Regenerative Skills

In this insightful discussion, Sonia Teruel, a consultant and founder of The RegenLAB for Travel, dives deep into the transformation of tourism in Spain. She examines the backlash against unsustainable tourism practices and the pressing need for community-driven approaches. Sonia shares innovative ideas that foster local culture and ecosystem preservation while addressing housing and business concerns in tourist areas. From envisioning a regenerative future to empowering local communities, her insights illuminate a path towards responsible tourism that benefits both visitors and hosts.

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I’ve been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe.  In this session I had the good fortune of introducing Stefan Sobkowiak to our group. Many of you who’ve been listening to this show for a while will remember the last interview I did with Stefan in the last season during the series on agroforestry. Stefan is one of my favorite sources for practical and honest techniques for managing the whole ecology of an orchard from propagating new tree species through maintenance, pest management, harvesting and even processing and marketing your products. His film, the Permaculture Orchard has help people around the world to transition towards diversified, resilient, and more profitable models of running their tree crop businesses. His YouTube channel goes even more in depth as he’s always creating videos about the innovations and even struggles that are going on at his orchard Miracle Farm in Canada.   In this session we cover a lot of ground in a short time. We talk about How to manage pests and diseases by improving soil health and biodiversity in the orchard. How to care for the health of your trees for better yields and profit. Integrating other crops and animals into the system for ecological and economic resilience. And how to adapt common methods to your unique climate and context.  There’s a whole Q&A session that happens after the half hour interview on these skill exchange calls which are exclusive to the Climate Farming network here in Europe. So if you’re interested in attending these calls in person to have your own questions answered by the experts and tap into the growing community of farmers, consultants, and educators around Europe, you can register right now at ClimateFarmers.org

At this point I’ve taken a lot of courses and trainings around water management and earthworks, but I’m still always curious to stay up to date on new takes and styles of working with water and shaping the landscape to optimize water capture on the terrain. I’ve talked to Ben Falk a couple of times in the past and I’ve always enjoyed his take on the need to build deep relationships with the systems we design and build, but in the past we never focused on water. In this episode, I reconnect with Ben, and we dive into water management and his new course on pond design and management. Ben explains the comprehensive focus of the course, covering site evaluation, water storage, pond construction, and long-term maintenance. He discusses the significance of water management in permaculture and restoration, addressing key considerations for pond building, such as erosion control and flood mitigation. The conversation also explores the ecological and culinary potential of ponds, emphasizing their role in enhancing microclimates, providing habitat, and offering diverse food sources. Ben shares insights on how ponds benefit both wet and dry climates by replenishing groundwater and managing floodwaters effectively. The episode highlights the importance of small, decentralized water systems and the myriad ecological benefits ponds offer.

Part of the Climate Farmers Academy series, dedicated to facilitating peer-to-peer learning among farmers transitioning toward regenerative management across Europe. In this episode, experienced practitioners from various European regions share their insights and practical advice on integrating agroforestry into diverse farming contexts. The panel includes Lorenz from Germany, Dmitri based in Portugal, and Joshua from England, who discuss topics such as soil health, plant diversity, tree nursery setups, and the financial aspects of regenerative farming. This episode is a must-watch for anyone interested in enhancing farm resilience and implementing regenerative practices with perennial crop systems.

