Today is the premiere of The Bioneers radio’s 16th season. Our first program features the remarkable story or primatologist researchers Roger and Deborah Fouts who raised chimpanzees as family. Joshua Fouts, their son, is the Executive Director of Bioneers. A few thoughts from Josh.
I hope you’ll enjoy listening to this opener to Season XVI of The Bioneers radio and podcast series; it’s one of the few stories I have heard that captures with delicate nuance the essence, sacrifice, heart, struggle and love that my parents poured into their 40-plus years with their chimpanzee siblings. Kenny Ausubel’s words, Stephanie Welch’s production and Neil Harvey’s voice tie it all together a lush and arresting Theater of the Mind.
I found myself overcome and a bit caught by surprise by the emotion that this story evoked in me. Such is the power of great storytelling.
For most of my life, people have asked me: “What was it like to grow up with chimps?” The answer is one that I’ve never been able to adequately respond to, other than to say that, like any child, what one experiences in their childhood is all they know to be “normal.” I didn’t know anything different.
Washoe
My family’s normal was spent with an extended family of sign-language-speaking chimps. Our day-to-day normal included washing our clothes with chimp blankets, and spending our holidays with our chimp aunts and uncles (they were my parents’ sisters and brothers, thus our aunts and uncles). In practice, this often meant plucking long, bristly chimp hairs from my winter sweaters during high school (not the greatest pick-up line for a date), or getting up early each holiday to first spend it with the chimps and wait for them to open their presents or eat their “bird meat” (their sign language term for turkey) or “fruit tree” (the holiday conifer we decorated with edible treats), before concluding the holiday with my human family. It also meant sharing their joys – exuberant hoots and signs for “hug!” every morning that my mom or dad would arrive to see them; and sorrows, when they lamented the loss or absence of a friend.
What I learned from a family that included chimps was a deep appreciation for how we as humans are loathe to open our hearts to the differences between “us” and whatever we consider to be “them.” Only as an adult have I come to appreciate the value of how vigilantly and presciently were my parents’ instructions to us as kids to consider chimps not other, but “us.” Not chimp, but family.
The symmetry and beauty of hearing this story told on the Bioneers radio series and to be part of an organization whose very mantra is “It’s all alive; It’s all connected; It’s all intelligent; It’s all relatives” is not lost on me.
Growing up in the sidecar of a chimpanzee’s destiny is something that I’ll probably be processing for the rest of my life. But I can tell you one thing: That sidecar lead me to you right here right now.
I’m no longer in the sidecar. Washoe, the matriarch of our chimp family, left us in 2007. And as she was freed of her mortal coil, so were we invited and challenged to live our lives more fully aware of the interconnectedness between us all.
In these times of tension and crisis in our world where the differences between us as humans seem starker than ever, Washoe’s story is one of healing and connection; a connection we all must strive to find.
I hope this insight into the importance of the interconnectedness of all beings in this story and the episodes to come rings as true to you as it did to me.
And the first show of the new series is very personal: It features the groundbreaking primatologist parents of our Executive Director Joshua Fouts! A don’t miss!
Our award-winning radio and podcast series features the bioneers — social and scientific innovators who are delivering breakthrough solutions to the most epic challenges facing people and our planet.
Find the show on your local radio station via our national station locator or tune in for free via iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download previous seasons of the programs.
We’re deeply gratified that Bioneers radio continues to offer some of the most electrifying and diverse programming available, free to you on any radio dial or digital device. Huge thanks to each of you who support these powerfully paradigm-shifting media.
Here’s what’s coming to feed your ears, starting this week:
Roger and Deborah Fouts
We’re All Chimps: Or Are Animals Persons Too? In Western civilization, human beings are considered the exceptional species and uniquely intelligent. Yet science is consistently revealing our intimate biological kinship with all species, especially the primates with whom we share 99% of our DNA. The breakthrough primatologist researchers Roger and Deborah Fouts (parents of Bioneers Executive Director Joshua Sheridan Fouts) take us on their amazing journey with chimpanzees that shows that, not only are people animals, but animals seem to be people, too.
Welcome the Water: Climate-Proofing for Resilience In the face of global climate disruption, two billion people worldwide will be challenged by too much water, and nearly another two billion by not enough. When you fight nature, you lose, says Dutch water wizard and designer Henk Ovink. He’s dramatically demonstrating on large scales how to shift our relationship to nature and to culture – and climate-proof our cities and coasts.
Rinku Sen
Raced and Classed: The Journey From Diversity to Equity What we do to each other, we do to the Earth. To protect our common home, we’re being called upon to bridge our differences to create beloved community and peaceful coexistence. A new generation of visionary change-makers is reframing the race conversation, and designing new tools to transform our unconscious biases and create justice. With: Racial justice pathfinders Rinku Sen, Saru Jarayaman, and Malkia Cyril.
