The RegenNarration

Clinton Walker is a Ngarluma/Yindjibarndi man and Traditional Custodian of Murujuga (or Burrup Peninsula), on the north-west coast of Australia. You might recall my conversations with archaeologist Peter Veth and the co-authors of Songlines, Lynne Kelly and Margo Neale . They all related back to this place – where the Songlines start, as Clinton puts it. So as my family and I headed south from the...

Jess Beckerling was Campaign Director of the WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) when we had this conversation (she’s currently put all aside to stand at the 2025 WA state election ). Jess is a highly respected figure in the southern reaches of Western Australia, by both those who would traditionally have prioritised conservation, and those who might not have. I spoke with Jess back in July 2021 for the Cle...

Simon Wallwork and Cindy Stevens live with their three kids on a farm in Corrigin, in WA’s wheatbelt. In 2019 they joined a group of other producers to found AgZero2030 , an agriculture-led movement progressing positive action on climate. Their goal? That agriculture achieves net zero emissions by 2030, and the drawdown of emissions after that. In other words, that agriculture go from being a key...

Stephen King is the founder, CEO and Head Installer of the Australian Insulation Foundation of WA (AIFWA). While working in his insulation business, Stephen found social housing tenants were desperately in need of insulation, but had no means of getting it. So he set up a charity, added a little premium to his main service, and provided housing insulation for social housing tenants free of charge....

A brief but profoundly beautiful bonus episode of previously unreleased material with Maria Novac. Maria was a single mum with a family who had unexpectedly found herself in need of social housing, and landed in a neglected hot box. A chance encounter resulted in her becoming one of the social housing recipients whose life was transformed by Stephen King and the Australian Insulation Foundation. I...

Dale Tilbrook is a much-loved native food specialist, educator, and passionate Aboriginal tourism advocate. Like a lot of Australia at the time of this recording, Dale was immersed in a delayed NAIDOC Week , during COVID, celebrating the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. She also continues to work towards a big vision for First Nations people, and...

Today, a brief bonus featuring material from my conversation with Shannon Leigh that never saw the light of day, partly due to the wind that blew in, and partly due to Clean State’s mandate for shorter episodes. But it’s worth the listen, with reference to one of Australia’s much loved satirical shows on ‘nation-building’, Utopia. If you’ve come here first, tune into the main episode with Shannon...

Shannon Leigh is co-founder and Director of Streets for People , and previously an award-winning urban and transport planner at the Department of Transport and later Curtin University. Investment in active transport is one of the most livelihood-rich, climate-friendly measures available. And given cost blow-outs in public health, climate related damage, and car dominated infrastructure, it’s anoth...

You might recognise Dr Vanessa Rauland from the renowned ABC TV series Fight for Planet A . Vanessa’s the co-founder with Alexander Karan of ClimateClever , one of a growing number of WA social enterprises that have been realising some of the enormous opportunities in our energy transition. When I spoke with Vanessa for this podcast, a few years ago, the ClimateClever team had nearly doubled in th...

Professor Gary Kendrick’s great love is the WA coastline and its seagrasses. Gary and colleagues have been at the forefront of seagrass restoration and the blue carbon movement more broadly. And with such a massive extent of coastline featuring globally significant carbon stores, world heritage sites, and deep community and cultural knowledge, the potential for WA – and beyond - is enormous. Gary...

A brief bonus featuring part of my conversation with Chantal Caruso that never saw the light of day, due to Clean State’s mandate for shorter episodes. A poignant moment occurred at the launch of The Clean State Plan, with a group of First Nations people there expressing concern at the impending renewables revolution. It raised an important question - how do we transition energy systems without re...

As introduced last week, today launches a special festive season series of the Clean State Stories. This was a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that...

A brief new year's greeting from Guatemala, to herald a special festive season series of short episodes.  Around four years ago, some of you might remember I produced a series of nine episodes for an organisation called Clean State WA. That became the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, that organisation is no more, but the...

