The RegenNarration

This is a brief extract from the end of episode 60 with Matthew Evans, exploring a vision for how we can feed the world (well), in a way that regenerates communities, economies and the planet as a whole. All the more, how we can do it by building on the foundation of where most food is currently produced.

Matthew is a farmer and chef at Fat Pig Farm, host of the popular TV series Gourmet Farmer, and most recently the author of ‘On Eating Meat – the truth about its production, and the ethics of eating it’.

Title slide: Matthew Evans, from the publisher’s website.

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Listen to our conversation in full wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website. 

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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!

Matthew Evans is a chef, farmer, host of the popular TV series 'Gourmet Farmer', and most recently the author of ‘On Eating Meat – the truth about its production, and the ethics of eating it’.  The publisher calls it ‘A scorching manifesto on the ethics of eating meat by the best placed person to write about it.’

This is a book and conversation that I’ve so been wanting to have. Whether you’re a meat eater, vegan or somewhere in between, this will change how you see things. And if Matthew has his way – and I hope he does – it’ll open up vast new possibilities for constructive dialogue, and truly vital systemic change.

Personally, I’ve been a meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, and now a meat eater again – but in a much different way than before. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ll be across some of my journey.

The matter of meat is massive, when it comes to the health of people, other animals, and the planet as a whole.  Our summer fires here, and COVID-19 everywhere, bring that home even more.  In that context, I felt compelled to allocate plenty of time to this one.  I hope you find this time worth your while too. 

Ordinarily, of course, I would love to have met up with Matthew in person on the Farm - it’s always so much more vivid when the place gets to speak too.  But we’re blessed nonetheless to be able to connect online, across closed borders. 

This episode was recorded online on 14 April 2020.

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

Find more:
Fat Pig Farm.

The book ‘On Eating Meat: The truth about its production and the ethics of eating it’.

For the Love of Meat documentary TV series (& more).

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 second brief extract, this time from the end of episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller. Eduard is the founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. These closing words from Eduard were so resounding and impactful, they seemed worth sharing in their own discrete package.

I've received a number of comments from people strongly moved by this conversation. Thanks very much for sending your messages. It makes this all feel worthwhile.

Title slide: The launch of the Regenerative Costa Rica Hub in 2018 (pic: supplied).

Find more:
You can listen to our conversation in full 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!

This is a brief extract from episode 59 with Dr Eduard Müller, founder of the University for International Cooperation, now at the heart of Regenerate Costa Rica. It features a part of our conversation that focused on how Regenerate Costa Rica is fast gathering steam, both with local stakeholders and global institutions and networks.

Title slide: Rancho Margot, Costa Rica. Eduard describes it as a demonstrative site for true regeneration. It was a degraded cattle farm 14 years ago and now very rich in biodiversity while providing agriculture, tourism and education. The photo is of the pig farm under green roofs and lots of biodiversity around (pic: supplied).

Find more:
Listen to our conversation in full 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!

Dr. Eduard Müller is founding President and Rector of la Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional (the University for International Cooperation) in Costa Rica. Eduard was a vet, till a growing sense of responsibility for state of the world, prompted a change of course. He got involved in the sustainability movement of the late 1980s, and after the pivotal Rio Summit in 1992, he went on to found the university. It now has thousands of graduates all over the world in regenerative development. And out of that, has sprung Regenerate Costa Rica.

Through collaborative work led by the University, Regenerate Costa Rica is working across bio-regions on site-based, holistic approaches to produce 3 key outcomes: high carbon capture in soils, increases in biodiversity, and improvements in human wellbeing. Regenerating land through natural and assisted processes is essential to this work, along with broader regeneration of the economy, politics and culture.

And in the broader global agenda, they are part of the growing Regenerative Communities Network, hosted by the Capital Institute. All that harks back to my very first podcast guest, the founder of that Institute John Fullerton.

The ultimate goal? Reverse the high risk associated with having trespassed a number of planetary boundaries, to assure the safe operating space for humanity. The early successes, willingness to change among farmers and ranchers, and the trajectory of the project and broader regenerative networks are wonderfully inspiring.

