After we finished this week's conversation with our distinguished guest, Indigenous artist and community leader, Patrick Churnside, some off-the-record yarning was also recorded. We decided to release it as a bonus 10 minute extra, given its rich and candid exchanges, which also culminated in an invitation to Roebourne. As it happens, it comes at a time when there is a wonderful position going at the Digital Lab (see the PDF file below if you're interested). Head here for automatic cues to chapt...
Jul 15, 2023•9 min
The north-west shelf of Western Australia is said to be where the Songlines of this continent began. No surprise then, that the people here would be showcasing and reconnecting their convergent and resurgent cultures in spectacular ways – via the media, projects and enterprises we talked about in the previous episode - and with the Songs for Freedom project. Join us back in Roebourne / Ieramugadu with Patrick Churnside, a Traditional Custodian from the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi language groups, ...
Jul 12, 2023•58 min
Roebourne / Ieramugadu is a small town in the Pilbara region of WA, and it’s at the heart of an extraordinary resurgence of ancient cultures that still flies largely under the radar, and in the face of ongoing threats. Part of that resurgence, and covering it, is Ngaarda Media, an independent community broadcaster and media training hub, representing and empowering the Aboriginal people (ngaarda) of the Pilbara. And heading up the organisation is Tangiora Hinaki. Tangiora is a Māori woman who ve...
Jul 06, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Prepare to be moved and enlightened as we explore the transformative power of community and deliberative democracy with today's special guest, Tim Hollo. Tim is so thoroughly recasting our notions of what’s possible, through stories of what’s actually happening right now, across a host of different contexts, and with countless possibilities to go on with, that are successfully creating the democratic systems and cultures we need for widespread regeneration. Tim Hollo is Executive Director of The...
Jun 29, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Can regenerative farming and a focus on nutrition truly transform our lives? Join us in this heart-warming conversation with Matilda Brown, daughter of renowned actors Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, and Scott Gooding, 'celebrity chef' and author of The Sustainable Diet. Together, they share their unexpected journey into the world of regenerative farming, their thoughts on food sovereignty, and how their combined passion for cooking, creativity, and healthy, sustainable living, led to the creation ...
Jun 22, 2023•1 hr 23 min
Imagine transforming a cattle farm and family retreat into a carbon-sequestering biodiversity haven. What would it take? And how and why would you do it if you're a famed actress and filmmaker? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Rachel Ward, who embarked on this journey alongside former industrialised farmer and coal miner Mick Green. Their story is now the first Australian feature film on regenerative agriculture, and Rachel's first documentary. 'Rachel's Farm' has just premiered to acc...
Jun 19, 2023•1 hr 42 min
What if you could regenerate farmland and create a sustainable farming lifestyle while also building a strong community? Join Anthony as he visits Tom and Kaycee, an innovative young farming couple from the Nambucca Valley on Gumbaynggirr Country in NSW, who are doing just that. They share their remarkable journey of stewarding 400 acres of forest and grassland into a thriving regenerative farm, and founding the North Arm Farms Co-op - a unique enterprise model that sends 100% of what we spend o...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 16 min
Uncannily our first visit to Wooleen Station in three years lands after Wooleen and Yellowstone were both spoken about in last week’s episode with Montanan stars, Nicole Masters and Meagan Lannan. And when it comes to shifting the sense of what’s possible, this 375,000 acre property 700 kilometres from Perth WA is taking this to new levels, as the regeneration of country, community and culture continues to generate its own momentum. A number of long-held visions are currently coming to fruition,...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min
You don’t need to have heard last week’s episode with Nicole Masters and Meagan Lannan to listen to this one, but they certainly go together. After I was fortunate to have been welcomed in to Nicole’s intensive 4-day course near Orange in Australia last month, I was moved to conduct a kind of exit poll with a half dozen people. It wasn’t planned, so I just pulled out the lapel mic’s I always have with me for such occasions, plugged them into the phone, contemplated dealing with some breeze and d...
Jun 01, 2023•35 min
Nicole Masters is a globally recognised agroecologist, speaker and author of the book ‘For the Love of Soil’. Meagan Lannan is an award-winning rancher at Barney Creek Livestock in Montana, within the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Nicole and Meagan toured two sold out education programs in Australia last month. First up, 126 people convened for 4 days near the town of Orange, and I was fortunate to be welcomed along for the ride. It was actually Nicole’s first time back in Australia since her s...
