Regenerative Skills

How to install ponds, dams, and water retention features, with Zach Weiss from Elemental Ecosystems

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

The Facts And Stories Behind Waterway Restoration, With Judith Schwartz

As we continue into this series on waterway regeneration, I reached out to Judith Schwartz, a wonderful author who tells stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. 
Her two most recent books, Water in Plain sight, and The Reindeer Chronicles both feature incredible case studies of the importance of a healthy water cycle, to the health of our ecosystems and global climate regulation. 
Judith is known for taking  a clear-eyed look at global environmental, economic, and social challenges, and finds insights and solutions in natural systems. She also writes for numerous publications, including The American Prospect, The Guardian, Discover, and Scientific American. 
In this interview Judith begins by explaining some essential information on the water cycle beyond the simple rain and evaporation rotation we all learned in grade school. 
She also walks me through the ways it interacts with plant life to affect the rainfall of an area and hydrate the land. From there we explore some of the incredible examples of ecosystem regeneration that she highlights in her books and we even get into some mind expanding questions that you can use yourself to re-evaluate your own understanding of the potential of your own regenerative projects and dreams at the end of the episode. 
Beyond the clear information of water’s hidden functions in the global ecology, Judith is a great storyteller and helps to connect the hard facts with the personal and intimate side of these projects and journeys.
Resources:
https://www.judithdschwartz.com/
https://www.chelseagreen.com/writer/judith-d-schwartz/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-neal-spackman-2/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-desert-regeneration-and-showcasing-examples-of-permaculture-success-with-neal-spackman-of-the-al-baydah-project-and-sustainable-design-masterclass-019/
http://regenerativeskills.com/mark-shepard-water-for-any-farm/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-zach-weiss/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-pieter-van-midwoud/

How we can overcome the looming water crisis in our cities with “the Godfather of Green”Jerry Yudelson

Welcome back to the second episode in this series on waterway regeneration. In this series we’ll be looking into the often overlooked role of the water cycle and its effects on the climate crisis. I’ll be speaking with experts and innovators about how repairing the hydrological cycle and the health of our waterways can lead to the restoration of all sorts of ecological services and the health of entire ecosystems as a result. 
In this week’s episode I got to chat with Jerry Yudelson, the author of 13 full-length professional and trade books on green buildings, integrated design, green homes, water conservation, building performance and sustainable development. Dubbed 'The Godfather of Green' by Wired Magazine, Jerry’s passion for optimizing the built environment is reflected by his many years of professional experience in the green building and certification fields, serving as an elected LEED Fellow and as president of the Green Building Initiative. He also served on the national board of the USGBC and chaired the Steering Committee for the largest green building show, Greenbuild, from 2004 through 2009. 
Despite being best known for ecological building design and policy, in this interview we’re going to focus on his book Dry Run, which unpacks some of the best ways to manage scarce water resources and handle upcoming urban water crises. The book explains the most pressing water issues that urban zones face, and examines the vital linkages between water, energy use, urban development and climate change. Dry Run also demonstrates best practices for achieving "net zero" water use in the built environment through, water conservation strategies for buildings, factories, cities and homes, rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse and water reclamation systems, water efficiency retrofits, onsite sewage treatment, and new water reuse and supply technologies.
In this interview we specifically address the urgent changes that cities need to make to ensure longer term water security. Jerry explains his classifications of the colors of water that help to categorize the different sources and uses for water in cities that require different management systems, and gives a few case studies of municipalities that have started to make improvements in their aquatic infrastructure.
If you're interested in reading the episode as a full transcript. Click here.
Resources:
https://newsociety.com/books/d/dry-run
https://newsociety.com/search
https://jerryyudelson.net/books
https://www.reinventinggreenbuilding.com/

Why regenerating our oceans makes both public health and economic sense, with Dr. Enric Sala of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Project

