The RegenNarration

Welcome to a bonus episode bringing home the special series with Michael Gooden, President of the just launched Farmers Helping Farmers. 

We’re back by the Murray River, this time featuring Goodo being questioned in depth by his fellow paddlers on the first Confluence river journey back in March. This was recorded riverside at dusk, having just enjoyed an incredible dinner supplied by Goodo from his farm. Now he tells us about it – how it’s farmed, what sets it apart, and how there could be so much more of it. 

And throughout, we hear more abo...

We Can’t Fix A River with Water Alone. Welcome to part 2 of a special series with the President of the just launched Farmers Helping Farmers, Michael Gooden. Last week’s episode, A Farmer-Led Movement Goes National, focused on that launch, along with of course some of Michael’s story, in what was a powerful and emotional conversation about a significant moment here in this country. 

I’ve still got Mick’s words in mind from the opening of that episode, on whether we can feed the world with regenerative practices? ‘We’ll do it on our ear’, he said...

This week kicks off a hybrid episode of sorts. First up today, a big launch as a farmer-led movement goes national here in Australia. Which of course isn’t just news for them, but for all of us who eat food, drink water and generally thrive of healthy living systems. 

So I speak with the President of Farmers Helping Farmers, and a farmer himself at Old Man Creek, Michael Gooden, about the bold launch, its daring conference, the big vision, and of course the huge heart behind it all. There’s plenty of emotion and guts in this...

Soon after last week's special episode dropped, the messages started coming in. One from a paid subscriber (thanks Dominique Hes) commented on how the first 25 minutes or so alone was so impactful, that I needed to write up a summary on Substack. That, I did. And it made me think some of you might appreciate just that part of our conversation carved out on the pod, to share more easily, hear again, or cut to the chase of it if you don’t have an hour to listen to the full episode. 

My guest was former star USD...

Just weeks ago, I published a piece on Substack titled: Two 'Regen' Farmers Walk Into An Oval Office Debate Blind-Sided – and exit with the 'most support we’ve ever had’. Those two farmers are legends. Will Harris from White Oak Pastures in Georgia, and my guest today, former USDA scientist, now farmer and independent researcher in South Dakota, Dr Jonathan Lundgren.

Jon’s story is the stuff of blockbuster films – kind of like the Michael Lewis stories that inspired The Big Short and Moneyball. Jon was a gun researcher with the USDA, but as he came to find deep...

Claire Scobie was a successful professional at the top of her game - award-winning author and journalist, and founder of Wordstruck, a narrative-based consultancy working with prominent companies globally – when a single moment cracked something open, and she found herself in a ‘devastated place’. There began the deeply personal odyssey told in her new book Wild Hope: Stories of living and leading in uncertain times.

The blurb reads:

As old certainties fall away, Claire and her husband move to Gumbaynggirr Country on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, where he is from. From there...

‘Dr. Bronner’s Has a Plan to Change Capitalism as We Know It.’ That’s the headline that Inc. Magazine ran with on the recent launch of the Purpose Pledge. Describing it as ‘a new gold standard of social entrepreneurship,’ the article led off with this: ‘The B Corp and the billionaires’ Giving Pledge are broken—so says the team at Dr. Bronner’s.’ Well, it might be a bit more nuanced than that, but Bronner’s has discontinued its B-Corp certification. 

I spoke with CEO, David Bronner, at the company’s HQ in California a couple of years ago, for episode 2...

André Leu is co-founder and Director of Regeneration International. That’s the world's largest network geared towards the transition to regenerative food, farming and land management, for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger and rebuilding social, ecological and economic systems. It includes over 740 organisations across more than 80 countries, and humble individual members like your host, and is in the midst of exponential growth in interest. 

I catch up with André as he sits on the deck at his pioneering tropical fruit farm in the Daintree of far north Queensland. I’m eager to chat about h...

Welcome to the new trailer for the podcast! Hit play, share it with a friend, follow the podcast, subscribe if you can, and enjoy the hundreds of episodes available. 

This is The RegenNarration podcast — conversations with the people changing the systems and stories we live by, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet.

Music (sourced from Artlist):

The Lonely Ramblers - Rowdy - Instrumental version 

Mark Grundhoefer - Barefoot 

Yarin Primak - Galaxy Groove 

Yehezkel Raz - Flight of the Inner Bird 

Patrick Sebag - Hours...

How does a fashion editor cotton onto regenerative agriculture, and then find that thread leads her back to the witch hunts? Lucianne Tonti is a prominent journalist, author and consultant specialising in regenerative fashion systems. Her first book was duly called Sundressed: Natural fibres and the future of fashion. That’s now being developed into a docuseries.

Lucianne’s subsequent epic tale is told in her new book, Good Witch: In Search of Our Lost Feminine Power, published by Summit Books. It’s described as ‘A paradigm-shifting book that asks what the world might be like if divine f...

Easkey Britton is a pioneering marine sociologist, writer and surfer. She has continued her family legacy in Ireland, becoming a legendary surfer in her own right – from being the only kid surfing in her area, to later becoming a 5x national champion and the first woman to surf the huge wave near Mullaghmore, to inspiring and guiding more women and girls into the sport, even where you might least expect it (think Iran - where it was her life that was transformed). 

For her, though, it’s always been much more than a sport. Her PhD, best-selling books...

Mara Tasker is the director of the new award-winning documentary The River. It follows the people living inside the Colorado River Basin, from farmers and ranchers to suburban families, tribal communities, and the seven state negotiators trying to rewrite the rules of a river that no longer matches the paperwork. What starts as a personal admission of “I didn’t really know the river I depended on” becomes a map for charting how we might be able to breathe life back into the Colorado, and really, rivers everywhere.  

Mara’s story, too, is worth the telling – with no straight...

Linley Dixon is co-host of The Real Organic Podcast, the weekly Anthem Award-winning ‘Best Sustainability, Environment and Climate Podcast’, recently also named one of the ‘best climate podcasts’ by Earth.org. That pod is produced by The Real Organic Project, that Linley co-directs with Vermont organic farmer Dave Chapman, a farmer-led movement, and add-on food label, dedicated to preserving the integrity of organic food. 

Right now, Linley sees the same patterns that have beset organics, coming for the regenerative movement. And in response to a challenge from Paul Hawken, and inspiration from so many pioneers, including some Aussies...

‘A brilliant exploration of wildness in both nature and humankind.’ That's what Alice Winn said about the new book by Cal Flyn. Cal is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland, and the book is called The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness. 

A five-year odyssey she sometimes thought would kill her, Cal travelled the world exploring the concept of wilderness as it ‘shifted from a spiritual notion to an aesthetic and later to an (increasingly controversial) conservation ideal.’ Which led to a critical question, as we go about things like rewilding and the 30 by 30 conservat...

A plant that gives you salt and sugar. A forest “supermarket without the bills.” And a business model that treats farmers, foragers, and fishers like artists with a world stage, not beneficiaries waiting for help. We’re live at the 2026 Grounded Festival in the Otways with Helianti Hilman, founder of Javara, following her mission to help revive Indonesia’s rich food culture and turn food biodiversity into dignified livelihoods.

We talk terroir across an archipelago of landscapes and 1,300 ethnic groups, and what traditional knowledge still holds: slow cooking methods that protect nutrition, hyper-local souring agents and herbs, and deli...

This is somewhat of a momentous occasion. Liz Carlisle wrote a book called Healing Grounds a few years ago, and a listener brought it to my attention. Just as it was for Liz, it’s been really significant for me. Initially setting out to test regenerative agriculture’s claims on carbon and climate restoration, a bigger picture opened up. And a line from the last page has stayed with me since – ‘this is ancestor work’. Longer term listeners will have heard me recall it a bit on this podcast. It even came up in the recent chat with Nicole Masters at...

What happens when a regenerative farmer decides the land deserves a soundtrack? Cathy Briant joins us alongside Australian music legend Charles Jenkins (of Icecream Hands and other fame) to tell the story behind Country’s Calling, the album launched at the recent Grounded Festival.

Country's Calling stemmed from the trials in Cathy's journey to becoming a regenerative farmer in Victoria’s Gippsland region. During a particularly difficult time in her life, Cathy discovered how deeply music could help. So she found herself asking: what if music could help us listen to the land?

She then team...

Soil can change fast, but what about people? We're coming to you live from the 2026 Grounded Festival on the extraordinary Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, stewarded by the Stewart family, in the Otways of Victoria, Australia.

It’s early on day 1, the marquee Ironbark Tent is full, and we’re joined by global figurehead in agroecology, author of For The Love of Soil, and founder of the CREATE program with Integrity Soils, from Montana USA, Nicole Masters.

The session is billed ‘Soil Health Isn’t Always Sexy’. But we start by questioning the premise, and run from t...

Birds chirping in the background of an interview might sound like a small detail, but a listener voicemail reminds us it can be the difference between a nice conversation and a felt sense of real regeneration. We’re back in the mailbag sharing the messages that have come in from subscribers, land workers, authors, career changers and long-time listeners, and what those reflections reveal about storytelling, trust, and hope in a complicated time.