Today I’ll be kicking off another little series on a topic that’s new to this show, which is regenerative tourism. Both, I and a number of other friends have been noticing a growing animosity and backlash towards tourism in our communities over the last couple of years. It seems that since the rise of short term rentals, and the post COVID surge of travel, we’re hitting a tipping point in what local communities are willing to put up with as more of their culture and ways of life are over run by outside visitors and the industries that cater to them. Now obviously I’m a foreigner to the place where I live, as are many of my friends in different place around the world, so I want to understand this cultural moment from a number of perspectives. One being how people like myself can go beyond the empty promises of sustainable tourism, and visit new places in a way that actually enriches the culture and identity of those locations, and also the other side, where as host communities we can cultivate a relationship and cater to visitors in a way that incentivises this kind of interaction, and goes beyond the extractive tendencies from both sides. Now I’m very new to the nuisances of this topic, but thankfully my friend Charles Van de Kerkhof who has made this topic his specialty for a number of years has been kind enough to connect me to his contacts and guide the questions and concepts in the interviews of this growing series, and you’ll hear from him directly soon enough. Now this first interview will help to set the tone and offer an overview of what we’re trying to explore here, and I feel very fortunate to have gotten a hold of Michelle Holiday to start us off. Michelle is an author, facilitator, consultant & researcher, who For the past 2 decades, has supported pioneering clients across a range of sectors, including tourism & agriculture, to enable the transition to more regenerative systems and structures. Michelle’s research & experience are brought together in her book, The Age of Thrivability: Vital Perspectives & Practices for a Better World, as well as more than 100 articles on themes of thrivability & regeneration. In this conversation, Michelle and I start by building an understanding of her term, thrivability as a concept that we set as a foundation for potential. We then look at the current paradigm of tourism and how it can erode both the value of the places that host visitors as well as cheapen the experiences that travelers are looking for. Through examples from our own travels and experiences Michelle and I look through examples of tourism interactions from different places and where opportunities may have been missed. We analyse both the perspective of travelers as well as hosts to build on a concept of thrivability for both, and Michelle shares case studies of where community led discussions have unlocked greater potential than what may lie on the surface.  By the end you’ll hear about ideas and advice on how you, either as a visitor or a host, can break free of the common narrative of extractive tourism and begin to cultivate a relationship with the other that can enrich everyone involved, including the local environment.

Of all the projects that I've watched develop from the beginning, Jane is the example I most enjoy pointing to when people ask for advice on how to get their projects started with limited resources. Her determination, creativitiy, tenacity, and focus on community are blossoming into a real catalyst for change in her region of western Kenya. 

I’m really excited to share this conversation with all of you today, because Joshua Sparkes not only has a unique perspective on gardening and food production, he also speaks about these topics from a lot of experience and infectious passion. I’ve spoken to tons of farmers and gardeners on this show, and many of them are experts in permaculture, or market gardening, or native plants, or any other specialty, but in Josh’s case, he’s studied in many parts of the world and learned a range of disciplines that he combines in his own unique way to create a truly inspiring and evolving food production system at Birch farm in the UK, that actually doesn’t focus primarily on food growing at all. Before I let him explain that, let’s start at the beginning. Josh was fortunate to grow up in a wild part of Sussex surrounded by forests and meadows. When he finished school He joined the military and served overseas. He says his childhood was often a place he retreated too during hard times and it made him realise that his love came from nature, and so he’s dedicated the last 15 years to make sure he can do his best to support and protect it through his work, which was the beginning of his journey into Natural Farming. In this episode Josh will explain how attending a horticulture program opened doors to travel and learn from farmers and gardeners around the world and how that has shaped his vision for Birch farm. We explore how putting a main focus on increasing biodiversity has evolved into a wild configuration of plants in a small space which includes trees, and species that most consider weeds and pests as part of an integral system which aims to reach a balance through many multiple interconnections rather than eradication or suppression of certain life forms. Josh also explains how principles of natural farming and syntopic agriculture are married with the need to produce vegetables for a farm store and connected restaurant while also providing unique culinary and sensory experiences for customers. Of all the different food production systems that I’ve heard described on this show, I would say that the vision that Josh describes is the most aligned with my own for my own farm, just with much more knowledge and practical experience. 