Spirit in Action: Three Virtues for the 21st Century When we allow our hearts to be broken open by hearing the stories of our fellow human beings, we build community and compassion. That is the passionate message of Sister Simone Campbell, one of the most renowned figures in contemporary faith-based progressive activism. She and the other rebel Nuns on the Bus are touring the country, bridging divides, transforming politics and keeping the faith.
Dr. Barbara Sattler
Climate Health, Your Health: Prevention is Protection Climate disruption is harmful to your health. Dr. Linda Rudolph and Dr. Barbara Sattler are showing how our success or failure as a civilization may well hinge on how ingenious, nimble and socially just our public health systems can become in restoring the ecosystem health on which all health depends. And doing the right thing is good for our health.
Cultural Mindshift: Full Spectrum Sustainability and Resilience Climate is the trip wire for every other foundational ecological and biological system – as well as the basis for human civilization. As we face the long climate emergency, fortunately, skillful pathfinders are banding together to transform our ways of living and bring resilience from the ground up into widespread practice. With Berkeley’s Chief Resilience Officer, Timothy Burroughs, Professor David W. Orr, and financial adviser Tom Van Dyck.
Spirit in the Air: Reform, Revolution and Regeneration In times of massive social change, personal biography can coincide with historical epochs to produce leaders who embody the spirit of the times. Lifelong activist, author, politician, and visionary Tom Hayden shares the long view of social change movements. He traces the arc of struggle that has led to this epic moment when the climate crisis and the crisis of inequality are colliding with global civilization – and survival is the mother of invention.
Dr. Fania Davis at the 2015 Bioneers Conference, photo by Nikki Richter
Restorative Justice: From Harm to Healing Oakland, California, has had the reputation of being one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Then the Restorative Justice movement started boldly showing how quickly that reputation can be turned around by arresting the cycle of youth violence and incarceration early: in schools and juvenile justice policies. With: Restorative Justice leaders Fania Davis and Cameron Simmons.
Fire in the Belly: Women Leading Social Change Harm to one is harm to all—and prevention is a question of human survival. From oil refinery accidents in California to the aftermath of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf South, leaders Pennie Opal Plant and Colette Pichon Battle are on the frontlines, organizing their communities to stop the harms of the extraction economy and climate disruption. Activist-attorney Adrianna Quintero is making sure the voices of those most affected are heard helping awaken the “sleeping giant” of Latino voters.
Cara Romero
The Path Home: Restoring Native Lands and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Although colonial systems of oppression have radically damaged relationships between tribal communities and their traditional lands, a new generation of First Nations activists is working to restore those connections and safeguard Indigenous identity for future generations. They’re protecting traditional territories and sacred sites from harm, and renewing Indigenous land stewardship. With: Eriel Deranger of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Valentin Lopez, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and Cara Romero, from the Mohave-based Chemehuevi Tribe.
Nourishing the Future: Creating a Just and Healthy Food System for All Communities around the country are working to create a new food future founded in health, justice and ecological wellbeing. Community activists Malik Kenyatta Yakini and Oran Hesterman are transforming Detroit through urban agriculture and helping low-income and working families access healthy food. Cathryn Couch works with young people to cook and deliver healthy meals to people who are ill and struggling to put food on the table with a model program using food as medicine.
Justice Technologies: Biomimicry, Citizen Science and Online Democracy A new wave of tools designed to regenerate people and planet is emerging fast. Designers are creating living buildings that mimic nature, aerial-imaging kits for communities to hold extractive industries accountable, and online software for group decision-making that weaves diverse perspectives into a coherent whole. With: Citizen scientist Shannon Dosemagen of Public Lab, designer Eric Corey Freed of the Living Building Institute, and democracy technologist Ben Knight of Loomio.
Awakening the Genius in Everyone: When the Calling Keeps Calling Renowned storyteller, performer, author, activist and scholar Michael Meade weaves threads of timeless wisdom traditions into myths for today’s global crisis. Meade says each of us is woven into the soul of the world, and we’re uniquely needed at this mythic moment to become active agents in the co-creation, re-creation and re-imagination of culture and nature.
Nikki Silvestri
Leading From the Feminine: Shifting Guidance From Head to Heart (One-hour Special) What does it mean to bring the “feminine” forward in leadership from diverse cultural and ethnic perspectives? How might a spectrum of views help us to integrate relational intelligence into all our leadership? With poet Noris Binet; Nikki Silvestri, former Executive Director of Green for All and The People’s Grocery; Pat McCabe, or Woman Stands Shining, a Navajo teacher working on Indigenous nook, cranny and watershed across this planet is waking up frameworks for gender and all of life, and Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and director of Bioneers Everywoman’s Leadership.
What is it like to grow up with this new climate reality? Chloe Maxmin, who delivered a passionate youth keynote about divesting from fossil fuels at Bioneers in 2015, spoke to six young people who have been working on climate change from a young age and know what it’s like to grow up with this crisis. Her piece Growing Up With Climate Change was featured in The Nation this month.
