Regenerative Skills

Jacob Rodenburg on engaging young communities through nature reconnection

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As we continue in this ongoing series on building strong communities, I wanted to take a step back and focus on the youngest members whose needs and considerations are often overlooked as the adults take charge and make decisions. 
Childhood education, especially nature reconnection and environmental knowledge has come to the forefront of my thinking this year when my sister and the three little girls came to visit from where they live in Kuwait for the whole month of January. 
Going into this visit I was feeling really excited to spend time with them after a two year absence during the pandemic, and I started planning all kinds of activities for what we started calling Jungle School. Jungle School was thought up as the time I was going to set aside in the mornings to bring the girls outside to discover all the wonders of nature and the different forms of plant, animal and fungal life that we have in this environment. The setting was perfect. Thanks to a connection that my partner has, we were able to put them up in a Catalan Masia set in an organic hazelnut orchard where there's outdoor play areas, fruit trees, chickens and rabbits, and even horse stables. 
I figured I got this. I mean, I used to work at a camp counselor at summer camps and at a guest ranch, and one of my first jobs was a before and after school program at an elementary school. I love working with kids and I in the zoom calls before they came out, I got them all worked up about the coming adventures of jungle school. 
You’re probably thinking by now, “Oliver, you’re hyping this up a lot but it sounds like you’re setting this all up for a big let down,” but that’s not the case. All in all, things went incredibly well. The girls loved going out to feed our food scraps from the kitchen to the pig, and pick leaves to feed to the rabbits, and the oldest, Selma, who’s 6, ran around the orchards with me playing Harry Potter and hunting Voldemort. At the same time though, if I’m being honest, a lot of the activities I’d planned and set up for outdoor activities were not a huge hit. 
I could tell pretty quickly that some of them were really fun for a 6 year old, while Rawan at 3 lost interest real fast, or vice versa, Rawan would play constantly in a sandpit forever while Selma got bored and a little cranky.
All of this is to say that I got a renewed respect for the insight it takes to plan nature activities for kids and the thoughtfulness required to guide them through environmental learning in a way that connects with young digital natives. 
Lucky for me there are some amazing resources out there that can help us out and so I reach out to Jacob Rodenburg the coauthor and author respectively of The Big Book of Nature Activities, and The Book of Nature Connection. Both of these titles focus on unique ways that Jacob has learned to engage children and adolescents with the wonders and science of nature. 
Jacob is the Executive Director of Camp Kawartha, an award winning summer camp and outdoor education center which uses music, drama, hands-on exploration, games and activities to inspire awe and wonder for the local environment. He teaches part time at Trent University, where he spearheaded the development of an "Eco Mentor" certificate program for teacher candidates which was subsequently adopted by several other universities. As well as publishing numerous articles on children, nature and the environment, Jacob has worked in the field of outdoor education for 25 years and recently received the Ontario Society of Environmental Educators Award for "Leadership in Environmental Education".
In this interview, Jacob and I unpack the myriad reasons as to why it’s so important for children to learn to connect with nature at an early age,

Dr James Gruber on the key principles of how communities thrive

In this ongoing series on building strong communities, we’ve already taken a look at the buildings and infrastructure that are more conducive to regenerative living and connected populations, but I want to return to a broader range of contexts and applications from around the world in this episode.
Much like the first session from this series with Zach Weiss in which he profiled amazing examples from across the globe of communities who have come together to achieve incredible transformations of their ecosystems through landscape hydrology restoration, there are so many case studies to draw from.In my own travels I’ve witnessed inspiring groups of people who’ve overcome massive disadvantages such as lack of access to materials, funds, and antagonistic governments by banding together in their common vision of a better life and future.
Some of the most notable projects I remember from an earlier stage in my work when I designed and built natural homes. There were technical skill training programs for single mothers and disadvantaged youths to give them higher wage job opportunities when I lived on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. A few of the graduates of that program worked side by side with me on natural building projects and ran restaurants that I frequented.
In that same area I worked with a clinic that also had a low cost home building program which worked with the residents around them to identify the most vulnerable people living there to build stable housing for. 
In Senegal my Dutch clients worked with their local fishing community to create communal meeting spaces near the dilapidated fishing docks and establish a fresh food market run by women at the entrance of the town.
Here in Spain I’ve visited a hotel and ranch that are working with local authorities to manage the forests in their area to reduce fire risk by harvesting discarded wood to turn into mushroom substrate, an enterprise that also works with at-risk youth from Barcelona to give vocational training and has also hired from that group.
So many of my collaborators and clients from around the world have exemplified community collaboration and outreach and I’ve often wondered if there’s a playbook that one could access to begin the nuanced process of bringing people together to work towards common goals.Luckily, the new book by Dr James Gruber called Building Community: Twelve Principles for a Healthy Future does exactly that, and I reached out to the author (who prefers to go by Jim) to get his take on the steps in this process. 
The book profiles tons of exceptional examples of community projects from around the world. Some of which Jim has studied and others of which he was involved with directly and helped to facilitate in his role as a community consultant. 
In this interview we talk about some of the important considerations when first approaching a community based project. Jim outlines many of the key steps that nearly all of the case studies he’s seen have in common and are not to be skipped if long term success is what you’re after, and he shares inspiring anecdotes from his facilitation role and observations of this process unfolding organically in different places. 
He also gives insight into his toolbox of leadership strategies meant to guide newcomers of community development to help ensure that your project gets started on the right foot.
Oh and a quick bonus for those of you who really want to dive deeper into community building, my good friends at New Society who published this book are offering a giveaway for listeners of this show. Just stick around till the end of this episode where I’ll tell you just how you can get a free copy of Building Community for yourself.
A little disclaimer, I had a short delay on my side of the connection in the beginning of this interview so you’ll hear me clumsily interrupt Jim a few times at the start. Luckily it doesn’t last for too long.

