The RegenNarration

This is a special extra to episode 83 with award-winning archaeologist, Peter Veth. We delve further here into what Peter believes needs to happen in the crucible of landscapes such as those in north west Australia. We talk about the place of heavy industry, cultural enterprise and interpretation, economies, education and media. With an approach that celebrates the extraordinary deep time value of these co-created landscapes and cultures. Generating a more universal view, as Peter puts it – reflecting how First Nations see things, and how many young people see things now too.

Title slide: Peter Veth at Cape Range (pic: UWA).

Music:
The Great Unwind, by William Tyler off his album Modern Country.

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, Regenerating in Deep Time.

You can see a few terrific early photographs of Peter among some of the First Nations communities we talked about, on that episode web page too.

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

Australia’s history is being significantly rewritten - or perhaps better said, heard. There is growing widespread understanding of the sophistication, presence and wisdom of the First Australians, and not just from the game-changing works of people like Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage. Now that modern Australia is looking in more of the right places, with the right mind, and with the First Australians themselves, our national - and really, human - story, is changing everywhere.

This is a story of successful continuous human migration, cultivation and livelihood, right across Australia, over many a changing climate and shifting sea level. And leading archaeology professor from UWA, Peter Veth, has been working with First Nations for over 40 years to help share this story.

Peter has just started a new dig with First Nations folk here on the North West Cape of Australia, part of the World Heritage Ningaloo Coast. It’s expected to reveal the First Nations presence in this part of the world dates back an extraordinary 60,000 years. And when pieced together with other finds and collaborations happening across Australia and the world, it changes the way we see our country, it’s people, and the human experience generally. And that, in turn, is broadening the menu of present and future possibilities enormously, at a time when this region, its people, and the world as a whole, need it most.

This conversation was recorded on the new moon of 12 May 2021.

Title slide: Cape Range, on the World Heritage Ningaloo Coast (pic: UWA).

You can see a few terrific early photographs of Peter among some of the First Nations communities we talked about on the episode web page.

Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson.

Find more:
Tune into the special extra with Peter.

On Peter Veth.

On the new Nyinggulu Archaeology Project, from ABC Pilbara, Ningaloo research to tell 60,000-year-old story as new technology uncovers deeper past.

Songlines exhibition.

Songlines book by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly.

On the Resilient Reefs initiative (and hear my conversation with Dr Peter Barnes & Joel Johnsson from last year on this.

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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!

This is an excerpt from episode 82 featuring a grab of about 14 minutes or so from my conversation with Geoff Bastyan. He’s the bloke at the heart of what’s been recognised as the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. And what a story it is. With all the key ingredients. Like being told it couldn’t be done, facing a dire wipe out of the pre-existing seagrass meadows, and intuiting the surprisingly simple method that would turn it all around. And what that means for marine habitat and food, preventing coastal erosion, and for what’s come to called ‘blue carbon’, can’t be overstated.

Title slide: Restoration in progress – a 1997 seagrass restoration trial, four years later in October 2001 (pic: Geoff Bastyan) (sourced from this terrific article on it all).

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation, waterside in Albany, in the main episode, ‘The World’s Most Successful Seagrass Restoration, with humble pioneer Geoff Bastyan’.

You’ll find a series of photos on that episode web page too. 

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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!

You might remember Keith Bradby from Gondwana Link in episode 79 a few weeks ago. If you haven’t heard it yet, suffice to say here that Gondwana Link has been called “the most exciting thing happening in restoration in Australia, if not the world.” Within its 1,000 kilometre restoration zone lies the Oyster Harbour catchment. And the Harbour that does the catching has drawn renown as the site of the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. With a humble bloke by the name of Geoff Bastyan at the heart of it.

Geoff is regarded as a bit of local legend around Albany, in the south of Western Australia. And a few years ago, he was duly awarded the prestigious Great Southern Development Commission medal.

