Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature

Our misbegotten industrial food system is one of our greatest vulnerabilities. Its dangerously fossil-fueled, toxic, monocultural and centralized. The real cost of cheap food is very high to both people and planet. Urban food innovators are designing vibrant new local food economies built on environmental and ecological integrity, sustainability, diversity and equity. Join author Michael Pollan, Fair Food Foundation CEO Oran Hesterman, faith-based change-maker James Ella James and student leader Victoria Carter for a smorgasbord of nourishing morsels from the emerging locavore movement.

Find out more about Michael Pollan at his website, and the work Oran Hesterman is doing at the Fair Food Network website.

There is indeed a clash of civilizations today, between a sustainable civilization and a disposable one. Author and social entrepreneur Paul Hawken identifies a new superpower: the mighty river of global popular movements with real solutions. He tracks the unprecedented phenomenon of this biggest movement in the history of the world, the diverse face of a rising new culture of restoration, of reconciliation, of healing.

In times of strife, how can art serve as a healthy catalyst for positive transformation? Join San Francisco City Art Commissioner Dorka Keehn in a conversation about the frontlines of cultural revolution. With: Favianna Rodriguez, a renowned transnational interdisciplinary artist and cultural organizer focused on social change.

Recorded at the 2015 National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

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

Anthropologist Jeremy Narby’s life’s work has involved reconciling Western scientific views and assumptions with those of Indigenous cultures around the world. In this interview excerpt, Bioneers Senior Producer and author J.P. Harpignies talks to Narby about intelligence in nature, the limitations of language and more.

In this fascinating conversation, author and anthropologist Wade Davis and ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison delve into the fascinating human relationship to consciousness altering plants, delving into the use of coffee, cacao, peyote, ayahuasca, and psilocybin by ancient and contemporary peoples, and the relevance these relationships may have for current human predicaments.

How do you go from being a passionate tree-hugger to a business-suited change-maker on behalf of the forests? Enter ForestEthics Program Director Tzeporah Berman. With a string of conservation successes, including the "Amazon of the North," her inspiring story shows how innovative market-based strategies, strange bedfellows, and public embarrassment are powerful tools to preserve the wild places that provide our essential ecosystem services.

At the Bioneers Conference in 2017, we spoke with Heather McGhee, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the organization Demos. McGhee describes how the election of Barack Obama resulted in both a racial backlash and the illusion that we were suddenly living in a post-racial society. She also shares a hopeful story that demonstrates a pathway towards healing the divisions that harm us all.

Cuba developed, out of necessity, the most organic, sustainable agricultural system of any country. Is that model replicable in other parts of the world, or is it now likely to be overrun by industrial farming as ironically the easing of tensions with the U.S. opens the island up to the influx of capital and multinational corporate plutocrats? What can we learn from Cuba’s food system, and what are the risks to Cuban food security and sovereignty as its economic isolation ends?

With: Kevin Danaher, co-founder of Global Exchange and FairTradeUSA; Greg Watson, former Massachusetts Secretary of Agriculture; Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

Imagine this: A popular character on a Spanish-language soap opera resonates so deeply with viewers that they become empowered and educated about literacy. Avatars in the virtual world called Second Life enable people of all faiths to better understand and respect Islamic culture. Digital and media entrepreneur William Ryerson effectively uses innovative media for social change.

Digital citizen diplomats Joshua S. Fouts and Rita J. King design virtual games that help foster vibrant community and culture in the physical world. They're all demonstrating the game-changing power of technology to change the world for the better.