Eduard has presented to organisations such as the World Meteorological Organization, the Latin American Parliament, the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas, The Earth Charter, IUCN, national and provincial legislatures. And he has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, UN, IUCN, governments and various other organizations.

This episode was recorded with Eduard at home in Costa Rica, on 25 March 2020.

Title slide: supplied.

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

Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode.

Find more:
Regenerate Costa Rica.

Regenerative Communities Network.

Universidad para la Cooperación Internacional (the University of International Cooperation).

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!

“If, like us, you’re currently steeped in long days of homebound self-isolation, take a look around your dwelling and observe a moment of gratitude. The more topsy-turvy the world outside becomes, the more we can see the importance of a stable place to live, and that housing and health are often the same thing.”
- Reasons to be Cheerful article ‘Why Hospitals are Building Housing’.

Around the world, co-ops are playing a significant role in providing housing solutions, and in the process building empowered, sustainable and healthy communities. Up to 40% of housing in some cities around the world is in coops. Whether you’re talking financial, social, environmental, cultural or health outcomes, the benefits across the whole of society can be enormous. 

So what are housing cooperatives? What are the main benefits and challenges? Why are they so successful in some parts of the world? And what’s needed to do more of them elsewhere? 

To talk about all this, I hosted a panel brought together from around Australia by Eugenie Stockmann. Eugenie is an award-winning developer, sustainability consultant, affiliate of an international network of cohousing professionals, and now CEO of Co-operation Housing. Joining her on the panel are:

• Dr Jasmine Palmer: researcher of collaborative housing and sustainable design, and a member of Urban Coup Cohousing
• Anthony Taylor: Policy Offer at the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals - the peak body and voice for Co-ops and Mutuals in Australia
• Michelle Mackenzie: CEO of Shelter WA - an independent peak body that advocates for social and affordable housing and ending homelessness
• Peter Shooter: Resident First Fremantle Housing Collective and Chair of Co-operation Housing
• With an impromptu appearance from Danielle Pender, Manager of the Community Housing Strategy at the State Department of Communities.

It’s telling that here in Western Australia alone there are 9,000 homeless people and more than 14,000 on the social housing wait list. At the same time, so much of our housing is under-utilised and misdirected. For example, 82% of housing consists of 3 to 5 bedrooms, but 58% of WA homes house just 1 or 2 people.

So how much housing do we need? How do we direct that need most effectively? And where will the investment for this come from?

The event also launched a series of 5 short videos on housing co-operatives. (Prominent WA producer of these videos, and Co-operation Housing board member, Sohan Ariel Hayes credits being a coop housing resident with enabling his successful artistic life.)

This episode is produced with thanks to Co-operation Housing. The event took place at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle.

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

Concluding music by Jeremiah Johnson.

Find more:
On the event and panellists.

Co-operation Housing website.

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!

Alanna Shaikh is a global health systems expert. She delivered a TEDx talk barely 2 weeks ago which has been viewed almost seven million times already across its TED & YouTube sites. On the latter it is titled ‘Coronavirus is our future’. But as much as outlining why that is so, a legacy of the human-induced planetary degradation that has brought COVID-19 upon us, it’s about how we can create a different future.

How can we learn from the wake-up call of this outbreak, to create a more responsive and universal global health system? A system where, as Alanna puts it, equity is our social immune system.

Bill Gates has written that such a health system will cost billions, and that’d be a bargain. The same can be said for the broader systems restoration project, where ecosystem restoration is key, and related systems of food, agriculture, economics, education and media all play vital roles.

The coronavirus, and the future ones we’re currently headed for, are notably symptomatic of the same patterns underlying biodiversity loss, economic volatility and climate disruption. “Coronavirus is our climate crisis at high speed”, Alanna says.

So we’ve got a moment here, while doing our belated but inspired best to withstand our current crisis, where we can get at the roots of it all, and re-orient our societies towards a new and better normal.

