The RegenNarration

Dr Terry McCosker OAM is the legendary co-founder of RCS Australia. Charles Massy credits RCS as being behind the greatest regenerative agriculture movement in Australia. And throughout its pioneering decades, Pam McCosker has been the unheralded lynch pin. Terry makes no secret of it. Nor did Charles when he wrote in his best-selling Call of the Reed Warbler: “When I look back over the rise of re...

Ross O’Reilly is a former champion regional rugby league coach, real estate agent and restauranteur, all on the way to founding his ultimate vision in 2016 – High Valley Dawn. It carries the label ‘permaculture farm’, but somehow feels like so much more. Think incredible market garden and food forest, deeply restorative work place and learning centre, grazing animals and thriving community, with a...

Dr Amanda Cahill is the CEO of The Next Economy. I feel like I’ve already introduced Amanda to you, given how often she’s come up in conversations here. And you might even recognise her from Damon Gameau’s film 2040, or more recently on the ABC’s Q&A program. Amanda’s work at The Next Economy supports communities, government, industry and others to develop a more resilient, just and regenerati...

Jodie Jackson is an author, yoga practitioner and media campaigner. Her first book is titled ‘You Are What You Read: why changing your media diet can change the world’. “Information is to the mind, what food is to the body”, she says. And after becoming a mother, and seeing the news affect even her small children, she wrote the children’s book ‘Little Ruffle and The World Beyond’. All this stemmed...

This special extra with Kristy Stewart features 20 additional minutes or so from our conversation. We went on here to talk about innovative enterprise development and next generation opportunities, and working with government and communities to help open these up. On the one hand, we talked changes to zoning and other regulations that inhibit young people and others joining in with value-add enter...

Kristy Stewart is a regenerative farmer, free-diver, and next generation community leader. Kristy is already impressing audiences, students and other farmers around the country. And in a sense, it’s no surprise, given her pioneering family stock. Her father is Andrew Stewart, award-winning co-founder with Rowan Reid, in 1993, of the world-renowned Otway Agroforestry Network, in the south-east of A...

Kate Fenech is an impressive 15 year old student who’s found herself part of the extraordinary SS4C movement (the School Strikes for Climate), with growing passions for marine science and regenerative farming. I met her when we were both late conscripts to a premiere screening of Regenerating Australia in Busselton, WA, that ended up becoming a unique post-film dialogue. The film’s director, Damon...

Dr Valerie Brown is a Visiting Professor at the renowned Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, and an international figure in the field of collective thinking, with a list of awards and accolades as long as your leg. But what brought me to her door was hearing doyen of regenerative agriculture, Charlie Massy, defer to her over the years. Charles was among...

Today’s episode features the legendary author, advisor and media producer, Hazel Henderson. Hazel has had such a big impact on so many, including yours truly. In my case, it has stemmed from over two decades following her work, and two hours of unhurried conversation for this podcast back in 2019. At the end of that conversation, Hazel invited me to visit if ever I was in Florida. And though I hav...

Jade Miles is an author, podcaster, farmer, organiser, speaker, and a few other things besides. I first came across Jade’s podcast, Futuresteading, back when it started. Then last year, the visual extravaganza of Futuresteading the book came along - sub-titled ‘live like tomorrow matters: practical skills, recipes and rituals for a simpler life’. It draws on Jade’s family life at Black Barn Farm –...

 You might remember Ian Congdon and Courtney Young from one of the great stories we heard about last year, on how this young family is changing the face of farming - and milling - in Australia. That’s through their incredibly delicious enterprise Woodstock Flour, and Courtney’s spectacular art. As it happens, our conversation last year took place on the day they finished building the first Austral...

This is a profound personal and collective story right at the heart of systemic and cultural change. Serenity Hill and Kirsten Larsen are regenerative farmers and co-founders of the Open Food Network. You might remember my conversation with Kirsten online two years ago, as Covid took hold, and Open Food Network took off. At that stage, they’d experienced a tenfold increase in both people signing u...

Paul Cleary is a best-selling author and journalist who’s just written an incredible book – certainly a must read for any Aussie, and every West Aussie, with implications that arguably extend far beyond. It’s called ‘Title Fight: How the Yindjibarndi battled and defeated a mining giant’. The back cover bills it as ‘a David and Goliath story set in the ancient landscape of the Pilbara’. That’s in t...

