Herein are some of our major heroes and heroines of the Global Earth Repair movement. These are people who have made a distinct, tangible difference. Of course, many of these people are part of group efforts, but these we wish to Recognize have also inspired and motivated thousands of others. Proof positive that just one person, or a few collaborators, can be a catalyst toward entire movements! These folk and groups listed represent to us that essential spark.
This list also includes models of what hav worked, and potentially those that will – both restoration and role models. The people and communities of our world need examples and inspirations. The study of this list will help give you an idea of the enormity and scope of the world’s restoration efforts.
Websites, videos and references are included for many of these entries. Please keep in mind, this is a work in progress. We ultimately wish to create a list of All the leading Earth Repair individuals, groups and movements, within every country in the world. It would include thousands of notable people. Here we have just the start.
A genuine query: “What other lists like this exist out there?” We also ask that our visitors please send nominations to add to the GERF Hall of Fame! There is a form to fill out, here.
You may browse this list alphabetically using the letter links below, OR browse by continent – click a continent on the map below to bring up a page full of all the Earth Repair heroes from there!
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Robert Adrian de Jauralde Hart (1913-2000) – Highwood Hill Farm – England, Europe
Robert Adrian de Jauralde Hart (1913-2000) was an English pioneer of forest gardening in temperate zones. He created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m²) orchard on his farm. Hart began with a smallholding called Highwood Hill farm at Wenlock Edge. His intention was to provide a healthy and therapeutic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, who was born with severe learning disabilities. Read more…
Dr. William Albert Albrecht (1888 – 1974) – Missouri, USA
Dr. William Albert Albrecht was not only a distinguished scientist and brilliant scholar; he was also a true visionary and committed humanitarian. He believed that animals, including humans, provide biochemical photographs of the soils in which their foods are grown. He was the foremost authority on the relation of soil fertility to human health and earned four degrees he saw a direct link between soil quality, food quality and human health. He drew direct connections between poor quality forage crops, and ill health in livestock and from this developed a formula for ideal ratios of cations in the soil, the Base Cation Saturation Ratio. While he did not discover cation exchange in the soil as is sometimes supposed, he may have been the first to associate it with colloidal clay particles. Twenty years before the phrase ‘environmental concern’ crept into the national consciousness, he was lecturing from coast to coast on the broad topic of agricultural ecology. Read more…
Glenn Albrecht – Earth Emotions – Australia
Glenn Albrecht is an environmental philosopher with both theoretical and applied interests in the relationship between ecosystem and human health. He was Professor of Sustainability at Murdoch University in Western Australia. He has pioneered the research domain of ‘psychoterratic’ or earth related mental health conditions with the concept of ‘solastalgia’ or the lived experience of negative environmental change. He also has publications in the field of animal ethics including the ethics of relocating endangered species in the face of climate change pressures. Read more…
Peter Andrews – Natural Sequence Land Restoration – Australia
Peter Andrews is the creator of “natural sequence land restoration,” a holistic land management process. He founded the Watershed Organization Trust, which focuses on the effect of dry land restoration and water cycle.He has applied these insights in restoring his and other properties to fertility levels that he says existed upon European arrival in this country. In 2011, Peter Andrews was awarded Australia’s highest public award – the Order of Australia Medal. He is a Consultant on the Advisory Board of Rain for Climate, an international organisation formed by pre-eminent climate, soil and water scientists from around the world. Read more…
David Bainbridge – Desert Restoration – USA
David Bainbridge is a Research Ecologist focusing on dryland degradation and desertification, which now affects almost a billion people around the world, as his passion remains in how to understand, repair, and restore damaged ecosystems. He is an expert in the ecology of desert plants, explores the causes of desertification and land abuse, and outlines the processes and procedures needed to evaluate, plan, implement, and monitor desert restoration projects. Read more…
Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982) – Men of the Trees Society – Kenya, Africa
Richard St. Barbe Baker is the First Global Conservationist as he founded the Men of the Trees Society in 1922 in Kenya. Now based in the UK, this organization is still active today as the International Tree Foundation, whose many chapters carry out reforestation internationally (over 100 countries). Over the course of his great works, Richard had international impact, and he is the person who inspired Michael Pilarski to start Friends of the Trees Society in 1978. By some estimates, organizations he founded or assisted have been responsible for planting at least 26 trillion trees, internationally. Read more…
Daan Bleichrodt – IVN Tiny Forest – Netherlands
Daan Bleichrodt is on a mission to re-connect urban kids with nature worldwide. He is Chief Tree Planting Officer at the IVN environmental education and leads the Tiny Forest movement in the Netherlands. He is also a consultant and teacher for Earthwatch in the UK, Goodplanet in Belgium, and Ecosystem Restoration Camps. Read more…
Gabe Brown – Dirt to Soil – USA
Gabe Brown is one of the pioneers of the current soil health movement which focuses on the regeneration of our resources. Gabe, along with his wife Shelly, and son Paul, own and operate Brown’s Ranch, a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch. The ranch consists of several thousand acres of native perennial rangeland along with perennial pastureland and cropland. Their ranch focuses on farming and ranching in nature’s image. Read more…
Wendy Campbell-Purdie (1925-1985) – Woman Against the Desert – Africa
Born and raised in New Zealand in the 1920’s, Wendy Campbell-Purdie branched out internationally and launched several successful tree-planting projects in Africa. She was a pioneer, an international tree-planting leader, and her work was rooted in awareness of the value of trees and associated biodiversity in halting the spread of the desert, providing food (directly and indirectly) for people and livestock, and creating a microclimate that made rain more likely. As she worked in Morocco and Algeria, she also became more and more aware of the value of tree planting and nurturing in offering good employment in areas where unemployment rates were well over 50%. By planting trees on the perimeter of the desert and then by spreading the growth of trees inwards, she argues that it is possible to spread vegetation until it almost entirely covers the world’s biggest desert. Read more…
Robert “Amigo Bob” Cantisano (1951-2020) – Ecological Farming Conference – California, USA
Amigo Bob Cantisano was one of the most widely experienced and influential figures in California organic agriculture and is perhaps best known as the founding organizer of the annual Ecological Farming Conference, which is the largest sustainable- agriculture gathering in the Western United States. Read more…
George Washington Carver (1864-1963) – Agricultural Pioneer – USA
George Washington Carver was an African American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton (like peanuts and sweet potato), methods to prevent soil depletion, and to improve the lives of impoverished farmers. He believed in the interconnectedness between the health of the land and the health of the people who lived on it. Read more…
Chikukwa Project – Zimbabwe, Africa
For the last 20 years, villagers in this area have taken their lives and futures into their own hands with the permaculture-informed restoration of watersheds, farmland and culture. Where once the people of the Chikukwa villages suffered hunger, malnutrition and high rates of disease, this community has turned its fortunes around using permaculture farming techniques. Now they have a surplus of food and the people in these villages are healthy and proud of their achievements. Their degraded landscape has been turned into a lush paradise. Complementing these strategies for food security, they have built their community strength through locally controlled and initiated programs for permaculture training, conflict resolution, women’s empowerment, primary education and HIV management. Read more…
Dr. (Master) Cho – Natural Farming – South Korea
Dr. (Master) Cho of South Korea is a farmer that founded Natural Farming in the 1960s. His systematic and scientific inquiry enabled him to identify the great potentials of the concept and strategy of Farming with Indigenous micro-organisms (IMO). Dr. Cho tried to show an alternative way of farming that assured both high yield and good quality, a nature- respecting farming that superceded the chemical intensive agriculture which had just begun to spread in South Korea at that time. Read more…
Youngsang Cho – JADAM Organic Farming – South Korea
Youngsang Cho was born in Korea and is bringing farming back to the farmers; to restore the farmers’ sovereignty in technology; spread an ultra-low cost method of farming; and ultimately open a new world where farmers, consumers and mother nature are in harmony. He studied chemistry and horticulture and then founded JADAM in 1991 meaning “people that resemble nature”. Read more…