Nicole Masters on what it takes to be an effective agricultural consultant

Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm journey!
Today I’m excited to announce a completely new thread to this podcast. I’ve teamed up with Climate Farmers, the company that I’ve been working with for over a year now, that is working to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe by assisting farmers in their transition toward regenerative management of their land and businesses. 
At the beginning of this year our whole team invested a lot of time in reaching out to the people in our network all around Europe in order to learn about what their goals are, what they’re struggling with, and how we can co create solutions together. One of the primary things we found is that many of us are searching for specific connections in order to have dedicated support as challenges inevitably come up.
As a result, we’ve begun building a consultant matching service for farmers who are looking for knowledgeable and experienced consultants, coaches, or experts. Luckily, we have a growing list of people around the continent who fit that description and are available to offer assistance. 
Since we also know that it can be tough to choose between so many experts, we offer help in this area by selecting from the criteria and experience that's important to you and is relevant to your context. 
In order to showcase the astounding knowledge and expertise of some of the people in our network, I’m starting off this first episode of this new thread on Climate Farming to highlight some of the best regenerative agriculture consultants from around the world in order to get a better understanding of the process of transitioning a farm to regenerative management.
In the coming months we’ll explore the steps that our experts advise to guide growers through the essential journey of mindset change, observation, learning, experimentation, monitoring, and evolution of ideas in order for farmers to transform their relationship with the land. 
Along the way, if you, or anyone you know, would like to reach out directly to the people that we interview, or are looking to be connected with a regenerative agriculture expert in your area, you can get in touch with us directly by clicking the link I’ve put up on the show notes for this episode on the Regenerative Skills website. The same goes if you’re a regenerative agriculture coach or consultant who would like to be featured on our roster of experts. You can find that easily at regenerativeskills.com or through our linktree on Instagram
With all of that said, I wanted to get this series started off with a deep dive about what it means to be an effective assistant to farmers and land managers in transition.
Whether you call yourself an educator, consultant, coach, mentor, or something else, everyone has a different approach and has a different process. That’s why I reached out to Nicole Masters, who’s now launching a program to train highly effective coaches and consultants called CREATE.
Nicole is an agroecologist, educator and systems thinker with nearly 20 years’ of extensive practical and theoretical experience in regenerative land practices.
She has been communicating these methods throughout Australasia since 2003 and North America since 2013; helping to inspire and guide producers into new and innovative ways to produce food.
Nicole has a deep commitment to finding win-win solutions for both the wellbeing of landscapes and land managers. As a seasoned soils coach, she has a proven record in supporting producers in meeting their goals.
With over 1.2 million acres under her programs, Nicole excels at identifying and solving challenges through proactive management. Her passion for fostering the growth of these farming practices calls upon diverse skills in facilitation, conflict resolution, an understanding of behavioral change and science communication.
With soil as a major driver for ecosystem health,

