Cultivating Earth from soil to soul: Regenerative farming meets deep ecology

The Sustainable Hour no. 508?| Transcript | Podcast notes

Our guests in The Sustainable Hour no. 508 are Celia Leverton from Regenerative Agriculture Network Tasmania, and John Seed – a long time rainforest activist and deep ecology trainer, who is giving a series of talks and workshops in Melbourne next week.

Podcast: Listen - or download (Duration: 1:00:00 — 70.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

. . .

The Sustainable Hour’s 508th episode covers topics such as the impact of fossil fuel and Big Ag executives on the planet, the need for a Community Independents movement, global disasters and climate denial as well as positive news about renewable energy in Saudi Arabia and Telstra’s commitment to reducing emissions.

We hear about regenerative agriculture and the work of the Regenerative Agriculture Network Tasmania (RANT) via their founder Celia Leverton, and about deep ecology and its connection to permaculture and political activism via John Seed.

This Hour highlights the battle between truth and lies in the climate crisis, but at the same time, it reminds us of the importance of community and kindness in creating a sustainable future.

. . .

Celia Leverton is a lifelong farmer who?has a deep passion for producing food and fibre, while at the same time, building land health and biodiversity, farm viability, and farmer and community wellbeing.?Celia co-founded a farmer centric, not for profit organisation, Regenerative Agriculture Network Tasmania, RANT. They gather evidence through trials and share how to increase landscape function, farm profitability and farmer wellbeing. More information about RANT can be found here:?www.regenagtas.org.au

An informative video with Celia interviewing a couple of their farmers about how they survived the drought on their farm can be viewed on Youtube.com.

. . .

John Seed?is founder of the?Rainforest Information Centre?who?has been involved in the direct actions to protect the Australian rainforests since 1979?and received?the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 1995 for services to conservation.?? He co-authored?‘Thinking Like a Mountain – Towards a Council of All Beings’?with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming and Arne Naess,?has written and lectured extensively on?deep ecology?and?has been conducting?Councils of All Beings?and other re-earthing workshops?around the world for 35 years to help us strengthen our felt sense of connection with the living Earth. In 2023, he was one of 109 arrested in the?Rising Tide kayak blockade of the world’s largest coal port, Newcastle, which exports fully 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gasses.

Deep ecology dispels the illusion of separation between ourselves and the more-than-human world and allows the experience of rootedness in the living Earth. John believes that this is a key to preventing our slide to oblivion.

John has organised six free presentations and discussions on different topics to help move deep ecology towards the mainstream:

21-23 June 2024:?DEEPENING weekend?– for deep ecology workshop alumni only. Camp Eureka.

24 June Monday at 7pm at Black Spark Cultural Centre, Northcote: The Religion of Economics 25 June Tuesday at 10:30am in Coburg: John Seed & Tejopala Rawles:?Inner & Outer Transformation, Dharma & Deep Ecology

25 June Tuesday at 6:30pm at Climate Action Merri-bek, Pascoe Vale:?Climate change – despair to empowerment

26 June Wednesday at 6:30pm?at Reynard Street Neighbourhood House:?Deep Ecology and the Conservation of Nature

27 June Thursday at 10am in Coburg:?Invocation to Gaia

27 June Thursday at 5:30pm in South Melbourne: John Seed &?Gilbert Rochecauste:?Radical Regeneration and Deep Ecology?

28-30 June from 6pm on Friday at Moora Moora near Healesville: John Seed, Alana Ward & Stephanie Campbell:?Deep Ecology Immersion

If you’re in the mood to help spread deep ecology further into Naarm/Melbourne, please share the links to these events in your networks. John has created a Facebook event page – “John Seed Deep Ecology in Melbourne June 21-30” – to help spread the word. If you tick “going” or “interested”, you can then click on ”invite” in order to notify your Melbourne Facebook friends about this program.

John is currently looking for someone who’d like to volunteer to help with the shopping and cooking in exchange for a free workshop. If this could be something for you, send John an email. The menu and schedule are designed so that the cooks are able to fully participate in the whole weekend.

These talks will be hybrid – broadcast via zoom as well as face to face – and this requires some help from people with a tripod and camera or phone. If you’re up for filming one or more of these events, please email John. So far THE RELIGION OF ECONOMICS and RADICAL REGENERATION AND DEEP ECOLOGY are covered. Can you help with any of the others??John’s email address is:?[email protected]

John Seed’s home page can be found at: www.johnseed.net

. . .

That’s it for episode 508. Fascinating. We hear the reality of the terrible impacts of salmon farming in Tasmania but also the nuances of the situation, where that industry is supplying employment for locals and how this situation is splitting communities in our Apple Isle.

We learn about deep ecology from a veteran environmental activist and end up with understanding the importance of engaging with the spiritual connection to nature.

Themes we continually emphasise on The Sustainable Hour.?A huge thanks to our listeners who have been providing feedback. We always appreciate this and our shows are all the better for this.?

We are always open for suggestions for topics to cover as well as suggestions for future guests. Sustainability is a very wide topic and we are keen to explore it in all its nuances. We delight in shining extra lumens on people who are turning their concerns about the climate crisis we face into meaningful action. We all need to be connected on this and work together on solutions.?

#BeKind #BeGrateful #BeConnected #BeTheDifference

“To the tune of $800 million a year, the Atlas Foundation sets up these phony think tanks, what George Monbiot calls ‘junk tanks’, in order to pollute the information landscape and to employing the same companies that kept tobacco going for 20 or 30 years in order to change public opinion about things like wind farms, but also about Indigenous resurgence. And so the same playbook was used to suppress Indigenous people in Canada as in Australia. You can see the same phrases on the public posts in social media and so on, where there was this just deliberate and concerted campaign to, you know, because the yes vote was in the majority until a few months before the actual vote. And so I’ve just been starting to realise that we need to unmask these scumbags that are manipulating us and that are manipulating the truth. And it’s kind of one of the things that’s on my agenda in coming months.” ~ John Seed, founder of Rainforest Information Centre and deep ecology trainer

The Sustainable Hour no. 508?| Transcript | Podcast notes

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts