The RegenNarration

Listeners last year might remember our series produced on location in the spectacular Kimberley region of Western Australia. This year, the Kimberley is coming to us – through an award-winning documentary film that premiered nationwide in February. It’s called Undermined: Tales from the Kimberley. Australia’s vast Kimberley region is under threat, with the ‘old industrial’ model of mining, pastoralism and irrigated agriculture driving an unprecedented land grab. The film investigates the politics of an area now forebodingly branded ‘the future economic powerhouse of Australia’, including what this means for the country’s First People and their unique cultural landscapes.The world premiere sold out all screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival in late 2018, and it’s been cleaning up awards at film festivals around the country since. Young Aboriginal leader Albert Wiggan is a key protagonist and co-producer of the film. He’s also an Indigenous Ranger, sits on a number of boards including the Kimberley Land Council, and is a world class musician who has toured with the likes of John Butler. In this watershed moment, he sees opportunity for a ‘meaningful conversation’ about a future that is more fitting for the Kimberley, and beyond. Anthony caught up with Albert just after he’d introduced the West Australian premiere to a full house in Perth. Music:Let Them Know, by Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Listen to the special Extra for this episode, featuring Q&A with Albert after the premiere screening.On the film. On Albert.Get involved.  You can also listen to last year’s series on location in the Kimberley - episodes 21, 22 and 25.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!

We’re signing off for the year with an episode of highlights from our wonderful array of guests throughout 2018. With sincere thanks for tuning in, continuing to share and rate the podcast, and of course for donating and supporting its production. It couldn’t happen without you. Thanks also for getting in touch throughout the year to tell us how much you’ve valued the podcast, and what you’d like to hear in future. It’s been great to see our listener numbers spike this year, and even more fulfilling to hear how the stories are landing and what the podcast means to you. Thank you very much! Have a wonderful festive season and we hope to join you again for a regenerative new year.Track list:2018 Theme, featuring Let Them Know, by Public Opinion Afro Orchestra (& a range of guests from 2017)Paul Hawken (ep 13), accompanied by Gone Clear, from the album Modern Country by William TylerFrances Jones & David Pollock from Wooleen Station (ep 16), recorded live in MelbourneTim Winton (ep 17), with ocean sounds at Ningaloo ReefDenise Fitch (ep 18)Evan Pensini (ep 19)Mary Crooks (ep 20)Dr Anne Poelina (ep 21)Song for the Mardoowarra, by Gwen Knox in collaboration with Anne Poelina, played by Mick Stevens, and sung by the Broome Primary School ChoirMartin Pritchard (ep 22)Richard Heinberg (ep 23) Frank Fisher (ep 24)Chris Henggeler (eo 25)Jacqueline Henggeler (ep 25 Extra)Dr Mary Graham (ep 26)Moira Lanzarin (ep 27)Emma-Kate Rose (ep 28) Katherine Trebeck (ep 29)Damon Gameau (ep 30)Hugh Mackay (ep 31)Charles Massy (ep 32)Sounds of Severn Park (Charles’ farm)Back home by the Indian Ocean.Due to licencing restrictions, most of our guests' nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts. Title slide image: Anthony producing episode 16 at Wooleen Station, by the Murchison River in Western Australia (pic: Olivia Cheng).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, Charles Massy lends a little more context to his work, including an exploration of the roots of the industrial agriculture system and its effects on people, land and the rest of the living world. Within that, the conversation pays particular attention to some of the astounding new developments around the notorious glyphosate-based herbicide RoundUp. It goes on to try to make more sense of why humankind has ended up where we are today, and of course how we can harness this understanding towards most effectively changing this dangerous trajectory. Music:Gone Clear, by William Tyler off his album Modern Country.Find more:Listen to the main episode with Charles, An Underground Insurgency (you'll find links to more info there too).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!

Charles Massy has become an extraordinary hub of knowledge, wisdom and stories of regeneration. Specifically in regenerative agriculture, and alongside that, the art of human transformation. His latest book 'Call of the Reed Warbler’ continues to make an enormous impact in Australia, and Charles has just embarked on an overseas tour behind the release of an updated international edition. Paul Hawken appears on the inside sleeve, saying this about the book:“Charles Massy has written a definitive masterpiece that takes its place along with the writings of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Humberto Maturana, and Michael Pollan. No work has more brilliantly defined regenerative agriculture and the breadth of its restorative impact upon human health, biodiversity, climate, and ecological intelligence.” Charles writes and talks about the growing repertory of stories of what are in some cases extraordinary tales of regeneration – including his own. He also takes a look behind that regeneration, at how change happens not just in the land, but in the landscape of our minds. Charles and Anthony pulled up a pew at the farm, Severn Park, a few weeks ago, for this conversation. Music: By Jeremiah Johnson.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Tune into the special extra with Charles, Cultivating Regeneration from Industrial Wastelands.For more on Charles & Call of the Reed Warbler, see the original Australian edition.And the updated Chelsea Green international edition.An extract of this episode was published by the good folk at Matters Journal.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!