Park Chung-Hee (1917-1979) – President – South Korea
Park Chung-Hee led the reforestation of South Korea after the Korean war. Normally politicians aren’t mentioned in honors lists for ecology, but here is a notable exception as South Korea is one of the world’s best models of national reforestation. Before his presidency, he was a military leader in the South Korean army, and was the second-highest ranking officer in the army. He first came to power after leading a military coup in 1961, which brought an end to the interim government of the Second Republic. He was assassinated in 1979. Read more…
Storm Cunningham – RECONOMICS Institute – USA
Storm Cunningham is thought to be one of the world’s most prolific leaders on active community revitalization and natural resource restoration. For over two decades he has helped public and private clients around the globe understand how to lead or support resilient prosperity by coaching them on harnessing the latest trends, resources, and opportunities of the fast-growing $3 trillion global restoration economy. He advises mayors, governors, members of U.S. Congress, and executives of foundations, non-profits and corporations. In these confidential roles, he normally stays in the background, so his clients can take full credit when they launch leading-edge policies and initiatives. But in his role as keynote speaker and workshop leader he’s very much in the foreground of our minds. Read more…
Darren Doherty – Regrarians Platform – Australia, International
Darren J. Doherty is a 5th generation Bendigo region land manager, developer, author & trainer and has been involved in the design & development of over 3000 projects across 6 continents in more than 50 countries, ranging from 1 million hectare cattle stations in Australia’s Kimberly region to 110,000 acre Estancia’s in Patagonia, EcoVillage developments in Tasmania to public: private R&D agroforestry & education projects in Vietnam, novel AG Machinery development + family farms across the globe with a range of private, corporate, government & non-profit clients. Read more…
The Eden Project – Cornwall, UK
The Eden Project iseducational charity and social enterprise with the global mission to create a movement that builds relationships between people and the natural world and to demonstrate the power of working together for the benefit of all living things. This project showcases human’s dependence on plants and demonstrates technological ingenuity and the regeneration of landscapes and livelihoods. Read more…
Dr. Masaru Emoto (1943 – 2014) – Hidden Messages in Water – Japan
Dr. Masaru Emoto was a Japanese businessman, author and scientist who claimed that human consciousness could affect the molecular structure of water; that water can react to positive thoughts and words and that polluted water could be cleaned through prayer and positive visualization. Emoto said that water was a “blueprint for our reality” and that emotional “energies” and “vibrations” could change its physical structure. Read more…
Boris Ersson – Documentary Filmmaker – Sweden
Boris Ersson is perhaps best known for his film, “Battle of the Elms,” which depicts the Elm Conflict, a public protest turned violent dispute, starting May 11, 1971. He is currently producing a series of films about the people who are currently dedicating their lives to saving some of the finest forests on Earth. One such video is of the “Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary” and their efforts in preserving, supporting, and enriching their local forests. Read more…
Michael Evenari (1904-1989) – Challenge of a Desert – Israel
Michael Evenari was an Israeli botanist originally from Germany. Evanari figured out the secrets of the ancient Nabatean runoff agriculture systems in the Negev Desert. One of the best examples of ancient, sophisticated water harvesting systems and how he recreated aspects of it today. The Negev, first published in 1971, told the story of some twenty years of study of southern Israel’s desert. It synthesized the findings of botanists, geologists, soil scientists, agronomists, archaeologists, historians, and engineers and told how the applications of their work produced an agricultural surplus in this forbiddingly dry, hot region. Read more…
Alan Watson Featherstone – Trees for Life – Scotland, UK
Alan Watson Featherstone is an inspirational public speaker, ecologist, nature photographer and writer based in the Findhorn Community in the northeast of Scotland. He has given lectures and workshops all over the world and spoken at various international conferences including the World Wilderness Congress, the Society for Conservation Biology annual conference and the Society for Ecological Restoration conference. He has also spoken for us in the Global Earth Repair Conference. Featherstone has written numerous articles for journals and magazines, and has appeared regularly on television and radio. Amongst many other accolades, in 1986 he formed Trees for Life with the aim of restoring the Caledonian Forest and its unique wildlife to the Scottish Highlands. The organization works in partnership with the Forestry Commission, the National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). As of April 2014, Trees for Life has planted over One Million native trees! Read more…
Findhorn Ecological Community – Scotland
Findhorn Community is a leading international centre of transformative learning, rooted in a spiritual ecovillage community in the north of Scotland. It has been home to thousands of residents from more than 40 countries. The Foundation offers a range of workshops, programmes and events in the environment of a working ecovillage. The Foundation’s belief in sustainability is expressed in the built environment with ‘ecological’ houses, innovative use of building materials such as local stone and straw bales, and applied technology in the Living Machine sewage treatment facility and electricity-generating wind turbines. The Ecovillage is intended to be a tangible demonstration of the links between the spiritual, social, ecological and economic aspects of life, for use as a teaching resource. Read more…
Masanobu Fukuoka (1913 – 2008) – Natural Farming, Seed Balls – Japan
Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, herbicide and pesticide free cultivation methods from which he created a particular method of agriculture, commonly referred to as “natural farming” or “do-nothing farming” – shizen nōhō (自然農法) and is also referred to as the Fukuoka Method. In the international development of the organic farming movement, Fukuoka is considered to be amongst the “five giant personalities who inspired the movement” along with Austrian Rudolf Steiner, German-Swiss Hans Müller, Lady Eve Balfour in the United Kingdom and J.I. Rodale in the United States. Read more…
Chotresh Kumar Ganguly “Bablu” – Timbuktu Collective – India
Choitresh Kumar Ganguly (“Bablu”) isan organic farmer in India who has been involved in the field of rural development in India since the late 1970s, helping empower small holder farmers, agricultural labourers, Dalits (low caste) and other disadvantaged and marginalised communities, artisans, women, children and People with Disabilities. In 1990 he co-founded the not for profit, Timbaktu Collective, and established the 32-acre ‘Timbaktu’ agro-forest habitat and intentional community. Since then, they began to regenerate and revive the local economy, enhance livelihood opportunities, help regain food security and food sovereignty, and work on large-scale ecological restoration. Read more…
Gaviotas Community – Colombia
Gaviotas Community is located in the Llanos of the Colombian department of Vichada. It was founded in 1971 by Paolo Lugari who assembled a group of engineers and scientists in an attempt to create a mode of sustainable living in one of the least hospitable political and geographical climates in South America. When these original donors began to pull funding from Gaviotas in the 1990s, the villagers looked elsewhere for their income. They realized that the impressive pine forest was a sustainable source of pine resin used in the production of a wide variety of products like turpentine and violins. Read more…
Jean Giono – Author of The Man who Planted Trees – France
Jean Giono (1895-1970) was one of France’s greatest writers. His published works include over 30 novels, including our favorite, The Man Who Planted Trees; a timeless eco-fable about what one person can do to restore the earth. At just under 4,000 words, it tells the story of a shepherd’s solitary efforts to reforest a desolate region in the foothills of the Alps during the first half of the 20th century. Like Giono’s own life, the shepherd’s story spans two world wars and the bloodiest half-century in human history. Read more…
Dr. Jane Goodall – Jane Goodall Institute – UK
Dr. Jane Goodall, an Ethologist and Conservationist, has shown the world the urgent need to protect chimpanzees from extinction by redefining species conservation to include the needs of local people and the environment. Her field research at Gombe transformed our understanding of chimpanzees and redefined the relationship between humans and animals in ways that continue to emanate around the world. In April 2002, Goodall was named a UN Messenger of Peace. She took an unorthodox approach in her field research, immersing herself in their habitat and their lives to experience their complex society with emotions and long-term bonds. Read more…
Dr. Thomas Goreau – Global Coral Reef Alliance – USA
