The RegenNarration

This is an excerpt from episode 84 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Dr Anne Poelina. We pick up the conversation with Anne’s powerful articulation of a way to proceed with planning in the Kimberley, on the back of an existing federal government bioregional framework. We go on to talk more about the incredible new film The Serpent’s Tale, leading to Anne’s heart-rending p...

This episode departs from the usual schedule, as there’s a particularly pressing aspect to this one. Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa (Indigenous Australian) woman who belongs to the Mardoowarra, the lower Fitzroy River in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She is also Chair of the esteemed Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. When Anne and I last spoke for the podcast, in Broome a few yea...

This is an excerpt from episode 83 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with award-winning archaeology professor, Peter Veth. We pick it up at the tail end of Peter answering my question about how archaeology has changed to work with First Nations, not on them. We went on to chat about the global ‘blockbuster’ exhibition Songlines, currently touring, and how it’s changing the Aus...

This is a special extra to episode 83 with award-winning archaeologist, Peter Veth. We delve further here into what Peter believes needs to happen in the crucible of landscapes such as those in north west Australia. We talk about the place of heavy industry, cultural enterprise and interpretation, economies, education and media. With an approach that celebrates the extraordinary deep time value of...

Australia’s history is being significantly rewritten - or perhaps better said, heard. There is growing widespread understanding of the sophistication, presence and wisdom of the First Australians, and not just from the game-changing works of people like Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage. Now that modern Australia is looking in more of the right places, with the right mind, and with the First Australia...

This is an excerpt from episode 82 featuring a grab of about 14 minutes or so from my conversation with Geoff Bastyan. He’s the bloke at the heart of what’s been recognised as the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. And what a story it is. With all the key ingredients. Like being told it couldn’t be done, facing a dire wipe out of the pre-existing seagrass meadows, and intuiting the surp...

You might remember Keith Bradby from Gondwana Link in episode 79 a few weeks ago. If you haven’t heard it yet, suffice to say here that Gondwana Link has been called “the most exciting thing happening in restoration in Australia, if not the world.” Within its 1,000 kilometre restoration zone lies the Oyster Harbour catchment. And the Harbour that does the catching has drawn renown as the site of t...

This is an excerpt from episode 81 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with writer and Australian National Living Treasure, Tim Winton. We pick up the conversation where I wondered if Tim agreed that the grounds for positive change seemed to be getting more fertile. We go on to explore more of Tim’s personal story, source of meaning, and view on the value of art. Especially in t...

I had this conversation with Tim Winton back in 2018, but it’s been front of mind for me again in recent weeks, as we enter a moment of reckoning on gender-related inequality and violence – certainly in a big way in Australia right now, and of course more broadly in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and so many others over a long period of time. It also continues to invoke a kind of personal reckon...

This is an excerpt from episode 80 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Nicol Ragland. How does Bill Gates’ recent ‘intervention’ in food systems differ from what we really need? And how are some First Nations people saying ‘no thanks’ to that intervention? These questions lead our conversation through Nicol’s work with Regenerate Ok...

This is a special extra to episode 80 with award-winning filmmaker, Nicol Ragland. We hear more of Nicol’s personal journey from childhood and artist, through to formative experiences with Indigenous cultures around the world. We explore this in parallel to the growing movement in solutions journalism and regenerative media, and where it all could take us. Particularly if married with the sort of...

Nicol Ragland is an award-winning film maker and photographer from the US. I first came across Nicol when she directed the spectacular short film, Farmer’s Footprint, featuring Dr Zach Bush and a group of regenerative farmers including Gabe Brown. It echoed so many of the stories you hear on this podcast, and elsewhere, of both the litany of issues in the wake of ‘big agriculture’ and its related...

This is an excerpt from episode 79 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Keith Bradby, CEO of Gondwana Link. We explore the machinations of change, from intuition and leaps of faith, through to connecting all kinds of people and places, across all kinds of political and cultural divides. We then delve into what this means for the economics and politics of change, including ho...

