Muse Ecology

Bugs are foundational to life on Earth, and their numbers are plummeting due to human activity.  In this conversation with Vicki Hird, author of Rebugging the Planet, we explore the wonders of bugs and how we can restore our relationship with them. You can find more information about rebugging, and purchase the book, at . Here's the two papers referenced in Vicki's book that came up in our discussion, on the potential effects of new higher frequency radiation on invertebrates: Arno Thielens et al., Exposure of Insects to Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields from 2 to 120 GHz, Science Reports 8, no. 3924 (2018), Arno Thielens et al., Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure of Western Honey Bees, Science Reports 10, no. 461 (2020), Many thanks to for welcoming the use of her song The Old Ways Restored in the intro. The banjo bird jam in the outro was recorded in the woods by the talented nature artist Michael DiGiorgio.  If you'd like to order a CD of this album he says to email him at the contact on his website,   

"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Prof. Millan M. Millan This last episode, for now, in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, was a great panel conversation with 6 people from 3 different organizations, each working from distinct approaches  to restore weather and climate through restoring natural processes.  It was a lovely example of the diversity of backgrounds that are beginning to come together around this idea. Juliette Kool and Ties van der Hoeven, Maya Dutta and Jim Laurie, Marcel de Berg and Pieter-Paul de Kluvier, Here is the Here is the And here again is the link to . And as always, many thanks to for the use of her song The Old Ways Restored in the introduction.        

The understanding that we can restore weather and climate systems by protecting and restoring the living surface of the Earth is an idea whose time has come.  In these final two episodes in this Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we'll hear discussions of how this understanding is beginning to guide our response to climate change, from grassroots to international levels. In this first of the two panels, I met with three  friends from previous episodes who have had a big influence on how I think about our relation to water, life, and climate:  , mesometeorologist Li An Phoa, founder of , filmmaker and ecologist Here are the linked references for the three of Millan's papers that I said in the discussion I'd include here in the show notes.  

This episode is a diverse panel discussion on the implications of renewable energy supply chains on life, water, and local communities, and how we might address them. Saad Youssefi has a background in finance and economics and works in the renewable energy sector, consulting governments and international corporations on energy production projects.  He's also coauthored . Mary Gibson is Western Shoshone, and has experienced devastation of life, land, and culture by the mining industry and the colonizing process in general.  She is on the board of . Derrick Jensen is a long time activist and advocate for the living Earth, and has written dozens of books on the subject.  Most recently he coauthored a book called , about the negative effects of the renewables industry on the biosphere. Thanks again to for the use of her song The Old Ways Restored in the introduction to each episode. You can support the Muse Ecology Podcast at with a much appreciated donation .  Thanks for listening. Here's a link to the .  

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we hear diverse voices from the resistance to the proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, on Paiute and Shoshone ancestral lands. To learn more about and support the blockade camp at Thacker Pass, you can go to . To follow the legal process, you can visit the Great Basin Resource Watch's website at . In our next episode, we'll continue exploring the complexities involved in the renewables industry with a civil panel discussion including expert perspectives from both the renewable energy industry and it's opposition.

In this conversation with author Judith Schwartz and scientist Walter Jehne, we discuss the importance of the shift from seeing the Earth as a resource base to seeing ourselves as enmeshed in a web of life that both manages and depends on natural processes.  In particular, we focus on how this perspective shift affects how we understand and are empowered to address anthropogenic climate change. Judy:   Walter:   The banjo bird jam in the intro and outro was recorded in the woods by nature artist Michael DiGiorgio.  If you'd like to order a CD of this album he says to email him at the contact on his website,  , where you can also find his exquisite nature art.

In this conversation with Paul Cereghino, we discuss some of the challenges of collaborating in groups and groups of groups to protect and restore the Earth, including such topics as the role of online interactions, the importance of place-based reality, benefits and pitfalls of systems like sociocracy, Covid complications, and much more. You can check out the to read more about Paul and friends' biocultural restoration experiment in the Puget Sound of Washington State .  And here's a link to the Paul and others are creating to share ecological restoration knowledge of their bioregion. And thanks to for allowing the use of her song The Old Ways Restored in the intro.

