The RegenNarration

This is an excerpt from episodes 88 and 89, parts 1 and 2 of A Native Grains and Native Mills Resurgence. It features around 15 minutes of each episode, patched together with Rob’s closing lines from the Extra to episode 88. So first up, you’ll hear Rob Pekin and Gaala Watson from the legendary social enterprise Food Connect. We chat about how Gaala and Rob came together here, and the connection b...

Welcome to Part 2 of A Native Grains & Native Mills Resurgence, featuring the young farmers changing the face of farming in Australia. Ian Congdon, Courtney Young and family are farmers, mill makers, artists and business people, and they’re exploring how all this connects with culture, creativity, and the regeneration of country and community. If you haven’t yet listened to last week’s episode...

This is a brief extra to episode 88 with Robert Pekin, founder of the award-winning social enterprise Food Connect. It features 10 minutes where Rob and I continued on briefly after Gaala left. It's well worth the listen for some profound reflections on Rob’s part. Title slide: Robert Pekin (supplied). Music : By Jeremiah Johnson. Find more: Tune into the main episode, ‘A Native Grains &...

You might remember Robert Pekin (with his partner Emma-Kate Rose) from episode 28. Rob’s the founder of Food Connect, the trailblazing social enterprise and legendary community food hub in Brisbane. Since then, plenty has happened at Food Connect. The $2m equity crowd-fund – an Australian first - was successful. And Gaala Watson, a Kungalu and Birri-Gubba Woman born and raised in Brisbane, came on...

This is an excerpt from episode 87 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with the CEO of Commonland, Willem Ferwerda. We pick up our conversation with a question I’ve been looking forward to delving into with Willem for a while – how do we create a regenerative economy that fosters healing of country and restoration of landscapes by its very nature, in the face of cultures and sys...

Willem Ferwerda has an extraordinary background as an ecologist and international policy leader. But a little over a decade ago, after backing over 1,000 conservation projects, he decided to face down the fact that they weren’t making a dent in our slide into mass extinction and ecosystem collapse. He turned towards business and economics, and has since dedicated himself to building practical brid...

This is an excerpt from episode 86 featuring the full gripping 13 minutes of Fate, a track from the new release album by Stephen Jenkinson and key collaborator Gregory Hoskins (with band). We pick up our conversation with 15 minutes or so to go, leading in to that piece of music. We talk Fate, our primordial starting point vs a nostalgia for secretly remaining in charge, and drinking daily from ey...

You might remember that Stephen Jenkinson was my first guest when this podcast changed name to The RegenNarration, back in episode 35. For those who are newer to the podcast, Stephen’s a special presence in the world – a wonderful lyricist and story teller, teacher and ceremonialist, author and farmer. Our last conversation delved into his new book at the time, Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood...

This is an excerpt from episode 85 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Cathy McGowan. We pick things up with the passage that became the opener in the main episode. It heralds a powerful sequence from Cathy, and an insight into what’s bubbling up around the country in the lead up to the next federal election. We then go into how things worked for her, and other increasingly...

Cathy McGowan was the first female independent MP to sit on the Australian parliamentary cross bench. She was elected in 2013 to the federal seat of Indi, which had been an entrenched conservative party seat for 74 years. At the following election, in 2016, she increased her majority, despite the Liberal/National Party coalition going hard to reclaim it. When Cathy bowed out of parliament ahead of...

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...