Gondwana Link has been called “the most exciting thing that is happening in restoration in Australia, if not the world.” It’s a one thousand kilometre stretch of country extending right across the south of Western Australia. This globally recognised biodiversity hotspot had been little understood, and devastatingly cleared. But not all of it. And Gondwana Link is restoring and re-connecting these...

This is an excerpt from episode 78 featuring the last 25 minutes of my conversation with leading holistic farmers, Jeff Pow and Michelle McManus. We explore what it takes to regenerate country, community and custodianship. And to kick that off, I raise a section of the recent popular TV series here in Australia, Fight for Planet A, that had me squirming in my seat. We then delve into some fascinat...

Marking Jeff's run for Parliament at the West Australian state election today, this is a special extra to episode 78 with Jeff Pow and Michelle McManus. It’s a stretch of eight minutes or so that starts with Jeff describing the extraordinary and instructive experience of the day Southampton burned. And it closes with a collective reflection on notions of responsibility, stewardship and the lo...

Jeff Pow and Michelle McManus are bringing chicken farming back to earth, and playing a part in rebirthing opportunities for communities and regions everywhere. They’ll say they’re doing nothing particularly new, but they’re finding a way to regenerate country, community and economy in an unprecedented context of crises. For them, most recently, an horrific bushfire devastated their historic South...

This is an excerpt from episode 77 featuring the last 15 minutes or so of my conversation with the award-winning director of ‘That Sugar Film’ and ‘2040’, Damon Gameau. We pick up on what Damon says has been the most rewarding, promising and important part of his work with both films – working with kids and teachers in education. One million young people have engaged with the 2040 film and initiat...

Welcome to a new year of The RegenNarration. And what a year it’s shaping up to be. But before we get into that, I wanted to take a brief moment here to admit to feeling a little flat. And by extension, to explain the delayed start to the podcast this year. Some sad and in some ways seismic changes have consumed me in recent times. And really, these changes relate to everything this podcast is abo...

We’re signing off for the year with our annual episode of highlights from our brilliant array of guests throughout 2020. If you’ve been listening throughout this unique and likely transformative year, enjoy the revisit. And for those newer to the podcast, here’s a snapshot of how the year played out on The RegenNarration. Track list: Welcome to 2020 (from ep. 53), to music by Jeremiah Johnson Dr S...

This is an extract from episode 75 featuring the last half an hour of my conversation with regenerative agriculture and holistic management pioneer, Allan Savory. We pick up where Allan states the need for this to go mainstream now. He goes on to propose how it might happen, while laying down the challenge. And outlines why he believes the change is very close. We go on to talk about the largely ‘...

This is a special extra to episode 75 with Allan Savory. We delve further here into a few areas that have been pivotal to Allan’s pioneering life. It starts with a little exchange on how wilderness and livestock-based agriculture can regenerate country together (and where they can’t). Then we turn to the wilderness within, going back to the incredibly formative time Allan experienced as a tracker....

Haul back through the spread of regenerative agriculture in recent decades, and Allan Savory is there. His global influence is hard to overstate. Here we chat about his extraordinary life, and the evolution of his insights that have proved so transformative for so many. Thinking holistically is one thing. But how do we actually manage our lives and societies holistically? And ultimately, how do we...

This is an extract from episode 74 featuring the end of my conversation with the founding director and current Chair of Perth City Farm, Rosanne Scott. We’d just been talking about some of the powerful stories of Aboriginal heritage where City Farm is located. That lead to the exchange we start with here, about arts and culture being central to organising societies in holistic, fulfilling and effe...

Last year was the 25th birthday of a cultural icon and regenerative hub, nestled into the inner eastern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. City Farm is an extraordinary place – an urban farm with a big vision. This half hectare block was a degraded industrial wasteland. But an inspired community transformed it into a place for organic food, farming, community connection, arts, enterprise and edu...