Welcome to another panel session. I love this format in general, but this panel in particular was a whole lot of fun, because not only did I have my close friends Nick Steiner and Megan Neary on, but I also joined in as a speaker to explore the topic of water management for farmers in a changing climate.    The guiding question we explored was, How can farmers prepare for a changing climate and ensure long-term water resilience? We explored water retention, flood management, and drought resilience—breaking down strategies that help farms thrive despite increasing climate uncertainty. We started by talking about the key changes farmers should expect in the coming decades and how to assess hydrological health on your farm.  From there we went into practical steps to build a holistic water management strategy, and how to navigate the many options available for water retention.    If you’ve been listening for any amount of time, you’ll know me and my friend Nick as we work closely together and have talked about water cycle restoration and our contracting jobs in creating water retention landscapes in many past episodes. Our good friend Megan Neary is new to this show though. She works with Elemental Ecosystems and the Water Stories team as a project technician. With a background in geology and conservation, Megan specializes in reshaping landscapes to improve soil health, enhance biodiversity, and create decentralized water systems. Now there is a whole Q&A session that I chopped for the podcast version, but if you’re interested you can find it on the Climate Farmer’s Youtube channel. 

Today I want to start a fun new series on a topic that I’ve wanted to explore for quite a while, which is the concept of regenerative education. I’ve worked as a teacher and educational facilitator in different capacities since the beginning of my career, first in before and after school programs for kids, then as an arts and environmental educator at summer camps, then English as a second language in both South Korea and Guatemala, and in between teaching various technical workshops in natural building, permaculture, ecosystem restoration, the transition journey to regenerative agriculture, and of course water management and water cycle restoration. Every time I engage in these activities I gain huge respect for teachers and the incredible skill and patience it takes to be an effective educational facilitator. Similarly, I want to continue to grow as a teacher and even improve my skills as a student since I’m also always in some sort of course or other at the same time. I know this is a wide and nuanced topic and so to help me to become oriented to the considerations and scope of what I’m exploring, I reached out to Pavel Cenkl, who is the Academic Dean at Prescott College in Arizona (US) and the Founder of the Regenerative Learning Network. His work focuses on the intersection of transformative learning, community, and ecology and building a more regenerative, resilient, and equitable educational future. He’s also the author of several books including Transformative Learning (with Satish Kumar), “Relational Ecologies: Building Regenerative Community Learning Networks” in Regenerative Ecosystems in the Anthropocene (2023) and “Lessons from the Periphery” in Regenerative Learning (2022). Pavel’s current book in progress is titled Networked Learning: Transforming Higher Education through Distributed Learning. This conversation weaves from the troubles with traditional or conventional educational models and why they leave so many behind, and increasingly in debt, through alternative models of teaching and the potential that educational institutions really have. We explore the role of technology in learning as well as the things the digital world can’t replace. Pavel also give his take on what makes effective educators and a window into their process of creating learning curriculums that are in line with the concept of regenerative education. This is the first in a series of interviews that I’m in the process of planning so if you have any ideas of what questions I should explore or who I should speak to in upcoming interviews, I encourage you to reach out to me through the Regenerative Skills Discord server. 

After 8 years of interviewing people in the regeneration sector, It’s become clear to me that knowledge is not as valuable as experience. Gathering facts, concepts and theories is great up to a point, but until you put those ideas into practice, it’s impossible to know if those ideas clash with your reality, or require adaptation to what’s really going on on the ground. For this reason I was excited to see that Don Hall, who has worked with the transition towns movement in various capacities for 16 years now, has come out with a new book titled, The Regeneration Handbook: Transform Yourself to Transform the World. Don also holds a Master’s in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University, a certification in Permaculture Design from the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute and is currently the Training Coordinator for Transition Network. You can find accounts of much of his work and learnings at his website and blog at evolutionary change.org In this episode a lot of what we explore revolves around the International Transition Network, how it started, and how it's grown to a movement since the early 2000s. We go into Don’s practical experience building the transition movement in both Colorado and Florida, some of the shared priorities of those communities that formed the basis of initiatives and unity that was formed, and how others can participate in creating these kinds of programs in their own communities. We also get into related topics like how transition is as much an internal process as an external community one, and the skills that Don believes we need to relearn in order to live in close knit communities the way that almost everyone used to in recent history.