The RegenNarration

We're back at the magnificent Ningaloo Reef for a couple of firsts - the first conversation in person for the year, and a world first collaboration aiming for the survival of the world’s coral reefs, and the communities that depend on them. Dr Peter Barnes is the Marine Park Coordinator at Ningaloo Reef – one of five World Heritage listed coral reefs. Australia is blessed with the responsibility for two of these – the other being the Great Barrier Reef – which only serves to heighten the importance of the work Peter and co. are doing here. One of Peter’s newest colleagues is Joel Johnsson. Joel is the Chief Resilience Officer recently appointed at Ningaloo for the global Resilient Reefs Initiative.Of course, coral reefs have been resilient systems for ages – inter-woven with traditional cultures. But the scale of damaging human impact is now jeopardising their existence. Even at 1.5 degrees global warming, the IPCC expects the coral reefs of the world would be largely wiped out. In other words, even the best-case target set by the Paris agreement would risk the annihilation of some of the world’s greatest wonders. And one of its greatest generators of human wellbeing, prosperity and meaning.In that context, the Resilient Reefs Initiative is taking a holistic approach – with people at its heart. How can human communities and agencies recreate the way we live with coral reefs, to enhance the resilience of the whole? We’ll need greenhouse gas emission targets met in accordance with the Paris agreement, for a start. And in all likelihood the carbon drawdown efforts we’ve been talking about on this podcast, with regenerative agriculture and other holistic management practices. Alongside these efforts, the timing and delivery of Resilient Reefs is seen as critical to the survival of the world’s coral reefs, and the enormous variety of human and other life that thrives with them. And you’ll hear some breaking news on how the traditional custodians remain central to it.To talk about it, Pete, Joel and I sat down at Jansz Beach, overlooking Ningaloo.Title slide pic: Ningaloo Reef, by Joel Johnsson. You’ll find some other brilliant pics of the Reef by Joel on the episode website.With thanks to the Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions for enabling this conversation.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro OrchestraOn the Punt, by Adam Gibson and The Aerial Maps.  Find more:The global Resilient Reefs Initiative. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is an extract from the end of my conversation with Tony Rinaudo, the award-winning Senior Climate Action Advisor for World Vision, aka The Forest Maker. We talk about his global vision, how societies can come to read the land again, and how the extraordinary summer bushfires triggered a major new global collaboration recently launched in Australia. But it was the story Tony told of a truth and reconciliation process in Africa that perhaps holds the key to all of it.Title slide: the moment of Tony’s epiphany, in the early 1980’s (credit unknown).Find more:You can listen to the full conversation with Tony in the main episode 64 - The Forest Maker: And the largest positive environmental transformation in Africa, with Tony Rinaudo AM.You’ll find a link there to a 5 minute special extra too, featuring a short story from the time of Tony’s departure from Niger: ‘We Were Nothing (the trees were almost a side-event)’.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 main episode 64 to hear the rest of my conversation with Tony Rinaudo AM (link below).Title slide: Halidou, from the village of Gangara, sitting among the trees (pic: Tony Rinaudo).Find more:You can listen to the full conversation with Tony in the main episode 64 - The Forest Maker: And the largest positive environmental transformation in Africa, with Tony Rinaudo AM.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 have been restored. Having spread to 24 countries in Africa, Tony’s vision is for it to reach 100 countries around the world this decade, and he’s not alone. The movement is fast spreading globally.The transformation in Niger has been called "probably the largest positive environmental transformation in the Sahel and perhaps in all of Africa," by internationally acclaimed environmental specialist Chris Reij. Though Tony will tell you the transformation was in the people first, starting with himself. He’ll also tell you that the solutions found in Africa worked because they were low-cost, rapid and scalable. And that the lessons he learnt living on the edge of the Sahara Desert relate to so much of what the rest of the world needs today.Recognition for Tony’s decades of pioneering work has come in the form of multiple awards including the Commandeur de Merite, Agricole, Rep. du Niger, and the Right Livelihood Award. The latter was “for demonstrating on a large scale how drylands can be greened at minimal cost, improving the livelihoods of millions of people.” The Award went on to say, “What Rinaudo has created is much more than an agricultural technique, he has inspired a farmer-led movement.”So “what would be possible if all stakeholders—donors, scientists, governments, policy makers, business, NGOs, traditional and religious leaders and farmers—partnered and were serious about land restoration? Technically, there is no reason why simultaneously 5 million hectares of land could not be restored in multiple countries within five years.”Title slide: Tony Rinaudo (pic: Silas Kosh). You’ll find some other photos on the website, including the very moment Tony had his epiphany.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:FMNR Hub.The Forest Maker book.A special 5 minute Extra.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 better with waste, for example. But the model is still seeing the costs of cheap food being borne by farmers, landscapes, and public health.  How it works is extremely opaque.  And when crisis hits, supply chains have shown themselves to be highly vulnerable. In the end, this is a price we all pay.  So what’s the new story?  One that doesn’t play off farmers and landscapes against vulnerable eaters reliant on low cost food?  One whose supply chains don't fall in a heap when we need them most?  And one that ultimately generates more equitable, effective and regenerative distribution systems?Title slide photo: Network co-founders Serenity Hill (left) and Kirsten Larsen (right) with their two children; supplied.Get more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in episode 63, Food Unincorporated: How a grass roots system went global, with Open Food Network co-founder Kirsten Larsen - https://www.regennarration.com/episodes/063-food-unincorporated Thanks to you, our generous supporters, for making this podcast possible. If you too value what you hear, and you have the capacity at this time, please consider joining them, by heading to our website at https://www.regennarration.com/support. Thanks for helping to keep the show going.Get in touch any time by text or audio at https://www.regennarration.com/story Thanks for listening!Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 look for alternative ways to sell quality produce, and eaters look for alternative ways to access it. The Network reports a tenfold increase in people signing up to the platform, and a tenfold increase in turnover. This grass roots initiative now spans 13 countries, and continues to grow. As the greeting on the Open Food Network website puts it: Food Unincorporated - sometimes the best way to fix the system is to start a new one. Kirsten is a farmer herself, and an Honorary Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, at the University of Melbourne. She sees her work as focused on the complex challenges of sustainability and resilient food systems, and on the design and implementation of responses that also support healthy communities and regional economic development.Kirsten was kind enough to join me online from her home in Violet Town, Victoria, Australia. Title slide: from the Shepparton News (pic: Megan Fisher).Recorded on Friday 12 June 2020.Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:Open Food Network.Moving Feast.The international award the Network won.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

