Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

First Peoples have long used key sacred plants as powerful healing tools and to communicate with the "mind of nature." In this truly unique session Bioneers associate producer and editor of Visionary Plant Consciousness J.P. Harpignies and ethnobotanist/artist Kat Harrison hosted deeply experienced practitioners of sacred plant traditions from the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, including Mazatec Elder Julieta Casimiro; Maria Alice Campos Freire, a Madrinha in Brazil's Santo Daime Church; traditional Cheyenne dance leader, sculptress and writer Margaret Behan Red Spider Woman; and Bernadette Rebienot, Omyene healer and master of the lboga Bwiti Rite.

In this podcast excerpt from a Bioneers workshop, Rebecca Burgess, Ariel Greenwood, and Guido Frosini explain how drawing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing it in the soil can reverse climate change.“Our soils have a carbon debt. Our atmosphere is gushing with carbon. The carbon over our heads is literally in the wrong place.” Rebecca BurgessRather than being the problem, carbon can be the solution to climate change by managing our landscapes to capture atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis and sequester it in the soil where it increases fertility and makes the land more drought resilient. Marin and Sonoma County ranchers and entrepreneurs are building local agricultural economies while regenerating ecosystems and sequestering carbon. The Fibershed Project, founded by Rebecca Burgess, is developing regional clothing production with a community of ecological farmers and artisans. Solar power, grey-water and recycling are all embedded aspects of the Fibershed’s. They have also implemented a Climate Beneficial Certification for their suppliers to ensure that from soil to garment production the stewardship of the environment and climate are paramount considerations.Two young climate conscious ranchers who share the Fibershed’s ethos are Ariel Greenwood and Guido Frosini. Both balance deep ecology with landscape and livestock management and economic sustainability. Ariel, who describes herself as a “feral agrarian,” holistically manages a herd of cattle to regenerate ecosystems and restore water cycles by increasing biodiversity and sequestering carbon. Guido Frosini of True Grass Farms is an innovative land steward who balances soil and grass cycles with the intentional movement of livestock in a climate beneficial ranching system. Rebecca, Ariel and Guido share their experience, knowledge, and aspirations on this Food Web podcast: Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber

From nature’s viewpoint, people are one species. Categories such as race, class, nation, religion and even many gender roles are human constructs. Yet the world is riven by exploitation and violence driven by these perceived divisions at an epic moment of demographic change toward the U.S. becoming a majority minority nation. john a. powell, Director of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, and Manuel Pastor, Director of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at University of Southern California, show how to build effective movements to overcome these divisions and come together to solve the planetary emergency that threatens our common home.Find out more about john a. powell and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting the Berkeley Haas Institute.Find out more about Manuel Pastor and how you can engage with his campaigns and efforts by visiting the USC Dornslife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Writer, naturalist and activist Terry Tempest Williams asks “Can we love ourselves, each other and the Earth enough to change?” She invokes our deepest humanity to honor and protect the wilderness that’s the cauldron of evolution – and of our own imagination. “Our power lies in the love of our homelands,” she tells us in this eloquent, heartfelt tour-de-force, and protecting the wild requires bringing democracy home.Find out more about Terry Tempest Williams and how you can engage with her campaigns and efforts by visiting her website

Just like our bodies, nature has a profound capacity for healing and self-repair. Filmmaker-turned-ecological-restorer John Liu shifted from documenting China's massive environmental and societal upheavals to filming a groundbreaking, large-scale ecosystem restoration cum local economic renewal. Prioritizing nature's ecological functions above producing goods and services, the groundbreaking work is spreading to other nations, with Liu as a global ambassador of dramatic ecosystem restoration wonders.

Cuba developed, out of necessity, the most organic, sustainable agricultural system of any country. Is that model replicable in other parts of the world, or is it now likely to be overrun by industrial farming as ironically the easing of tensions with the U.S. opens the island up to the influx of capital and multinational corporate plutocrats? What can we learn from Cuba’s food system, and what are the risks to Cuban food security and sovereignty as its economic isolation ends?With: Kevin Danaher, co-founder of Global Exchange and FairTradeUSA; Greg Watson, former Massachusetts Secretary of Agriculture; Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

On his deathbed Henry David Thoreau said his only regret was being too well behaved. Julia Butterfly Hill, Diane Wilson and Terri Swearingen, three of the most imaginative, inspiring and courageous direct action heroines of our era share their experiences and show us how courage and commitment can stop mountains from being moved.

What lies behind the fascination to tinker with the building blocks of life? Kenny Ausubel and Andrew Kimbrell shed light on the disturbing genetic engineering debate and activist Luke Anderson reports from the successful campaign that has derailed the spread of "biological pollution" in Great Britain and Europe.

Some of the best minds on the planet are busy cataloguing possible solutions to the crisis of climate chaos. Scientists, entrepreneurs and educators on technology’s cutting edge offer a broad array of bio-based solutions that are already working to transition us to a truly sustainable civilization. Biomimics Janine Benyus, Stephan Dewar, David Orr and Jay Harman offer a smorgasbord of startling solutions based on nature’s genius.

Bioneers are successfully employing the economics of nature to demonstrate how we can solve two of our most intractable environmental challenges: energy and agriculture. In a few decades, the U.S. can get completely off oil, as physicist Amory Lovins convincingly shows. Economist and anthropologist Jason Clay presents profitable examples of modeling nature's economics, from clean shrimp farms in Asia to healthy potatoes in Wisconsin.