May 28, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Jeff Pow is at the helm of an extraordinary story of regeneration. You might remember Jeff and his wife Michelle McManus from episode 78, when I first visited them at Southampton Homestead back at the end of 2020. (They were also later highlighted among some globally esteemed names in the acknowledgements of Paul Hawken’s book Regeneration.) Since then, I’d been seeing the land there go from strength to strength. And I’d been hearing about how their pasture-raised poultry (as distinct from so-ca...
May 15, 2023•54 min
This is a special release episode with Tim Winton, broadly considered the preeminent Australian writer of his generation. And not just in Australia. His books have been translated into 28 languages, sold millions of copies, and resulted in numerous prestigious awards (including another one just this week). He’s also in the Australian Surfing Awards Hall of Fame, and has a species of native Australian fish named in his honour. But over the last few years, we were aware Tim had jumped in the deep ...
May 11, 2023•48 min
In last week’s episode, we heard from Dr Katherine Trebeck on the latest significant developments in the domain of wellbeing, regenerative or just plain good economics. You might remember Katherine alluded to a brilliant conversation she had been part of a few days prior, for the launch of a major new report and project by not-for-profit outfit, Sustainable Table. Regenerative farmer and award-winning writer, Tanya Massy, is the lead author of that report, part of an all-star team frankly, inclu...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 34 min
Dr Katherine Trebeck helps make sense of the state of our economy, amidst recurrent gloomy global forecasts, and stark reports about what’s really driving such drastic inflation and inequality. All that informs the back half of our chat on some recent significant global shifts towards economies that make more sense here and now, and that are inherently designed to work well for people and planet. This includes an opportunity to get involved here in Australia, with our federal government’s curren...
May 01, 2023•43 min
Last week's episode with Dr Alessandro Pelizzon contained a series of global paradigm shifting updates in its last 15 minutes or so. So this week's release is an excerpt of that part of the episode, in case you missed it. We pick up our conversation at the back half of Alessandro's announcement that he is co-founding a new place of education – akin to the Schumacher College in the UK - offering more of the education we need in these times. And we go on to the rapid developments around the world ...
Apr 17, 2023•20 min
I met up with Dr Alessandro Pelizzon at his place in Byron Bay, for a long-awaited chat on some of the extraordinary work he’s been doing, outside his day job, on the immense value, almost unbelievable collapse, and opportunity for renewal of the public university as one of our oldest and grandest Western institutions. And there’s been a host of global paradigm shifting developments since we last spoke 18 months or so ago, in the domain of his day job (including just days ago with the Pope’s res...
Apr 09, 2023•1 hr 4 min
I headed out of Brisbane this week to Camp Mountain, to learn about some of the regenerative work being done around there. One of the outstanding places I visited nearby was where Loop Growers happens. Alice Star and Phil Garozzo, hairdresser and marketing graduate respectively, are its founders. They call it a ‘bio-intensive market garden’, which produces a wide range of chemical free fruit and veg that feeds their growing community of households and local businesses. The loop they refer to com...
Apr 03, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Yesterday I hosted a yarn with two brilliant First Nations guests at the World Science Festival in Brisbane, to discuss 'the rise of regenerative agriculture, the intersection with First Nations Knowledges, and the synergies for a harmonious and sustainable future on earth'. Barkandji woman Zena Cumpston (aka Zena Sky Ranger) is a writer, researcher and story-teller who has also curated some exceptional exhibitions including Emu Sky. She is passionate about plants, particularly the many ways the...
Mar 27, 2023•59 min
Daniel Christian Wahl is the world-renowned author of Designing Regenerative Cultures, still being translated into various languages years after release. Daniel’s also called himself a consultant, educator, activist, speaker, blogger, weaver, catalyst - he’s also become a farmer of sorts, which you’ll hear more about today, along with some other very interesting and entirely relevant parts of his life – like marine biology, martial arts, permaculture, his ongoing learning with elders, and how he...
Mar 20, 2023•1 hr 31 min
Mid-last year I accompanied film-maker Damon Gameau as he toured his film Regenerating Australia around WA. We were with Di Haggerty and Heidi Mippy which became ep122 from the Leederville screening, and in ep131 I hosted student Kate Fenech in Busselton. Well, there were two other event conversations on that tour that Damon hosted with other local guests, and they were exceptional. And as I listened back to the one from Margaret River this week, I thought this has just got to go out. So convers...