The common thread she found when speaking with these young activists is their commitment to self-determination in the face of crisis:
They refuse to be defined by the world they inherited. Instead, they define climate change as the opportunity to create a different world. They choose to protect what they love, to create the kind of life that they want, to fight with all their souls for a better future. They define their own fates. They declare that agency, power, and possibility can exist amid crisis.
Included in the article are two fellow Bioneers youth keynote speakers Junior Walk and Alex Loorz. Watch their inspiring Bioneers talks below:
That’s the only way you’re going to stop any kind of extraction: make it too costly for them to keep doing it. – Junior Walk
At the core of it all, our revolution is about sustainability, which I define as this: living as if the future matters. – Alec Loorz
A lot of the rhetoric I see around the climate movement is about anger and frustration toward the government, Exxon, the fossil fuel industry – and these emotions are warranted! We should be! But why exactly are we angry and frustrated? It’s because these entities are threatening everything we love, everything we care about it. We have to go down to that deeper level and make that love more explicit, bringing it to the forefront of our work. – Chloe Maxmin
Bioneers and Rooted in Community National Youth Network (RIC) convened the annual Just Us for Food Justice program to fuel the mind, body, and spirit of youth activists, as well as strengthening their skills in creative messaging, holistic leadership, and movement building practices.
Facilitated in 2015 by Gerardo Marin, Beto Fuentes, and Verenice Portela of RIC, the program worked with the theme “Resilient Roots, Rising Action” using the 5 Elements of Hip-Hop as a vehicle for social change.
In this interview, Verenice Portela shares her views on food justice:
One of my biggest concerns is access to healthy foods. The people that are growing the food are the people that don’t really have access to them. And on top of that, they are inhaling all these toxic pesticides and fumigants and it’s affecting not just our health but our ecosystem and everything around us.
Bioneers radio show host Neil Harvey accepts the Gold Medal at the New York Festivals. Photo credit: Christina Fleming
In competition with the big dogs worldwide, Bioneers has taken the Gold Medal in the NY Festivals, considered the “Oscars” of radio, for the show “Nature’s Intelligence: Interviewing the Vegetable Mind,” from our 2015 series.
Competition included all the major players in media from around the world including BBC, the US networks, Canadian Broadcasting Company and other international outlets.
We are doubly pleased because this show is pure Bioneers. It had its deep origins when Michael Pollan got in touch to recommend Monica Gagliano as a speaker. Michael had just published his landmark piece on “Plant Intelligence” in The New Yorker. He told me much of the article was based on Monica’s scientific research, which showed not only intelligence in plants, but something akin to sentience.
I contacted our longtime colleague and Board member Melissa Nelson of the Indigenous Cultural Conservancy. She suggested teaming Monica up with Robin Kimmerer, an indigenous scientist who combines botany with traditional ecological knowledge of First Peoples. As often happens through Bioneers, these two remarkable pathfinders met, and the sparks flew at their panel in this extraordinary convergence of perspectives.
Then, of course, we made it into a radio show, and here we are at the NY Festivals. We deeply thank each of you who support Bioneers and Bioneers radio and podcasts! You are making it possible to bring these living lights to the wider world and to continue to spread consciousness of the genius of nature and of our kinship with the intelligence and the sentience of life.
Huge props to my radio team partners Stephanie Welch and Neil Harvey, whose artistry and passion shine through in every magical radio show.
We’re almost ready to launch our 16th season of shows, so stay tuned in July for the release.
You’ll notice a registration option this year called “Pay-It-Forward.” That 3-day ticket costs $795, about double what some of our Early Bird discounts costs for the same pass.
Why on earth would you pay more, you ask? It’s simple: to make sure everyone who is an active and engaged member of our community is not left out for lack of ability to pay.
The $795 cost is the actual amount it costs us per attendee to put on the conference each year. By choosing this ticket, you are helping us cover costs and enabling us to make lower-cost tickets available to an entire class of engaged and active citizens whose voices and perspectives are crucially important.
Bioneers is fundamentally a populist enterprise. Our vision is one of equity and respect for all. Bioneers began 27 years ago as a grassroots idea, little more than a room full of brilliant folks from numerous fields who we believed should know more about each others’ work and projects. That inclusive spirit remains as true today as it was two decades ago. We strive to make sure that the right people are in the room, regardless of ability to pay.
The value and quality of the Bioneers Conference is greater than that of events that charge double or triple what we do. For example, the Living Futures UnConference is $1,000, Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) is $1500, TED is upwards of $10,000 and invite-only. From a business perspective, this makes sense — high-quality events are expensive. But from a community, equity and activism perspective, it’s a dead end.