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we explore one of the great challenges on our way back to harmony:  humans.  Through the lens of his Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping project in western Washington State, Paul Cereghino and I discuss some of the interhuman and intergroup complexities of grassroots ecological restoration efforts. And as always, many thanks to for giving the use of her song The Old Ways Restored in the intro to each episode.

In this episode we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Alfredo Quarto, co-founder and international program director of the Mangrove Action Project.  In our conversation with Alfredo, we discuss the importance of mangrove ecologies, their devastation by the shrimp farming industry, and how the mangrove action project uses an approach called Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration to facilitate their natural regeneration. Mangrove Action Project website contains further information about mangrove ecology and their important restoration work. You can support their work by purchasing a beautiful 2021 calendar feature mangrove-inspired art from children around the world. And as always, thank you to for donating the use of her song The Old Ways Restored for the podcast intro. Financial support of the Muse Ecology Podcast is much appreciate.  You can find links to the Patreon page and the Paypal donate button at  

In this episode, we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Neal Spackman, ecological restoration designer, regenerative entrepreneur, and bold visionary. In previous episodes in this series, we’ve heard how agriculture and development having long been destroying ecology and hydrology, directly causing desertification and disruptions of weather and climate systems, and leading to the fall of empires. As cofounder and former director of the Al Baydha project in Saudi Arabia and as Founder and CEO of Regenerative Resources Corporation, Neal Spackman is working to change that ancient dynamic. His projects restore ecological function to desertified and degraded landscapes in a way that also integrates the restoration of the area’s economy, hydrology, and atmospheric interactions. The scholar that Neal refers to who came up with the term "precipitationshed" is Patrick W. Keys, and here are some of his papers on the topic:   Here is an inspiring video that Neal made about the amazing success of the Al Baydha restoration project. And here is the link to the website for Regenerative Resources Corporation:   And as always, many thanks to Peia for granting the use of her beautiful song, The Old Ways Restored, as the introduction song.  You can find her beautiful music at    

Since millennia before the early states of Mesopotamia, farming has been a complexity-destroying process.  In this episode, we'll hear from Felipe Pasini about an agricultural approach called Syntropic Farming that reverses this process, facilitating greater ecological complexity while providing for human needs. Here is a lovely video called Life In Syntropy that Felipe co-created several years ago to introduce the concept. You can learn more about Syntropic Farming at You can learn more about Katharina Serafimova's work at And again, many thanks to Peia for the use of her inspiring song The Old Ways Restored in the podcast introduction.  You can find her beautiful music at

In this second episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization Series, I'm grateful to be able to share this inspiring conversation with Li An Phoa, creator of the Drinkable Rivers movement.  Li An is a scientist, activist, and river walker, working to mobilize watersheds to engage in citizen science and work together towards the return of drinkability to their river.  Li An explains that such properties of a river can emerge when all the relationships along it's banks and in the watershed that feeds it are healthy.  She also reminds us of the important role our own singing hearts play in the web of relationships, connecting us to each other and the living world around us. You can connect with Li An Phoa and the Drinkable Rivers project at . And as always, thank you to the amazing singer and musician Peia, for allowing me to use her song The Old Ways Restored in the introduction to each podcast.  You can find her music at

"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Professor Millan Millan In this episode we learn about what Professor Millan Millan calls "the second leg of human-induced climate change":  how our land use changes lead to major disruptions of weather and climate patterns, independently of changes due to warming from carbon emissions.  As Millan shares, the international scientific community has known for fifty years that anthropogenic climate change has two legs:  greenhouse gases and surface property changes due to land use change.  While business and politics have assimilated the greenhouse gas narrative, addressing the climate effects of our land use will require far more fundamental changes. In these conversations with Professor Millan, we'll hear about the processes involved in the land use leg of climate change, and how we can act to address it. As I mention in the introduction, this episode is a bit long, around two and a half hours, since I wanted to include as much as possible from my time with Millan learning about this important topic.  A good breaking point if you need it, after the audio from our first visit, is at 1:24:17. Here's links to papers mentioned in the episode: And here are the books mentioned in the episode: Inadverdent Climate Modification, by MIT Press Mesoscale Meteorlogical Modelling, Roger A. Pielke Sr. Mesoscale Atmospheric Circulations, B.W. Atkinson Atmospheric Thermodynamics, J.V. Iribarne and W.L. Godson   And thank you to Peia, for gifting the use of her song The Old Ways Restored as the background music for the introduction.  She is an amazing singer and songwriter, and carries old folk songs from cultures around the world, from times when folks were more connected to the natural world. 