Mar 13, 2023•48 min
For over 40 years, Rosemary Morrow has travelled the world, blazing a pioneering trail teaching permaculture as a tool for restoration. From Vietnam and Cambodia, to Greece, West Africa, and Australia, her at times death-defying journey has helped countless communities in all sorts of situations restore healthy living systems. And it was arguably all set in tow when, at the age of 15, she ventured solo to the Kimberley here in WA. This is a conversation Rowe’s not accustomed to having, but she w...
Mar 06, 2023•1 hr 14 min
Neeve Blackham-Jennings is a school student who wrote and illustrated what ‘accidentally’ became an award-winning book when she was fifteen. It’s a story that hoped to change a story – the story of Australia’s most endangered reptile, the Western Swamp Tortoise. But that’s not the half of it. Last September’s Quantum Words Festival in Perth opened with Schools Day. I was fortunate to host Bruce Pascoe later in the day, which you may have heard on episode 140. But opening the festival was this se...
Feb 27, 2023•40 min
Zach Bush toured in Australia in December last year. This event, in Byron Bay, sold out in a matter of hours. So a humming full house of 250+ people filled the local theatre for Zach’s rousing keynote, and this subsequent panel conversation. The two women joining Zach and myself for this were Bundjalung woman and founder of The Returning, Ella Noah Bancroft, and regenerative farmer and award-winning writer, Tanya Massy. You’ll hear me introduce Ella and Tanya in a bit more detail on the night. A...
Feb 20, 2023•55 min
Over the last couple of years Damon Gameau, the brilliant Aussie film-maker behind Regenerating Australia, 2040, That Sugar Film and Animal Beatbox, has joined me at this time to take a look at the year ahead. Last year happened to land on Valentine’s Day. So while Damon’s giving himself and his family some well-earned dedicated time right now, it gives me the chance to share this unique event with you. This was a Town Hall dialogue that followed a community screening of Regenerating Australia, ...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Starting the year with Carol Sanford feels incredibly special. She’s been at the heart of what we might call the ‘regenerative paradigm’ for decades. Friends and colleagues have spoken about her with me for years, right up until the end of last year. And last month, a previous guest and author of Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta, featured Carol on his podcast. That’s when I learned the sad news that she has only a few months to live. When I wrote to her expressing my care and respect, and to see if s...
Feb 06, 2023•53 min
Our last summer flashback ‘episode that people still talk to me about’ is episode 9, with Frances Pollock (nee Jones). Frances and David Pollock became nationally famous about a decade ago now, for ‘destocking’ the 375,000-acre Wooleen Station in the Murchison region of Western Australia. That was step one in what has become an extraordinary story of regeneration, increasingly reverberating far beyond Wooleen. David’s since been on the podcast a few times, and Frances continues to be recognised ...
Jan 30, 2023•28 min
Our next episode from the archives that people still talk to me about is episode 3, with Kate Raworth. She’s the best-selling author of Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. And the instigator of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), helping put it into practice in communities everywhere. This is an excerpt of the first 20 minutes or so our conversation just a couple of months after the book came out. And this release comes just a week after the launch in Oxf...
Jan 23, 2023•23 min
A warm welcome to the new year. We’ll resume normal transmission of the podcast in February. But to gear us up, I thought to release a summer flashback or two, delving way back in the archives to episodes that people still speak to me about today. First up is an excerpt from the very first episode I recorded, with John Fullerton. He’s the former Wall Street executive who left that life, and through a fascinating personal journey ended up founding the non-profit Capital Institute, dedicated to br...
Jan 16, 2023•35 min
This is our customary sign-off episode for the year – a package of highlights from our brilliant array of guests throughout 2022, accompanied by some of the music and sounds of Country you heard along the way. Here's the ‘track list’: 1. Jess Beckerling (ep 105) 2. To A Forests Dream, by Cloudjumper (from the Free Music Archive) – intro 3. To The System, by The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra, then ... 4. Flamenco Rhythm, by Sunsearcher (from the Free Music Archive) – Petrine McCrohan (ep 106) 5. ...
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 6Ep. 146
This is a short tribute episode marking the 10th anniversary of the passing of my old mate and mentor, Professor Frank Fisher. He’d be 79 today. The honours list of guests on these anniversary editions now includes Hazel Henderson, Allan Savory and Charlie Massy. This year, it’s Paul Hawken, the multiple best-selling author of Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation. This is the rest of the conversation Paul and I shared last week – featuring some fun personal exchanges, and ev...
Nov 28, 2022•30 min•Season 6Ep. 145
