Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

Growing Growers and Seeding Leaders for a Real Food Future What happens when green turns to grey? Fewer than 5 percent of 2 million American farmers are under 45 years old. Bucking that trend is the next generation of unstoppable young farmers Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Tyler Webb, and Sarita Role Schaffer, along with renowned urban food innovator Nikki Henderson and real food advocate Amin Steele. With dirt under their nails and laptops at their fingertips, theyre reinventing a radical patriotism founded in a return to local agriculture and community. It runs on clean energy and knows how to move markets. It seeks greater self-sufficiency, self-determination and food justice, and the checkout line is the pulpit.

From North America to the Kalahari, Jeannette Armstrong, Marlowe Sam, Evan Pritchard, Kxao=Oma and Megan Biesele share powerful stories of how indigenous social technologies have succeeded in resolving conflict, and still are.

What might happen when the descendants of a white slave trader and of slaves meet? That is the brave and wrenching journey of Thomas DeWolf , whose white ancestors were once the nation’s biggest slave traders, and Belvie Rooks and Dedan Gills , descendants of enslaved African people.

Climate change is more than an “issue.” According to renowned author and activist Naomi Klein, “It’s a civilizational wake-up call delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts.” She says it demands that we challenge the dominant economic policies of deregulated capitalism and bottomless resource extraction. She describes the transnational Blockadia movement that’s opposing fossil fuels and warns about geo-engineering fantasies. Canadian Indigenous leader Clayton Thomas-Muller of Idle No More reports from the front lines of the Native-led rights based movement to stop the drilling of the Canadian Tar Sands.

"What I’d like to do is to be able to bring the possibility for hope and healing to people everywhere who need it. And to engage people in helping and healing themselves and each other, and to create the opportunity for them to do that." Brain research is revealing astounding insights into the mechanisms of post-traumatic stress and neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to be rewired and re-trained. The world today is ravaged by traumas – from war, privation and economic crashes to natural disasters and ongoing environmental degradation. In response, world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. James S. Gordon of the Center for Mind Body Medicine has trained thousands of teachers globally to advance ancient mind-body healing techniques of self-care to reconnect each individual with his or her own nature, with family and community, and with the natural world. The results are impressive. What might happen if we approach healing the environment from the inside out?

New, democratized access to powerful analytical and mapping tools is transforming our understanding of the natural world – and with it, our ability to meaningfully conserve, protect and restore our collective home – the biosphere. In this program, we explore the boundless possibilities of digital maps and platforms with Rebecca Moore, visionary founder of Google Earth Outreach and Google Engine.

Queen of the forest canopy” Nalini Nadkarni is riding a new current of innovative scientists uncovering previously unexplored wonders in the forest canopy. Her imaginative passion supersedes the boundaries of science to inspire and enlist people from all walks of life, transforming the truth of trees into environmental and social healing.

Calling someone an “animal” means they’re less than human – not worthy of respect, rights, or even of life itself. But in truth -- and in biological fact -- human beings ARE animals. Scientists continue to find that intelligence and what we call “consciousness” appear to saturate all of nature. Clearly it’s high time to think differently about just what it means to be an animal. Can we know what it’s like to be other-than-human? How can we see into the minds of animals? Visionary naturalist, author and conservationist Carl Safina says that the first step is paying attention and observing. And, he suggests, if we had humility, we’d have everything.

Small farmers around the world are building an agro-ecological revolution based on self-sufficiency, food security, and freedom from fossil fuels and corporate control. In this program, we hear from two visionary agroecology innovators. Miguel Altieri is an agroecologist and entomologist at UC Berkeley who’s showing how farmers who embrace agroecology are building a movement based on self-sufficiency, food security and freedom from fossil fuels and corporate control. Alex Eaton is the founder of “Sistema Bio”. This game-changing company helps farmers implement a simple technology that converts waste to energy, builds healthy soils, and holds the promise of massively reducing greenhouse gases and lifting people out of poverty.

As we hurtle into the Sixth Age of Extinctions, we face the cataclysmic loss of half the world’s biological diversity. 80% of the remaining biodiversity is on Indigenous lands. Ethnobotanist and Indigenous rights advocate Mark Plotkin of the Amazon Conservation Team tells us how scientists are helping protect the people who will protect the land, and the age-old wisdom that’s imperative for our future.