The RegenNarration

After we’d signed off on our conversation for the podcast, Tony and I kept talking. Thankfully I hadn’t stopped recording, because what followed could have been the first thing we talked about. In some ways, it sums up everything. So here it is. A little of our parting exchange. Starting with a story from the time of Tony's leaving Niger. If you’ve come to this extra first, head over to the m...

Tony Rinaudo AM is the award winning Senior Climate Action Advisor for World Vision, also known as The Forest Maker. This Australian agronomist revolutionized reforestation in Africa, alongside the communities in which he worked, with a system called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). In Niger alone, where the desert was still expanding 20 years ago, around six million hectares of land ha...

This is an extract from the end of my conversation with Open Food Network co-founder, Kirsten Larsen, featuring the story of her personal transformation, and how to get more involved with regenerative food systems. It starts, though, with the story supermarkets trade off – the story of efficiency, economies of scale, and cheap food. And increasingly, to their credit, a story of greening – getting...

Kirsten Larsen is co-founder with partner Serenity Hill of the Open Food Network. It’s a not-for-profit, global collaboration building food distribution systems that are fair, local and transparent. The Network’s flagship open source platform had been successfully enabling ethical food distribution in multiple countries. Now, in the wake of COVID-19, it has gone to a whole new level, as producers...

The only thing limiting the future is the past.” – Zach Bush MD This is a second extract from the end of my conversation with globally renowned physician, Zach Bush MD, picking up from where the previous extract on glyphosate left off. Zach has been startled by our regenerative capacity, since his film Farmer’s Footprint became a global phenomenon. Now the broader project is about to launch - Proj...

“Glyphosate acts as a gateway chemical to all the rest.” – Zach Bush MD This is an extract from my conversation with globally renowned physician, Zach Bush MD, on the notorious and ubiquitous chemical, glyphosate (found in the common herbicide RoundUp). When I first heard Dr Zach Bush talk about the extent of the damage that the chemical glyphosate is doing to the biological underpinnings of life...

Here’s another little extra to my conversation with globally renowned physician, Zach Bush MD.  We chatted a while longer, after our ‘formal’ podcast conversation had ended, about our respective paths in life.  These few minutes inform so much about who Zach is today, so I ended up asking if he’d mind me sharing them here.  With his kind permission, then, here’s a snapshot of Zach’s meandering pat...

In this special extra to episode 62 with globally renowned physician, Zach Bush MD, we continue to delve into the coronavirus pandemic, through the lens of the microbiome.  Zach has found that when you map soil degradation, air pollution and other toxicity over viral outbreaks, the coronavirus starts to look more like a poisoning than an infection. If you’ve come to this special extra first, head...

Zach Bush MD is a renowned, triple board certified physician, and internationally recognized educator on the microbiome, as it relates to human health, soil health, food systems, and a regenerative future. Dr Zach became highly decorated in the medical field, with multiple awards.  Then a growing set of insights built towards a moment of transformation.  His touchstone insight was that we don’t ne...

I feel compelled to post one last extract from the very end of my conversation with the legendary Hunter Lovins - for those who might prefer to listen in ‘chapters’, for those who might not have made it all the way through on first listening, and for those who might be particularly interested in the themes covered here.  And because I’m still deeply moved by how our conversation culminated. This e...

This is a second brief extract from towards the end of my conversation with the legendary Hunter Lovins.  It opens by looking at the tectonic shift that is apparently underway in the capital flows that will back in regenerative economies.  Where banks are already looking at the stranded fossil fuel assets they’re reclaiming and wondering what to do with them.  And where the opportunities on the ot...

"We can roll back climate change." - L. Hunter Lovins This is a brief extract from episode 61 with the legendary Hunter Lovins, on the importance of the bio-regional scale – place and community - in creating regenerative economies.  Especially now. There are a couple of great stories in this short clip, including more of her own - starting here with how she recently took out the Humungou...

