June 14: Principles of Place-Sourced Regeneration, Live Case Study online
FREE FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS, ($25-35 for all others) Join me this Friday for a mini workshop on Zoom.
Principles of Place-Sourced Regeneration: Live Case Study
Friday, June 14th , online at 9-11 AM EDT. ($25- 35)
Check here for your time zone.
Those of you who are paid Substack Subscribers can join for free by using the coupon code SUBSTACK.
Do you ever wonder how to source your thinking and projects in a very real sense of Place so that your local community sees the relevance of what you are trying to do?
Or what specific intervention, where you live, could indirectly change everything?
This is one of many short workshops I’ll be teaching this spring and summer to introduce the work we do in our amazing, ongoing, weekly meetings of the Land and Leadership Development Community. (You can find recordings of others at https://lali.teachable.com/)
As "regenerative" becomes the latest buzz word, you've probably noticed the trend of big global initiatives that are applying generic, one-size-fits-all solutions and "best management practices" to broadly defined "issues" such as loss of biodiversity, climate change, etc. Just like big box stores, this trend has a way of ignoring and degrading local cultures and economies, while a few people retain power over the design and rollout (and potentially make money by retaining power over how local lands are managed long term, in ways that tap into global markets.)
It's problematic for local communities, but it's also ineffective at actually creating meaningful or lasting change, because it's imposed by external powers so the will of local people is not engaged--rather, people are "incentivized" by payments or promises. To make lasting change, we need to learn to see the uniqueness of the structures, systems and processes of each Place, and through that to understand what the right step is to awaken the potential of what is right in front of us.
For example, here are two successful projects:
In the Hwange region in Zimbabwe, Precious Phiri realized she had to help villagers see the value in putting individual household cows into a shared herd to restore life to degraded dryland grazing lands, and learn decision-making frameworks to manage the livestock and monitor the results. This single intervention has had stunning results on the water, soils, grasslands, insect population, and human lives.
In Andhra Pradesh India, Vijay Kumar saw the potential in women farmers who were already organized in Self Help Economic Groups to kickstart a natural farming movement. They already had major concerns about the physical and mental health effects of pesticide use, and were already working to lift their villages out of poverty. These women have inspired 850,000 farmers to change the way they farm. Early on, the initiative also gained momentum from the charisma of a guru-like natural farming teacher who represented one part of India’s culture, but then shifted toward a more secular approach once it had gained critical mass.
There is much we can learn from both of these, but neither approach would necessarily be appropriate or even possible in YOUR project. However, using living systems frameworks, and a process called "resourcing" you can learn to see each place as a whole system at work, in order to know where to intervene, and how to be most effective.
That's what we do on a weekly basis in the weekly meetings of the Land and Leadership Development Community.
Through an interview process using living-systems frameworks, we can see how incredibly different each place is, and why we can't apply generic solutions. We will explore one very specific place from among the international participants' locations--one that none of us has thought about before in this way (including me). Participants will have a chance to apply the same frameworks to their own places and projects as we go along.
In our last mini workshop, (you can sign up to watch the recording of it, here) we ended up examining one participant's project in El Salvador, and realized how the history and trauma of civil war was leading to a desire for "clean and modern" land and yards: so that vegetation was seen as trash to be disposed of. Without understanding and working solidly within this underlying context, no amount of "educating the locals" about soil health principles or the water cycle is going to be useful, in fact it may make things worse.
Here's one more example: in the steep rocky hillsides of Vermont (where I live), all the forests were cut down for sheep farming 150 years ago, so soils are shallow and water doesn’t soak in. Many of the beavers were killed and they are still being trapped, so streams run fast, and the roads are all built on former deer trails along streambeds–making runoff and flooding a huge issue in my region. Would Precious’ approach or Vijay’s approach work here? Unlikely. We need to come up with our own unique intervention.
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