If you're a poet, artist, photographer, writer or budding creative of any kind then you might like to listen extra closely to this one!

Jamie Nix is the co-founder of Plants & Poetry whose work shares and nurtures connection to the natural world through a collaborative approach to curating published works. Alongside her poetry Jamie's career is focused on agroforesty and soil health and she has a keen interest in supporting regeneration through place based learning.

We talk about:

• Weaving plants, science and poetry
• Connecting to place & community
• The role of sharing story (for regeneration)

I'm excited by an emerging co-creation between Plants & Poetry and We Are Carbon.

We'll be creating an inspiring anthology together and I'd love to invite you to help us to fill the pages!

It's very early on but if you head over to the website you can subscribe to email updates from We Are Carbon and I'll keep you updated!

Timestamps for this conversation:

00:00 - Intro

04:55 - Weaving plants, science and poetry

11:54 - Connecting to place & community

19:20 - The role of sharing story (for regeneration)

24:07 - Next steps for Plants & Poetry

30:30 - Collab with We Are Carbon?

34:12 - More from Plants & Poetry

At the start of April I managed to catch back up with Peter Byck for this chat which feels well timed not just because it was a rare pause in his ongoing schedule of travels, but because there's a lot being rolled out right now by the whole 'Roots So Deep' team to scale up the impact that the docu-series has already seeded.

We talk about:

• Touring with Roots So Deep
• The importance of taking action (for regeneration)
• Food resilience and nutrient density
• Community, scaling & next steps for Roots So Deep

For more background about Roots So Deep you can check out my previous interview with Peter: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/peter-byck-roots-so-deep/

Or head to their website where you can watch the trailer, rent the series and explore their new Patreon & podcast: https://rootssodeep.org/

Check out the special compilation from We Are Carbon which also features Peter:

It's called "Time to Look At It Differently - Because Carbon Builds Life". Find it here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/because-carbon-builds-life/

Timestamps for this episode:

00:00 - Intro

02:14 - Touring with Roots So Deep

06:43 - Importance of taking action

11:20 - Resilient food & nutrient density

17:50 - Regenerative grazing at a global context

24:00 - Scaling with community and next steps

I hope you enjoy this weave of inspirational voices.

Each clip is brought in from our longer interviews. I've created this episode as an example piece that starts to compile the huge range of wisdom and knowledge that our guests have generously shared over the past few years.

There's so much potential packed into our library and I wish to keep exploring the possibilities of sharing regenerative understanding in new accessible formats suited to different styles and places of learning.

If this episode prompted an idea for bringing knowledge to your own community or classroom do please reach out to explore that together! https://www.wearecarbon.earth/contact/

And if you enjoyed this piece and would love to support the creation of more like it, you can find a growing range of ways to do that including purchasing or distributing our art prints and greetings cards. Explore them here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/art-prints-for-regeneration/

A huge thank you to each of our guests, who are (in order of appearance):

• Caroline Grindrod - founder of Roots of Nature and trainer of Regenerative agriculture. Full interview here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/podcast-episode/caroline-grindrod-regenerative-agriculture/
• Peter Byck - Director of Roots So Deep and wrangler of scientists. Full interview here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/peter-byck-roots-so-deep/
• Diana Denke - co-founder of Fair Carbon and expert on nature based solutions. Full interview here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/nature-based-solutions-diana-denke/

And be sure to subscribe as we'll be catching up with each of these guests alongside hearing from many new voices as we get moving into this new season of We Are Carbon!

I'm excited to be kicking off Season Four!

I hope you enjoy listening through this little intro where I share about what's to come, why we're shifting gears and how I'm eager to step forward in building the vision together.

Learn more over at the website:

• Explore the new art print range and matching greetings cards - the foundation for our experiments together
• Subscribe to email updates to learn about our experiments as they unfold
• Get in touch - if you have any ideas, questions or would like to become one of our distributors

Head to the website here: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/our-experiments/

And keep an eye out for new episodes!

• 13th May - A special compilation
• 15th May - the first in our new weekly schedule - expect a new episode every Thursday. Mainly interviews but with some variation and bonuses thrown in. Average length 30 mins.

I'm delighted to be joined by Diana Denke who has generously offered to bring us an overview of what can be done to bring more financing towards nature.

For generations wealth and financial markets have benefited from the extraction and depletion of the natural world to the extent that we're globally facing a crisis of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.

There is a firm recognition of the need to protect, support and regenerate nature for the multi-faceted benefits that it brings to our economy, health, communities & climate.