Title slide: from TEDxSMU, by Kim Leeson.

With thanks to our friends at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance for bringing Alanna's TEDx talk to our attention.

Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode.

Find more:
Alanna’s blog.

Alanna’s consultancy.

Coronavirus is our Future TEDx talk.

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!

Jo Chandler is an award-winning Australian journalist, author, editor, and educator. She’s become perhaps Australia’s best and most recognised climate journalist, also authoring the awarded book on the topic, Feeling the Heat. Her most recent Walkley Award, Australia’s highest honour in journalism, was for her ongoing freelance work.

Jo’s grappled with media and climate disruption on the front line, and shares powerful thoughts on the stories that need to be told, and how we can continue to tell them. Gutsy, moving and instructive, this is an insider’s view of a rapidly shifting media context, the great adventure story of climate science, and long-form freelance journalism as a means of reconnecting us with real news, and the people who make it.

Is this art of story-telling still an effective way to contextualise, personalise and build trust – in science, the living world, and even each other? And if so, how do we best keep doing it?

Anthony met Jo for this conversation at the State Theatre Centre in Perth late last year, during the Quantum Words Festival.

Title slide: Jo Chandler, sourced from her website.

With thanks to Quantum Words Festival, WritingWA, and the WA State Theatre Centre.

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

Concluding music by Jeremiah Johnson.

Due to licencing restrictions, our guest’s nominated music can only be played on radio or similarly licenced broadcasts of this episode.

Find more:
Jo’s website.

Quantum Words Festival Perth.

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 special extra to episode 55 features Mike Salvaris continuing his Ministerial and cross-departmental presentation. We pick up with Mike as he moves from his authoritative global overview on the growing movement beyond GDP, to the nature and status of the proposal being made for a Western Australian Development Index.

A reminder that a wonderful e-book of this presentation was also published last week, so while you don’t need to, if you would like to follow the visuals as you listen, you’ll find the link to a free download of the book below.

Title slide: West Australian coastline (pic source).

Find more:
Listen to the main episode 55, Will this State Lead the Way Beyond GDP? A Ministerial presentation by Mike Salvaris.

Australian National Development Index.

The freely downloadable e-book of the presentation.

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!

Mike Salvaris is a global leader in the development of measures that go beyond the gross inadequacies of Gross Domestic Product, to give us a better picture of our society’s wellbeing or genuine progress. That is, how we’re tracking against what we actually value most – like quality of life, trustworthy institutions, and the health of our families, communities and the rest of the living world.

Mike has advised governments, co-founded the OECD Global Progress Research Network, and is Director of the Australian National Development Index (ANDI). You might recall him from episode 48 last year, where he joined the live conversation in Perth with Dr Katherine Trebeck, the UK-based author central to the global Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

Mike was in town at the time for high level talks about the prospect of a pilot running of ANDI in Western Australia. A few months later, he was invited back to make the comprehensive case to Ministers and cross-departmental staff, with ANDI Ambassador and former Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Stanley.

What was presented that day was in many ways the collation of a life’s work – culminating in this prospect. You’ll hear the main part of the presentation here – a concise yet comprehensive overview of what the OECD has affirmed to be a growing global movement beyond GDP, and how ANDI offers Australia an opportunity to join in.

There’s also a special extra to this episode pertaining directly to the proposal being made for Western Australia, complete with next steps. A wonderful e-book of this presentation was also published last week, so while you don’t need to, if you would like to follow the visuals as you listen, you’ll find the link to a free download of the book below.

Title slide: cartoon by Australian National Living Treasure, Michael Leunig, with which Mike opens his presentation.

With thanks to the Minister David Templeman, Director General Duncan Ord and especially to Jodie Holbrook, Liz Toohey, Yvette Peterson and Carol Hodgen at the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries. Thanks also to Gareth Andersen & Janith Lokuge for valued assistance with the recording.

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

Find more:
Listen to the special extra to episode 55 on The Western Australian Development Index.

Australian National Development Index.

The freely downloadable e-book of the presentation.

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!