It was back in the 1970s that Geoff first noticed the local harbours losing their vital seagrass meadows. He self-funded a monitoring effort over the next decade, by which time almost all the seagrass was gone. The harbours were effectively desertifying, largely due to industrial and agricultural run-off. But as older industries closed, and farmers, the local catchment group, and others inland reduced agricultural run-off, Geoff was painstakingly pioneering a way to restore the seagrass - when conventional wisdom suggested it couldn’t be done.

Seagrass benefits the health of marine ecosystems in so many ways, by providing marine habitat and food, preventing coastal erosion by stabilising sediments and protecting shorelines from large swells, and storing nutrients and what’s come to be called ‘blue carbon’. Geoff cites a study here that found the restored seagrass meadows of Oyster Harbour, even after a relatively short time span, store between 30 to 50 times more carbon per hectare than the Amazon rainforest.

This conversation was recorded waterside in Albany, Western Australia, on 5 March 2021.

Title slide: Geoff Bastyan (source from Great Southern Live at a now inactive page - https://www.greatsouthernlive.com.au/albany-wa-oyster-harbour-catchment-geoff-bastyan-sea-grass-rehabilitation).

You’ll see a few photos on the episode web page too.

Find more:
My conversation with Professor Gary Kendrick for the Clean State podcast ‘Blue Carbon, Conservation Economies and the Great Seagrass Restoration’.

My conversation with Keith Bradby, the CEO of Gondwana Link.

On the Oyster Harbour Catchment Group.

And if you’re interested in getting involved, in all manner of ways, including funding the next phase of seagrass restoration.

Gondwana Link’s video channel is also well worth a look, with a series of short videos including on the seagrass restoration at Oyster Harbour.

Go direct to the seagrass restoration video.

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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!

This is an excerpt from episode 81 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with writer and Australian National Living Treasure, Tim Winton.

We pick up the conversation where I wondered if Tim agreed that the grounds for positive change seemed to be getting more fertile. We go on to explore more of Tim’s personal story, source of meaning, and view on the value of art. Especially in the context of joining efforts to transition away from this ‘peculiar, savage and inhumane form of capitalism’, towards the true bottom line of the soil, air, fresh water and ocean that sustains all.

Title slide: Exmouth Gulf (pic: Anthony James).

Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, ‘Leaning Towards the Light: Recovering masculinity, meaning & true power’.

You’ll find a few photos on that episode web page too. 

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!

I had this conversation with Tim Winton back in 2018, but it’s been front of mind for me again in recent weeks, as we enter a moment of reckoning on gender-related inequality and violence – certainly in a big way in Australia right now, and of course more broadly in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and so many others over a long period of time. It also continues to invoke a kind of personal reckoning. You’ll hear more from me on this at the start of this episode.

To many of you, Tim won’t need an introduction. He is one of the world’s most brilliant, authentic and awarded writers, and is regarded as a National Living Treasure here in Australia. For those less aware of Tim, his brief publisher bio is below.

Tim and I both reveal some pretty raw parts of our journeys here, in recovering a masculinity worth the term. And this framed the back half of our conversation on his ongoing efforts to help protect the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef. Particularly, at this time, Exmouth Gulf – in effect, the Reef’s nursery.

This episode comes to you from back on the shores of Exmouth Gulf, which looks doubly magnificent in the wake of the recent successes of the Protect Ningaloo project. But the future of this region, and so many others, is still so bound up in our culture of damaged masculinity. Our national parliament is enough to demonstrate that. But of course, it’s not just about parliament, it’s about the systems and stories across the board that have generated, perpetrated and legitimised this for too long.

Back in May 2018, I wondered if Tim agreed that the grounds for positive change seemed to be getting more fertile. And here we are now, with gutsy women taking a stand everywhere, and gutsy men looking to do what’s right. In this context, at this moment, it feels like the wisdom Tim brings to the table here is worth releasing into the world again.