We also sit with a sharp question raised by a listener after my conversation with holistic management founder Allan Savory: what happens when intuition ge...

The Colorado River is treated much like plumbing on a map, but out on the ground it’s a living system with thresholds, memories, and consequences. I’m joined by award-winning photographer, filmmaker and adventurer, Pete McBride, whose latest book Witness to Water: One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River traces two decades of unexpected reporting and personal reckonings on the river he grew up with. We talk about the alarming reality of collapsing Rocky Mountain snowpack, rising heat, and a basin-wide standoff that pushes reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward 'power pool' and 'dead pool' leve...

Clouds, soil moisture, and plant life are doing more climate work than most of us were ever taught and ignoring them leaves a huge gap in how we respond to warming. Here's the keynote from Dr. Katie Ross, at the recent Australian Water Association conference, that connects climate science to the living landscape, making the case that the climate “stands on two legs”: the familiar atmospheric story of greenhouse gases and a bottom-up ecological story driven by water, biology, and energy flows.

We dig into radiative forcing using a simple Earth energy budget, then follow what happens when...

Water policy often gets framed as engineering, compliance, and competing demands. Then Sheryl Hedges steps up at the Australian Water Association conference and resets the baseline: for First Nations people, water is not a resource, it’s a living being that carries memory, knowledge, and songlines. That single shift turns “allocation” into responsibility, and it turns river health into a measure of cultural, ecological, and economic life across generations. 

Sheryl is a Walbanga woman leading the First Nations Water Branch within Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and her keynote lands right in the ha...

Back in March, Dr Katie Ross and I ran a canoe journey along the Murray/Dungala River, Australia’s longest, most regulated and mythologised river - to, as the bill put it, listen, witness, and create, in deep immersion and deep time. Could that help change the story of a magnificent but sorely ailing River and its communities? By changing our stories? By asking the River even? 

We headed to the confluence of the Murray Darling/Dungala Baaka Rivers, and called the journey Confluence. It filled in days. And come the Equinox, 16 of us climbed aboard and dis...

This bonus travelogue traces a walk through Concord, Massachusetts, as we step into the living neighbourhood behind some of the most influential American writers and ideas. 

Last week, we celebrated the 300th episode with a visit to the legendary site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, where he wrote the famous book going by the pond’s name. The next day, we drifted into the town of Concord to visit the Thoreau family home, Henry David’s birthplace. 

Then, on our way to his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s place up t...

Walden Pond looks like the postcard version of New England, though the first thing I notice is the sound. A semi-trailer growls past, a train snaps by the lake, and a plane cuts the sky. That friction is exactly why I wanted to record this 300th-episode pilgrimage from one of the most iconic places in conservation history, where Henry David Thoreau lived for two years and turned detailed journals into Walden, the renowned masterpiece of nature writing, and cultural and self-examination.

I walk the shoreline, having started at the Walden Center, and follow the trail toward the...

Three West Australian farmers sit down for a sharp, honest Q&A that cuts through the glossy version of “regenerative agriculture” and gets into the real work: what happens when your new practice fails, your numbers get tight, and the supply chain refuses to reward better outcomes. Jake Ryan, Tom Mitchell, and Rod O’Bree share the mindset shifts that keep them moving, from treating mistakes as learnings to building the skill of self-diagnosis when there isn’t a standard playbook to follow.

Today we dust off one last gem from the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River in...

A barley grower sees his farm logo on a beer can prototype and gets emotional, not because it looks cool, but because it represents a long journey to a certified sustainable, low-emissions supply web that holds up under scrutiny. From the stage at the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River back in 2023, we trace how this story runs from soil to sip and why “walk the walk” matters more than a pretty label. 

I recently dug into the archives and found some hidden gems from this conference. So episode 295 became the story I told as MC, to kick...

Many might think the hardest part of community conflict is finding the “right” solution. What if it’s often something deeper: listening well enough that a solution can even appear?

We’re fresh off the Murray River / Dungala here in Robinvale, Victoria, as our first Confluence journey winds up. And a bloke who came up a bit during a transformative week of paddling, firesides and other yarns was Jeff Goebel. 

So while we gently come back to machines, here’s the last 20 minutes or so of my first conversation with Jeff, online, ahead of meeting and witness...

Last week’s very special guest was legendary rancher from Chihuahua, Mexico, Alejandro Carrillo. The episode was titled Re-Greening the Largest Hot Desert in North America with Donkeys, Love & Water. In doing that, Alejandro says donkeys have been a ‘secret weapon’. Sound familiar? That’s what Chris Henggeler at Kachana Station has been arguing is the backbone of the extraordinary regeneration he’s managed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia – similarly from dust and rock, to rehydrated soils and grasslands; and similarly, still getting better year on year. 

