Permaculture is a design science for creating regenerative landscapes. In rewilding, we often perceive it as a kind of technology based on ancient hunter-gatherer-horticultural subsistence strategies from around the world. While there are many valuable criticisms about permaculture (just as there are about rewilding), it is still one of the most effective tools for creating alternative subsistence strategies to the extractive ones that dominate our world today. To understand how far we’ve come, we need to listen to the elders of the movement and hear all they have endured and accomplished to get us where we are today. Hazel Varrde is one such elder for me, and the rewilding community.

Hazel began gardening around age five. They earned degrees in Forestry and Systematic Botany from Syracuse University and SUNY College of Forestry in 1969. Hazel taught Wild Edible Plants and Woods-lore at Laney College in Oakland CA in the early 70’s and helped Bill Mollison teach the first Permaculture Design Course at Evergreen State College in 1982. Hazel has taught various Permaculture courses ever since, becoming a notorious teacher and proponent of social forestry. I first met Hazel in 2009 during my Permaculture Design Certificate course with Toby Hemenway. Hazel was the only guest teacher in the class who seemed to share my vision of a rewilded future, and I knew that I needed to go and learn from them directly. I took their Social Forestry class in 2015, and then came back as a guest teacher the following year. I’ve since continued to practice various forms of social forestry, while sending many people their way. Land tending is an integral part of rewilding, and social forestry is an inspiring model for us to use. Hazel has finally finished their book on Social Forestry, and you can pre-order it now. I am happy to help get the word out.

Notes

Social Forestry by Tomi Hazel Vaarde

Siskiyou Permaculture

Mentions

Playing with Fire: Social Forestry with Hazel by Peter Michael Bauer

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