In this prelude to the upcoming series dealing with the interrelated processes of Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization, we take a look at the historical and mythological roots of civilization's discord, and set the tone for the series with a new song and some poignant clips from the next three episodes that remind us of the dynamic complexity we are interconnected with. From renowned meteorologist, Professor Millan Millan, we'll learn how our land use has been disrupting weather and climate since long before it was accelerated by the industrial revolution, and how land use change can bring about meteorological healing. From scientist and inspiring activist Li An Phoa we'll hear about her Drinkable Rivers project, and her mission to awaken folks to the awareness that Drinkable Rivers are a result of all the relationships and processes in a watershed being intact and healthy, including our own singing hearts. Finally, we'll hear from farmer and journalist Felipe Pasini about an agricultural approach called Syntropic Farming, which increases rather than reduces complexity on a landscape. Here's a link to And here are it's

In this episode, we visit Quail Springs in the Cuyama Valley of Southern California, a place and community dear to my heart. We'll hear useful knowledge about building with natural materials, and learn of exciting recent developments in the international legalization of cob construction. This episode also contains alot of folk music, including quite a few songs from the soulful Cuyama Mama Jan Smith. There was even a surprise acoustic performance by the talented bluegrass band, Hot Buttered Rum (HBR). Feel free to have hoe-down dance party, and if you'd like to hear even more, Nat from HBR welcomed me to share the whole recording of their set with you. . They are currently doing an indigogo campaign for a musical project they just recorded in Rwanda and Zambia.  You can support . And here's a few more of Jan's songs that were in the episode: , , You can support the important ongoing cob testing work at Quail Springs . You can find out more about the Cob Research Institute and their work getting cob into building codes . You can hear more from the musicians in this episode at the following links: Hot Buttered Rum:  Jan Smith:                                      Andrew Clinard:  Alice Bradley:  And again, thank you to Peia for allowing me to use her song The Old Ways Restored for the introduction, and for her important work in the world.  You can find her music and tour dates at  

In this episode, we hear the voice of Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim. She passed on, but her light lives on in so many of us water babies. These recordings of Grandma Aggie are from this past year: a panel at the Global Earth Repair Conference in Washington state, a prescribed fire training exchange in Ashland, Oregon, and finally at her 95th birthday gathering. I hope these words bless you like they've blessed me, and help remind us to be a voice for the voiceless. If you can support her family financially, it would be much appreciated, especially for her daughter Nadine, a great grandmother herself, who has taken care of Grandma Aggie for years.  You can donate directly to help Nadine at the following paypal link: If you would like to make a tax deductable donation, you can do it through the Grandmother's Empowerment Project paypal link below, and specify "Support for Nadine" in the comment: And again, thank you to Peia for allowing me to use her song The Old Ways Restored for the introduction, and for her important work in the world.  You can find her music and tour dates at