Jane Slattery is the co-founder, with Diane and Ian Haggerty, of natural intelligence farming – underpinning what Charles Massy has called their ‘world breakthrough’ operation. And to hear Di an Ian defer to Jane in many ways, had me so looking forward to meeting her. Then, earlier this year, I happened to be near Jane’s neck of the woods in South Australia, hosting one of the Planet Talks at WOMA...

This extra to episode 123, with the legendary Fred Provenza, delves into more of the metaphysical context of everything we spoke about in the main episode. We traverse the spectra of collapse and regeneration, and how we can live well in all that, here and now. There are some profound stories of personal transformation here – and an ultimate convergence of mythology and mysticism with his life’s w...

Professor Fred Provenza is the legendary behavioural ecologist and author who has revolutionised how we understand the nature of animal health and intelligence, and its connection to our human health and intelligence. This includes the regenerative role of livestock, in all sorts of ways. And through his own deep personal trials and transformations, Fred has come to embody this knowledge in ways t...

Damon Gameau, the award-winning director of That Sugar Film and 2040, toured his new film Regenerating Australia around Western Australia’s south a few weeks ago. Joining him on the panel in Leederville, inner-city Perth, was highly regarded First Nations woman Heidi Mippy, Natural Intelligence Farming co-founder Dianne Haggerty, and me. Ballardong Noongar man, Oral McGuire, who you’ll have heard...

This extra to episode 121 follows how election day unfolded with Kate Chaney, in the now independent seat of Curtin. You’ll hear the growing atmosphere on the day, culminating in an extraordinary night, with powerful words from Kate that give great insight into the building of a community, and a campaign. We start at the local polling booth, and hear from Kate early on. Then it’s on to the Claremo...

Kate Chaney has become the first female independent MP from Western Australia to be elected to the Australian parliament – along with a whopping eleven other independents. A year ago to the day on this podcast, Cathy McGowan – Australia’s first female independent MP in 2013 – talked of the potential to transform politics in this country by 2030. Merely a year on, and that transformation is well un...

Tony Rinaudo instigated what’s been called “probably the largest positive environmental transformation in the Sahel and perhaps in all of Africa." They call him The Forest Maker, but Tony will tell you the transformation was really in the people, starting with himself. I had this conversation with Tony back in 2020, and have never forgotten it. It’s one of those stories you wish everyone knew...

Kim Paul Nguyen is a multimedia journalist and filmmaker. He recently produced a documentary film called ‘Conversations with Coal Miners about Climate Change’, funded by the Walkley Foundation and distributed by VICE. And what a film. Damon Gameau, the award-winning filmmaker of 2040, That Sugar Film, and most recently Regenerating Australia, calls it a ‘must-watch’. In many ways, there is no more...

Agostino Petroni is a journalist, author, economist, gastronome, and 2021 Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow. His work appears in National Geographic, BBC, The Atlantic and many more. I first came across it in Reasons to be Cheerful, the terrific news outlet founded by one of my all-time favourite musicians and producers, David Byrne. That outlet is part of a growing movement sometimes called ‘solut...

A lost and angry childhood spawned a champion boxer, and out of this, a community leader. And fifteen years ago, Eugene Eades became the backbone of the incredible restoration of Country at Nowanup - inland of Bremer Bay in the south of Western Australia. This is a particularly privileged conversation on Country at Nowanup, with this legendary Aboriginal elder. Eugene might move a little slower th...

Louise O’Neill is a British-born holistic health professional and farmer. She met husband Warren as a backpacker, and now with their two sons, they’ve embarked on a gutsy, vivid and transformative journey. The O’Neills were farmers in the wheatbelt of Western Australia, but reached a point where the tribulations and toxicity of that life were literally hitting them in the face. When a tractor brea...

Part 2 of this episode with Tanya Massy was recorded in two locations. The first half was recorded back at the farm in Western Australia, on that hay bale. We delved further into Tanya’s deep personal journey of leaving Severn Park and starting up a new farming enterprise on the other side of the country. That was recorded back in January, as that enterprise was just going to market. Then came hea...