29/12/2020
Can we embrace a more “fertile” paradigm of care for our *inner and outer landscapes*? The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities will show how *climate cooling* is a *biological dance*, how the hidden *biological economy* enfolds our own, how the *sterile paradigm* took hold of our fears and imaginations, and how people can learn to work in *fertile collaboration* with other species–and with each other. (Scholar-Author: Didi Pershouse)
Recommending 1) a deep dive discussion course Regenerating Landscapes for Community and Climate Resilience: The Soil Sponge as Essential Infrastructure, offered by Didi Pershouse;
Note: All of the Land and Leadership Initiative's past webinars are now available for FREE. Including: The Soil Food Web with Dr. Elaine Ingham.
https://lali.teachable.com/p/regenerating-landscapes-for-community-climate-resilience?mc_cid=17232f3cfc&mc_eid=1cfc46c19d
2) 7 day global online Oxford Real Farming Conference, 7 - 13 Jan 2021, where Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein, Frances Moore Lappé and Didi Pershouse will talk ( https://orfc.org.uk/).
This seven-day online event will give farmers, food producers, researchers, policy-makers, NGOs and all those who support a better food and farming system the chance to come together as a movement, exchange ideas, learn from each other and form new alliances across six continents. It will also give us the chance to organise ahead of the climate ministers’ and heads of state gathering, COP26, which the UK is hosting in Glasgow in November 2021.
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Appendix:
Here is a sneak preview of some of the topics Didi Pershouse's online course planning to cover:
Day 1: Landscapes that Work for All of Life
How are people managing land in ways that quickly and safely cool the regional climate and provide more food and water, while also improving biodiversity, resilience to extreme weather events, and health and immunity for all life on land? What is the soil sponge, and how is it different from soil carbon? How does biology slow and sink water on a total landscape scale without the need for new ponds, berms or dams?
Day 2: Collaborating with the Essential Workforce of Other Species
What is the essential work of other species, and what are the job descriptions in a functional landscape? What currencies does this natural workforce use in its economy, and how can we participate in an economy (without money) that enfolds our own? What are the principles of land management that this natural workforce uses, and how can we collaborate?
Day 3: Measuring Change for Long Term Success
How do you know if your land's "soil sponge" structure and function is improving? What tests are useful and affordable? When should a project use monitoring, and when is it safe to trust in computer simulated models of landscape function? How do we track and share data? How do we make data sharing safe?
Day 4: Money, Life and Land: Are the emerging Soil Carbon markets, Payment for Ecosystem Services programs, and Climate Smart farming initiatives actually regenerative and working from a living systems perspective? If not, how can we improve them? How can you upgrade your community's thinking about local and regional economics, and understanding of the relationship between functioning ecosystems and economies?
Day 5: Choosing Effective Intervention Points
Why are some regenerative land projects gaining enormous momentum while others are stalling? What role do human relationships play in effective projects? When do "experts" and research studies help make change, and when do they disempower people from taking action? How do we design projects and policies that grow human and ecological capability, and engage people for the long haul?
Learn how to dramatically reduce the risk and impact of extreme weather events, rebuild local economies, and restore health and immunity for all living things...by working with (not against) nature's own processes.