Dr. Thomas J. Goreau is a marine biologist promoting coral reef protection by documenting stresses to reef ecosystems, identifying the causes of these stresses and proposing strategies to restore these species-rich and highly sensitive ecosystems. He has worked extensively on the coral reefs of Jamaica and continues to conduct research on the impacts of global climate change, pollution, and new diseases in reefs all across the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific. His current work focuses on coral reef restoration, fisheries restoration, shore line protection, renewable energy, community based coral reef management, mariculture, soil metabolism, and stabilization of global carbon dioxide. Read more…
Ernst Götsch – Syntropic Agriculture – Switzerland
Ernst Gotsch is a Swiss farmer and researcher working mostly in Brazil. He has originated a system of climate and biodiversity friendly sustainable farming techniques known as syntropic agriculture or dynamic/successional agroforestry. The practice of Syntropic Agriculture focuses highly on regeneration by use through already existing, even denatured or farmed out, ecosystems. With special emphasis on soil formation and regulation of micro-climate water cycles, this particular practice utilizes local ecosystem processes for restoring nature-that-was. Read more…
Project GreenHands – Southern India
An inspiring ecological initiative of the Isha Foundation, Project GreenHands seeks to prevent and reverse environmental degradation, and enable sustainable living. The project aims to create 10% additional green cover in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Drawing extensively on people’s participation (currently including over 2 million volunteers) hundreds of millions of trees have been planted state-wide. Read more…
Marsha Hanzi – Mariza Gardens – Bahian Sertao, Brazil
Marsha is a Swiss-American with a postgraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Florida. In 1991, she completed her first basic permaculture course certification in Hawaii, then in 1993 participated in the course of Bill Mollison and Scott Pittman in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Today, Hanzi is a prime and current example of those who are effectively turning much-degraded land into abundance. She was the precursor of permaculture in Brazil where she helped found the Institute of Permaculture of Bahia in 1992, where she worked until 2003, and now applies her extensive experience with agroforestry systems, and regenerative, “intuitive” agriculture, including the use of florals and dowsing in yield/field drylands management. Read more…
Anil K. Gupta – Honey Bee magazine – India
Anil K. Gupta is an Indian scholar and pioneer in the area of grassroots innovations. He is the founder of the Honey Bee Network, now in it’s 28th year. He is also a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. His contribution includes documenting people’s knowledge with the help of teams of volunteers spread across India. He helps grassroots innovators and communities build on their knowledge systems by providing help in filing patents, promoting scientific validation of these innovations by involving government scientific institutes and private individuals and bodies, and facilitating tie-ups with entrepreneurs and industrial groups. Read more…
Anna Hazare – Ralegan Village Re-greening – India
Kisan Baburao “Anna” Hazare is a social activist who has led movements to promote rural development, increase government transparency, and investigates and punish corruption in public life. He has been a main, major and active contributor and organizer in the development and structuring of Ralegan Siddhi, an “ideal community model” village in Parner Taluka of the Ahmednagar district, in Maharashtra, India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan—the third-highest available civilian award—by the Government of India in 1992 for his efforts in establishing this village as a model for others. Under Hazare’s leadership, Ralegan Siddhi has accomplished a complete reversal from destitution and poverty to full sustainability, by several environmentally stable means. Examples include digging canals to retain rainwater, tree planting, and terracing to reduce soil erosion. For power, they utilize solar power, bio-gas, and a windmill. Read more…
Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer – Miraculous Abundance – France
Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer are a “power couple” that decided to become low impact farmers in 2006 with their Bec Hellouin Permaculture Farm. The couple was untainted by knowledge of conventional western practices and took on the principles of permaculture as well as varied sources and practices of the 19th century Parisian Market Gardener’s, Amazonian tribes people, and Asian Efficient Micro-organisms (EM) related practices. Read more…
David Holmgren – Permaculture, RetroSuburbia – Australia
David is the other original “co-founder of Permaculture” and also co-author (with Bill Mollison) of the book, “Permaculture One,” published in 1978, which inspired the entire movement. Bill and David lived together for a period of three years, collaborating on their garden and developing the basis for the work that has inspired so many of us. David has written 8 more titles, since, including “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability” in 2002. More recently, he wrote the book Retrosuburbia to lay out a path for the current permaculture transition of our suburbs to abundant regenerative agriculture and holistically-integrated systems of life, matter and energy. Read more…
Sepp Holzer – Agro-Ecology – Austria
Sepp Holzer is a farmer, an author, and an international consultant for natural agriculture. After an upbringing in a traditional Catholic rural family in Austria, he took over his parents’ mountain farm business in 1962 and became well-known for his use of ecological farming, or permaculture, techniques at high altitudes after being unsuccessful with regular farming methods. Read more…
Sir Albert Howard (1873-1947) – Organic Farming Movement Founder – UK
Sir Albert Howard was the founder of the organic farming movement. Starting as a Plant Scientist in England, he worked for 25 years as an agricultural investigator in India, first as Agricultural Adviser to States in Central India and Rajputana, then as Director of the Institute of Plant Industry at Indore, where he developed the famed Indore composting process, which put the ancient art of composting on a firm scientific basis. Read more…
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim – Indigenous Women of Chad – Chad, Africa
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is one of the founders of the Association of Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, a group fighting to defend the environment and the rights of indigenous people. The Mbororo, which means “cattle herder”, are an ethnic subgroup of 250,000 members of the Fulani, the largest nomadic people in the world, inhabitants of central and western Africa. Read more…
Dr. Elaine Ingham – Soil Food Web – USA
Elaine Ingham is an American microbiologist with a “user-friendly” approach. Elaine has knowledge on how to ensure a healthy foodweb to promote plant growth and reduce reliance on inorganic chemicals. While truly an academic, Elaine is also passionate about sharing her knowledge and research findings with those at the grass roots level of working with soils. That includes not just farmers who grow crops, but also those who graze cattle, sheep and other livestock, fruit and vegetable growers, green keepers, parks and gardens workers, nursery operators – in fact anyone who grows things, even if it’s just plain old lawn grass.Elaine offers a way forward for sustainable farming. A way of improving the soils we work with now and a way to keep soils in this healthier state without damaging any other ecosystem. Read more…
Wes Jackson – The Land Institute – USA
Wes Jackson is founder and president emeritus of The Land Institute. He established and served as chair of one of the country’s first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento. Wes is widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a Pew Conservation Scholar in 1990, a MacArthur Fellow in 1992, and received the Right Livelihood Award in 2000. Life magazine included him as one of 18 individuals predicted to be among the 100 important Americans of the 20th century. Smithsonian in 2005 included him as one of “35 Who Made a Difference.” He argues that one of the most important lessons that we as a species urgently need to learn is that we cannot continue to impose our hubris on the world around us. Read more…
John Jeavons – Grow Biointensive – USA
John Jeavons is a leader in the field of Biointensive agriculture. He developed the small-scale, high-yielding, resource-conserving “GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-Farming” method—an approach that allows small farmers to increase yields, build fertile soil up to 60x faster than nature, and use 66% less water per pound of food, compared with conventional practices. This comprehensive cropping system enables people everywhere to grow a complete, balanced diet, significant income, and sustainable soil fertility using very little land. As a result of Ecology Action’s demonstration, teaching and research activities in biologically intensive farming over the last 43 years, John’s methods are now being used in 143 countries in virtually all climates and soils where food is grown. Read more…
Lyla June Johnston – Regeneration Festival – Navajo Nation, USA