When you choose Pay-It-Forward, you allow us to shift resources to our large youth scholarship program (400+ annually), our work/trade program and our deeply subsidized Student, Educator and Low-Income Senior scholarship rates, not to mention the 200+ speakers to whom we provide no cost registration each year (the least we can do for them).
In keeping with the egalitarian and generous spirit that runs throughout our event, we are straightforwardly asking those who have the means to pay a higher rate (which is still a very good deal!).
When we launched this ticket category as an experiment in 2015, we had no idea what would happen. We were overjoyed to see how many people opted to Pay-It-Forward — foundations and businesses with event budgets sending employees, donors maintaining their support and many whom we met for the first time last year who simply saw the opportunity to engage at a level that they were comfortable with. We remain incredibly grateful for your support.
We hope that if you are willing and able, you’ll consider joining us to Pay-It-Forward in 2016.
Leading youth activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez facilitating a national organizing session at Bioneers 2015. Photo by Michelle Grambeau.
To us, the excitement among youth for Bioneers is perhaps the single biggest signal of health of our work and the organization. The 2015 Bioneers conference was a landmark for our Youth Leadership Program. Over 500 youth participated, about 20% of all participants. It marked a watershed moment.
In the early years after the program’s founding in 2001, we had to beg young people to come. Now we literally cannot keep up with the demand (sadly we had to turn away 300 more applicants last year). We deeply thank each of you who have helped make this momentous youth participation happen. Let’s make sure we don’t have to turn away so many more young people in 2016! What more important investment can we make?
As one example, take the story of Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, who first participated in Bioneers in 2014 and again in 2015, and has since become recognized as a global youth leader. Just in the past year, he has been at the forefront of a youth-led lawsuit against the federal government over climate change, which has repeatedly been upheld in federal and state courts, keynoted at the UN with Robert Redford, founded Rising Youth for a Sustainable Earth (RYSE), and the song he and fellow Earth Guardians wrote and performed was selected as the winner at the Paris Climate Summit!
Xiuhtezcatl not only performed and spoke at Bioneers – he offered to take a lead role in the Youth Tent where for two years he has inspired and supported hundreds of other youth to follow their activist paths. But what I did not know was the path that led him to this work.
When I interviewed Xiuhtezcatl last fall for the movie I’m making (Changing of the Gods: Planetary and Human Revolutions), he told the surprising story that you can hear in his own voice. When he was six years old, he saw Leonardo DiCaprio’s feature documentary The 11th Hour, for which I helped supply 30 bioneers as interview subjects who appear in the movie (I’m in it too.) The movie sparked an awakening that set him on his brilliant path as a change-maker and artist.
We often speak of Bioneers as broadcasting seeds, and you just never know where those seeds will land and find fertile ground. Our youth are the seeds of our future, and, as Xiuhtezcatl puts it, “I say, what better time to be alive than now because our generation gets to rewrite history. We get to change everything that we thought we knew about ourselves as people on this Earth. We get to change everything. And my generation gets to be at the forefront.”
We’re honored that Xiuhtezcatl will do a keynote at Bioneers 2016, as well as perform with his brother Izcuauhtli of Earth Guardians. We’re also thrilled that the 2015 “Youth Solutionaries” radio show (which features Xiuhtezcatl and other youth) won the Award of Excellence for radio in the global Communicator awards from over 6,000 entries!
What’s most unique about the Youth Leadership Program is its intergenerational mutual mentoring. After all, Bioneers is by its nature a community of mentors. The young people formally interact with wise, experienced visionary leaders, and the elders say they get even more than they give.
Let’s grow the 2016 Bioneers Youth Leadership Program into an unstoppable force in this world that so desperately needs the vision, voices and inspired leadership of our young people in an intergenerational partnership. Thank you!
“Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.”
— Leonardo DiCaprio accepting 2016 Academy Award for Best Actor in The Revenant
This is a transformative moment in the history of Bioneers, and you — our community — are leading the revolution. In this moment of epic change, the time is now to amplify and extend our influence, to take our movement of movements and convert that energy into structural, systemic change.
For the 2016 conference, we’ve created four “meta-programs” that use the powerful conference platform and our related media to throw the high beams on priority areas and goals – and move the needle for real systemic change. As the sun in our Bioneers solar system, the conference both educates people and connects diverse issues and communities in catalytic ways that generate very wide ripples.
Read on for more about each of the four meta-programs and featured highlights.
Biomimicry & Biodiversity Conservation
One of the thrilling plans for the 2016 conference will be a focus on biomimicry and biodiversity conservation. Along with a keynote by Janine Benyus, the globally renowned biologist, author and co-founder of Biomimicry Institute and Biomimicry 3.8 consultancy, we’re deeply honored to host a very special event in partnership with the Biomimicry Institute and Ray C. Anderson Foundation: the inaugural “Ray of Hope” Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. The $100,000 prize will be given live on the main stage, and it’s for biomimicry food systems! The eight finalist competing teams will be present.