Welcome to the first episode in a brand new series focusing on waterway regeneration. In the last few years of hosting this show it’s become vividly clear to me just how important and yet overlooked an issue that the health of our water cycles are. 
While the climate change narrative has mostly focused on the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, we’ve ignored the essential role that the water cycle plays in regulating global temperatures. In this series I’ll be speaking to an incredible list of scientists, farmers, and restorationists who are dedicated to reviving the precious waterways of the world. From the urban environment to the deep seas, our actions will determine whether or not we preserve our aquatic resources and all the life that depends on them for future generations. 
In this first episode I got to speak with Enric Sala, a renowned ecologist making a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense. Enric is the director of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project (which has succeeded in protecting more than 5 million sq km of ocean and created 22 marine reserves). Dr. Sala has received the Young Global Leader Award by the World Economic Forum, a Research Award from the Spanish Geographical Society, the Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorers Club, and a Hero Award from the Environmental Media Association. In his new book “The Nature of Nature: Why We Need the Wild,” he tells the story of his scientific awakening and his transition from academia to activism. More importantly, he shows the economic wisdom of making room for nature, even as the population becomes more urbanized, and how saving nature can save us all, by reversing conditions that led to the coronavirus pandemic and preventing other global catastrophes.
In this interview we begin by unpacking the changes that have occurred in our oceans in the last few decades and how this is affecting people all over the world, even if you don’t live anywhere near the sea. 
Enric also offers a lot of hope that our oceans can recover if we act swiftly and give them the space and protection to regenerate. 
I learned a lot from this talk and as I begin to learn more about how marine health is closely linked to terrestrial health, I would encourage those of you listening to examine how your own habits and lifestyle choices are connected to ocean health in ways that can be hard to see. 
Resources:
Get the book The Nature of Nature
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/pristine-seas/

Steps to food security: saving seeds, with James Ulager, author of Beginning seed saving for the home gardener

Today’s guest is James Ulager, the author Beginning Seed Saving for the home gardener, and though this certainly isn’t a talk about farm scale seed saving and propagation, I thought it was essential to include in this series. In my opinion, seed saving and selective breeding is one of the best ways that anyone with even a small yard or garden can participate in ensuring the food security of future generations. We live in a time when governments have deemed it possible to patent seeds and own genetic information. This not only threatens the sovereignty of our seeds, but of every aspect of our food system as life itself is now able to be patented and owned. Yet we all still have the capacity to grow and save seeds that keep the genetic history that is the foundation of so many cultures alive and evolving, not through technological genetic tampering, but through the stewardship and care that selects for adaptation and resilience. While this is a topic that I’m looking forward to exploring from a lot of different perspectives and advanced applications, James gives a wonderful talk in this episode that directly speaks to the novice gardener. 
In this session we break down just how easy it is to get started saving your own seeds and just how powerful an action it actually is. We cover all the essentials like knowing when the seeds are ready to harvest, the best way to store them for good germination rates, and we even get into more intermediate steps like working with biennials and plant varieties that don’t like to grow true from seed if they’re cross pollinated. 
James does a great job at making this practice accessible and fun and because I’m so excited to get more people saving and breeding their own seeds, I’ve teamed up with New Society Publishers to give away a free copy of the book. If you want to win a copy of Beginning seed saving for the home gardener just message me through our dedicated facebook group called Abundant Edge weekly regenerative skills and write a post about why you want to save your own seeds. 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.   
Resources:
https://www.seedsavers.org/
https://newsociety.com/books/b/beginning-seed-saving-for-the-home-gardener

Bringing farmland back into the hands of our communities, with Ian McSweeny of The Agrarian Trust

One of the biggest challenges that I’ve heard repeatedly both in the interviews in this series on regenerative agriculture as well as with peers and clients that I’ve collaborated with, is the difficulty for aspiring farmers to get access to land. This is true back in the States as well as in Europe and other parts of the world where I’ve traveled, and it’s part of a much larger problem in the trends of land ownership that reduce land to a commodity. As prices for land soar and the rapidly aging population of farmers struggle to keep their businesses afloat, we’re entering into a tipping point. Massive amounts of land are now set to change ownership in the coming decades, and the hands they’ll end up in are yet to be determined. Though from what I can tell, there’s no shortage of young and motivated people looking to get into farming, this land ownership issue is keeping many of them from getting started. 
I’ve been looking for a while at creative approaches to farmland access and tenure, and in my search I found Ian McSweeny the organizational director of Agrarian Trust through his role in organizing and advocating for a return to community owned land and commonland management. Far from being a new or novel approach to land stewardship, these forms of management are much older than private ownership and might just hold the key to large scale landscape regeneration by returning this precious resource to the whole community. 
Ian’s career and his life’s work has been focused on the human connection to soil and food. He first worked as a social worker focused on developing outdoor experience based education programs. Later he sought more direct work with the connections to soil and food in real estate, by founding a brokerage and consulting company to focus on prioritizing conservation, agriculture, and community within typical land development. Most recently, he served as Executive Director of the Russell Foundation, a private foundation focused on assisting landowners and farmers through customized approaches to farmland ownership, conservation, management, and stewardship. 
Ian has also participated in many farmland and food systems initiatives and has served as a consultant to a number of organizations, and was recognized as a “40 under 40” leader in New Hampshire and was also selected for the Leadership Institute at Food Solutions New England. 
In this interview Ian speaks about farmland transfer, conservation, secure tenure, and fundraising models across the US. He also gives inspiring examples of the first handful of members across the country that are blazing a new trail for communities invested in their agricultural future and the diversity of people who steward their farms. This is just one potential way to bring land equity back to the commons and I’m still very interested in exploring other models and ways for a whole new generation of people looking to care for the natural capital that we share to gain affordable access to land, so if you know of any other ideas or organizations that are working on these issues, please reach out to me through email at info(at)abundantedge.com or come and join the conversation on our dedicated facebook page. I’m really looking forward to bringing more voices on these topics to the podcast.
Resources:
The Agrarian Trust website
https://agrariantrust.org/resources/farm-business-resources/
http://agrariantrust.org/resources/media/
http://agrariantrust.org/resources/accessing-land/
https://agrariantrust.org/