Lyla studies the global cycles of violence that eventually gave rise to The Native American Holocaust and the destruction of many cyclic relationships between human beings and nature (intercultural, intergenerational trauma). Her passion lies in revitalizing spiritual relationships with Mother Earth and cultivating spaces for forgiveness and reconciliation to occur between cultural groups. She is a co-founder of The Taos Peace and Reconciliation Council which works to heal intergenerational trauma and ethnic division in northern New Mexico. She is a walker within the Nihigaal Bee Iiná Movement, a 1,000-mile prayer walk through Diné Tah (the Navajo homeland) that is exposing the exploitation of Diné land and people by uranium, coal, oil and gas industries. Over the years, she has also inspired 35 other communities in 13 countries to join by creating their own Regeneration Festivals. Read more…
William R. Jordan III. – Ecological Restoration Journal – Wisconsin, USA
William “Bill” Jordan is an American botanist and journalist who has played a leading role in the development and critique of ecological restoration as a means of developing an environmentalism that is philosophically more coherent, psychologically more productive, politically more robust, and ecologically more effective. His critique has had a significant influence on environmentalism in the United States and abroad. He has been called the first person to write consistently about the interplay between humans and nature within the context of ecological restoration, the “most influential” writer on restoration, and a world leader in the field. His strategies uniquely revolve around viewing humanity’s relationship with Nature as a “performing art,” and his work as the basis for a “new communion” with the Earth. Read more…
John Kaisner – The Natural Farmer – India
John Kaisner is a much-loved international teacher, designer and practitioner of Permaculture. But it wasn’t always this way. He spent the first 20 years of his career in architecture, where he designed and completed projects in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and India. His Permaculture journey began in the villages of India – recharging groundwater, building clay stoves, and teaching impoverished villagers how to grow food using zero budget natural farming. One of the things that makes John’s approach exceptional is the way in which he integrates natural farming into traditional Permaculture practices. He holds that Nature is the ultimate teacher, and that our job is to observe and imitate Nature at every turn. John travels far and wide producing permaculture projects (India, Italy, Philippines, France) and produces lots of informative videos. Read more…
John Kempf – Advancing Eco Agriculture – Ohio, USA
John Kempf is an entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host and teacher in the field of biological and regenerative farming. He is passionate about the potential of well managed agriculture ecosystems to reverse ecological degradation. He founded Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA 2006), a plant nutritionist biostimulants consulting company, to deploy his deep knowledge of sustainable horticulture in a way that makes it easy for fellow farmers to change their growing habits. By working with international industry leaders, John has assembled a systems-based approach to plant nutrition based on physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology. As the host of the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, John’s goal is to support the world’s local farmers in a way that impacts the global food supply. He has a unique ability to simplify and clearly explain very complex concepts in the areas of soil and plant health. He skillfully discusses the larger social and environmental impacts of food, agriculture, and ecology. Read more…
F.H. King. (1848-1911) – Professor and “Agricultural Scientist” – USA
Author of “Farmers of Forty Centuries,” Franklin Hiram King, lived from 1848-1911. King is most popularly known for designing the cylindrical storage silo, but due to his work in “Agricultural Physics,” he is known to us as one of the great “Fathers” of Organic Gardening. F.H. King is commemorated at the University of Wisconsin–Madison by “King Hall,” so renamed in 1934, which is the very same Agricultural Physics Hall in which he professed, and currently home to the “Agricultural Engineering Department.” There the “F. H. King Students for Sustainable Agriculture” exists; a student organization that grows and donates crops in order to raised awareness of sustainable farming and gardening. You may find his book here: https://store.doverpublications.com…
Dan Kittredge – Bionutrient Food Association – USA
Internationally renowned as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.” He grew up on the Many Hands Organic Farm in central Massachusetts with his parents, Julie Rawson (NOFA/Mass Executive Director) and Jack Kittredge (Natural Farmer publisher). After a career of establishing himself as an international proponent of food and seed activism (including working in India, Russia, and Central America), Dan returned to the U.S. and launched the BFA in order to ignite a movement around food quality. Over the years, word of the Association spread west across the U.S., so in 2012 (as a response to overwhelming invitations to share their expertise, and along with several contemporaries), the annual Soil and Nutrition Conference was formed. It soon became a landmark, international event, showcasing cutting-edge science as a backdrop for the broader topics of soil sciences, agriculture and nutrition. The Conference continues annually to this day, with registrants from dozens of countries attending both virtually and in-person. Meanwhile, Kittredge himself now sports a much increased presence online through social media, a YouTube channel, and an upcoming online education course. Read more…
Michal Kravcik – Water Management Engineer – Slovakia
Michal Kravčík is an internationally recognized Slovak water scientist, water management engineer, ASHOKA fellow, and co-author of A New Water Paradigm: Water for the Recovery of the Climate, which emphasizes hydrologic cycles in addressing climate change. He is also a founding member and chairman of Slovakia’s NGO People and Water. In 1999, Kravčík was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his contributions to the water management of the Torysa river after galvanizing support to halt a dam planned during the Communist era by proposing effective democratic alternatives, including smaller dams, decentralized water management, and restored farmlands. Read more…
Rishi Kumar – Sarvodaya Institute – California, USA
Rishi Kumar is a small-scale farmer, land-artist, writer, and educator. Since 2010, he has been working in the field of urban gardening and farming in Los Angeles (Sarvodaya Farms), where he has helped create and establish hundreds of urban gardens. His work centers on the healing of people and Earth as one body. Read more…
Brad Lancaster – “Planting the Rain” – Washington State, USA
Brad is best known for his “Integrated Water-Harvesting” permaculture systems for projects including the Tucson Audubon Simpson Farm, the Milagro Development, and the Tucson Nature Conservancy water-harvesting demonstration site. He has also received another Hall Of Fame submission and an ARCSA Lifetime Achievement Award. Read more…
Geoff Lawton – The Permaculture Research Institute – Australia
Geoff Lawton is a world renowned Permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. Lawton was British born and now resides in Australia. He first took his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course in 1983 with Bill Mollison the founder of Permaculture. Geoff has undertaken thousands of jobs teaching, consulting, designing, administering and implementing, in 6 continents and close to 50 countries. Lawton’s ‘master plan’ is to see aid projects being replicated as fast as possible to help ameliorate the growing food and water crisis. He actively establishes permaculture demonstration sites that also function as education centres for local and international students in Jordan, Afghanistan, Spain, Malaysia, Vietnam, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Thailand, China and many more countries. Read more…
Eugenio “Ego” Lemos – Permaculturalist and Singer-Songwriter – East Timor
Eugenio Lemos is an environmental activist and musician. He is the founder of the first national organization dedicated to permaculture in East Timor, Permatil, which is leading the effort to publish the Tropical Permaculture Guidebook. Permatil’s motto is “Permaculture. Everyone. Everywhere,” and their aim is simple: “To make permaculture tools and knowledge accessible to everyone across the globe… as one of the problems in disseminating permaculture information is lack of suitable and relevant resources particularly for the tropic regions.” Lemos is also the founder of the Sustainable Agriculture Network and Organic Agriculture Movement in Timor-Leste and a lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture and Public Arts & Culture at the University of Timor-Leste. Read more…
Joseph Lentunyoi – Laikipia Permaculture Centre – Kenya
Joseph’s is the story of an inspired and inspiring Maasai man who has brought positive change to his land and community through permaculture. Lentunyoi started a permaculture center in his dry, arid homeland of Laikipia in 2012 and is the current Executive Director of Laikipia Permaculture Center (LPC). The center now occupies a 1.6 hectare farm located on the Laikipia Plain, north of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. To this day, this is the only organized permaculture project in the region. Before his work at the center, Joseph had extensive experience as the Director the Sustainability Program at Nyumbani village, which brought permaculture techniques to Nyumbani. While having been originally introduced to permaculture by Geoff Lawton in Tanzania in 2007. After completing his internship and teacher training with Geoff, he also went on to an advanced consultancy course with Warren Brush. Since then, Joseph has taught permaculture widely around East Africa and the USA, and within the Center. Read more..