But companies are facing a barrier when it comes to moving significant finance into projects for nature so there's a need for new approaches and further learning.

Diana is passionate about nature regeneration and has a wealth of experience exploring investment opportunities into nature based solutions. She is the perfect voice to help us all to get a better grasp of the barriers, the challenges and possible paths forward.

(For a further breakdown of this discussion see the timestamps below)

You can learn from Diana and her work with Fair Carbon here: https://www.faircarbon.org/

Find a video version of this conversation over on the website: https://www.wearecarbon.earth/nature-based-solutions-diana-denke/

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Related We Are Carbon episodes:

• Yesterday’s Sunlight or Today’s? – In Conversation with John Roulac
• Roots So Deep – In Conversation with Peter Byck
• Understanding Carbon Offsetting – In Conversation with Brennan Spellacy

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

04:34 - What are nature based solutions?

07:42 - The need & benefits of investing in nature

17:20 - Barriers to bringing finance into nature at scale

29:28 - Investing in carbon removal technology vs investing in nature

43:20 - Financing solutions for nature projects

50:35 - Collaborating to scale up projects?

54:20 - Diana's work with Fair Carbon [restoring coastal and marine ecosystems]

There are many reasons that our lives today have caused disconnection between us and the people and environments around us. And it's too easy to over look the importance of this.

I'm joined by three guests in Australia, Jem Stone, Rebecca Dunn and Sara Jones, along with Debbie Mace in the UK. They've all come together to share about the power of nature connection for our personal, collective and planetary well-being.

These four ladies are all practitioners of Wayapa Wuurrk which is an earth connection practice based on ancient Indigenous wisdom, originating in Australia.

This is a relaxing chat between like-minded woman and yet at its heart it's also a powerful conversation which demonstrates the place of talking in circle, sharing stories and reconnecting to the world around us.

You can learn more about Wayapa Wuurrk at the website: https://wayapa.com/

If you're in the UK and would like to connect with Debbie Mace directly you can find her here on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-mace-639a3b242/

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More from We Are Carbon:

• The Power Of Food: Connection & Community Group Chat - https://www.wearecarbon.earth/power-of-food-collaboration/
• Connecting with Textiles: in Conversation with Sharon Kallis - https://www.wearecarbon.earth/sustainable-textiles-sharon-kallis/
• What Even is Soil?! - a dialogue to support holistic thinking - https://www.wearecarbon.earth/soil-path-to-whole-systems-thinking/

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For a further breakdown of this episode see the timestamps below.

00:00 - Introductions

06:50 - "Individual Journey to Collective Well-being"

13:55 - Empowering through relationships

23:07 - Observation, conversation & story

33:58 - Addressing eco-anxiety

41:14 - What is Wayapa Wuurrk?

46:33 - Bringing Wayapa to the UK

50:44 - Personal transformation & global connection

It's hard to not have noticed the increase in standing water across farmlands in recent years; fields appearing to contain vast lakes during our wetter seasons.

Whilst we might consider ourselves to be at the mercy of changing weather this conversation helps to underline why the cause and solution to this standing water can be much more within our control.

Having monitored the soil and pasture health on over 200 farms in the UK Niels developed the concept of 'The Weatherproof Farm' which puts the focus on addressing compacted and unhealthy soils.

Making changes to a farm management system can be complex and so I really appreciate the way that Niels breaks down the barriers with his practical and accessible approach to understanding both the problems and solutions around soil health.

Niels works with producers and landowners to implement regenerative systems and has a passion to help farmers to understand the root causes of the issues they work with day-to-day, enabling them to create low-input, profitable operations that are nature-friendly and productive.

Learn more with Niels:

• Niels' website: https://nielscorfield.com/
• Farm Ed [17th Sept] 'Weatherproof Your Farm': https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/event-details/weatherproof-your-farm

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Related We Are Carbon episodes:

• Roots So Deep -In Conversation with Peter Byck
• Understanding Regenerative Agriculture - with Caroline Grindrod
• Holistic Management - with Sheila Cooke

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For a further breakdown of this discussion see the timestamps below:

00:00 - Intro

04:44 - The case for 'The Weatherproof Farm'

06:50 - Soil type doesn't have to be the limit

11:31 - What is aggregation in soil & why is it important?

18:31 - Dairy management - soil health, resilience & profitability

25:31 - Arable management - soil health, resilience & profitability

32:43 - The soil doesn't lie!

34:54 - An overview of the solutions

36:22 - Grazing management for supporting soil health

39:48 - Arable management to support soil health

45:49 - Complimentary support approaches

53:53 - Learn more with Niels