Regenerative Skills

Restoring degraded land to agro-cloud-forest with Kristen Krash of Sueño de Vida: 137

I was first introduced to Kristen Krash through Atulya Bingham, the well known author and natural builder who’s been on this show a few time. She told me about this incredible little project in Ecuador focused on regenerating the native cloud forest and off-grid living, and that I had to speak with Kristen about her journey. When I got to chat with Kristen I was amazed at how well she knew her bioregion and the experience she could speak from about getting her dream project off the ground with her partner in the last few years.
Three short years ago Kristen and her partner Juan bought a degraded piece of land that she describes as a green desert, because though it was covered in non-native pasture grasses, the original tropical forest had been logged and was struggling to grow back. They called their project Sueño de Vida and set out with the goal of turning it into a nature reserve, permaculture farm, natural building project, and education center dedicated to forest restoration and sustainable living.
In this interview Kristen gives a remarkably well informed explanation of how the industries in her area have left damaged ecosystems in their wake and the challenges of trying to restore them. She and I talk about the similarities and hilarious mishaps that we’ve both experienced with our respective projects and getting them off the ground with limited time and resources. She also walks me through the evolution and stages of their reforestation plan and some of the experiments they’ve done and the sites they’ve observed around them to help them move forward. She also gives great advice for people who are interested in starting this kind of lifestyle and how to plan for an off-grid transition.
Before we get started, if you want to know more about similar projects to this one, check out the previous episodes from this series on reforestation and agroforestry. I’ve got great interviews from Jairo Rodriguez in southern Mexico and Alex Kronick, a good friend of mine from Guatemala who are both working to regenerate the tropical forests in their area through different techniques and resources. The three of these interviews are meant to be something of a trilogy of relatively small size private land projects dedicated to a mixture of native forest regeneration as well as ecotourism and minor farming for economic viability in the tropics. All three have a lot in common, but with different approaches to reach their goals. You can find links to all these episodes on the website at abundantedge.com
Resources:
Sueno de Vida’s website
https://royalcacao.com
Choco Mashpi’s website

Regenerating native forests on a large scale with Alex Kronick of Caoba Farms: 136

I’ve been so fortunate to get to speak directly with so many people who have created incredible examples of permaculture abundance and ecological health and resilience through this podcast, and though I’ve also gotten to visit many permaculture projects and practitioners, many of the ones I’ve seen in person are either just in the early stages of getting off the ground, or haven’t quite found their balance between financial and ecological prosperity. The best examples that I’ve seen in person are the projects that Alex Kronick and his team have managed in the area around Antigua Guatemala, namely Caoba Farms and his new project in Paramos. Now back in season 2, Neal Hegarty who I used to work with on the Granja Tzikin project interviewed Alex in an interview we called “The Most Impressive Permaculturalist You’ve Never Heard of.” Since then I’ve been back many times to visit Alex both at his farm/event space/restaurant at Caoba farms, and even more notably, the larger project that’s been underway for just a couple years in the town of Paramos, northwest of Antigua. There Alex has been combining pieces of land that he’s been able to acquire as he builds towards his dream of restoring the native forest of that region and strategically incorporate agroforestry, market gardening, eco-tourism and event space to ensure the value and protection of the native ecosystem is preserved indefinitely. Though I didn’t have the time to bring recording equipment along on the few trips I made up there in person, I got to catch Alex on a call later to ask him to go over a few of the many intricacies of his plan and steps for development that are still in the early stages, but gaining incredible traction on his site. 
In this interview we cover many of the details of the unique climate and context where the land is located and how it informs goals and designs that Alex is developing. He talks at length about how he and his team are choosing which of the native species to propagate and use for reforestation and how they are creating nurseries to grow thousands of trees at a time. We also talk about how the government incentives for reforestation in Guatemala are not as beneficial as they might appear and how navigating the regulations can both help and hinder ecological goals. We even cover how different trees can affect the water table on your land, passive irrigation methods, even education programs for school age kids and much more. I’ve learned so much from Alex and his methodical approach to land based projects. He’s definitely one of the voices in permaculture and ecological business that I hope more people look to and reference as examples of no-nonsense, results based progress. I’ve also included a bunch of pictures from his farm and nursery that Alex sent me and you can check them out on the website at abundantedge.com
Resources:
Caobafarms.com
Hear more from Alex in his previous interview with Abundant Edge
 