Andre Leu – Regeneration International – Australia
Andre Leu is the International Director of Regeneration International, which promotes food, farming and land use systems that regenerate and stabilize climate systems, the health of the planet and people, communities, culture and local economies, democracy and peace. Regeneration International works with numerous agricultural systems such as agroecology, organic, permaculture, ecological agriculture, holistic grazing, biological agriculture, organic agriculture and agroforestry. Read more…
Andy Lipkis – TreePeople – Los Angeles, CA, USA
Andy Lipkis is a practical visionary who has dedicated his life to healing the environment while improving the lives of individuals and communities. He founded TreePeople in Los Angeles in 1973 at age 18 and continues to serve as its President. The TreePeople organization advocates and works to support sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, volunteer community-based action, and advocacy. Andy has produced or been featured in numerous TV programs, including the Emmy-award-winning series, How Does Your Garden Grow?, the PBS series Edens Lost and Found, and The Visionaries, as well as films including Leonardo di Caprio’s The 11th Hour, Dirt! The Movie, Rock the Boat, and Love Thy Nature. Read more…
John D. Liu – Ecosystem Restoration Camps – America, China, International
John D. Liu is is an American ecologist and filmmaker and one of the world’s most eloquent spokesperson for global earth repair. This Chinese-American filmmaker travels widely and works with people and institutions in several countries. John has worked with Commonland Foundation on catalyzing privately invested large-scale restoration worldwide since 2009, and is currently its Ecosystem Ambassador. John also founded the Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement in 2016, which has grown to currently 37 camps in 6 continents and continues to grow. John has written, directed, produced, filmed, and presented numerous films on Environment and Ecology for the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, PBS and other networks. He has written, produced and directed films on Grasslands, Deserts, Wetlands, Oceans, Rivers, Urban Development, Atmosphere, Forests, Endangered Animals and Poverty Reduction. Read more…
Chief Oren Lyons – Onondaga Nation – USA
Chief Oren Lyons is a Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan living in Onondaga, NY. He was a founding member in 1977 of the Traditional Circle of Elders and Youth: this council of respected Indian leaders meets annually to provide an avenue for Native American culture to inform and contribute to contemporary cultural and political debate. For more than fourteen years he has taken part in meetings in Geneva of Indigenous Peoples of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. Read more…
Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) – Green Belt Movement – Kenya, Africa
Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan social, environmental and political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She went on to become the first woman in East and Central Africa to become a Doctor of Philosophy (veterinary anatomy, her dissertation on the development and differentiation of gonads in bovines). In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organisation focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights. Maathai was an elected member of the Parliament of Kenya from 2003-2005. As an academic and the author of several books, Maathai was not only an activist but also an intellectual who has made significant contributions to thinking about ecology, development, gender, and African cultures and religions. Read more…
Dennis Martinez – Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration Network – USA
For over 40 years, Dennis Martinez has contributed extensively to the cause of ecological and cultural restoration at the local, national and international levels. A community organizer, educational speaker and author, Martinez is recognized as a leader in bridging Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with Western science. As co-director of the Takelma Intertribal Project, Martinez and Agnes “Grandma Aggie” Pilgrim (1924 – 2019) reestablished the annual Salmon Thanksgiving Ceremony after a 150 year absence! Formerly a board member of the Society for Ecological Restoration International (SER), Martinez is now Chair of the SER’s Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration Network, and has been involved with numerous other organizations and causes. Read more…
Charlie McGee – Formidable Vegetable Soundsystem – Australia
Charlie McGee is the most famous permaculture singer in the world as a ukulele-strumming ecological troubadour. He independently founded the band, Formidable Vegetable Sound System, which is sowing the garden of our minds with the seeds of change to ‘turnip the beets’ for people, plants and the planet. They are dedicated to inspire local action for global issues and now find themselves firmly planted in the fertile soils of the growing regenerative movements worldwide. The ideas behind many Formidable Vegetable’s songs have been inspired by Charlie’s early upbringing in remote indigenous communities and subsequent off-grid life in the bush, as well as drawing heavily from aspects of the permaculture movement. Read more…
Vladimir Megre – Author of “The Ringing Cedars of Russia” Series – Russia
Vladimir Megre is a Russian entrepreneur and writer best known as the author of the “Ringing Cedars of Russia” series of books, of which the first and most well-known volume is “Anastasia.” Since the 1990s this series has been extremely influential in giving rise to several socio-religious movements. One of the central ideas communicated by the series is encouraging the creation of a garden and ancestral dwelling on a plot of land (ideally at least one hectare in size, per family), what Megre refers to as a “kin’s homestead.” The aim is essentially to focus especially on cultivating and curating nature, while establishing a generational homestead, and ultimately a Utopian-esque society with Nature at it’s core. Simply put, his books have become the basis for a Russian “back-to-the-land” movement based on permanently sustainable, self-reliant, and self-sufficient “simple living,” providing both physical subsistence and spiritual fulfillment. They combine deep ecology with traditional family values and the worship of God through nature, rather than the typic of communal “hippie” lifestyle. Read more…
Ilarion Merculieff – Global Center for Indigenous Leadership – Alaska, USA
Ilarion (Larry “Kuuyux”) Merculieff is an Indigenous messenger and teacher. He is one of the last generation of Aleuts of the Alaskan Pribilof Islands to be fully raised in the traditional way. Kuuyux, a name given once a generation, means extension, like an arm extending from a body. Living this destiny, Larry served 35 years as a community leader on St. Paul Island, his home. His work now extends internationally, as he facilitates the use of traditional ways of dialogue, decision-making and consensus building, and talks about Indigenous elder wisdom for modern times. Larry helped secure recognition of Alaska Native subsistence fishing rights, and to develop culturally- based adaptation strategies for the impact of climate change. Read more…
Akira Miyawaki – Miyawaki Model – Japan
Akira Miyawaki is a Japanese botanist and expert in plant ecology specializing in seeds and the study of natural forests. Since the 1970s he has been active worldwide as a specialist in the restoration of natural vegetation on degraded land. Referring to potential natural vegetation (PNV), a concept he studied in Germany, he developed, tested and refined a method of ecological engineering today known as the Miyawaki method: to restore native forests from seeds of native trees on very degraded soils which were deforested and without humus. Using ecological theories and the results of his experiments, he quickly and successfully restored over 1,300 sites in Japan and various tropical countries. Read more…
Bill Mollison (1928-2016) – Permaculture Institute – Australia
Bill Mollison was a co-founder of what we now commonly refer to as “Permaculture.” He also founded the original Permaculture Institute, established in 1979, to teach the practical design of sustainable soil, water, plant, and legal and economic systems to students, worldwide. We owe him much! Read more…
Dr. Simon Moolenaar – Commonland – Netherlands
Dr. Simon Moolenaar is an expert in sustainable soil and land management and has been working on environmental and sustainability themes in various roles: as researcher, strategic consultant, project manager, process manager and program manager. As Head of Science & Education at Commonland he actively connects science & business with multiple stakeholders in ecosystem and landscape restoration projects that aim for the returns of inspiration and of social, natural and financial capital (the “4 returns”). Read more…
Rosemary Morrow – Blue Mountains Permaculture – Australia
Rosemary Morrow trained in agricultural science and rural sociology and after spending time in Africa, she realized there needed to be a better alternative to conventional agricultural practices. She found this in the ethics and integrated applied science of permaculture, and has been teaching permaculture ever since. For almost 40 years Rosemary has worked extensively with farmers and villagers in Africa, Central and South East Asia and Eastern Europe. Rosemary has especially dedicated much of her efforts to refugees the people of war-torn nations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Kurdistan and East Timor, and to communities experiencing the serious effects of climate change like the Solomon Islands, and the effects of the GFC, like Spain, Greece and Portugal. Read more…
Goran N’Diaye – Kaydara Agro-Ecological Farm – Senegal, Africa
Goran N’Diaye of Senegal is a pioneer and master of permaculture demonstrated by growing a lush oasis in the desert. He is the Director of the Kaydara agro-ecological farm located in Sine Saloum of Senegal. His story begins with finding water 4 meters below the ground in a very dry part of the country. He bought the land for the price of a loaf of bread and began farming. It started with a single coconut tree, even though his community thought he was crazy, he showed that it’s not a miracle…he simply saw change and implemented it. Read more…
Gary Paul Nabhan – Relocalizing Food – USA
Gary Paul Nabhan (1952) is an agricultural ecologist, Ethnobotanist, and author whose work has focused primarily on the plants and cultures of the desert Southwest. He is considered a pioneer in the local food movement and the heirloom seed saving movement. Nabhan was raised in Indiana, and even dropped out of high school. He worked at the headquarters for the first Earth Day in Washington D.C. Read more…
Anand Dhawaj Negi (1947-2021) – Cold Desert Forestation – India
Anand Dhawaj Negi, popularly known as AD, was a retired bureaucrat turned “Forest man of Kinnaur” who left an evergreen legacy and miraculous story in the cold desert of India by developing a lush forest spread over 100 hectares in the high-altitude border district of Himachal Pradesh. Read more…
Nemonte Nenquino – Waorani Nation – Ecuador
Nemonte Nenquino is an indigenous Waorani woman who has committed herself to defending her ancestral territory, ecosystem, culture, economy, and way of life. She led an indigenous campaign and legal action that resulted in a court ruling protecting 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil extraction. Nenquimo’s leadership and the lawsuit set a legal precedent for indigenous rights in Ecuador, and other tribes are following in her footsteps to protect additional tracts of rainforest from oil extraction. She is the first female president of the Waorani of Pastaza (CONCONAWEP) and co-founder of the Indigenous-led nonprofit organization Ceibo Alliance. Read more…
Helena Norberg-Hodge – Local Futures – Sweden
Helena is a linguist, author, producer and filmmaker, and the founder and director of Local Futures. A pioneer of the “New Economy” movement, and the convenor of World Localization Day, this non-profit organization is determined to encourage us to recognize the benefits of economic localization. She is a leading proponent of localization as an antidote to the problems arising from globalization, and founded the International Alliance for Localization (IAL) in 2014. The Earth Journal counted Norberg-Hodge among the world’s “ten most interesting environmentalists,” and in Carl McDaniel’s book Wisdom for a Liveable Planet she was profiled as one of eight visionaries changing the world. Furthermore, Helena was a producer of the award-winning documentary, The Economics of Happiness, which highlights the socio-ecological and spiritual benefits of Living Local. The film features such eco-giants as Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, Samdhong Rinpoche, among several “household” names, and showcases current, successful, and international examples of their practices and teachings. Read more…
Kristin Ohlson – The Soil Will Save Us – USA
Kristin Ohlson is a freelance journalist, author, essayist and fiction writer, almost no topic escapes her curiosity. Her articles have spanned many subjects, from zebrafish bioengineered to glow in the presence of pollutants, to abandoned coal mines that catch fire and burn for decades, to feminist philanthropy, to the biology of moral decision-making, to watching Indian soap operas with a roomful of men in Kabul. Read more…
El Hadji Salifou Ouédraogo – The Baobab Man – Burkina Faso, Africa
El Hadji Salifou Ouédraogo has nurtured thousands of baobab trees from tiny seeds to expansive forests for the past 47 years. The trees in turn help his family, his village and the Earth. He has planted more than 3000 Baobabs in his life.