In spring 2018 I visited the headquarters of the Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Company in Vista, California, where the Bronner family carries on the legacy of 5 generations of traditional soapmaking and the quirky and passionate All-One vision of Emmanuel Bronner (Dr. Bronner).  You are probably familiar with their colorful liquid soap bottles covered with words exuberantly enumerating what Dr. Bronner called the Moral ABC's. The Bronner Family still uses their castillian soap product as a platform for world healing.  I met with David Bronner, Emmanuel's grandson, intending to discuss the new Regenerative Organic Certification that they are championing along with Patagonia, The Rodale Institute, and quite a few other companies who are seeking to help create a more harmonious agricultural system.  David also invited Mickey Norris and Chris Conrad to join our factory tour and conversation. David described Chris and Mickey as "the godfather and godmother of cannabis" because of their 30 plus years of pioneering advocacy work towards legalizing cannabis. We ended up discussing much more than just regenerative agriculture, but it all fluently flowed together in the All-One story.  Legalization of psychedelics and cannabis, regenerative grazing and dietary choices, bison, beaver, David's relationship with his granddad, the history of soapmaking...you can't really draw the line between these threads, for it's All One or None!  Exceptions Eternally?  Absolute None!  All One!  All One! ---- You can visit Dr. Bronner's website at . Here's the official website for Regenerative Organic Certification:  . The silly, swaggery instrumental music used in the intro and outro this episode is instrumental clips from a recording of my song Meter Maid Betty from a few years ago at Dave Clark's (Banjo Dave's) house.  Such a pleasure to play with the amazing Ross Plunkett on trumpet and the sweet, sultry sounds of Angelica Pray singing along here and there.  Katie was on the flute, but I forgot her last name. Good times.  I hope to play with you folks again. Here's that full recording:     And again, I want to thank Peia, the angelic Songkeeper who has allowed me to use her song for my Muse Ecology introduction.  She writes beautiful Earth songs that soothe the soul and inspire courage, and she carries songs from old cultures around the world, from times when the village was intact and humans were more connected with the greater ecology around them.  She has been mostly focusing recently on the music of her own Gaelic ancestry.  I highly recommend her music and also performances and workshops if you can make it.  You can see what she's up to at 

While later this year there will be an in depth Muse Ecology series on the beaver, in this episode we hear one one the more inspiring beaver stories I've come across: the tale of the Martinez Beaver.  When the beaver moved in to downtown Martinez, CA, the city originally intended to exterminate them, but thanks to community involvement, the Martinez Beaver became protected and celebrated as a cultural icon.  In this episode, we hear this story from beaver advocate and founder and president of Worth a Dam, Heidi Perryman. Important Announcement:  If you are anywhere near Martinez tomorrow (Saturday, June 29th), it's the 12th annual Martinez Beaver Festival!  Warning: beaver enthusiasm is highly contagious! You can find more information on the beaver and Worth A Dam at The feautured image for this episode, of a beaver mother and her kit, was taken by Cheryl Reynolds in Martinez, CA. The Ballad of the Martinez Beaver in this episode was written by Mark Comstock. The theme song in the Muse Ecology introduction is The Old Ways Restored, by Peia.  You can find her music and tour schedule at    

In this inspiring episode of Muse Ecology, we hear songs and conversation from my visit early spring of this year with musical artist Peia.  While many restoration ecologists and regenerative agriculturalists are working to restore harmony at the ecosystem level, Peia is one of the bards doing important work at the level of human emotion and narrative; inspiring open, courageous hearts and reminding us of what is sacred. Starting with this episode, Peia's song The Old Ways Restored will now be the theme music for the Muse Ecology introduction, setting a magical and adventurous tone for each episode before we hear some of the voices and grooves of people and place as we make our way back to harmony. You can find out more of Peia's work, and see a schedule of her upcoming shows and workshops at  

In this fifth and final episode in this series on the bison in the Great Plains, we visit the Savory Institute Headquarters in Colorado and speak with Daniela Howell, Director of the Savory Institute, and Allan Savory, inventor of the Holistic Management framework. We also hear some collaborative discussion about how regenerative cattle ranchers might support efforts to facilitate the return of large roaming herds of wildlife to the prairie. You can find the Muse Ecology Webinar Wild Bison and Holistic Management, A Collaborative Conversation at  You can find out more about The Savory Institute at Here's links for each of the organizations in this bison series , , , ,  DiGiorgio.  . You can find his amazing nature art at . Michael says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.  Many thanks to Michael for letting me use it for this first year of episodes.  This will be the last episode with this introduction music, as next episode begins year two with an intro song by the beautiful musical artist . You can support the production of Muse Ecology at , or with the Paypal donate button on the side of the page at .  

  Wild Idea Buffalo Company is a bison ranching business that exists to conserve and restore the prairie ecosystem of the northern Great Plains. With no roundup, and an innovative field harvesting method, they care for the well-being of the bison, and as much as possible allow them to express their co-evolved behaviours. You can follow their blog and order their bison meat at Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD. You can support the production of Muse Ecology at .  