Biomimicry is about far more than clever inventions. It causes a fundamental shift in our worldview to see nature not as a physical “resource,” but as a teacher, model, metric and partnership in which we’re the junior partner. Our goal is to see biomimicry become the default position for design, industry, economy and culture by 2020.
We’ll also be doing leading-edge programs on conserving biodiversity in this mortifying Sixth Age of Extinctions. One crucial paradigm shift includes creating legal rights for nature, and Tom Linzey and Mari Margil will share their powerful work supporting local communities to do just that, while also revoking corporate rights. The globally acclaimed ethnobotanist, author and neotropical rainforest conservation advocate Mark Plotkin will illuminate the work of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), which he co-founded in 1995 to protect the Amazonian rainforest in partnership with local Indigenous peoples. ACT has worked with 32 tribes throughout Amazonia, and helped conserve millions of acres of the “lungs of the planet” and its biocultural diversity.
Climate Leadership
As climate disruption escalates, climate leadership is paramount. We need to move to 100 percent renewables and put environmental justice at the center. We need to begin to draw carbon out of the atmosphere back down to 350ppm. We need to challenge and remake the corporate systems that are driving and sustaining the fossil fuel industry and overpowering democracy at every turn.
Our 2016 climate leadership meta-program will feature four diverse keynotes. Bill McKibben, perhaps the greatest activist on the planet today, will shed light on where the climate movement needs to go post-Paris. Solar entrepreneur extraordinaire Danny Kennedy, a founder of Sungevity, will interpret the economics of renewables and how to use business, policy and social movements to power the transformation. Vien Truong, executive director of Green For All, will share the groundbreaking California model that puts environmental justice at the center of policy to bring climate justice and a green economy to underserved communities and communities of color. The electrifying youth climate activist and eco hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez of Earth Guardians will bring to life the mushrooming youth climate movements sweeping the world today.
Gender Equity & Reconciliation
Another meta-program will highlight the leadership of women, gender equity and gender reconciliation as fundamental to all movements. We’ll focus intensively in coming years on both the vision and the practical applications for system change.
This year, Eve Ensler will do a performance as a keynote: one act from her new three-act play, “The Fruit Trilogy.” It’s spine-tingling! Iroquois leader Katsi Cook will speak to the feminine from an Indigenous perspective and as a midwife and network organizer. Will Keepin and Cynthia Brix from Gender Reconciliation International will share their breakthrough work which has reached the national level in South Africa, which engages men as well as women to deconstruct the patriarchy. The powerhouse poet-performers-activists of Climbing PoeTree, Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman, will bring alive their transformational work with women of color and marginalized communities.
We’re producing a suite of related programs that highlight critical policy initiatives including finally passing the Equal Rights Amendment and achieving pay equity for women.
Arts & Culture
Arts and culture are central to transformational change. Along with Eve Ensler’s performance, Xiuhtezcatl and his brother Itzcuauhtli Roske-Martinez will again rock the house, as well as Climbing PoeTree. London-based artist Louis Masai, who uses his work to highlight biodiversity challenges, will join us to do art live on the grounds with Bioneers youth leaders.
This is the fourth post in a Q&A series with longtime Bioneers community member Erik Ohlsen. To learn more about Erik’s work and approach to permaculture and activism, check out the links to other posts in the series below.
David Holmgren said, “The philosophy behind permaculture is one with working with rather than against nature, of looking at systems in all their functions rather than just asking one yield of them, and allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution.” What does that mean to you?
It’s really important for humans to step back and allow the patterns of nature to unfold. Nature has a set of processes and systems already in place to do amazing things: provide clean air, clean water, shelter, structure and habitat, and manage climate. These are all major services that natural systems are already providing. Humans benefit incredibly by these natural processes.
Rather than intervening and disrupting those processes for short-term human gain, which is what the last few hundred years of the industrial revolution has been about, we’re taking an opportunity to really understand a particular system. And it’s really important to know that it’s different everywhere.
In Northern California, the way that our forests and meadows function, the way that our watersheds function is going to be very different than in the Southwest or very different than in Alaska or the Amazon. Because we can’t import the processes and functions of one ecosystem into another, it really calls us to step back and take the time to understand.
We’re never going to understand completely because nature is so complex and there are many patterns that won’t emerge for decades in a mature system.
It even relates somewhat to the whole debate around invasive plants versus native plants. That conversation only makes sense when you decide when we are. If we want to work with an ecology that’s moving towards some sort of historical native balance, at what point in time are we looking at? 100 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? Because systems are always changing and evolving.
What’s beautiful about looking at and understanding natural processes is that we get to see how some of the most important work on the planet gets done. How does carbon get sequestered in a pastoral system? How does water get filtered and cleaned in a coastal woodlands system? As we’re able to allow for these patterns to play out and for these ecological systems to evolve, that informs us as to how we relate to those systems and harness those powers.