Latifa Oumlil – Perma Atlas Foundation – Morocco, Africa
A notable permaculturalist and educator currently working on an Earth Repair project in Anguelz, Morocco, Latifa Oumlil is the founder of the Perma Atlas Foundation which has significantly aided in the “re-greening” of the Atlas Mountains. This program enables the local population to cope with prolonged droughts and gigantic flash floods caused by global climate change. Read more…
Jadav Payeng – The “Forest Man” – India
Jadav Payeng is an environmental activist and forestry worker popularly known as the Forest Man of India. Payeng singlehandedly planted an entire forest on Majuli Island, India’s largest island. To date, he has spent over 30 years planting over 40 million trees, thereby creating an entirely man-made forest by ecologically reversing a barren desert sandbar of the Brahmaputra, and covering an area of 550 hectares of land! Once considered “crazy” by local inhabitants, Payeng is celebrated today as a conservationist. Sitting in a meadow beside his forest, he credits a botanical scientist for nurturing his fascination for the natural world. Read more…
Leah Penniman – Soul Fire Farm – USA
Leah Penniman has over 20 years of experience as a soil steward and food sovereignty activist, and with farmers internationally in Ghana, Haiti, and Mexico. Li co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010 with the mission to reclaim our inherent right to belong to the earth and have agency in the food system as Black and Brown people. Her areas of leadership at Soul Fire include farmer training, international solidarity, perennials, writing, speaking, “making it rain,” and anything that involves heavy lifting, sweat, and soil originally focused on a farm share for low-income people. Read more…
Didi Pershouse – Land & Leadership Initiative – USA
Didi Pershouse is Founder and Lead Educator for Land & Leadership Initiative; Coordinator, Researcher and Writer for Seed Media Project; and is an author and soil sponge strategist. She is also the founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine and developed a practice and theoretical framework for systems-based ecological medicine—to restore health to people as well as the environmental and social systems around them. After 22 years of clinical work with patients, Pershouse now travels widely in North America and Europe as a speaker, teacher, and consultant. Read more…
Zephaniah Phiri Maseko (1927-2015) – Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands – Zimbabwe, Africa
Zephaniah Phiri Maseko was a Sustainable Farmer and Water Conservationist. For over 40 years Zephaniah Phiri Maseko lived, farmed, and raised a family in one of the most arid and resource-poor lands in southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s Zvishavane District. Through his own ingenuity and despite political challenges, he and his family turned a wasteland into an oasis: devised and propagated irrigation practices that enabled subsistence farmers on marginal lands to prosper as they conserve scarce resources and practice sustainable farming. Read more…
Michael Pilarski – Friends of the Trees Society, GERF – Washington State, USA
Our founder, Michael Pilarski, has been making waves in the international ecosystem restoration and regenerative agriculture for decades. Michael is a regenerative farmer by trade, teaching hundreds through his example garden at Finn River Cidery in Chimacum, WA. His sustainable herb business, Friends of the Trees Botanicals, shares its name with Friends of the Trees Society, which he founded in 1978. Read more…
Peter Proctor – Biodynamic Agriculture – New Zealand, India
Peter Proctor (1928-2018) was one of the most respected and influential figures in contemporary Biodynamics. He was born in 1928 in New Zealand. His passions took him to India, where he found a much more receptive, fertile ground, as mentioned in the recent Biodynamics journal. His work there was essential in establishing what has become a very vibrant biodynamic community. The connections he saw between Biodynamic gardening and food, therapy, spirituality, education and improved physical and spiritual human health was clear and, in his words “that was that for me. Read more…
Alfredo Quarto – Mangrove Action Project – International
Alfredo Quarto has been active for over 40 years in organizing and writing on the environment and human rights issues. He is the co-founder of the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), a nonprofit which collaborates internationally with all levels of academia and policy makers to preserve, restore, and educate about our world’s mangrove forests. Alfredo has published numerous popular articles, book chapters, and conference papers on mangrove forest ecology, community-managed sustainable development, and shrimp aquaculture. Mangroves sequester and store more carbon than any other forest type per hectare. These forests also provide a host of other benefits to the world at large – including providing local and native food sustainability, and natural barriers against Hurricanes and Storms. Formerly an aerospace engineer, Quarto’s experiences range over many countries and several environmental organizations, with a long-term focus on forestry, indigenous cultures and human rights. Read more…
Mazin Qumsiyeh – Palestinian Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability – Palestine
Mazin Qumsiyeh is a scientist, author and activist, and is the founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University where he teaches. He started off in the field of medicine working in the USA, but returned to Palestine in 2008. Qumsiyeh formerly worked at Duke University and Yale in the medical field. He returned to Palestine in 2008, where he established the PMNH. Today the Museum has 8 employees, and Mazin and his wife, Jessie, where they are employed full-time as volunteers. The associated PIBS currently works with women entrepreneurs and also has a native animal rehabilitation facility. Over the course of his career he has published well over 150 scientific papers on topics ranging from cultural heritage to biodiversity in addition to several books. In some of his writings, Mazin describes the catastrophic environmental impact of Israeli settler colonialism on the land of Palestine. He also shares how Palestinian civil society organizations are working to research, educate about, and conserve Palestine’s natural world, culture and heritage in the face of the current Israeli state’s human rights and environmental abuses. Meanwhile, he does not demonize the people of Israel, themselves, and his works reflect this. Rather, he strives for Peace, education, wellness and prosperity for all the Peoples sharing of that land. Read more…
Rowan Reid – Agroforestry Pioneer – Australia
Rowan Reid is the founder, owner, and self-acclaimed “consultant” of the Bambra Agroforestry Farm, (essentially a 42-hectare outdoor classroom for scientists, students and farmers alike) in the Otway Ranges of Australia. Rowan refers to this project as having created his own “living laboratory for learning.” Established over 20 years ago, the Farm has hosted over 10,000 visitors from all walks. He is also a co-founder of the Otway Agroforestry Network, one of Australia’s most prominent and successful LandCare organizations. His conviction is that conservation and production are compatible and complementary, rather than contradictory. For this, Rowan is an internationally acclaimed and recognized leader in agroforestry, as well as in farmer education and extension. Read more…
Dr. Chris Reij – Sustainable Land Management – Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dr. Reij was honored by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as “Global Drylands Champion” in 2013. An ardent supporter of the work of the Global Restoration Initiative, he has worked in Africa since 1978. Although Chris has maintained a focus on the West African Sahel, he has also been involved in numerous studies and consultancies in other parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific. He is currently a Sustainable Land Management specialist and a “Senior Fellow” of the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC. Read more…
Tony Rinaudo – Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration – Niger, FMNR, Africa
Tony Rinuado is an Australian agronomist, who is widely known as the “forest maker.” Having lived and worked in African countries for several decades, he has discovered and put in practice a solution to the extreme deforestation and desertification of the Sahel region. With a simple set of management practices, farmers can regenerate and protect existing local vegetation, which has helped to improve the livelihoods of millions. Read more…
Delphine Robbe – Gili Eco Trust – Indonesia
Delphine Robbe is a marine and land Conservationist actively involved in the protection of reefs and environment of the Gili Islands of Indonesia. She is a French national who specializes in Coral propagation, coral nurseries, Biorock reef restorations and reef gardening. She shares her passion via workshops and educational events, presentations; working with locals, including the children and volunteers; networking with other environmental organizations; and consulting the Indonesian government for sustainable practices. Read more…
Dr. Ahmed Salah – The Organic Pharmacist – Sinai, Egypt