Hunter Lovins has been a highly influential figure for many decades in the regenerative economies movement.  She’s a best-selling author, including of the seminal Natural Capitalism, with Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins. She’s also founder and President of Natural Capitalism Solutions, founding Professor of Sustainable Management at the Bard MBA, a pioneering rancher, and Chief of Impact at Change Fi...

This is a brief extract from the end of episode 60 with Matthew Evans, exploring a vision for how we can feed the world (well), in a way that regenerates communities, economies and the planet as a whole. All the more, how we can do it by building on the foundation of where most food is currently produced. Matthew is a farmer and chef at Fat Pig Farm, host of the popular TV series Gourmet Farmer, a...

Matthew Evans is a chef, farmer, host of the popular TV series 'Gourmet Farmer', and most recently the author of ‘On Eating Meat – the truth about its production, and the ethics of eating it’.  The publisher calls it ‘A scorching manifesto on the ethics of eating meat by the best placed person to write about it.’ This is a book and conversation that I’ve so been wanting to have. Whether...

This is a second brief extract, this time from the end of episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller. Eduard is the founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. These closing words from Eduard were so resounding and impactful, they seemed worth sharing in their own discrete package. I've received a number of comments from people strongly moved by t...

This is a brief extract from episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller, founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. It features a part of our conversation that focused on how Regenerate Costa Rica is fast gathering steam, both with local stakeholders and global institutions and networks. Title slide: Rancho Margot, Costa Rica. Eduard describes it as a...

Dr. Eduard Müller is founding President and Rector of la Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional (the University for International Cooperation) in Costa Rica. Eduard was a vet, till a growing sense of responsibility for state of the world, prompted a change of course. He got involved in the sustainability movement of the late 1980s, and after the pivotal Rio Summit in 1992, he went on to fou...

“If, like us, you’re currently steeped in long days of homebound self-isolation, take a look around your dwelling and observe a moment of gratitude. The more topsy-turvy the world outside becomes, the more we can see the importance of a stable place to live, and that housing and health are often the same thing.” - Reasons to be Cheerful article ‘Why Hospitals are Building Housing’. Around the worl...

Alanna Shaikh is a global health systems expert. She delivered a TEDx talk barely 2 weeks ago which has been viewed almost seven million times already across its TED & YouTube sites. On the latter it is titled ‘Coronavirus is our future’. But as much as outlining why that is so, a legacy of the human-induced planetary degradation that has brought COVID-19 upon us, it’s about how we can create...

Jo Chandler is an award-winning Australian journalist, author, editor, and educator. She’s become perhaps Australia’s best and most recognised climate journalist, also authoring the awarded book on the topic, Feeling the Heat. Her most recent Walkley Award, Australia’s highest honour in journalism, was for her ongoing freelance work. Jo’s grappled with media and climate disruption on the front lin...

This special extra to episode 55 features Mike Salvaris continuing his Ministerial and cross-departmental presentation. We pick up with Mike as he moves from his authoritative global overview on the growing movement beyond GDP, to the nature and status of the proposal being made for a Western Australian Development Index. A reminder that a wonderful e-book of this presentation was also published l...

Mike Salvaris is a global leader in the development of measures that go beyond the gross inadequacies of Gross Domestic Product, to give us a better picture of our society’s wellbeing or genuine progress. That is, how we’re tracking against what we actually value most – like quality of life, trustworthy institutions, and the health of our families, communities and the rest of the living world. Mik...

As elite sport resumes amidst the pandemic, the Royal Commission into Australia’s summer fires continues. So it seemed a good time to re-post this conversation with Dr Sheila Nguyen - to celebrate the return of top level sport, and to remember the rest of what sport can and needs to be in these times. This Black Summer in Australia saw a national T20 cricket match cancelled due to smoke, internati...

The summer here in Australia has been witnessed by people around the world, saddened and concerned as they’ve watched this country burn and be subsequently shrouded in heavy palls of smoke. This is a brief introduction to the new year of The RegenNarration, in reference and reverence to all that has happened, and what it means from here. Title slide: Firefighters struggle against the strong wind i...