Often we’re recreating systems that nature’s already doing for us for free, yet we’re recreating them through a degenerative process, using a lot of money and fossil fuel energy and exploitative labor practices, and all for a short period of time. Rather than separating the human construct of settlement from nature, Holmgren says we need to remember that we are nature, and that as we align with our regional-based ecosystems and we understand the processes and successions that are taking place there, we can fit ourselves back into the ecology in such a way where we can have abundance and resiliency without all the destruction that most human settlement creates.
This Bill Mollison quote is right in line with your work: “There is one and only one solution and we have almost no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world and train all our young people to help. They want to. We need to give them the last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from hands-on experience.”
That’s what the Permaculture Skill Center is all about. I think that quote needs to land on our website. That is a great description of what we’re trying to do.
The beautiful thing is that all the technology to do that already exists. We know how to regenerate forests. We know how to regenerate pasture. We know how to create water resiliency and grow food locally and build shelters that are aligned with the energetic needs of the environment. We do have an amazing opportunity in the youth who are coming up who are vastly more advanced in their thinking around these things than even my generation was and many of the older generations.
So we have all of this opportunity, all of this technology, and all of this knowledge to implement that vision that Bill is laying out. And it’s absolutely vital. What’s missing? Why is it so difficult to get this vision implemented and to get these systems in place?
I’ll go back to my friend and mentor Brock Dolman and what he calls the “ego system,” what’s going on between our two ears. We’re not going to get there by just focusing on how to regenerate the forests or how to have water resiliency. We have all that technology and that’s great, but we’re only going to get there at the scale we need if we start applying the principles of permaculture and systems design to our social and economic systems. We need to change the ego system. We need to transform and compost the degenerative aspects of our economy.
That’s easy to say, and you can get very overwhelmed looking at the fossil fuel industry or the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and these large massive destructive forces on the planet. It can be very easy to feel a lot of grief and feel it’s not possible to make this vision come true, but I think that all those things are already in their collapse, and they’re already just hanging on by a thread.
I really believe in youth. The young generations are the ones who will be implementing the regenerative economy and will be inheriting a desolate, climate-changed planet. If we can focus on programs and opportunities to create pathways for them to learn the skills – because we already have the technology – and to engage in our communities, to know how to organize people and talk to decision makers and elected officials and staffers and corporations.
Sometimes our approach in activism — where we point to all the people doing the bad things and we tell them how bad and horrible they are — that can shoot us in the foot. We need to build relationships with people in power who are making decisions that affect so many people and landscapes on the planet. We’re not going to do that by yelling and screaming at them with hate, anger and grief. That’s not to say that these institutions aren’t to be held accountable, but as a movement our approach to implementing this needs to be filled with love and a sense of relationship and understanding.
We’re at the right time in our culture where we can compost the mistakes of the past and plant a new path forward that leads us to a repaired Earth.
Money is one language that will get us there. It’s so hard for me to say that because I spent so many years as an anti-capitalist in the global justice movement. To bring money into the conversation is always a little awkward for me, but there’s a lot of financial efficiency to be gained by repairing the planetary ecological systems. So I think this is how we get decision makers and people in positions in power on board. If we say, “Look, if you implement ecological efficiency models and you work in a reparative and regenerative rather than a degenerative way, you’re actually going to save money on some of your manufacturing and where you source material, and some of your hauling, and it becomes more energy efficient.” That all has a bottom line, so I actually think money is part of it.
Also, we still live in this money system, so it’s great and all to say, Let’s empower the youth to do these things, but they’re not going to get a lot done if they don’t have a warm place to go to bed at night; they’re not going to get a lot done if they can’t get healthy meals and have what they need to stay healthy and safe. So I really think it’s time to look at this from a socioeconomic point of view as the missing piece to a larger design for Earth repair.
How are we going to develop social and economic systems that empower the ecological regeneration that is so needed? It’s a design challenge that I put out there to the world and the community, how we organize ourselves in our economy to align with Earth repair.
Read the Full Series with Permaculturist Erik Ohlsen
The Ohlsen homestead features over 100 food and medicinal plants, and captures hundreds of thousands of gallons of water.
This is the third in a Q&A series with longtime Bioneers community member Erik Ohlsen. To learn more about Erik’s work and approach to permaculture and activism, check out the links to other posts in the series below.
One of the main principles of permaculture is that the problem is the solution. Can you cite an example of how you use that principle in your personal or professional life?
In the landscape we do it every day. For instance, you have a lot of people out there, folks who have money, who want to put in landscapes. They want beauty and aesthetic, and to walk around their home and landscape and be in awe. One of the ways we’ve leveraged that aesthetic need is by developing a design service through Permaculture Artisans that meets the aesthetic needs of clients while at the same time almost seamlessly and unnoticed, if necessary, developing massive water harvesting systems, carbon sequestering plant soil-building systems, and sustainable forestry systems for clients with a forest landscape.