Hugh Mackay is Australia’s preeminent social researcher, and a prolific bestselling author. He has spent sixty years speaking with people in their homes and workplaces, reflecting back to us key insights about who we are – and why we are the way we are. So it’s fair to say he knows a thing or two about what we’re like, and by extension how we might best get ourselves through this time of significant transition. Hugh’s latest book is Australia Reimagined. And while focused on this country, it very much deals with global patterns and concerns. He takes the growing global epidemic of anxiety and depression as the touchstone of what we’re doing to each other, and the rest of the living world. And in turn, the touchstone of what we need to and can change. The publisher’s blurb on the book states that our ‘unprecedented run of economic growth has failed to deliver a more stable or harmonious society. Individualism is rampant. Income inequality is growing. Public education is under-resourced. The gender revolution is stalling. We no longer trust our major institutions or our political leaders. We are more socially fragmented, more anxious, more depressed, more overweight, more medicated, deeper in debt and increasingly addicted - whether to our digital devices, drugs, pornography or 'stuff'.’ But there is another story to tell, one that is responding to that trajectory, and that is powering Hugh’s optimism. It all starts in our streets, he says, and from there to the systems we live by, the stories we’re currently buying, and the ones we can create for ourselves. Hugh spoke with Anthony at his home in Canberra a few weeks ago.Music:By Jeremiah Johnson.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:On Hugh & his latest book, Australia Reimagined: Towards a More Compassionate, Less Anxious Society.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!

Paul Hawken describes Damon Gameau as an ‘extraordinary artist, visionary, storyteller, and craftsman of the future.’ Damon is the creator of That Sugar Film - the record-breaking, award-winning documentary that, through its extraordinary success, became That Sugar Movement. Damon’s now turned his attention to climate change, with his next film '2040' coming out next year. He met up with Anthony a few weeks ago just after 2040 had been completed.2040 is described as an aspirational film about the possibility to make changes that will shift the course for future generations. It is a positive vision for the future, structured as an open letter to his young daughter, and again it is gearing up to be so much more than just a film. As with ‘Sugar’, this was a very personal journey - as someone who himself was shutting down on news about climate change. And also like ‘Sugar’, Damon found the appetite for this film was enormous. The money was raised for 2040 in just days. And millions more was raised for the outreach program, in mere minutes.Damon talks with Anthony about the film, how he’s found story-telling can reach people with these sorts of issues, and what that means for the possibility of positive change. He also talks about how his own life has changed, and what he’s learned in the process of creating these documentaries, and subsequently trying to keep up with the response. Tellingly, in creating what was nominally to be a film about climate change, he found that emissions reductions are ‘just the bonus, the icing on the cake’. Through years of research and consultation with some of the leading figures and communities grappling with these issues, he found a much richer, promising and universal focus. Music:The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:2040 the film. That Sugar Film & Movement. The Mai Wiru Sugar Challenge Foundation. The Mai Wiru website.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!

Last month saw the 10th anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse that triggered the GFC. It was a fitting occasion to launch a new global alliance on the streets of New York City - the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, poetically abbreviated to WEAll. The Alliance has come about through a collaboration of some of the most influential and inspiring figures in this space. One of them is Dr Katherine Trebeck, the Alliance’s Research Director. She’s also an author, with her new book out next year, ‘The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a grown-up economy’. WEAll is set up to help bring about the transformation of the economic system, society and its institutions, so that we prioritise shared wellbeing on a healthy planet. How will it do that? How did it come about? Who’s involved so far, and how do more of us join in?Katherine talks with Anthony about all this, along with some key developments like the new Wellbeing Economy Governments coalition being launched at the OECD’s Wellbeing Forum next month, and some of her instructive personal journey into the very heart of how we organise ourselves. Music:By Jeremiah Johnson.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:WEAll website.Katherine's new book, The Economics of Arrival. Our episodes with Kate Raworth, Bob Costanza, and John Fullerton.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!