Charles Marohn on the keys to designing strong and resilient towns

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I’ve often wondered what in the world goes on in the thought process behind the planning and design of the newer towns that I’ve lived in. In the case of really old places, the layout and architecture always made more sense to me. Streets are laid out with orientations to sun patterns or for ease of access to important markets or buildings, and the homes reflect the integral relationship between extended family or workers, animals, and the processing of food and household goods, and the simple natural materials with which much of it is built is integrated with art, gardens, and water features which also serve important cultural functions
In contrast, while modern civic planning is very utilitarian, the utility appears to ignore many essential human functions for the ease of machinery and transport. I knew neighbors who would drive to get their mail at the end of the street because there were no walkways, and who spent countless hours maintaining lawns that their children rarely walked on. There were few if any gathering spaces or community activity centers unless you count shopping malls or gyms. 
When you grow up in those environments they seem pretty normal, but once I got to travel and see the contrast of places that were built before cars, concrete, and steel, I began to wonder why we ever abandoned that style of building. 
I’ll put in a disclaimer here that I will stop short of over romanticizing the past. I’ve learned enough about history that I don’t envy the sanitary or living conditions of almost any previous century, nor do I want to gloss over the challenges that these old places are having in integrating with the modern world. There are many complex and contextual reasons why these places are both heralded for their picturesque tourist value while the younger generations flee to find work and opportunities in new developments. 
And yet, I wanted to gain some insight about why modern towns abandoned some patterns that we know to be more conducive to connected living and what can be done to retrofit and redesign the infrastructure we have. 
For this I spoke to Charles Marohn, professional engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. Marohn is the author of both Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, and Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town. He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America and Planetizen named him one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time.
In this interview we explore the transformation of urban planning over the last few decades and Charles gives vivid examples from well known studies of major cities around the United States of both the dire consequences of poor planning and the potential of better design. We also look into the simple steps that anyone can take to begin to reverse the disconnection of their community and begin to create connections and deeper relationships that can set their community on a new trajectory. 
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
https://www.strongtowns.org/
https://twitter.com/clmarohn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmarohn/
https://www.facebook.com/marohn
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-mark-lakeman/
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-city-repair/
https://regenerativeskills.com/david-holmrgren-on-the-hidden-regeneration-potential-of-the-suburbs/

David Holmgren on the hidden regeneration potential of the suburbs

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I’ve had the privilege of being able to travel to many places around the world to design and manage projects for organizations and clients, and the one constant that I find whether it’s getting a natural home off the ground, planning an agroforestry plantation, or even remotely consulting with someone on their dream project, is that the community element is the most often overlooked. 
Time and time again I’ve seen projects stall or move backwards because they think they just don’t have the monetary or material resources to continue, when in fact it’s their social capital which is lacking. On the other side I’ve seen the power of collaboration overcome shortages of money and institutional support as neighbors and friends offer their creativity, expertise, or even just emotional support to get past the inevitable hurdles that come up. 
Despite this, there are far fewer resources and courses in the regenerative fields on how to build social capital, involve and connect your community, or how to apply the patterns of nature to organize people and our institutions. 
So today I want to kick off this series by going to the source of permaculture study by speaking to the co-originator of permaculture, David Holmgren. 
Back In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement.
Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised on urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues, whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living.
While there are endless things I could ask David about, In this interview we focus on his newest book, RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future, his 592-page manual showing how Australians can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens and selves for resilience into an uncertain future.
We talk about why he chose to focus on the suburbs when many people are now looking to abandon them and move to more rural areas. 
We explore the potential that there is in retrofitting the infrastructure of peri urban environments that were poorly designed and the source of much wasteful energy and material use.
This is a wide ranging conversation that explores the evolution of permaculture, various cohabitation arrangements, getting around strict regulations, and much more.
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
https://holmgren.com.au/
https://online.retrosuburbia.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/MelliodoraHepburn/videos https://www.facebook.com/MelliodoraHepburnPermaculture https://www.facebook.com/groups/retrosuburbia/

Zach Weiss on the power of community collaboration to revive rivers and bring back the rain

Zach Weiss on the power of community collaboration to revive rivers and bring back the rain

Neal Spackman on the planning and considerations behind the regeneration of large landscapes