Uniting women in agriculture for a regenerative food future, with Lisa Kivirist

Lisa Kivirist
Though this series on regenerative farming has covered a ton of different farming models, land management techniques, food production methods and design methods, one of the glaring absences in the perspectives I’ve included has been that of women, and I’m well aware of it. I did reach out to a lot of women farmers in an attempt to set up interviews, but many of them either didn’t want to be interviewed or were simply too busy to be able to schedule a call. I can imagine that with all of the nonsense and instability around the pandemic it must be really challenging for all farmers in the last 6 months. I was however finally able to get a hold of Lisa Kivirist, one of my favorite authors of homesteading skills and small scale farming. She’s the author of the farmstead chef, rural renaissance, ecopreneuring, homemade for sale, and the book that will be the center of our interview today “soil sisters: a toolkit for women farmers”
She’s also the host of the podcast: “In her boots” which focuses on interviews with and about modern women farmers, which I’ve been a fan of for over a year now and highly recommend to anyone interested in farm stories and general advice in the USA.
In her extensive work helping to build support for women in farming and to create a community network of their peers that they can rely on, Lisa has helped to highlight the stories and experiences around the immeasurable contributions from women in agriculture and set stronger foundations for their continued success into the future. 
In this interview Lisa helps me to understand the complex history of women farmers in the US and the obstacles that they’ve had to overcome in the past as well as those that are still in their way. She also explains the unique talents and perspective that they bring to this fast changing sector along with the growing support network that they’re building together. 
I’ve been a big fan of Lisa’s books for a while and her podcast is a really valuable resource too, but this book Soil Sisters really opened my eyes to the blind spots that I’ve had and that the farming industry at large has had to the essential role that women have played in advancing and strengthening farming through some of America’s toughest times. 
Resources:
https://homemadeforsale.wixsite.com/freshbaked
http://innserendipity.com/
http://innserendipity.com/news/news.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Kivirist

Applying syntropic farming methods for dryland regeneration, with Jacob Evans

Over the years I’ve been hearing about a new pedagogy of land management that has been gaining in popularity, especially in agroforestry circles. The trouble for me has been that until recently a lot of the resources have been in portuguese, and so I kept my eye on it from a distance. Syntropic farming is a term first coined by Ernst Gostch, a swizz farmer who emigrated to Brazil in the 80’s and pioneered this new form of farmland management on his land in Bahia. But today, to speak about the principles of syntropic farming and how he’s adapted them to the unique mediterannean climate in the southern region of spain known as Andalucia I spoke with a good friend of mine, Jacob Evans. Jacob has been working for 4 years now at the Suryalila yoga retreat center as their permaculture farm manager. In that time he helped to establish some impressive agroforestry and food production systems with limited resources in a region best known for rapid desertification and extremes of hot dry summers and frigid winters. Their 20 hectare property stands in contrast to the desnuded plains around them and is beginning to change the hearts and minds of people who think that there’s little that can be done to reverse the damage done to the land there. 
In this interview we talk about what syntropic farming is and what it represents. Jacob walks me through some of the ways that he’s applied its principles to his context in Andalucia and how the trials have been working out 4 years in. We also go over some of the specific plants and methods that have been successful for him there and a lot more. 
I was actually able to meet Jacob after this interview in person the other week when he came up to Barcelona for a trip and we got to hang out a bit and talk about our projects and ambitions here in Spain. We also did a little fermented food and seed swap from our respective gardens. I’m really looking forward to further collaborating with Jacob since he’s already been a great contact for me as I get to know this new country and region by sharing planting lists and advice from his experience. 
I’m also looking to get  in touch with other innovators and practitioners of syntropic farming, especially here in Spain or the Mediterranean region, so if any of you out there know of someone who fits that description, please pass their contact on or share this episode with them.
Resources:
https://www.instagram.com/wizard_permaculture/
https://vimeo.com/429258015
http://www.lalomaviva.com/syntropic-farming
https://lifeinsyntropy.org/
https://agendagotsch.com/en/

