Bioneers: Protecting and Restoring Nature

Paul Stamets, visionary mycologist extraordinaire, has discovered several new species of mushrooms and pioneers countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He has recently achieved remarkable results cleaning up dangerous toxins using “fungal bioremediation” and radically improving soil fertility with mushrooms. This speech was given at the 2003 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Paul Stamets describes a series of epiphanies around how to shape our world with fungi in ways that are not just sustainable, but regenerative, resourceful and fun. He shares his patented application of mycelium as an alternative to synthetic pesticides; his regenerative Life Boxes that serve as shipping materials until you add water and soil; and his newest invention -- mushroom cultivation centers that convert fungal sugars into ethanol while providing resources for enriching soil, growing food and metabolizing pollution in an environment that encourages community participation. Mushrooms will never look the same after you see this one. This speech was presented at the 2006 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Ecological Design, Vol. 2 and Protecting and Restoring Nature, Vol. 1. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Severn Cullis-Suzuki, daughter of David Suzuki, graduated from Yale with a B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology, and is on track to outpace her father as an activist. She founded a children’s environmental group at age 9, addressed the Rio Summit at age 12, and hasn’t stopped since, starting several groups and project and becoming a dynamic, luminous light in a new generation of eco-leaders. Severn will discuss our responsibilities toward future generation; how to heal our disconnection from nature and each other; and how to draw from the best of ancient traditions and modern innovation to build a sustainable future. Introduction by Nina Simons, Co-Founder and President of Bioneers. This speech was given at the 2003 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Attorney Mari Margil chronicles the game-changing work to recognize the Rights of Nature in law. Whereas now nature is considered property subject to private property law, the Rights of Nature legal framework enshrines the right of nature "to exist, persist and thrive." Margil invokes the Dr. Seuss classic, The Lorax, who asks, "Who will speak for the trees?" This talk was presented at the 2009 Bioneers Annual Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

In the face of large global institutional (economic, political, educational, etc.) obstacles to advancing the Rights of Mother Earth, it is time to explicitly state what we can and must do. This brief presentation is essentially a reporting out on what Indigenous Peoples from around the World are saying about activities and actions that must be encouraged and enhanced in the struggle to defend Mother Earth from human abuse and misuse. Dr. Dan Wildcat is the Director of Haskell Environmental Research Studies (HERS) Center and Dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas where he has taught for 25 years. This speech took place of the 2012 Indigenous Forum, co-produced with the Cultural Conservatory, at the Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

The coming century requires that we rethink and restructure our relationship with our planet to avoid endangering the integrity of the biosphere and risking the end of human civilization. This means reforming our economic system, which uses a market and trade system that systemically under-prices and degrades both people and the natural world. How can we change that, and what would it look like if we did? One of the great visionary science fiction writers of our era will draw from his decades of work and thinking on this question to sketch a utopian but deeply informed and cogent scenario of a new economy for the coming decades. Introduction by J. P. Harpignies, National Bioneers Conference Associate Producer. This speech was given at the 2015 Bioneers Annual Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Dynamic indigenous eco-cultural revitalization movements provide compelling leadership models by Native peoples working to maintain and restore their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). TEK, the art and science of resilience for the sustainability of future generations, is critically needed as a partner to Western science to restore the world's ecosystems and biological and cultural diversity, including native foods and languages. Professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State, Melissa Nelson is President of the Cultural Conservancy, a Native American nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures and their ancestral lands. She illuminates how the "re-indigenization" movement is inspiring a commitment to reciprocal relationships with place as well as collaborative partnerships among peoples and landscapes. This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

In this moving presentation, Philippe Cousteau delivers a rich, visual account of his inheritance of the exploration and conservation of our “water planet,” carried out in the name of his grandfather Jacques Cousteau. He weaves his storytelling with vintage footage shot by his father on the Nile, and before and after filming among the coral reefs in the Florida Keys. As was impressed upon Philippe by his grandfather, the health and diversity of the oceans are precariously entangled with the wellbeing of people on land—including the empowerment of women and girls, access to safe drinking water, and ending our dependence on fossil fuel extraction. Philippe reads a cherished letter from his grandfather to his father, which serves as an inspiration to his family and all of humanity to “seek after the vanishing shapes of a better world.” This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Biologist and author Sandra Steingraber explains how the town of Dryden, New York banned fracking and stood up against pro-fracking interests. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Is the economy the most important thing? Canadian geneticist, author, and television producer David Suzuki says the economy is just a subset of ecology. Drawing on native wisdom and state-of-the-art science, he vividly demonstrates that what we do to what surrounds us, we do to ourselves, and suggests how to restore the fabric of the biosphere. This speech was presented at the 2003 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Protecting and Restoring Nature Collection, Vol. 1. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

Beijing-based filmmaker John Liu proposes that healthy ecosystem function is a superior measure of economic health, in contrast with the rate at which we produce and consume manufactured goods. Showing stunning footage, Liu chronicles the remarkable restoration of China's denuded Loess Plateau, once the "Garden of Eden" of China. He illustrates how the act of restoring soil fertility restores the hydrological cycle, a process that was radically disrupted by thousands of years of slash-and-burn agriculture and overgrazing. These communities' intervention not only revitalized the soil, water and air, but also spurred a thriving local economy and higher rates of education. This speech was presented at the 2011 Bioneers Annual Conference and is part of the Ecological Design, Vol. 1 and Protecting and Restoring Nature, Vol. 1 Collections. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year. For more information on Bioneers, please visit http://www.bioneers.org and stay in touch via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Bioneers.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bioneers).

Leaders around the world are increasingly recognizing ecosystems as natural capital assets that supply life-support services of priceless value. The challenge is to turn this recognition into incentives and institutions that will guide wise investments in natural capital on a large scale. Gretchen Daily illuminates advances being made on three key fronts: the development of new science and technical tools for valuing Nature, such as InVEST, a software system developed by the Natural Capital Project; new policies and finance mechanisms being implemented worldwide; and engaging leaders in forging a deep and lasting transformation. This speech was given at the 2012 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Eco Design Vol. 2 and Protecting and Restoring Nature Vol. 1 Collections. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

In this rousing tour-de-force, ecologist Brock Dolman reveals Planet Earth as Watershed Earth. He illustrates how the future lifeboat we’ll need is shaped exactly like our local watershed. All living things are inextricably linked by water and designed around its flow. With lessons from across the globe, he calls for a “rehydration revolution” – water systems based on good science, respect, and widespread community participation. He spins dazzling poetics to show how water-literate human settlement patterns can regenerate ecological integrity and social resiliency to prepare for the climate changes ahead. It’s a mesmerizing performance that gets a standing ovation. This speech was given at the 2009 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.

In this Sixth Age of Extinctions, the life support systems that have allowed humans to thrive are eroding. Paul Stamets, the world's leading visionary "myco-technologist," shows how fungi and mushrooms can help restore ecosystems, degraded landscapes and human health – fast. Like people, habitats have immune systems, and our close evolutionary relationship to fungi provides the basis for novel environmental deployments of key mushroom species that can lead to greater sustainability and better health. This speech was given at the 2011 Bioneers National Conference. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year. For more information on Bioneers, please visit http://www.bioneers.org and stay in touch via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Bioneers.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bioneers).

Deep Ecology extends an inalienable right to life to all beings. A systems theorist, author and lifelong activist, Joanna Macy describes how healing the world and healing your heart and soul go hand in hand. This talk took place at the 2013 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Protecting and Restoring Nature Collection, Vol. 1. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year.