Restoring Native cloud forest in southern Mexico, with Jairo Rodriguez of Teyoapa Farms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-lAJKPsQ0U&t=6s
Today I’m going to kick off a new series focusing on reforestation and agroforestry. I’ve been motivated to return to this subject as it seems to be unusually pressing these days. The wild fires in the western USA and in the Amazon rainforest are not only destructive to those regions in isolation, they also have major ripple effects across the globe and in our collective resiliency. I’ve been fortunate to work directly with people and organizations through my travels who are working on the front lines of reforestation and in the next few episodes I’ll be sharing interviews with people who represent private land projects, agroforestry pioneering, corporate innovation, NGO initiatives and more in an attempt to understand the challenges and also the potential of bringing trees back into a landscape either in an attempt to re-establish the native ecology, or to adapt it to our economic needs while still addressing the need for wild habitat, species diversity, soil health and so many other benefits of forest and jungle ecosystems. Given that this is the first episode in the series I would love to hear from anyone listening if they know of any reforestation or agroforestry projects that I should know about or think that I should highlight here on the podcast. Especially if anyone knows of initiatives in the Iberian peninsula, Spain, Portugal, Andorra or throughout the mediterranean and northern Africa. As always you can send information and feedback to me directly at info@abundantedge.com or through the contact page on the websites at abundantedge.com
So let’s get started. Back in May of this year as I was backpacking through southern Mexico. I learned about Teyoapa farms in Xico, Veracruz and reached out to them to volunteer for a short time and get to know their project and help out. I spent just over a week with them and was amazed at how they had transformed the land that they had purchased only about 15 years ago from degraded pasture land into a young native cloud forest. Jairo Rodriquez, the co-owner and manager along with his family, sat down with me on a visit up to their land to talk about how they got started. 
In this interview we talked about the urgent need for protection in the quickly dwindling areas of remaining cloud forest in Mexico and around the world. Jairo has a very strong world view and philosophy that guides his investments in time and energy and the enterprises that he runs. I had the pleasure of learning how they make yogurt, cheese, ice-cream, chocolate, and many other artisanal products from their farm and the producers around them, and how they use those to build community more than generate profit. Jairo also co-owns a company that makes high quality tents designed to last a long time and have a light footprint on the land so people can live comfortably in nature without leaving a scarring impact. In general I left the place inspired by the potential of what a few people can do with the right motivation and how humans have the power to do as much to heal the land they interact with as they do to damage it when their hearts are in the right place. 
As a short preview of my time in Xico and Teoapa farms I also made a short video with Jairo, which I’m releasing today to accompany this interview. I really encourage you to see the incredible forest that Jairo has helped to create. You can find the video in the show notes for this episode where you’ll also find information on how to contact Teoapa and help contribute to their reforestation goals.
Resources:
Teyoapa on facebook

Voices of natural and alternative building, an Abundant Edge special episode

I haven’t done a special episode in a long time, in fact I haven’t done any at all this season and it’s been a while since I’ve done a Regenerative Round Table since I’ve been transitioning from the farm where I lived with my colleagues in Guatemala until May of this year to where I am now, which is a small town about a half hour north of Barcelona in the beautiful Mediterranean region of Catalunya in Spain. In the last few months I backpacked up through southern Mexico, spent a month visiting family in Spokane Washington, then another month visiting my brothers and nephew in Minnesota where we grew up. I’ve been in Spain just under two months and am working with my partner here to start a whole bunch of exciting new projects both online and in the community here which I’ll be sure to talk about in future episodes once things get off the ground. 
Today I’m going to be giving a review of the previous series on natural building and regenerative living and design from the last handful of weeks for those of you who want the cliff notes and the most important information from about a month and a half of episodes. I’ll be talking about some of the main takeaways and things that I learned from these interviews as well as presenting new questions to you out there listening while sharing some thoughts and stories from some of my own experience as a builder and traveller that have taught me a lot over the last decade
Resources:
CRI interview on making cob legal
Atulya Bingham on all the uses of lime
Benito Steen on natural plasters
Dan Chiras on home scale renewable energy
Daniel Allen on aircrete
April Magill on hempcrete and natural home renovations
Mark Lakeman on healthy community design
Kirk Mobert on Innovations in rocket stoves
Trey Abernathy on building with bamboo
Chris Magwood on choosing the correct natural building materials

Meet the team that’s making cob legal, an interview with members of the Cob Research Institute: 133