In this episode, we continue our investigation of the Great Plains Bison with a visit to 777 Bison Ranch near Rapid City, South Dakota.  Owner Mimi Hilenbrandt and fellow operations manager Moritz Espy gave us a tour of the pastures and corrals.  Along the way, we discussed differences and similarities between bison and cattle, the possibility of a buffalo commons, their business model and how it affects the bison, and how their decades of Holistic Management and bison grazing have led to regeneration of the prairie landscape.  We also discussed a few of the complex questions the bison forces us to wrestle with. You can find them at In the episode I refer to a book about restoration bison ranching.  It's called A Wild Idea, by Dan O'brien of Wild Idea Buffalo Company, whom you'll hear from next episode. Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.  

In our visit with Mark Tilsen in the Black Hills for Episode 5 about Tanka Bar, our interview happened to take place right before a prayer walk to a proposed gold mining site up the creek from Mark's place.  As I began to include this synchronous content in the Tanka Bar episode, I realized that it lit up a section of the rabbit hole that needed it's own episode for a proper introduction, so I created this bonus episode to explore some of the complexities that emerged while looking at gold mining in the Black Hills.  It includes another historical introduction, audio from the prayer walk, and recordings from phone conversations with Mark Tilsen and Cheryl Rowe of Dakota Rural Action. Here's a photo of the Homestake Mine site, photo credit to Rachel Harris: Links: Tanka Bar: Dakota Rural Action:  Mineral Mountain Resources:  U.N. Special Report on Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.: You can find the album, Under a Buffalo Sun, containing John Trudell's Buffalo Wild poem, and another album of Mignon and Good Shield's entitled Soul-A-Mente. You can find the New Food Economy article Mark mentions in the update interview . Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.          

In this episode, the second of four in this series on the bison in the Great Plains, we visit the lands of the Oglala Lakota in the Black Hills of Western South Dakota, where we met with Mark Tilsen, cofounder of Tanka Bar.   Tanka Bar, a company owned and operated by the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Reservation, created the first commercial bison meat and fruit bar based on one of their sacred foods, called wasna.  The mission of Tanka Bar is to restore the Pine Ridge landscape and economy by bringing back the buffalo.  Before the interview with Mark, I also share a bit more history of the time of the buffalo slaughter.  I feel it's useful to have some understanding of the creation of the wounds that Tanka Bar is working to help heal. There's also a bonus episode that wove with the buffalo investigation in the Black Hills, that will be released days after this one. We'll look at historic and and current natural resource struggles in lands granted to the Oglala Lakota in 1868.  It's much the same story as the extermination of the buffalo that we dive deeper into in this episode, but has enough non-buffalo complexities that I decided to give it it's own space in a bonus episode.  It includes an interview with Cheryl Rowe of Dakota Rural Action. You can find out more about Tanka Bar and the Tanka Fund at the following links: You can find the album, Under a Buffalo Sun, containing John Trudell's Buffalo Wild poem, and another album of Mignon and Good Shield's entitled Soul-A-Mente. You can find the New Food Economy article Mark mentions in the update interview . Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.    

This episode of Muse Ecology is the first in this four part series beginning to explore humankind's relation to the bison in the Great Plains of North America. This buffalo series features diverse voices of folks involved in the bison's return that Alison and I met on our buffalo investigation journey in February 2018. While the next three episodes feature entrepreneurs and ranchers who are working to restore bison to the landscape, this first episode features voices of wildlife advocates who see the buffalo as a wild elder whose right to roam long precedes our recent human constructs.   The first visit on our buffalo journey was with the Buffalo Field Campaign, a volunteer-run organization that exists to defend the dignity and freedom of the last continuously wild herd of buffalo in North America, in Yellowstone National Park. Founded over 20 years ago by Lakota Grandmother Rosalie Littlethunder and videographer Mike Mease, through documentation and advocacy, the BFC seeks to promote awareness of the story and management of the Yellowstone bison, and to influence policy to allow them to roam free like the other wild ones.   At just over two and a half hours this episode ended up a bit long, but felt like one story to be released together, so I divided it up into chapters like an audio book or radio play, and created a table of contents with minute and second, to make it easy to restart if you have to take a break.   00:00:52         Introduction to the Buffalo Series 00:09:17         Arrival at BFC 00:09:46   Chapter 1: The First Annual Rosalie Littlethunder Memorial                                   Walk 00:15:44   Rosalie Memorial Circle 00:29:27   Chapter 2: Buffalo Awareness in Bozeman 00:29:31        More Words From Karen Littlethunder and Cheryl Angel 00:35:04        Awareness Rally Grooves 00:38:53   Chapter 3: Ski Patrol and Share Frog 00:38:55        A Daily Meeting 00:45:55        Buffalo Patrol 00:52:96        A Wild Lullaby for Share Frog 00:57:05   Chapter 4: Jimmy Brings an Important Message 01:09:46   Chapter 5: A Conversation with Stephanie Seay 01:11:24        Conversation with Stephanie 01:35:14   Chapter 6: A Conversation with Mike Mease 01:36:05        Details about the March webinar 01:36:46        Conversation with Mike 02:36:11        Closing Rumination and Introduction of Tanka Bar Episode   You can connect with the Buffalo Field Campaign, to follow their work or arrange to volunteer for a while, at Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.  