Last year the market for landscaping was $72 billion in the United States, much of which is lawns and high-end landscapes. We identify the land-use problem — the way people design and build landscapes in a non-ecological way — and turn that into a land-use opportunity. We are seeing a change in a trend in the way people are looking at landscape, especially as the effects of climate change hit hard in California and other places. Often people think, “Well, I guess I just need to have nothing; I need to have xeriscaping or all drought-tolerant plants,” and while these could be great ways to save water, you can also have a bigger impact by not only having water conservation, but also actually harvesting the water that does come and being able to create abundance from that.
This is part of how we educate our clientele and our market by changing the frame of how we look at some of the issues facing California. I like to tell people that
while we are in a drought, we need to frame it a bit differently and understand that one of the things we really have is a runoff crisis, and that’s something that we have the ability to do something about.
If we adjust our view of the drought in California, we can see a lot of opportunity to start developing real water resiliency in our communities, and in our landscapes.
That leads to people calling us because their wells run dry and they need a rainwater catchment system. They don’t have any knowledge of permaculture, they’re not necessarily ecologically minded, but their well has run dry. That’s what gets them started. Once they go down that road and we start designing and installing water harvesting systems, then we say, by the way, if you plant these plants, you will be harvesting lemons every day, you’ll have Monarch butterflies visit you. So we can start turning people on to biodiversity and local food production. That really came out of this crisis moment.
“The problem is the solution” is almost like an aikido approach that will really help move the needle from degenerative consumption and degenerative land use towards locally-based production and consumption.
When you go to a site, how do you read the landscape to understand what that land wants and what’s possible there?
The first thing that I do is try to erase any knowledge I have of anything. I don’t believe all permaculturalists do this, and it’s something that’s sort of a quality approach that some of us are working on. When we go to a new site, we don’t want to walk in there and impose our idea of what it should be. I want to be as open and curious as possible as to the patterns I see on the landscape, the natural history we might tune into, and looking at things like topography, plant species, density of trees, and where structures are placed. Those are all landscape elements that we want to be open to, just observing the patterns.
In a usual consultation, the first hour that I’m there, I’m not trying to provide any suggestions, unless I see something that is just glaring. I’ve saved clients tens of thousands of dollars just in the first hour on a site because they were doing something so degenerative that it was pretty obvious to see that a catastrophe was upon us. But more often I try to just listen for the first hour.
Not only do I assess the landscape, but I’m also really assessing the client, because ultimately if a client is going to invest in some sort of intervention on their landscape or they’re going to install something or do something there, we really need to understand where it’s coming from, what their goals are, and what they need. We really want to start at the high level in terms of how the landscape can really meet their lifestyle and help accomplish the dreams they have for themselves and the space.
Then once we gather enough information, both from a physical and social point of view, we can start to make some suggestions. Sometimes you have clients who are not necessarily into doing a full-on ecological-food forest-landscape-permaculture-type thing; they just want to have something beautiful and they need water in order to do that. So we look for the entry point, the main goal that the client’s going for, and then we leverage that to support some of the more ecological solutions.
I honestly believe that in this work and in my company it’s more important to focus on relationship than it is to focus on the final product. I’ve built both of my companies on this principle. At times, I’ll have clients who have no ecological literacy whatsoever, but because I treat them with such love and respect, they consider me like family. When you can build a relationship with somebody where it feels like family, you’ve built up a kind of trust where they have an openness to learning a little bit more, getting more ecological literacy, and then they want to do the right thing. Sometimes I feel like part of my job is just to build relationships with folks and start to support them in what their needs are so that they have openness to the kinds of ecological solutions that we’re providing.
Read the Full Series with Permaculturist Erik Ohlsen
Join Erik at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference
Join us for an afternoon session on “Permaculture and Green Jobs” with Erik at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference, Friday, October 21 from 4:30-6pm in San Rafael, CA.
He will explain how he is successfully using Permaculture as a framework to generate green jobs by creating ecologically regenerative, socially just, and economically viable businesses. Come discover how Permaculture design skills can be directly applied in building, landscaping, urban planning, land use, agriculture, forestry and many other enterprises.
We’re happy to share with you that our 2015 annual radio series, “The Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature,” has won awards for eight shows in the international Communicators Awards contest. There were over 6,000 entries.
Two shows won gold (Award of Excellence), and six shows won silver (Award of Distinction), out of 12 submitted. A pretty good batting average! I want to honor and thank my teammates Neil Harvey and Stephanie Welch who co-create the series with me – and of course all the amazing bioneers speakers who are at the heart of the shows.
What is especially gratifying is that the two gold winners are truly important shows you just would not otherwise hear on the airwaves. “Just Say No: Planet Hackers, Resistance Movements and Climate Justice,” which features Naomi Klein and Clayton Thomas Mueller, is a clear-eyed critique of the capitalist roots of the climate crisis, and an uplifting look inside the growing climate justice movement and global Indigenous uprisings.