The only thing limiting the future is the past.” – Zach Bush MDThis 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 - Project Biome. Its mission? No less than the universal adoption of regenerative agricultural, medical and related systems around the world. The first half of this extract explores how it’s to be done, and the second half features some of Zach’s personal reflections on how he keeps at it, and how we can all be a part of it.  Title slide photo: Leia Vita, supplied.Music:Jeremiah Johnson.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode 62, Launching Project Biome: A changing paradigm of human and planetary health, with Zach Bush MD. Non-toxic Neighborhoods.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

“Glyphosate acts as a gateway chemical to all the rest.” – Zach Bush MDThis 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 on Earth, it sank in me like a stone. Zach charts a bit of the chemical’s history here, we share a very personal conversation on its neurological impacts, and examine the patterns those impacts share with other chronic diseases. Then, of course, we explore the way out of this catastrophe – nature’s invitation to co-create the return of human and planetary health. More on this topic, from the show notes of the main episode 62: Dr Zach Bush’s work charts the intimate, absolute connection between humans and humous – the earth and its soil. The soil and our gut are sisters, you could say, and carbon is our best mate. And while we flirt with superbugs and the ‘end of antibiotics’, we are courting what may even be greater disaster with the chemical glyphosate. Glyphosate’s touted strength of being water soluble appears to be proving the undoing of no less than the integrity of our physiological being – implicated in our epidemics of cancer, auto-immune issues and neurological conditions.Title slide photo: by Leia Vita, supplied.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in episode 62, Launching Project Biome: A changing paradigm of human and planetary health, with Zach Bush MD. You can also hear what regenerative farmer and best-selling author Charles Massy AO had to say about glyphosate, in the extra to our conversation for episode 32, Cultivating Regeneration from Industrial Wastelands. It also comes up in my conversation with SBS TV’s Gourmet Farmer, Matthew Evans, for episode 60, when talking about fake meat. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 path to medicine, through magical realism, traumatic awakenings, and deep grace.If you’ve come to this extra first, head over to the main episode 62 to hear the rest of my conversation with Zach Bush MD (link below).Title slide photo: supplied.Music:Stones & Bones, by Owls of the SwampFind more:Listen to the main episode 62, Launching Project Biome: A changing paradigm of human and planetary health, with Zach Bush MD. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

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 over to the main episode 62 to hear the rest of my conversation with Zach Bush MD (link below).Find more:Listen to the main episode 62, Launching Project Biome: A changing paradigm of human and planetary health, with Zach Bush MD.Music:By Jeremiah Johnson. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!