The RegenNarration

Stephen King is the founder, CEO and Head Installer of the Australian Insulation Foundation of WA (AIFWA). While working in his insulation business, Stephen found social housing tenants were desperately in need of insulation, but had no means of getting it. So he set up a charity, added a little premium to his main service, and provided housing insulation for social housing tenants free of charge.

One such resident is Maria Novac – a single mum with a family who unexpectedly found herself in need of social housing, and landed in a neglected hot box. Maria can’t thank Stephen enough for the difference it’s made to their lives. And they’re not alone. And while the flow on benefits are enormous, from health to climate to education and more, perhaps the greatest benefit is what it shows is possible if government were to back in a plan to retrofit all 45,000 social houses in WA in this way. Maria was kind enough to host Stephen and I at her place for this conversation.

Note: the last reference to AIFWA online that I can find is in 2023, and the website is currently not live. This episode is still aired here due the value of this particular story, the at least seven years of work the non-profit did, and the successful model it demonstrates.

This episode was originally released as the sixth of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of WA. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to WA, so we resolved to re-release them here.

To hear the rest of the Clean State series, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page below (where you can also find a five-minute bonus episode of previously unreleased material from this conversation, if you didn't catch it in your podcast feed).

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded November 2020.

Title slide: Stephen King (supplied).

With thanks to the CCWA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

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Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

Dale Tilbrook is a much-loved native food specialist, educator, and passionate Aboriginal tourism advocate. Like a lot of Australia at the time of this recording, Dale was immersed in a delayed NAIDOC Week, during COVID, celebrating the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. She also continues to work towards a big vision for First Nations people, and WA as a whole.

This vision is reflected in a joint proposal (linked on the episode web page) made at the time by Clean State WA and the influential WAITOC – the Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Council. Dale’s seen WAITOC generate a litany of outstanding success stories in Aboriginal tourism, and at times with very few resources. The potential is huge, she says, with the right support and investment, to empower Aboriginal communities with all sorts of flow-on benefits - and at a time when WA, and the rest of the world – need it most.

Today, a special extended edition of the episode that originally aired on the Clean State podcast. I was limited to 30 minutes back then. Today, the full 45 minutes I couldn’t help but let play out when I visited Dale at her Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery.

This episode was originally released as part of a series I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of WA. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page.

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded November 2020.

Title slide: Dale Tilbrook (supplied).

With thanks to CCWA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

Today, a brief bonus featuring material from my conversation with Shannon Leigh that never saw the light of day, partly due to the wind that blew in, and partly due to Clean State’s mandate for shorter episodes. But it’s worth the listen, with reference to one of Australia’s much loved satirical shows on ‘nation-building’, Utopia.

If you’ve come here first, tune into the main episode with Shannon Leigh, ‘World’s Best Place for Active Transport, with Streets for People co-founder Shannon Leigh’.

To hear the rest of the Clean State series, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

Title slide: The shared path with the First Nations stone figure talked about in the main episode by the Swan River / Derbal Yerrigan (pic: Anthony James).

And for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

Shannon Leigh is co-founder and Director of Streets for People, and previously an award-winning urban and transport planner at the Department of Transport and later Curtin University. Investment in active transport is one of the most livelihood-rich, climate-friendly measures available. And given cost blow-outs in public health, climate related damage, and car dominated infrastructure, it’s another vital transition more of us are after – especially in the wake of the tripling of cycling in Perth since COVID-19.

On that alone, WA’s former Auditor General, Colin Murphy, said that “It is hard to think of an activity with more benefits than cycling, for cyclists and for the wider community.” So to talk more about an active transport vision for WA, Shannon takes us to one of her favourite shared pathways by the Swan River.

This episode was originally released as part of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

To hear the rest of the Clean State series, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page (where you can also find a four minute bonus episode of previously unreleased material from this conversation, if you didn't catch it in your podcast feed).

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded in October 2020.

Title slide: Shannon Leigh by the Swan River / Derbal Yerrigan for this conversation (pic: Anthony James).

With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

You might recognise Dr Vanessa Rauland from the renowned ABC TV series Fight for Planet A. Vanessa’s the co-founder with Alexander Karan of ClimateClever, one of a growing number of WA social enterprises that have been realising some of the enormous opportunities in our energy transition. When I spoke with Vanessa for this podcast, a few years ago, the ClimateClever team had nearly doubled in the months prior (even during COVID-19), working with an increasing number of schools, their communities and then businesses, to help them reduce emissions, save money and up-skill the next generation around regenerative living.

Vanessa’s long-dedicated her days to addressing climate change and increasing awareness about the vast benefits of living in such a way. And in the wake of the extraordinary youth-led global climate strikes, it’s arguably fitting that schools would take a lead role in the energy and related transitions we so urgently need. For this conversation, Vanessa takes us to one of the WA schools doing just that.

This episode was originally released as part of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

To hear the rest of this special series of Clean State episodes, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page.

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded in October 2020.

Title slide: Vanessa and AJ.

