The RegenNarration

What to do when your prominent low-lying coastal city starts to go underwater, nigh on weekly on average, already? Charleston, South Carolina, is served by The Post and Courier. It runs a series called the Rising Waters Lab. And a couple of months ago, it featured a story titled, ‘The Southeast’s first urban eco-corridor aims to connect fragmented habitats in Charleston’. Welcome to The MARSH Proj...

Today we continue the new series Vignettes from the Source, featuring some of the unforgettable, transformative moments my guests have shared over the years. This one is from a little over three years ago. It’s the first and last six minutes or so, bridged together, of my very first conversation with Kate Chaney . Kate was to become, just a few months later, the 7th new community independent – and...

In the landscape of Australian politics, something remarkable is brewing from the ground up. The community independents movement has evolved from a rural experiment to a nationwide phenomenon, reinvigorating democracy in my home country. At its heart, this movement isn’t about profile candidates, big funding or big media, but communities deciding they deserve better representation, and doing somet...

A couple of episodes ago, I launched a new series on the podcast, Vignettes from the Source, to feature some of the unforgettable moments my guests have shared over the years. Continuing the series today then, is a passage of 7 or 8 minutes from my conversation with award winning filmmaker and photographer, Nicol Ragland . Longer term listeners might remember, Nicol was behind the very first Farme...

Welcome to the fourth and final part of this special on-location recording with the 'land whisperer', Patrick MacManaway, in Burlington, Vermont. ICYMI, the full episode was played more than most in its early days, but given it was a little over two and a half hours in length, I also wanted to offer it in distinct parts, for those of you who prefer to listen to it that way. There have be...

Welcome to part 3 of this special on-location recording with the 'land whisperer', Patrick MacManaway, in Burlington, Vermont. ICYMI, the full episode was played more than most in its early days, but given it was a little over two and a half hours in length, I also wanted to offer it in distinct parts, for those of you who prefer to listen to it that way. There have been plenty of takers...

We've forgotten the earth is alive, and it's killing us. That was one of the title prospects my podcast host served up for today's release. Another was 'reimagining our connection to land'. They're fair hints at part 2 of this special on-location recording with the 'land whisperer', Patrick MacManaway.  ICYMI, the full episode was played more than most in it...

Last week's episode featured a special on-location recording with the land whisperer, Patrick MacManaway. It has been played more than most in its first week, but given it was a little over two and a half hours in length, I also wanted to offer it in distinct parts, for those of you who prefer to listen to it that way.  Perhaps 40 minutes or so fits into your usual listening window better, or...

Welcome to a very special and unique episode. Previous guest on this podcast, Terry McCosker, co-founded RCS Australia 35 years ago. Fellow Australian legend and podcast guest, Charles Massy , is best-selling author of Call of the Reed Warbler. In that book he wrote, “When I look back over the rise of regenerative agriculture in Australia, I see at the forefront Terry and Pam McCosker and their RC...

The world isn't broken, it's trying to save you. That's where this one starts. But first, a couple of announcements. One, the launch of a new series on the podcast called Vignettes from the Source. And two, 5x New York Times best-selling author and great friend of the podcast, Paul Hawken, has his extraordinary new book, Carbon: The Book of Life , out now on pre-sale (with a few cop...

Welcome to a special 250th episode of the podcast! Are we on the cusp of a revolution in the nutritional content of our food? One that could change everything? Dan Kittredge thinks so. And he’s about to launch his next global effort to that end.  When you get a chance to speak with the man who’s been called the global steward of nutrient density in food, the man who developed the very term ‘nutrie...

‘School of Rock’ meets ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Damon Gameau, director of award-winning, chart-topping documentary films 2040 , and That Sugar Film , takes eight kids on the ultimate school excursion: a road trip across Europe to challenge powerful leaders and find solutions to our greatest challenges. That’s how the bill reads for Damon’s new feature documentary film, Future Council .  The group’...

Last month I had the honour of being a guest on the podcast of the legendary independent US media outlet Mongabay . It was a unique conversation, with US-born host Mike DiGirolamo based in Sydney, and me over here in the Americas, talking about some highlights from the seven months me and the family spent travelling across the USA last year, and relating it back to the seven years we’d travelled a...

Welcome to a new year and new series of The RegenNarration! You might remember me talking last year with prominent author, documentary maker and farmer at Fat Pig Farm , Matthew Evans, in the lead up to the new festival he’s founded back home in Australia, called GROUNDED : the Food and Soil Festival . Well, that festival happened in early December, and a couple of weeks later I got back online wi...

Time to take a punt this year! I've just launched a Substack . Essentially, after 25 years in international and community development, and nearly a decade creating TheRegenNarration podcast, I began to feel something missing – the stories between the stories. The ones that don’t get on the podcast. And the ones that connect it all up - the themes, the people, the places. I started to wonder i...

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...