Today’s episode is very important in that there’s a limited window of time for those of you, especially in the USA who care about natural building and want to see cob and other natural building materials legalized and approved by building authorities to help this happen. An incredible opportunity is coming up in the last week of October, which is just over a week from now when members of the Cob Research Institute, some of whom you’ll hear interviewed in a minute, will present a proposal for cob to be included in the ICC/IRC code (international code council/international residential code, the governing body for building standards across the whole country). To gain approval, the proposal will be voted on and this is where you come in. This is your chance to call your local fire marshal or building inspector and voice your support that they vote to approve this measure which would allow legal permitted cob buildings in the USA. You might be new to natural building or you might think that you’d never want a cob house yourself, but if this proposal passes it’s likely to have a ripple effect for the approval of other earthen building materials and alternative building methods in the future for everyone. The guys from the CRI will give more details about how you can help to support this initiative, but if this is all you have time to listen to, just know that you can go to cobcode.org and get specific instructions on how to contact you local building official directly or to put them in contact with the CRI to help get out the vote on this potentially historic advancement for earthen and natural building. Don’t hesitate though. Like I mentioned, the vote will take place during the last week of October, this month, 2019!
In this interview I got to speak to John Fordice, Martin Hammer, and Anthony Dente who have been working for years to compile the data and engineering properties of cob in order to better understand the material and write the proposal to have it approved as a legal building material in the US. Between them they answered a lot of questions about the advantages and limitations of cob, the tests and simulations they’ve done to get proper measurements of its performance and what they recommend to builders who are considering using cob to build their homes. It was such a pleasure for a natural building nerd like me to get to talk to these guys who’ve worked so hard to get verifiable information on the material that got me to fall in love with earthen building in the first place.
Resources:
Cob Research Institute’s website
Get out the vote campaign and information

The essential guide to lime. Plasters, paints and cretes, with Aulya Bingham from “The Mud Home”

I’ve talked about many different building materials through this series, but one of my all time favorites often gets overlooked because it isn’t commonly used as a structural element. Lime in all of its various forms as a plaster, paint, mortar, grout, poured floor or even in newer applications like hempcrete, has so many advantages and applications in just about any style of natural or conventional building. That’s why I reached out to the “Mud Witch” Atulya Bingham, who’s been interviewed twice on this podcast before because she just released a new online course covering everything you need to know about this incredible natural material.
In this interview we cover the lime cycle and the various products that can be made or bought from the original limestone. We talk about different additives to make all kinds of plasters, paints, mortars and more. Atulya shares a lot of experiences of her own in working with lime as she builds her new off grid homestead in northern spain and why it’s an ideal material for damp and humid places. We also compare and contrast lime to other alternative materials as well as its limitations and compromises too. This is one of the materials that I’ve seen people struggle with the most and that I’ve noticed that many people avoid because it can be made to seem that it’s more dangerous or complicated than it is. There are very few resources out there that simplify the use of lime to the layperson or amateur builder which is why I was so glad to cover this in a way that hopefully demystifies the practical use of lime for so many great applications.
Resources:
The Mud Home website
Sign up for the Lime course here

Benito Steen of “The Nito Project” on exploring new natural building techniques and teaching around the world: 131

Today’s guest, Benito Steen is one of the people that I’ve most had requested from you listeners to do an interview with, in large part because of the success of his YouTube channel called “The Nito Project” where he works with his younger brother Panther to make beautiful educational videos on natural building techniques, earthen plasters and even the japanese method of making polished clay balls called Dorodango. Benito is the first of my guests who grew up in natural buildings since his childhood rather than coming to the trades later in life. His parents Bill and Athena Steen being well known natural building advocates and educators since the 80s, their family moved around the southwestern US and Mexico teaching workshops and collaborating on projects that became the base for the skill set that he now teaches and showcases in his videos.
In this interview Benito talks about his early experiences and interest in building trades and craftsmanship not only with natural materials but metalworking and blacksmithing too. We talk in detail about the high end finishing work that he’s been learning and showcasing in his videos. We then explore the things that he and I have both learned from teaching natural building in different parts of the world; not only the challenges of different materials and access to tools, but also the different cultural and historical contexts that change the way people relate to buildings from the start. He and I also talk about some of the realities and challenges of building as a vocation and the process of working with clients and making a project come to fruition.
This ended up being less of a formal interview and more of a conversation so don’t worry too much about getting concrete information and techniques out of this as much as a perspective from two young builders who’ve traveled around a lot and love to experiment and play with different materials and techniques. If you’re looking for more actionable information on these topics I highly recommend the interview I did with Benito’s dad Bill Steen in the previous season and also the interview with Kyle Holtzhueter, both of which we reference in this chat and that I’ve linked to in the show notes for this episode.
Resources:
The Nito Project channel
The Canelo Project
Abundant Edge interview with Bill Steen
Abundant Edge interview with Kyle Holtzhueter

The best options for home scale renewable energy with Dan Chiras, author of “The Homeowner’s Guide to Renewable Energy: 130