With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

Professor Gary Kendrick’s great love is the WA coastline and its seagrasses. Gary and colleagues have been at the forefront of seagrass restoration and the blue carbon movement more broadly. And with such a massive extent of coastline featuring globally significant carbon stores, world heritage sites, and deep community and cultural knowledge, the potential for WA – and beyond - is enormous. Gary takes us to one of his favourite parts of WA, to share a little of this spectacular story.

This episode was originally released as ‘Blue Carbon, Conservation Economies & the Great Seagrass Restoration, with Professor Gary Kendrick’.

It was part of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

To hear the rest of this special series of Clean State episodes, and more stories of regeneration around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded in one of Gary’s favourite parts of WA, in September 2020.

Title slide: Gary Kendrick (pic: OzFish).

With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra.

Find more:
The seagrass restoration being done by Gary and colleagues.
The Wirriya Jalyanu (Seagrass) Festival at Shark Bay.
A video of Gary from 2017 talking more about the story and value of seagrass.
Listen to another extraordinary story of seagrass restoration from the south of WA on ep82 of The RegenNarration.
And you can find the Clean State Plan (in full and in summary) towards the bottom of the episode web page linked below.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

A brief bonus featuring part of my conversation with Chantal Caruso that never saw the light of day, due to Clean State’s mandate for shorter episodes.

A poignant moment occurred at the launch of The Clean State Plan, with a group of First Nations people there expressing concern at the impending renewables revolution. It raised an important question - how do we transition energy systems without repeating colonial extractive patterns? And moreover, without unwittingly hampering the regenerative work they, farmers and others of the land are also pioneering?

Then we talk about the low-cost, exponential positive impacts of First Nations radio, and one of Chantal’s favourite stories, stemming from her childhood.

If you’ve come here first, tune into the main episode with Chantal Caruso, ep237 ‘Introducing The Clean State Stories, with former director Chantal Caruso.’

To hear the rest of The Clean State Stories series, and learn more about the sorts of things talked about here, be sure to follow The RegenNarration podcast.

And for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson. 

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

As introduced last week, today launches a special festive season series of the Clean State Stories. This was a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

The opening episode features highly respected former Director of Clean State WA, Chantal Caruso. Chantal was also the lead author of the Clean State Plan, outlining how to create hundreds of thousands of livelihoods for people in energy, agriculture, building, transport, tourism, and the care economy. The vison was to house and employ everyone, avert multiple catastrophes, and transition to a regenerative, fair and prosperous society.

And the plan highlighted a stack of brilliant stories from around WA of people already going about achieving that vision, also highlighting the enormous opportunities that await.

You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page (where you can also find a 7 minute bonus episode of previously unreleased material from this conversation, if you didn't catch it in your podcast feed).

Recorded in one of Chantal’s favourite parts of WA, in September 2020.

Title slide: Chantal on-location (pic: Anthony James).

With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

This episode was originally released as ‘Launching the Clean State Jobs Plan: A conversation with lead author Chantal Caruso’.

To hear the rest of this series, and more stories of regeneration around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.

And for more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
Eden is Lost, by local artists Selfless Orchestra.

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

A brief new year's greeting from Guatemala, to herald a special festive season series of short episodes. 

Around four years ago, some of you might remember I produced a series of nine episodes for an organisation called Clean State WA. That became the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, that organisation is no more, but the series of episodes produced featured such brilliant guests and stories that we resolved to find a way to keep them alive in the record. 

Their premise is so related to The RegenNarration podcast – it’s why I was asked to produce them of course – sharing a vision, narrative shift, and a plan of action, grounded in stuff that’s already happening. In that sense, their relevance remains, these few years on, and not just to West Australians. So I hope you’ll enjoy the listen to these half hour stories on-location across WA, wherever you are.

Title slide: Fray Bartolome de las Casas, Guatemala, where I recorded this. 

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Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!

Welcome to the customary package of highlights from another brilliant array of guests throughout 2024, accompanied by some of the music and sounds of Country heard along the way – this time across two continents, 49 episodes and 78 guests, from all walks of life. Listening to it all together in one place last night was just incredible. I hope you enjoy it too.

You’ll hear a little from me first, with a short summary of the year in review, along with a snapshot of where we are right now, some intent for next year, and an update on the Kachana hearing just concluded.

With enormous thanks to subscribers and other supporting listeners for making all this possible. And to everyone who sheltered, fed and generally cared for us throughout the year, around Australia and the States.

With enormous thanks also, to all the wonderful musicians who generously granted permission for their music to be heard here. And of course, to you, thanks for listening.

The track list for this episode, identifying the music and people, is found in the chapter markers. A transcript is also available (on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Title image: AJ in a personal highlight visit to Joshua Tree National Park (pic: Olivia Cheng).

Find more:
To access the full catalogue of episodes, head to the website at https://www.regennarration.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening, have a wonderful festive season and see you again in 2025!

Send us a voicemail

Support the show

Please share this episode or the trailer with a friend, follow the podcast, and subscribe if you can.

The RegenNarration is independent and ad-free, with hundreds of episodes freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber, from as little as around $1 a week, to gain access to a great community, subscriber events and giveaways, and to help keep the show going, on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find some writing, photography and tunes too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks so much for your support!