Welcome back. Today we’re going to continue with this focus on the design process of regenerative projects at various different scales. We’ve already covered small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis, homesteading projects aiming for self sufficiency with Drew Grim, farm scale and production focused projects with Darren Doherty, and today we’re going to cap it all off with an intimate look at the most ambitious large scale projects that aim to transform whole ecosystems while creating a profit for the local community and investors alike. 
Naturally for this scale of work I reached out to Neal Spackman. If you’re not already familiar with Neal from the two previous interviews I did with him on this show, I can tell you that Neal is best known for his work on the Al Baydah project in Saudi Arabia, and as the co-founder of the Regenerative Resources. With the Al Baydah project he’d been working for nearly a decade in one of the most arid regions of the world in a severely desertified region of Saudi Arabia to regenerate the landscape there through permaculture methods focusing on water harvesting techniques. As a former student of Geoff Lawton, Neal began work on the project with no prior experience with either permaculture or dryland restoration, but in a remarkably short time he and his team have completely transformed the way the land both sequesters water and builds topsoil, and has even reached the point where the trees no longer need any water from drip irrigation in a desert that receives only a few centimeters of rainfall a year.
In this episode we’re going to take a look at the new projects that he and the team at Regenerative Resources are launching. Their ambitious goals of using some of the most degraded coastal land on the planet to restore mangrove ecosystems with the aim of establishing agroforestry systems and productive fisheries is now starting to take shape in a big way. 
Neal and I start by talking about all the changes and challenges that he and the company have been going through as they’ve traversed the globe looking for project sites, connecting with communities, and researching the feasibility of their projects. 
From there we talk about the key differences and considerations when designing projects at this massive scale and how they work to calculate the feasibility out into an uncertain future. 
We also get into the inevitable finance aspect of large initiatives and the disconnect between the investors and companies that say they want to fund regenerative projects, and all of the projects that are struggling to find funding. 
This conversation strays a lot more than the others in this series from mere design and ecological considerations, but is essential for anyone who has dreamed of creating a bigger impact with a regenerative land based project but can’t wrap their heads around the daunting task of finding the resources and support needed to get it off the ground. 
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
https://medium.com/@neal.spackman/the-valley-of-death-bc66c6812bb6
https://regenerativeresources.co/
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-desert-regeneration-and-showcasing-examples-of-permaculture-success-with-neal-spackman-of-the-al-baydah-project-and-sustainable-design-masterclass-019/
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-neal-spackman-2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P1rPnVUME4

Darren Doherty on the evolution of the Regrarians regenerative farm design framework

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Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver
As we continue through this series on regenerative design we’ve taken a look at small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture, last week we explored the homestead scale with Drew Grim from The Schoolhouse Life, and this week we’re getting into the larger scale of properties and how regenerative design can be applied to farms. 
For this subject, my go-to source for practical and professional farm design is always Darren Doherty. 
Darren describes himself as a 5th generation Bendigo region land manager, developer, author & trainer who has been involved in the design & development of well over 3000, mostly broadacre projects across 6 continents in more than 50 countries, ranging from 1 million hectare cattle stations in Australia’s Kimberly region to 110,000 acre Estancia’s in Patagonia, EcoVillage developments in Tasmania to public:private R&D agroforestry & education projects in Viet Nam, novel AG Machinery development + family farms across the globe with a range of private, corporate, government & non-profit clients.
Darren is the originator of the Regrarians Platform® process which outlines a strategic & logical process to the development of regenerative agricultural systems and is the program extensively outlined in the Regrarians Handbook which is now being released chapter by chapter as an eBook; along with the Regrarians Workplace which is the online content management and professional liaison platform for all client, associate, training and alumni relations.
Though I’ve interviewed Darren a couple times before on this show, this session in particular was very timely for me as I’m currently working through the Online REX program for the design of my own property while guiding our Climate Farmers Pioneer group through the same process. With a more intimate understanding of Darren’s design system I was looking to gain insight to the lineage of his learning and experience as well as the mind behind the process.Darren has a unique way of teaching in that many of his answers to questions come in the form of stories and explain not only the answer you were looking for but the history and context around it so that you can develop your own answers in the future.This interview takes a much more philosophical bend than I had anticipated going into it, and as a result I learned a lot more than what I had expected since I’m now quite familiar with his teaching material. So get comfortable for this one and just let the stories unfold
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
http://www.regrarians.org/ 
http://www.regrarians.org/webinars-ron/ 
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darrendoherty/
https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darren-doherty-2/

Drew Grim on designing for the homestead scale and managing your time.

