Regenerative Skills

Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. Often when we think about agroforestry we think first about food. Orchards of fruit and nut crops are certainly an important aspect of agroforestry, but so is the responsible harvesting and care for woodlands for building materials and fuel. For a long time now I’ve admired the work of Ben Law w...

Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. As I’ve been researching this topic for years I’ve begun to see a spectrum of tree planting concepts that look like a gradient based on the diversity in the system. On one extreme you have monoculture orchards and timber plantations which are just a single species on large tracts of land, and on the other extreme you have syntr...

Just as promised from last week’s episode exploring the wide and unknown varieties of fruit and nut trees for cold climates, we’re going to go deeper into getting forest gardens established in frigid zones.  It turns out there are tons of planting options for people who live in hardiness zones 6 and below. There are even some advantages in maintenance and pest pressure since you get a long dormant...

There are so many interesting perspectives to approach this topic from and today we’re going to hear from two people who turned a personal love of plants into a thriving botanical garden and nursery.  Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano started creating a botanical garden in their backyard 22 years ago by planting native trees, shrubs, perennials and unusual edibles. Soon after they became interested i...

Welcome to a brand new series. Over the next months we’ll be exploring a wide variety of perspectives and knowledge about tree planting, agroforestry, forestry management, and everything to do with woody perennial species.  In the last couple years you’ve probably seen tons of articles and promotions about reforestation and tree planting initiatives around the world. Many of these are tied to spec...

Today is the last episode of the series on building community. Though there remains so much to say on this subject, I wanted to wrap up this endlessly complex and nuanced topic with a discussion about the challenges and learning of integrating into a foreign community. I have a lot of my own thoughts and stories on this, but I also immediately thought to check back in with a friend of mine who’s b...

As we come to the end of this series on building strong communities, I wanted to revisit one of the most impactful conversations I had from last season. Last year you may remember that I released an 11 episode series of expert panels focused on various aspects of regenerative agriculture. In the final panel session I recorded a discussion with Allan Savory, Ana Digón, and Rudolf Buehler all of who...

Over the last decade I’ve begun to see a subcategory of permaculture learning start to gain attention. As more and more people encounter the principles of this ecological design framework and experiment with different ways of applying it in their lives there’s been an emergence of social permaculture to integrate the patterns of nature to tackle inner challenges.  The wonderful book Human Permacul...

As I continue to explore the knowledge and wisdom of people around the world working to build and strengthen their communities, I’ve been uncovering inspiring examples of local initiatives striving for a carbon neutral future. Inspired to act by the global efforts to reduce nonrenewable fuel dependence and to uncouple their essential infrastructure from fossil fuels, communities have taken it upon...

You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click...

Learn more about the Regenerative Media Alliance and our events and resources here! I’m very excited for today’s episode, because it’s been in the works for quite a long time.  For years I’ve been thinking about how to connect with some of the other podcasters and content producers that I’ve admired and learned from. My initial motivation after all was to contribute something to the incredible bod...

In today’s episode I’m going to bring us back to an aspect of strengthening community that I first began to explore in this series with David Holmgren and Charles Marhon. Back then we looked deeply into how suburbs and towns can work at a foundational level to regenerate their communities through civic planning and collaboration through each level of local government.  In today’s episode I spoke t...

You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click...

Today I want to build on the focus of last week’s episode with Morag Gamble in which we explored the challenges and opportunities for environmental and societal regeneration in refugee communities.  One of the people that Morag mentioned in the interview who is also pioneering regenerative work with refugee communities was Natalie Topa. I immediately recognized that name from an inspiring webinar...

Learn more about Morag Gamble's online permaculture training here! As we continue to dive deeper into this series on how to build strong communities I wanted to take the time to try and understand some of the unique challenges of some of the most difficult community circumstances. I’m talking specifically about refugee settlements and communities of displaced people. It’s unfortunately true that c...

Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm journey! Agriculture around the world is at a critical moment. We find ourselves between simultaneous crises in which the long term effects of the pandemic continue to shine a light on the instability of our global food system, all while the war in Ukraine is resulting in a shortage of grain and synthetic ferti...

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver 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...

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 f...

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...

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver 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 mo...

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver 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 th...

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

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 loo...

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! 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...

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 wor...