Ahmed is known simply as “the Doctor” despite his lack of professional credentials or formal medical training. Amid the harshest and most unforgiving of Earth’s terrains, Ahmed tends to a medicinal garden of over 472 plants and herbs, 19 of which are unique to his area and 42 of which exist precariously as endangered species. Relying only on the plants he grows and tends to, Ahmed cares for his family, members of his community, tourists who happen upon his farm by chance over the course of their travels, and pilgrims who visit Saint Catherine’s Monastery from various countries around the world after hearing of his work — all seeking a cure from the illnesses and afflictions that ail them. Read more…
Joel Salatin – Polyface Farm – Virginia, USA
Joel Salatin calls himself a “Christian Libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer.” Others who like him call him the most famous farmer in the world, the High Priest of the Pasture, and the most eclectic thinker from Virginia since Thomas Jefferson. Salatin draws on a lifetime of food, farming and fantasy to entertain and inspire audiences around the world. He’s as comfortable moving cows in a pasture as addressing CEOs in a Wall Street business conference. His wide-ranging topics include nitty-gritty how-to for profitable regenerative farming as well as cultural philosophy like orthodoxy vs. heresy. A wordsmith and master communicator, he moves audiences from laughs one minute to tears the next, from frustration to hopefulness. Read more…
Joey Santore – Crime Pays, but Botany Doesn’t – California, USA
Perhaps our favorite botanist to watch and learn from, Joey Santore offers us a bit of a different spin on the world of botany with his informative and hilarious (often PG-13) YouTube channel. Joey travels around the world and takes you on plant walks, with “colorful” commentary. He’s published 492 videos, and has over a quarter million subscribers. Joey is extremely interested in natural evolutionary adaptation, observing how plants evolved into different forms and determining how and why each one got to be exactly where they are. He is an “ex-punk” and a former freight train engineer who has been self-taught in his field. Nowadays he films the trips he takes in search of some of the rarest plants on the planet. In his videos, he crosses “citizen science with vigilante environmentalism.” He exposes the secrets of these botanical misfits to us in his own gleefully peculiar style, and we simply cannot get enough! Read more…
Allan Savory – Savory Institute of Holistic Management – Zimbabwe, Africa
Allan Savory is a Zimbabwean scientist, livestock farmer, and president and co-founder of the Savory Institute. He originated Holistic management, a systems thinking approach to managing resources. Savory had studied the relationships between animals and the land in the savannah of Africa and advocates using bunched and moving livestock for biomimicry, as a means to heal the environment. He believes grasslands hold the potential to sequester enough atmospheric carbon dioxide to reverse climate change. Read more…
Yacouba Sawadogo – The Green Wall of Africa – Burkina Faso, Africa
Yacouba Sawadago is famed for being “The Man who Stopped the Desert”, as for the relentless work he has done to coax a forest out of desert-like soil in the country. In Burkina Faso, he deployed the unique earthworks method known as Zaï, creating holes and stone lines in the surface of the desert which would trap water and organics from running off with erosion. In so doing, he brought great feats of ecosystem restoration and abundance to these lands and the people who live there. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) honoured him as one of its first ever Global Dryland Champions. In addition, he was conferred the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the “alternative Nobel Prize” in 2018. Read more…
Ranil Senanayake – Analog Forestry – Sri Lanka
Dr. Ranil Senanayake, popularly known as the “Snake Man,” is the nephew of the first ever Prime Minister in Sri Lanka, and the man who in 1981 revived “organic” farming in a small but powerful way. Already a world-renowned environmentalist, Sayanake’s passion for traditional organic farming led him to transplant his expertise in Africa and South America, back to his homeland. There, he took a degraded tea estate in Mirahawatta, Bandarawella and transformed it into “analog forestry,” a concept of ecological restoration which mimics natural forests to create socio-economically productive, wholesome and self-sustaining landscapes. His original 17-acre forest now boasts of sustainable organic farming along with lush, magnificent tree cover. Read more…
Hugo Meinhard Schiecht (1922-2002) – Bioengineering – Austria
Hugo Meinhard Schiecht was an Austrian architect, engineer, botanist, professor, author, vegetative cartographer, and painter. He stood out for describing, painting and inventorying the alpine vegetation and, especially, for his work in the control of erosive processes and the perennialization of water courses and stabilization of slopes using vegetative measures. In this aspect, he was responsible for creating a new field of investigation and work, Natural Engineering (Bioengineering). His well known book, Bioengineering for Land Reclamation and Conservation, is one of the best textbooks on the topic of stopping erosion with a combination of plants and structures. Read more…
Judith Schwartz – Cows Save the Planet – USA
Judith Schwartz is a journalist whose work explores nature-based solutions to global environmental, social, and economic challenges. She showcases the ways in which nature itself can heal the wounds we have inflicted on our planet by telling stories to explore and illuminate scientific concepts and cultural nuance. Read more…
Manavendra Singh Shekhawat – The Story of Dhun – India
Manavendra Singh Shekhawat changed the fortune of a 500 acre barren, degraded landscape (only 30 trees on it) using traditional water wisdom. He works in the fields of heritage conservation, design, agriculture, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. His projects are a representation of a unique way of life, carefully preserving traditions of the past yet framing them in a modern idiom. His hotels take the path less travelled, and his NGO “I Love Jaisalmer” was responsible for launching Jaisalmer’s largest cleanliness and conservation drive. He believes in India and its endless possibilities. Through his work, he wants to create mediums that can help maximise human potential. Read more…
Mark Shepard – Forest Agriculture Enterprises – USA
Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development (RAD), and award-winning author Mark has also been a farmer member of the Organic Valley cooperative, the worlds largest Organic Farmer’s marketing co-op, since 1995. RAD is a full-service environmental consulting, research, and development firm committed to developing agricultural ecosystems that provide nutritious food for humankind while enhancing the life-supporting ecosystem services of planet Earth. Trained in both mechanical engineering and ecology, Mark has developed and patented equipment and processes for the cultivation, harvesting and processing of forest derived agricultural products for human foods and bio fuels production. Read more…
Vandana Shiva – Navdanya – India
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalisation author. She is often referred to as “Gandhi of grain” for her activism associated with the anti-GMO movement. Shiva cites data allegedly demonstrating that today there are over 1400 pesticides that may enter the food system across the world. Vandana Shiva was born in Dehradun, India. Her father was a conservator of forests, and her mother was a farmer with a love for nature. Read more…
Rajendra Singh – Tarun Bharat Sangh – India
Rajendra Singh is an Indian water conservationist and environmentalist from Alwar district, Rajasthan in India. Known popularly as the “Water Gandhi,” or “Water Man of India”, Rajendra Singh has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their semi-arid area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad, rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques. Singh assists the Indian Government with empowering planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganges River. In the UK he is a founder member of an NGO called the Flow Partnership, which aims to counter the negative effects of soil erosion and flooding. He is also the winner of Stockholm Water Prize 2015; an award known as “the Nobel Prize for Water”. Read more…
Willie Smits – The Orangatans’ Best Friend – Borneo
In 1989, while working as a forest researcher in Indonesia, microbiologist Willie Smits first encountered a baby orangutan being sold at market, and later found it abandoned on a rubbish heap. This was a turning-point in his career. Taking the orangutan home, he nurtured it back to health, and was soon given other orangutans to look after. This work of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing orangutans into the wild developed into what was to become the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS). Read more…
Paul Stamets – Fungi Perfecti – USA
Paul Stamets is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and myco-remediation. He began his career in the forest as a logger. Stamets is largely self-taught in the field of mycology. Stamets plays a significant part in the 2019 documentary film Fantastic Fungi. Paul believes that mushrooms can save our lives, restore our ecosystems and transform other worlds. He believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet. For instance, as bee populations have been in decline for the past decade, Stamets shows that mushrooms can be a step forward in curbing the mortality rate of nature’s most prolific pollinator, the Bee. Read more…
J. Russell Smith (1874-1996) – Father of Agroforestry – USA
