did with him, which I’ve linked to in the show notes for this episode on the website, he introduced me to the importance of a healthy water cycle to climate regulation and how it actually plays a much larger role than just the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. In today’s session I wanted to focus more closely on a topic that I get a lot of questions about but have very little personal experience with, and that’s building ponds, dams, and other water storage features on the land. Zach is an expert at this and explains the difference in how sealed and unsealed ponds can have a very different effect on the ecology even if they both hold the same amount of water. He also explains his methods and techniques for reading the landscape to determine the best placement for water features that are sometimes contradictory to simple topography. Be sure to stick around until the end where Zach gives some amazing practical advice for people who are looking to get started on installing their own water retention features and landscapes. Before we start in with the interview I also want to give you a heads up that the next two episodes will also be deep dives into permaculture earthworks, water retention landscapes and actionable information on how to optimise your land for the best use and creation of water resources, so be sure to check out the next few weeks of episodes too. Resources: https://www.elementalchange.world/ Elemental Ecosystems Elemental Ecosystems on Facebook Elemental Ecosystems on Youtube Zach Weiss’ TEDx talk Desert or Paradise with Sepp Holzer The Flow Partnership