Episode 3 closes out Muse Ecology's inaugural series recorded in December 2017, about ecosystem restoration and the work of John D. Liu. In this episode, John and I have a conversation on the way to the airport that weaves through many topics currently affecting our global situation, and we discuss how a large scale shift to focusing on ecosystem restoration addresses the roots of all of them. John D. Liu is Ecosystem Ambassador for Commonland Foundation and Visiting Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also catalyzed the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement.  You can find his films and research papers at  One of the topics we discuss is how water vapor is more of a greenhouse gas than carbon emissions, and how ecosystem destruction has disrupted the water cycle and led to increase of uncondensated (not formed into clouds) atmospheric water vapor.  The source John was referring to for his greenhouse gas numbers can be found at the following link.  Water vapor also acts as a magnifier of other greenhouse gases through strong feedback effects.  Here's another article, from NASA, on water vapor's contribution to the greenhouse gas effect. Some have ascribed the increase in uncondensated atmospheric water vapor simply to warming caused by carbon emissions, as in the following article. Other researchers have been doing work synthesizing peer-reviewed findings from climatology, ecology, soil science, microbiology, and other fields that show anthropogenic causes, besides carbon emissions, of increased uncondensated water vapor and climate change.  The good news about such effects is that they are based on our land management, and hence can be changed.  The ecosystems that control the water cycles and climate have largely been cleared, drained, and paved or tilled up, and by restoring ecosystem function on the surface of Earth, we can restore hydrological cycles, which control most of our planet's thermodynamics.  Here are some links to some of this important work exploring these complexities. Walter Jehne's  paper was presented at Tufts, MIT, Columbus, Dayton, Oberlin, and Harvard Universities in 2015.  It addresses water as greenhouse gas, our land management's effects on the water cycle and climate, and the role of vegetation and organic carbon and microbiology in the soil.  Atmospheric carbon is relevant too of course, and he also has a great paper on the carbon drawdown possibilities of ecosystem restoration, .  He also gave a fantastic webinar presentation earlier this year, 2018, on the water cycle, how we've altered it, and what we can do about it, as a guest on the webinar hosted by my friends Neal and Raleigh.  You can find the webinar video . Juraj Kohutiar and Michal Kravčík wrote another great paper on civilization's land management's effects on ecology and hence hydrology and climate, .  They and others at the Rain4Climate group also wrote the book , also available for free online. Here are a couple more links with lists of further resources on the relations between vegetation, water cycles, and climate. There lots more out there on these complexities, and folks are continuing to do important research, so stay tuned in to this topic of the connections between ecosystem restoration, water cycles, and climate change.  We have alot to learn. _______ Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD. State of the Union, at the end, is part of my album The Sweet Subtle Revolution, that I've been thinking to record for a while now.  You can find a few of my songs and videos and a booking contact at The lovely version of Home on the Range in the background during the introduction to the bison series at the end was on the album The Spirit of South Dakota, part of an album series of music and nature sounds from National Parks around the U.S.  You can find this beautiful music at   