Today we feature an Australian first, in an area that is developing fast globally, and potentially helping to redefine how money, business and the economy work. It’s called equity crowdfunding. It’s based on the crowdfunding model most of us are probably familiar with, though here it’s used to raise investment capital. The federal legislation for this is new in Australia, and Food Connect seeks to become the first social enterprise in this country – or as they would say, ‘systems enterprise’ - to successfully use the tool. Food Connect is no ordinary enterprise. It’s really a phenomenon in Brisbane, that has germinated other developments in its mold all over the country. It began with the dramatic transformation of farmer Robert Pekin, and a model connecting farmer to eater more directly, fairly, and healthily, called Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA). The business has since developed, with the help of his now wife Emma-Kate Rose, into so much more. And most pointedly, in their sights now, are the inter-related food, farming and economic systems, along with the cultural stories underpinning how we organise those systems. Now they aim to raise $2-4 million, to enable a transformative vision, beginning with the purchase of the premises they’ve been operating out of for a little over a decade.This is the remarkable story of a dairy farmer gone broke and ‘mad’, as he puts it in all sincerity. And a chance meeting with a woman who ended up selling her house to invest in the enterprise, such was her belief in it, while dedicating her life to making it work. So how does Food Connect and equity crowdfunding work? What would investing in Food Connect look like with this crowdfund model? And how does it change the systems and stories we live by, from ‘back-end’ food ‘rescue’ operations, to impact investing, to our broader economy and culture? Join Rob and Emma-Kate as they chat with Anthony upstairs at the Food Connect warehouse.Update: The crowdfunder was successful, raising over $2m.Music:Sounds of the Forest.Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more:Food Connect Foundation.The bio’s of Emma-Kate and Robert. Food Connect enterprise.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 unique region of Australia is famous for its ancient land and culture, luminous hot springs, and the best-selling book by Jeannie Gunn 'We of the Never Never'. It’s also developing renown for being an engine room for regenerating land, food and related systems. Moira Lanzarin is a business woman, an artist, a mother, and a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement. She’s been central to the introduction of Holistic Management in the Northern Territory of Australia, as Director of the family station at Coodardie. And her awards tell the tale. They include the Centenary Medal for Services to Regional Australia, NT Young Cattleman award (and no, she doesn’t flinch at being recognised as a Cattleman), NT Rural Woman of the Year Runner Up, and NT Young Australian of the Year. She has extensive board experience at a local, Territory and national level within industry and Government. From 2012 to 2016 she served as Director of Soils for Life - an Outcomes Australian Project under the Chairmanship of past Governor General, Michael Jefferies. Moira is a clear leader, not just in pastoralism, but in the life of this country. Her insights are as relevant to city-dwellers, as they are to those living outside of them. On how healthy living as a family can be the backbone of regenerating country, why connection with country is so important, how the current nation-wide water contamination crisis should amplify concern about fracking proposals, and what else is most needed for us to create a regenerative society - particularly in the context of the pace, pressure and mindset of modern life. Join Moira, and some of the other Coodardie locals, as she takes time out with Anthony on the country she calls home. Music:By Jeremiah JohnsonDue to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode. Find more: Coodardie Station. The disastrous water issue Moira mentions, a little north of Coodardie in Katherine, is now the subject of a town-wide class action with possible repercussions around the country.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 2nd National New Economy conference in Australia began with a couple of witty and profound keynote addresses. Together, Professor Ian Lowe and Aboriginal elder Dr Mary Graham craft a deft balance between gravity and levity, authority and guidance, and everyday language with a breadth of insight that genuinely captivates. Ian is an Order of Australia medal winner, former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and author of over 20 books. He talks of current trajectories and patterns, offering a broad take on what’s required and what has worked for social movements most effectively in the past. Mary is a highly respected Aboriginal elder, Associate Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland, and a consultant in Aboriginal community planning and development. She offers a sweeping perspective on ‘First Nations Economics’ and its relevance to our society today.And tellingly, both speakers converge on the moral aspect of achieving the new economy transition. So what are the most important elements – the critical parametres - of the new economy? And how do we go about harnessing them towards making that new economy our reality?With thanks to Scotty Foster for the production of, and permission to use, the recordings of these keynotes.Music:Let Them Know, by Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.Find more:Professor Ian Lowe. Dr Mary Graham. New Economy Network Australia (NENA) website (including international links). 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!