The other gold winner, “Youth Solutionaries: Future Present,” featuring Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, hip-hop artist and Youth Director of Earth Guardians, De’Anthony Jones, former President of the Environmental Students Organization at Sacramento State, and Chloe Maxmin, co-founder of Divest Harvard, is a deeply inspiring window into the rising youth climate movement. It is so rare and SO important to have our youth’s voices heard!
Getting the voices of the Bioneers out there widely is more important than ever, and honestly, where else you hear these visionary voices? We are so deeply grateful to all of you who support the series and support Bioneers at large to produce it.
The radio series is still our biggest outreach tool, and we’re now poised to get it heard much more widely, with your support. As you may know, we had the great good fortune to hire Brooke Shelby Biggs earlier this year as our Communications Director. Brooke has a perfectly fitted track record of media-savvy skill, and she’s a true bioneer at heart.
We want to get the series on many more stations and into some important and large markets. With the explosion of podcasting now, we’re poised to go after wide digital distribution through numerous strategic digital platforms and channels.
We really hope you take a moment to listen to a few of the half-hour shows. You’ll see why they win so many awards every year, but what’s really important is spreading the word. Thank you for joining with us to make it happen. We can help you spread the series! If you want a flash drive, or a CD set that you can give to allies and other important folks, let us know.
By the way, we’re in the thick of producing the 2016 series that will go live July 6th, and it’s breathtaking. And wish us luck in the imminent New York Festivals competition that’s even more competitive – the “Oscars” of radio! We’ll keep you posted.
Bioneers Radio Series XV Award Winners
The continued success of our radio series would not be possible without the committed support of our incredible 2015 radio series sponsors, Organic Valley and Mary’s Gone Crackers, and all of you – thank you!
Use the links below to listen to the award-winning episodes, and be sure to share your favorites with your community.
Like what you hear? Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud or Stitcher to get the latest episodes directly. Be sure to sign up before July, when the 2016 Radio Series will be released.
Not an online listener? Find a radio station where you can listen or encourage your local radio station to air the series.
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How do we celebrate and lift the voices of all the mothers in our lives? As we gear up for Mother’s Day this weekend, we find ourselves remembering and reciting the wisdom of these mothers and those impacted by them throughout our history. Here are a few from our archives to share:
The former CEO of Green For All shares her deeply personal journey of the experience of becoming a mother and her renewed urgency to create a healthier and more just planet. She speaks on race, class, and motherhood, explaining how the intersections have stretched and transformed her approach to leadership.
Being a mother changes the way you think about change and time. Real change is how we relate to one another.
In this powerful panel at the Indigenous Forum, Konsmo (Metis-Cree), Esther Lucero (Diné-Latina), and Katsi Cook (Akwesasne-Mohawk) speak on the issues affecting indigenous women, mothers, and children today. They discuss the high rates of sexual violence that correlates with fracking and drilling, holding health systems accountable, environmental pollution and trans-generational metabolic/reproductive diseases, and building a network of Native healers.
The notion of woman as the first environment isn’t just about the womb, it’s the
transgenerational lineage to the creator women: mitochondrial DNA.
Nikki Henderson begins her deeply personal story by sharing the inspiration of her forefathers and foremothers. Sharing her truths on People’s Grocery in Oakland, Food Justice, and Family Activism, she reveals her use of food as a catalyst for environmental and social justice.
Part of my activism now is Family Activism: using the dinner table and family gatherings as spaces to test and practice my ability to love.
The brilliant health researcher, cancer survivor, bestselling author of Living Downstream, and the most articulate advocate for a toxic-free environment since Rachel Carson, describes her health battles, motherhood and activism. She shows the environmental links to many cancers (including hers) that the medical establishment refuses to look at. She focuses on the effects even tiny amounts of chemicals can have on the fetus and small children, and challenges our collective failure to address our global ecological unraveling or control toxic chemicals.
Any chemical with the power to extinguish a human pregnancy has no rightful place in our economy.
An ethnobiologist and farmer from Taos, New Mexico, Miguel sees farming as a homecoming. Witnessing the passing of the seasons alongside a powerful community, he discusses his deep connection with Mother Earth.
I measure my success by how many different living things are benefiting from what I am doing.
Transformational women leaders are restoring societal balance by showing us how to reconnect relationships – not only among people – but between people and the natural world. This conversation provides a fascinating window into the soulful depths of what it means to restore the balance between our masculine and feminine selves to bring about wholeness, justice and true restoration of people and planet.
Young women are rising up to take their power, and in doing so they are re-weaving a web of relationship that promises to rock the world. Performing artist, activist and hip-hop entrepreneur Rha Goddess explores how this generation’s daughters are branding their own movement of love, power and freedom.
We cannot demand rights that we believe deep down inside we are entitled to and expect to receive them.