Welcome to the customary package of highlights from another brilliant array of guests throughout 2024, accompanied by some of the music and sounds of Country heard along the way – this time across two continents, 49 episodes and 78 guests, from all walks of life. Listening to it all together in one place last night was just incredible. I hope you enjoy it too. You’ll hear a little from me first, w...

A few weeks ago I released a podcast marking the premiere of an episode of Australian Story that featured the incredible story of regeneration at the hands of the Henggeler family at Kachana Station . Many of you already know the story, from its popularity on this podcast . Well, that Australian Story has gone onto well over half a million views already. And no sooner had it gone out than I got th...

On the morning of Wednesday the 27th of November, I got the news that the legendary Carol Sanford had died . You might remember the conversation I was privileged to share with her at the start of last year, for our 150th episode . Carol knew she was dying, so much was getting difficult or impossible for her, and even speaking was tough, as Motor-Neuron Disease (as we call it in Australia) was taki...

This week we’re back with Chloe Maxmin , for a debrief that has been eagerly awaited – by me and many of you, I know – on how the Dirtroad candidates went at the recent US elections, and where to from here. For those who didn’t catch Chloe in episode 225 last month , from up at the farm in Maine, Chloe became the first Democrat ever to represent Maine House District 88, and the youngest member of...

The Regenerate conference in Denver a couple of weeks ago was like no conference I’d experienced in the ‘regen ag’ / food systems space. Such a presence of next generations, women and varied cultures amongst the 500 attendees. And multiple moments of crazy serendipity. It also started the day after the US federal election. So the air was heavy with emotion and uncertainty, when Sarah Wentzel-Fishe...

One of the most remarkable stories of regeneration on this podcast – still the second most listened to episode - featured in a landmark ABC TV special back home last week. One of Australia’s best journalists, Walkley-award winner Ben Cheshire, pulled together the story of Kachana Station, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, for one of Australia’s most loved, influential and long...

When we were in New York recently, I dropped by to visit Douglas Rushkoff at his Queens College office. For those who don’t recall Douglas from his previous times on this podcast , he’s a media professor, documentary-maker, host of the Team Human podcast, and best-selling author of 20 books - including the updated edition of Program or Be Programmed, out now, with particular additions around AI. T...

This is a bonus extra to episode 228, featuring the Q&A that took place after the film screening of Rural Runners in the Shepherdstown Opera House , West Virginia. That award-winning film is the story of Chloe Maxmin’s incredible community-based electoral wins in Maine from episode 225 . By Chloe’s side every step of the way was her best mate, and then campaign manager, Canyon Woodward , with...

“I've had several folks share with me that they are voting for Trump. But they're also voting for me.” That’s what Lucia Valentine told me when I spoke with her and another first-time candidate for the State of West Virginia at the coming elections, Maria Russo . This seemed to say so much about the coming elections here. For a start, that they’re far from as simplistic, binary and polar...

‘The biggest strides in hemp-crete construction are going down on one of the smallest reservations in America.’ That’s how the bill reads on Patagonia Film’s latest production, The Green Buffalo, launching online globally today . It’s referring to the Lower Sioux Indian Community, on the southern bank of the Minnesota River about 100 miles SW of Minneapolis. Turns out we had driven close by after...

In some ways, the first 150 seconds of this excerpt from episode 226 with Bill Pluecker (alongside partner Chloe Maxmin), say everything that needs to be said about where politics is being done better in the US. They sum with the passage that became the lead-off quote in that episode. And they lead off this powerful last ten minutes or so of my conversation with Bill. Bill, an independent represen...

 The last 20 minutes or so of my conversation in episode 225 with Maine’s youngest ever female senator, Chloe Maxmin, has stayed with me since its release. And I’ve heard from a few of you saying similar. So in the interest of not letting it be too ephemeral with the passing podcast feed, this excerpt from that episode features that 20 minutes. We unpack the inspiring and transformative journey be...