Tim Winton has published twenty-nine books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.

Title slide image: Tim Winton (source).

Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.

Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.

Find more:
Books by Tim Winton.

The Shepherd’s Hut.

Breath, Simon Baker's film adaptation of another of Tim's award-winning novels.

The Protect Ningaloo campaign.

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!

This is an excerpt from episode 80 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Nicol Ragland. How does Bill Gates’ recent ‘intervention’ in food systems differ from what we really need? And how are some First Nations people saying ‘no thanks’ to that intervention?

These questions lead our conversation through Nicol’s work with Regenerate Oklahoma, some of her transformative experiences with Indigenous peoples around the world, and what that might mean for re-conceptualising our relationship with land. She goes on to rib me a little on the topic of trust, reveals how she (almost) stood in the recent federal election, and all this culminates with an awesome exchange on the wisdom of elders.

Title slide: B&W shot of the Hadza (pic: Nicol Ragland).

Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, Regenerative Media: What if it’s not about solving but maintaining a connection?
 
You’ll find a selection of Nicol’s spectacular photos on that web page too. 

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!

This is a special extra to episode 80 with award-winning filmmaker, Nicol Ragland. We hear more of Nicol’s personal journey from childhood and artist, through to formative experiences with Indigenous cultures around the world. We explore this in parallel to the growing movement in solutions journalism and regenerative media, and where it all could take us. Particularly if married with the sort of education model she’s witnessed right here in Australia, with Terry McCosker and his team at RCS.

Title slide: In Australia with RCS Australia (pic: Nicol Ragland).

Music:
The Great Unwind, by William Tyler off his album Modern Country.

Find more:
You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, ‘Regenerative Media: What if it’s not about solving but maintaining a connection?’

You’ll find a selection of Nicol’s spectacular photos on that episode web page too.

And if you want to hear the episode with Terry McCosker, you can find it here.

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!

Nicol Ragland is an award-winning film maker and photographer from the US. I first came across Nicol when she directed the spectacular short film, Farmer’s Footprint, featuring Dr Zach Bush and a group of regenerative farmers including Gabe Brown. It echoed so many of the stories you hear on this podcast, and elsewhere, of both the litany of issues in the wake of ‘big agriculture’ and its related systems, and the often-surprising pace of recovery among those communities able to step out from under that boot heel.

Nicol might be thought of as part of a growing movement of solutions journalism or regenerative media. But she still thinks too few producers understand the influence of propaganda and well financed algorithms. And what we can do about it.

Nicol was born and raised in Oklahoma and Colorado, but couldn’t wait to get out of there. After eighteen years in Los Angeles, though, she recently circled back to her “red dirt roots”. She wrote a blog about why, talking of the power of reconnection with country, health and communities. And she lamented that so much of our deepening political divides are between rural and urban folk, concluding with the question: “What if it’s not about solving but about maintaining a connection?”

This conversation was recorded on the morning of 16 March 2021 (Australian time).

Title slide: Nicol and companion (supplied). You’ll find a selection of Nicol’s spectacular photos on the episode web page too.

Music:
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.

Find more:
Tune into the special extra with Nicol, 'If we could do this across the globe'.

Nicol’s website.

The Farmer’s Footprint short film (20 minutes).

Regenerate Oklahoma.

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!

This is an excerpt from episode 79 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Keith Bradby, CEO of Gondwana Link. We explore the machinations of change, from intuition and leaps of faith, through to connecting all kinds of people and places, across all kinds of political and cultural divides. We then delve into what this means for the economics and politics of change, including how to keep carbon in context. And we close with how to keep ourselves from being distracted by the causes of our problems, to focus more on what matters most.

Title slide: Keith Bradby (pic: Ami Vitale).

You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, ‘Gondwana Link: The most exciting restoration at scale in Australia, with Keith Bradby’.

You’ll find a series of photos on that episode web page too. 

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!