J. Russell Smith (1874-1996) was an American geographer and is considered the father of the field of agroforestry. In 1929, he released his book Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, one of the best reference books on agroforestry and forest farming, and noted as a key inspirational source for Bill Mollison in creating the Permaculture Design concept. This book is a highly readable blueprint for the development of high-yield tree crops proves that vast, untapped food sources can be harvested from common species of North American trees. Smith’s philosophy is based on the idea that agriculture must be adapted to physical conditions and that farming should fit the land. Read more…
Neal Spackman – Regenerative Resources – USA
Neal Spackman is a Terraformer, an internationally recognized pioneer of hyper-arid agro-forestries. Neal is the director of the Al Baydha Project in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, where he and local Bedouin tribesmen designed and built an agroforestry system to convert deserts into savannahs. This project restores ecological function, increases biodiversity, creates soil, improves water resources, and establishes agricultural production despite severe desertification. Read more…
Hanne Strong – Manitou Foundation – Crestone, CO, USA
Since 1972, Hanne Marstrand Strong has traveled to over 100 countries and has coordinated numerous civil society events parallel to High Level United Nations conferences. She has been invited to numerous universities, seminars and conferences as a guest speaker to address global issues covering topics such as inter-religious communities, sustainable living and spiritually based environmental education. She has also founded numerous nonprofit organizations for Native Americans and in the 1970’s, co-founded the first non-profit private foundation in Kenya with Sir Richard Leakey and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Wangari Maathai, for the disabled and street children. Read more…
Omar Tello – “The Forest Man” of – Puyo, Ecuador
Omar Tello is known locally as “The Forest Man,” who grew a piece of the Amazon rainforest. Ordained a ‘humble maverick’ at four-years-old, Tello grew up surrounded by nature. However, as adult life came upon him, the wild was replaced by the world of accounting. Working for a bank, Tello felt like a prisoner. Then in 1980, as Ecuador lost thousands of square miles of rainforest due to oil companies, he found his escape. Purchasing a rainforest pasture in Puyo, Tello began restoring Amazonian fauna and flora. His family thought he was mad for taking on such a project. Although he knew it was a big undertaking, Tello felt he had to do something to save species that were becoming extinct. Thus, he gave up his former job as an accountant and proceeded to spend over 40 years recreating a patch of pristine forest in Ecuador. He’s trying to encourage other landowners to do the same, so they can turn the tide of deforestation. Read More…
Chief Jake Teraronianeken Swamp (1946-2010) – Mohawk Nation – USA
Chief Jake Teraronianeken Swamp was aNative American Peace Advocate of the Wolf Clan and sub-chief of the Kahniakehaka, Mohawk Nation. Chief Jake Swamp traveled around the world meeting with world leaders and community groups to share the Tree of Peace ceremony and spread the Iroquois wisdom surrounding Peacemaker Principles and the Thanksgiving Address. Read more…
Nancy Turner – Ethnobotanist – British Columbia
Nancy Turner is an author and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria and has been a Research Associate for the Royal BC Museum, both in British Columbia, Canada. Nancy Turner is plausibly the most notable North American “ethnobiologist” active today! Especially through her extensive on-site works with North American indigenous peoples, Dr. Turner has proven that the common term of “hunter-gatherers” is a woefully inadequate descriptor of Native practices for food gathering. Her works illustrate ancient, developed, and complex systems for managing and enhancing plant and animal populations, including propagation. Turner’s research integrates the fields of botany and ecology with anthropology, geography and linguistics, among others. She is interested in the traditional knowledge systems and traditional land and resource management systems of Indigenous (aka First Nation) Peoples, particularly in western Canada. Read more…
Isabella Tree – Knaepp Castle Estate – UK
Isabella Tree is a conservation pioneer that has proved that if nature is allowed to take its own course, magic happens. She and her husband, Charlie Burrel brought the 3,500 acre Knepp Castle Estate back to life by letting it grow wild and abandoning the history of industrial and dairy farming. Their story is one of environmental hope. Up until the early 2000s, the land was polluted and degraded and then she turned the former farm’s depleted, loss-making land into the site of the largest rewilding experiment in lowland England: an experiment that has produced astonishing wildlife successes in a relatively short space of time and offers solutions for some of our most pressing problems – like soil restoration, flood mitigation, water and air purification, pollinating insects and carbon sequestration. Read more…
Daniel Valdiviezo – Navi Village – Mexico
Daniel Valdiviezo is an Ecosystem Restoration Developer and Biomimicry Designer. He combines design thinking, consciousness, and an inclusive viewpoint allows him to innovate and facilitate creative solutions. He is the Co-creator of Navi Village, the first regenerative community in Mexico. Read more…
Zachary Weiss – Elemental Ecosystems – USA
Protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, Zach Weiss is the first-ever person to earn the coveted “Holzer Practitioner Certification” directly from Sepp – through a rigorous two-year apprenticeship working on projects in North America and Europe. Zach created Elemental Ecosystems as a for-benefit social enterprise focused on solving societies growing environmental problems by considering the elemental relationship between biology and hydrology. Zach has worked in more than 25 different countries on 6 continents, spanning a wide range of climates, contexts, land-forms and ecosystems. After a decade of experience in the field, Zach created an online educational platform called Water Stories while focusing on designing water retention landscapes that harvest rain to create naturally productive ecosystems. Read more…
John Wick – Marin Carbon Project – California, USA
John is co-owner of the Nicasio Native Grass Ranch. John is also co-founder of the Marin Carbon Project and serves as its tireless spokesperson and advisor, which aims to improve carbon sequestration in rangeland, agriculture, and forest soils through applied research and implementation. Even beyond sequestering carbon, which is a massively necessary endeavour, large scale application of carbon farming techniques has the potential to transform agriculture in many other ways, increasing productivity as well our relationship to the land. Read more…
Joost Wouters – The Seaweed Company – Spain
Joost Wouters is an entrepreneur, speaker, author and the “SeaEO” of the Seaweed Company. Joost and his team aim to implement CO2-reducing seaweed-based business models at large scale. He is also co-instructor on the Ecosystem restoration design course through Gaia Education. Read more…
Percival A. Yeomans – Keyline Plow – Australia
P.A. Yeomans (1905 – 1984) was an Australian inventor known for the Keyline System for the development of land and increasing the fertility of that land. Keyline design accounts for the natural formation of a given landform and maximizes the water storage and fertility. The keyline plow lowers the soil horizon and creates deep channels where water can permeate. His Keyline principles or concepts (Keyline Design) have been adopted by farm owners in almost every country in the world. Yeomans’ Keyline concepts are now part of the curriculum of many sustainable agriculture courses in colleges and universities across the world. Read more…
Yin Yuzhen – The Woman who Totally Restored China’s Mu Us Desert
Surrounded by a desolate desert living in a mud cave, Yin Yuzhen took it herself to singlehandedly plant trees rehabilitating the desolate environment in the Uxin Banner of China’s Semi-Arid Western landscape. As an expert by no means coming from humble beginnings, she initially began her botany excursion as experimentation with various vegetation in her backyard in 1985 attempting to grow the various vegetation from the dry mineral lacking sand. The landscape was barren and desolate which led her to want to make something more out of this seemingly inhabitable land. Producing food for her family, she looked to fight the soil erosion present in her backyard, which quickly transformed into something entirely new. She began to plant trees and quickly learned how difficult it was during the process of trial-and-error. In time Yin found success and attracted the eye of neighbors around her, who quickly looked to her to rehabilitate their family plots in the effort of reforestation. As the years went on, she continued to plant her trees, deciding she would rather have her back broken than be bullied into submission by the sandy desert that had plagued her life for too long. (Wikipedia)
Bill Zeedyk – “Stream Restoration Wizard” – New Mexico, USA
Bill Zeedyk is a “River Re-creator,” and the Principal author of “Let the Water Do the Work: Induced Meandering.” Bill introduces us to his concept of “Induced Meandering”, the process of repairing waterways using stone “baffles“ to purposely nudge and redirect moving water’s flow. Read more…
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