Restoring Spain’s degraded farmland with regenerative agroforestry, with Alfonzo Chico de Guzman, president of AlVelAl

As I’m slowly becoming better connected here in Spain in the last year, one of the main projects in regenerative agriculture that keeps coming up in my research and the conversations that I have, is a fairly new project called AlVelAl which is located in Southern Spain, roughly in between the cities of Granada and Murcia. The name AlVelAl relates to the first letters of the comarcas (or counties) where the initiative started: Altiplano de Granada, Los Vélez and Alto ALmanzora. Today, the AlVelAl territory covers more than 1,000,000 hectares of degraded steppe called the Altiplano Estepario. 
I first found a connection with this organization through some other work that I was doing to help consult on the Ecosystem Restoration Camp known as Camp Alitplano which is actually a 5 hectare portion of the largest farm in the organization where they’re trialing various agroforestry and holistic grazing techniques in an effort to restore the degraded site though economically viable production methods. The coordinator of the camp who I’d been in touch with connected me with the owner of the larger farm who also happens to be the president of AlVelal, Alfonzo Chico de Guzman. 
Now Alfonzo is a unique example of a young man who decided to return to his origins on the land and help to his family farm after graduating with a degree in business administration. He immediately dedicated himself to transforming the farm through innovative and regenerative methods and set up an organic market garden as well as fruit production, and began to develop agroforestry methods through systems involving almonds and pistachios. He’s also implemented broad water harvesting earthworks with swales on contour and keyline ponds to help to restore the watershed of this parched and arid region. Aided by a team of international non-profit organizations he’s become instrumental in showcasing and pioneering many dryland agriculture best practices and helping to motivate other producers in the region to follow suit. 
In this episode we talk about many of those methods that I glossed over as well as the overall response from the community in this transition. We discuss barriers to progress and the challenges and roadblocks that he and others have faced in transitioning their farms as well as some of the successes along the way. 
I was really excited to tap into such an inspiring movement and am really looking forward to working more actively with both Alvelal and Ecosystem Restoration camps here in Spain as these projects continue to grow. So look out for updates in future episodes if you enjoy this talk
Resources:
https://alvelal.wixsite.com/website-6
Alvelal YT channel
https://earthmind.org/vca/alvelal
https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/actionworks/grantees/alvelal/

Regenerating the rainforest by growing cacao with Alejandro Solano of Choco Mashpi

Though I’ve spoken to some great orchardists through this podcast, many of them are growing cold tolerant trees in far northern climates, but I wanted to get a perspective on running a holistically managed orchard in the tropics to explore how the beneficial interactions between some of the most prized tree and perennial products in the world can be grown in a way that fuels the restoration of these incredibly biodiverse and robust ecosystems. I’ve known quite a few orchardists from back in Guatemala where I used to live and work, and I’ll link to those interviews in the show notes for this episode for a wide perspective on the topic, but in this interview we’ll take a look in the cloud forest of the Ecuadorian Amazon to see how the team at Mashpi Artisanal Chocolate have brought their piece of land back from being a degraded and deforested pasture to a thriving rainforest cacao plantation that has brought the biodiversity back to their forest through a method they call analog forestry. 
In this interview I spoke with Alejandro Solano who co-owns and manages Mashpi Chocolate as the resident reserve ecologist. Apart from knowing in depth everything that has to do with the cultivation of cocoa and working directly in its production, he is in charge of planting other species that accompany the cacao trees and ensures their health through whole ecosystem management. He also conducts ongoing research on biodiversity and is a naturalist with a sharp eye and intuition. Along with helping to manage the business and land, he also guides visitors, and gives workshops on the farm project and the reserve.
In this interview we start by defining analog forestry and it’s defining aspects. From there we explore the larger vision of cloud forest restoration that the cacao production is merely one aspect of. Alejandro also explains how the preservation of the genetics of his cacao is helping to preserve the biocultural heritage of Ecuador and its history as well. Towards the end we also go through all the steps of producing some of the highest quality chocolate available from seed all the way to the chocolate bar. 
Resources:http://www.analogforestry.org/
https://www.chocomashpi.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Mashpi-Artisanal-Chocolate-154631088076997/
Other tropical forest management episodes:
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-kristen-krash/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-jairo-rodriguez/
http://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-alex-kronick/
http://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-grow-a-healthy-native-forest-in-record-time-with-afforestt-founder-shubhendu-sharma-146/