This is the fifth and final part of episode 2 at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany with John D. Liu.  In this part we hear two conversations about the important but historically ignored voices from indigenous nations, including their long history of oppression by globalizing civilization, the distinct worldviews inherent in the global economy and indigenous cultures, and the importance of bridging these differences and working together to protect and restore the Earth. John D. Liu is Ecosystem Ambassador for Commonland Foundation and Visiting Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also catalyzed the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement.  You can find his films and research papers at  We will first hear John Liu speak with Leo van der Vlist, who works for the Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Embassy for the Earth, and is a member of the international Forest Stewardship Council.  For over 25 years, Leo has been working with indigenous peoples to protect and restore their sovereignty, and for the last couple years has been working with large scale ecosystem restoration projects involving local communities. After Leo, we'll hear another profound conversation, with Marcos Terena, an indigenous elder from Brazil, along with his translator, Mercio Cerbaro, PhD researcher at the University of Surrey in the UK.  Marcos has been working for decades to involve sovereign indigenous voices in the global conversation. In 1988, he was integral to the inclusion of indigenous rights in the Brazilian Constitution. In 1992, more than 700 indigenous leaders worldwide elected him to speak to world leaders on their behalf at the U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the first time an indigenous person had addressed the United Nations. He also founded the Union of Indigenous Nations, the first indigenous rights group in Brazil, and is the coordinator for the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.  In this interview, he shares valuable observations, concerns, and wisdom about mankind's relation to Mother Earth. Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending. You can find his amazing nature art at . Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.

While largely unfamiliar to many, peatlands perform crucial funcions in Earth's carbon and water cycles.  For many centuries we have been draining peatlands to free up land for commodity agriculture, destroying these important living systems.  We now are growing aware of the effects of draining peatlands, and some folks are exploring ways to preserve and restore these wet ecologies while still being able to produce and harvest biomass and other crops from these areas.  This sort of peatland agriculture is called paludiculture. In part 4 of this 5 part series at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany, we will hear John D. Liu interview 3 individuals who are working to change agriculture, finance, and policy so that they work to restore, rather than drain peatlands. John D. Liu is Ecosystem Ambassador for Commonland Foundation and Visiting Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also catalyzed the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement.  You can find his films and research papers at  Jans Joosten, one of the world's foremost experts on peatlands, is head of the Department of Peatland Studies and Paleoecology of Greifswald University.  ()  He will describe how peatlands function and some of the consequences of draining them.  Through his research, writing, and policy advising he has helped to protect and restore peatlands all over the world. Annawati van Paddenburg is Head of Sustainable Landscapes at the Investment and Policy Solutions Division of the Global Green Growth Initiative. ()  With member countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, she has worked on climate and food security and sustainable growth in forest, agriculture, coastal, and marine areas.  Growing up in rural Indonesia, she is motivated by her observations of the destructive effects of business on the pristine landscapes of her childhood.  The Indonesian government has recently determined to rewet their drained peatlands, and she is working with them to develop commodity production business models that support both local communities and peatland ecologies. Aldert van Weeren is a cattail farmer. () After rewetting and restoring peatland areas, intending to sustainably harvest cattails for housing insulation, he found that he had legally created nature reserves and was not allowed to harvest from them.  He and others have been working to change these policies so that folks like him can restore and preserve peatland function while producing a nontoxic, renewable source of housing insulation. Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending.  You can find his amazing nature art at  .  Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.    

