Richard W. Halsey loves sharing the magic of Nature, especially when it comes to chaparral, California's most extensive native plant community. He started teaching natural history as a 16-year-old volunteer naturalist at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, California, enjoyed learning about biology and anthropology in college, then taught high school biology, chemistry, and physics for two decades, leading his students on dozens of wilderness experiences to discover the preciousness of life. Since founding and directing the California Chaparral Institute in 2004, Richard has written a handful of research papers, a couple books, a fair number of editorials, and has given hundreds of presentations, all concerning chaparral ecology and the importance of reestablishing our connection with Nature.

Jessica Carew Kraft is the author of Why We Need to Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st-Century Questions (Sourcebooks, 2023). An independent journalist trained in anthropology, she became a naturalist and wild food forager in the Sierra Foothills in Northern California

Warren Hern is a physician and epidemiologist. He is the author of "Abortion in the Age of Unreason: A Doctor's Account of Caring for Women Before and after Roe v. Wade."

Best known for the Boudica: Dreaming series, Manda Scott was once a veterinary surgeon and is now an award-winning novelist, smallholder, contemporary shamanic trainer and host of the international chart-topping Accidental Gods podcast. Taking a Masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College taught her that hospicing modernity is our most urgent task--and that it's only possible if enough of us have road maps showing routes through from exactly where we are towards a future that works for all life. She is co-creator of the Thrutopian Writing Masterclass and her new novel, Any Human Power is a Thrutopian mytho-political thriller.

Marily Woodhouse is a 5th generation Californian, born and grew up in the Bay Area. She’s lived in the Battle Creek watershed since 1989, but spent time in the summers at her grandmother's cabin in Butte Meadows to the south, so has a lifelong experience of the area. She started Battle Creek Alliance in 2008 and Defiance Canyon Raptor Rescue in 2016.

Deanna Meyer is a long time environmental activist. She is on the

Richard Olson is Director of the Berea Urban Farm (Berea KY), an educational market garden with the mission to increase local food security and build community through urban agriculture. He previously was a member of the faculty at Berea College teaching courses in sustainability, ecological design and environmental justice, and managed research programs on the effects of air pollution on Western forests at the US Environmental Protection Agency lab in Corvallis Oregon. He has degrees in biology, ecology, and agronomy, and personal experience in small-scale farming and horse logging.

Borislav Prodanovic is a theologian, icon painter, artist, and musician from Serbia. He studied at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Belgrade, Serbia, and at the Protestant Theological Seminary in Novi Sad, Serbia, where he received his bachelor's and M.A. degree in Theology. His research interest and vision concern Orthodox theology and praxis in contemporary times. He has been especially interested in dialectical relations, tensions and constitutive dialogues between Orthodoxy and Feminist and Liberation theologies. Currently he conducts a PhD research on clergy sexual abuse in the Serbian Orthodox Church at the Free University of Amsterdam