Last week I started off this series on the regenerative design process, first focusing on small scale and residential properties, let’s take the next step up and look into homesteads. 
Homesteading is something of a unique concept to colonial American culture and the term was coined during the homesteading acts of the 1860s. That said, there are plenty of similar concepts in other parts of the world. The ones that I’m most familiar with are small-holdings and crofts, from England and Scotland respectively. 
In general though a homestead refers to a home and a plot of land where the residents work to provide a large portion of what they consume and it usually includes some small production or service enterprises such as growing and processing food for market, craft and artisan goods and services like repair and fabrication. 
The distinction that is often made these days is that of whether or not the enterprises in the home and on the land are primarily for sale or for use and consumption by the residents. 
In today’s session, I’ll be speaking with Drew Grim, a long time homesteader and educator, and the cofounder of The Schoolhouse Life with his wife Lacey. He has been formally trained in permaculture design, Regenerative Agriculture, and Holistic Management, and he uses those trainings along with years of experience to coach people in how to live a more connected life as a homesteader or farmer. A life where the everyday decisions look holistically at the land, livestock, and farmer, both physically and spiritually.
In this interview, Drew and I talk about some of the common motivators for people moving to more remote areas and working to become more self-sufficient. Much of this is connected to fears and uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic, but a lot come from environmental, better health, and even personal interest goals as well. 
We talk about the need for realistic expectations and easing into the lifestyle rather than jumping in the deep end without any experience. 
From there Drew tells me about how he has learned to manage his time with all of the unending projects and tasks that their home and land require, and how he has learned to manage it all holistically. 
We also spend a good bit of time talking about the community aspect of homesteading, which often seems antithetical to the idea of moving away from people and becoming self-sufficient, but from my own experience and Drew’s as well, we’ve found that building a strong community is as essential as a good food supply. 
Drew and I have been through many of the same training and design programs and I loved hearing how he’s used permaculture design and holistic management principles among others to create the life that he and his wife have always wanted for their families.
 
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/
 
Permaculture Homesteading in Nepal: A Story of Community Connection, with Zac Barton of Almost Heaven Farms
 
https://regenerativeskills.com/essential-things-to-consider-when-making-the-shift-to-a-homesteading-lifestyle-with-natalie-bogwalker-of-wild-abundance/

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Rob Avis on the challenges and opportunities in designing for small spaces

Check out New Society Publisher's sustainability practices for digital reading
Welcome to the very first episode of Season 6 of this show. This podcast has undergone a lot of changes and evolutions since I began as the Abundant Edge podcast back in 2017 in Guatemala. Back then I was working mostly in natural building designing homes and managing construction sites for friends and clients around lake Atitlan, now it’s been two and a half years since I moved to Spain to be with my partner, and after years of searching and planning, we’re now preparing to move to a new property later this year in the Catalan mountains. Yet through all of these changes, my fascination for the knowledge and stories of folks around the world who are working to regenerate this planet and their communities has only grown. 
This year and over the 48 weeks of this podcast season, I want to take you through a learning journey through some of the most important concepts, skills, and experiences that I’ve come to value in my professional work, as well as the path that I’ll be taking to move into our new property and design the place to accomplish the personal, financial, and community goals that my partner and I have set out for ourselves. 
I’ve also been listening keenly to the valuable feedback and ideas that have been coming up from the Discord channel. Many of you there have voiced a clear interest in hearing more in-depth and long form interviews, and so that’s exactly what I’ll be working to provide. 
So to start off this season, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the design process from some of the most renowned permaculture and regenerative project planners that I know. 
Since all of you are coming from different contexts and resource bases, I’m approaching this topic from different angles. 
In this first session I spoke with Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture. For 12 years now he and his wife Michelle along with a growing team of designers have been elevating professional permaculture design in Canada and have written and produced professional resources and educational content in order to make permaculture and environmental design learning accessible to as many people as possible. 
Since launching Verge, he’s helped more than 5,000 students and a growing number of clients design and/or create integrated systems for shelter, energy, water, waste, and food, all while supporting local economies and regenerating the land. 
In 2019, Rob moved to a 65-hectare [160-acre] wooded property in central Alberta, Canada, and now spends most of his free time building his own permaculture property.
In this session we covered a lot of ground, but focused on the design process specifically for small and residential scale projects. We talk about the differences in the process at small scales and the advantages and disadvantages of the space limitation. 
Rob shares a lot of his personal learning from being a designer and educator for over a decade and the aspects of the learning and observation process that he’s expanded or now breezes past. We also spend some focused time talking about the opportunities outside of just growing food that he sees in making a living and building business through the application of  permaculture training.
Be sure to stick around all the way till the end where Rob gives a sneak peak at the new blockchain project he’s launching this year with the cofounders of the Ethereum cryptocurrency with the goal of regenerating the planet by 2049. 
Rob brilliantly mixes a deep and philosophical understanding of earth care and environmental patterns with a practical and focused approach of a career engineer. You’ll want to take the time to hear this one all the way through. 
Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community
Links:
Vergepermacuture.ca
https://www.youtube.com/c/VergePermaculture
https://www.instagram.