In Part 3 of this episode at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany, we will hear conversations between John Liu and folks who are working to restore degraded forest lands around the world through research, international business, and volunteer initiatives. John D. Liu is Ecosystem Ambassador for Commonland Foundation and Visiting Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He also catalyzed the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement.  You can find his films and research papers at  Patrick Worms is President of the European Agroforestry Federation and Senior Science Advisor for the World Agroforestry Centre, a research organization that studies the benefits of trees in agicultural systems and helps farmers to implement their findings. Pieter van Midwoud is the Tree Planting Officer for Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees.  As people use the search engine, their counter shows how many trees they are responsible for purchasing, and Pieter is the one who connects with reforestation projects around the world to get the them planted. You can set Ecosia as your default search engine or try it out at . Paul Hol is the Executive Director of Form International, a forest management and services company that manages 27,000 hectares of sustainable forest plantations, forest restortion, nature conservation, and agroforestry in Ghana and Tanzania.  They work to restore degraded forest lands and local livelihoods while creating models that demonstrate that trees can be a good investment.   Aviram Rozin is the Founder and International Director of Sadhana Forest, a vegan volunteer-based organization focused on creating long-term plant-based food security through environmental restoration. Globally, there are 133 million malnourished people living in arid areas who have private land but are not using it to grow food due to lack of water and agricultural knowledge. Sadhana Forest trains local people in India, Haiti and Kenya in the use of water-saving irrigation techniques and provides them with free seedlings to plant drought-resistant, indigenous, food-bearing trees around their homes.  Aviram is also a board member of the Foundation for the World Education and the first council member from India in the Global Restoration Council.    Sadh Guru is a mystic, best-selling author, and founder of the Isha Foundation.  He has inspired a people's movement in India that has planted over 32 million trees.   You can find the entire conversation between Sadh Guru and Eric Solheim, Environment Director for the U.N. . Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending.  You can find his amazing nature art at  .  Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.    

In Part 2 of Episode 2, we hear some voices of folks who are working to bridge the world of global finance with the preservation and restoration of ecological function.   Caroline van Leenders is the Senior Policy Advisor of Greening Finance at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.  She facilttes community of practice groups for investors to help them move their money to more benficial projects.  She is also a writer and advocate of regenerative economic system change.   Nanno Kleiterp is chair of the &Green Fund, which funds projects that show how highly productive commodity agriculture can be done in a way that protects ad restores forests, peatlands, and human livelihoods.   Jan Willem den Besten is the Senior Expert of Ecosystems and Climate for the Dutch national committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the world's largest environmental organization.  Its vision is a just world that values and conserves nature.   Michael DiGiorgio recorded the banjo-bird jams I'm using in the intro and ending.  You can find his amazing nature art at  .  Mike says that if you'd like to buy the album of his nature-banjo jams, you can find his email on his website and he can mail you a CD.

Episode 2 consists of some fascinating interviews conducted by John Liu at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany.  I've arranged them into five parts. Part 1 focuses on Commonland Foundation, an organization that catalyzes regenerative projects around the word.  We heard of Commonland in Episode 1 at the ecosystem restoration camp in Spain, and how it had played a crucial role in the context that facilitated that project.  We hear from Willem Ferwerda, founder and CEO of Commonland Foundation.  I found his words to be clear and insightful, as John Liu's questions ranged from advice to youth seeking to enter the emerging regenerative economy to the relation between ecosystem health and social stability.  Willem and the Commonland Foundation have done much to facilitate better relations between economy and ecology, and to restore ecosystem function in degraded landscapes. We also hear from Eva Rood, Director of the Positive Change Initiative at Rotterdam school of Management, Erasmus University and project leader of the ENABLE-consortium (European Network for the Advancement of Business & Landscape Education).  She works with Commonland and Erasmus University to help create ways to educate folks on how to do business in a way that benefits ecosystem function.    

The Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement has begun with the pilot camp in the Altiplano of southern Spain.  In this episode I visit the camp to hear from the resident restoration volunteers and the land owner, Alfonso Chico de Guzman, cofounder of the Alvelal initiative. Links: Find out more and become a supporting member of the Ecosystem Restoration Camps at   You can find scholarly work and films of John Liu at  Find out more about the AlVeLal Association at At you can set up Ecosia as your search engine where your searches pay for trees for restoration projects around the world. The banjo bird jam in the intro and outro was recorded in the woods by nature artist Michael DiGiorgio.  If you'd like to order a CD of this album he says to email him at the contact on his website,  You can find more of Jo's acoustic music at You can find more of Ides' experimental electronic music at Resident volunteers in a phone meeting with an expert consultant   Alfonso showing me on of the many construction projects on the land   Jo serenading while Kirsten takes her turn preparing dinner   Some green popping up at the restoration camp site where earthworks have collected some precious rainwater.   Alfonso and his father and brother standing near one of the ruins on their land   La Muela, the mountain nearby where ecosystem restoration camp volunteers were helping Alvelal to plant 50,000 trees donated by (You can't see the new trees yet)