We’re now well into this on-going series on natural building and design, and we’ve covered bamboo building, rocket stoves, design at the building and community levels, and so much more already. One of the biggest topics that I haven’t yet explored on this podcast and has always interested me is the subject of renewable energy. Renewables have been in the media for a long time both branded as a solution to our collective reliance on fossil fuel energy and also criticized for being too expensive for most people to install or implement at the home scale. Luckily I had the chance to speak to Dan Chiras, the author of many books on renewable energy and other regenerative living skills including, Power from the Sun, Power from the Wind, Solar Energy Basics, Solar Home Heating Basics, The Homeowner’s Guide to Renewable Energy, Solar Electricity Basics and many more. The best part about Dan’s knowledge is that he has implemented the systems that he writes about for himself and can speak from experience about living long term with solar and wind energy systems as well as the maintenance and repair costs over time.
In this interview Dan goes into detail about all the practical differences in solar, wind, and other renewable energy systems. He walked me through the process of examining the potential of each resource, calculating the size of the system based on your consumption, and more. We also talk about the advantages of grid connected versus fully off grid systems as well as hybrid options. Dan also gives great advice to homeowners considering renewable energy installations and even how they can look into tax incentives and cooperative buying schemes to reduce the initial upfront cost of installing a system.
I’ve also included links to all of Dan’s books on renewable energy for anyone looking to get a more in-depth understanding of a particular application so be sure to check out the resource section in the show notes for this episode.
Resources:
Link to Dan’s books at New Society
Wind River Music
Nasa data for renewable energy potential

Does aircrete have a place in natural building and regenerative living? With Daniel Allen of Tiny Giant Life: 129

Until getting to know Daniel and his understanding of building design and healthy living, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do an episode on aircrete. I’ve focused only on natural building techniques and materials up until this point because I honestly believe that nature provides all the materials we need to build high quality and healthy structures. But since Daniel comes from the perspective of natural building experience and because I like to remain open to new ideas and not become too much of a purist or a zealot for one way of seeing things, I spoke to him about this increasingly popular way of building.
In this episode, Daniel explains what aircrete is and how it differs from traditional concrete. He walks me through the necessary tools and materials all the way to pouring forms, bricks, mortars and final coverings. We talk about the advantages and disadvantages, not only of the construction process, but also of using industrial materials over natural ones and why someone might choose to throw up a quick and durable industrial structure as a stepping stone towards a longer vision for a regenerative lifestyle.
Just as importantly, Daniel and I go back and forth over the complex issues around the consumption and waste associated with different building methods and also the fact that a regenerative life is different for every person and every place based on their unique context. I really enjoyed this discussion and exploring some difficult concepts with Daniel, but even more, I would love to hear from you, yes YOU about what your personal lines of acceptability in building materials and industrial processes are and what your own definition of regenerative living is. What are the hard lines that you draw, if any, and what are the permissible consumptions or waste that you feel alright with given what the world we live in demands? You can comment below the show notes on the website at abundantedge.com or email me directly at info@abundantedge.com.
Resources:
TinyGiantLife.biz

Limecrete and renovating old homes with natural materials, with April Magill of RootDown Design: 128

I finally had the chance to do a follow up session with one of my favorite natural builders, April Magill. She’s not only an accomplished architect, builder, and educator through her company “Root Down Design” and the American College of the Building Arts, she’s also constantly experimenting with new techniques and materials as you’ll hear in this episode. Back in the first interview that I recorded with April, we dissected rammed earth and how she was working to revive the craft for all its potential benefits for her climate and conditions in Charleston, NC. This time we talk about hempcrete, and how its anti molding insulative properties are presenting all kinds of new options for natural builders whos’ contexts call for insulation to overcome the large temperature swings in different seasons and also need to resist the humidity. We talk about her recent experiments in packing forms in traditional framed homes, the mixture that she’s had success with that includes the pozzolan additive metakaolin, as well as where certain materials are sourced from.
The second half of the interview we dedicate to the topic of home renovations and how it can often be more environmentally responsible to repair and retrofit an existing home than to build and entirely new one, even if it’s made primarily with natural materials. This interview gives a realistic view of some common topics that you listeners have asked me in the past and I’m always excited to talk to professionals who give an honest account of costs, processes, and help to bust myths about natural building and the construction trades in general.
In case you’re looking for even more information on the myths and realities of building for yourself or hiring a contractor to build a natural structure, you can also check out the article that sums these things up called “The Real Cost of a Natural Building” by clicking on the link in the show notes or in the catalogue of articles in the navigation bar at abundantedge.com. I really feel motivated to give people the most accurate picture of the whole process of building a natural structure for themselves since social media and so many click-bait articles have planted unrealistic expectations around the web.
Resources:
Root Down Designs
The American College of the Building Arts