Indeed, Alejandro visited Kachana on his Australian tour recently, and...

The Chihuahuan desert could sound like a place you endure, not a place you regenerate, yet Alejandro Carrillo has seen grasslands, birds and beauty take the place of erosion and rocks on the family’s Las Damas Ranch. Conservation organisations now seek this ranch out. And the broader region is now regarded as a regenerative hotspot.

Here we unpack how livestock management, a lineage of too-little-known Mexican legends going back to the beginning of holistic management in the Americas, and a repaired water cycle have “rewatered” country that averages about 230ml of rain and has no rivers, stream...

A room full of farmers, food system and other folk. Elders through to young voices. Wadandi Boodja underfoot. A simple, radical idea on the table: put life at the centre of every act and decision, and watch how agriculture transforms from a driver of degradation into a catalyst for healing land, health, and community. That’s the energy we carry back to Margaret River as we share a short presentation I gave to introduce the Regenerative Agriculture conference in Margaret River WA, back in September 2023. 

A little dig into the archives this week revealed some hidden gems fro...

A life on the edge can sharpen your senses. That’s the unmistakable feeling of hearing Allan Savory recount the untold stories in and around Unsavory, his new memoir spanning childhood, wildlife, war, political exile, and the birth of Holistic Management - the extraordinary global movement regenerating the world’s grasslands, and by extension, everything else. 

Allan shares why he resisted writing a memoir and what changed, largely thanks to Jody Butterfield, former journalist wife of over 40 years, and co-founder of the Savory Institute and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management; and Bobby Gill, SI’s Director of Deve...

Now for something a bit different, and really special. Today we’re off to seaside Maine, in the far north east of the US, to visit Rachel Carson’s summer cottage. Here was where Rachel wrote much of her last few books. It was a place she loved, and where she also soaked up her last days in Maine with best friend Dorothy. 

It did feel like something of a pilgrimage, visiting the spirit of the woman who is regarded as pivotal in launching the modern environmental movement, with her landmark 1962 book Silent Spring. A response to her d...

A line of turbulence marks the edge of a burn scar, and the plane starts to buck. That jolt becomes a metaphor for the entire conversation: when we strip biology, we disrupt wind, heat, and water. Restore it, and everything changes. We link Perth to the wet season Kimberley and a bright winter’s day in Beijing to ask a practical question with planetary stakes: how do we turn knowledge into actual regeneration?

Filmmaker and restoration catalyst John D. Liu joins Kachana Station’s Chris Henggeler to map a path from storytelling to soil building. John lays out...

We’re off to Parliament House in Canberra today. But don’t let that put you off. Hot off the press, the Regenerative Food & Farming Alliance (RFFA) has just launched there. 

The Alliance has been brought together with many a guest on this podcast over the years. Though one woman behind it all – and so much else – is someone I have been looking forward to having on the podcast since we met a few years ago. Rebecca Gorman is a highly respected former journalist turned farmer, philanthropist and company director, and she has been a key figure in conveni...

Welcome to the 10th year of the podcast! And thank you. As an entirely listener supported show, it only happens thanks to listeners like you. 

To start off the year, another form of thanks, and tribute, to a guest from 2023 who was so wonderful, as much for his brilliance as his grace. I’m talking of the late Manchán Magan, acclaimed Irish travel writer, documentary maker, radio producer, theatre performer, builder of the first straw-bale house in Ireland, regenerator of the 10 acre block it stands on, and best-selling author. Manchán died in October last year at an...

Just one final highlight from last year, before we kick off the new series. Well, it was actually from 2024, but an excerpt of it was played last year, when the latest book from 5x New York Times best-selling author and friend, Paul Hawken, was released - Carbon: The Book of Life. 

That 2024 episode and 2025 excerpt featured Paul doing a world premiere reading of the final passage of the book, in his sun-drenched garden in northern California. Today, the last minute of that reading, for your pure listening pleasure.

If you’re inspired to listen to mor...

Ok, just a couple more bite size highlights from last year. Well, this one was actually from a few years ago, but an excerpt of it was played last year - titled A Laugh, a Cry and a Touchstone Moment, featuring Tyson Yunkaporta. And indeed, this passage in particular might still be the most moving and funny of the entire podcast. Certainly, the opening gambit has continued to come up in conversation ever since.

Tyson belongs to the Apalech Clan from Western Cape York in far north Queensland, with community/cultural ties all over Australia. He is...

Our curtain-raiser series of bite size highlights drawn from the 2025 wrap up episode concludes with this incredibly special and personal group of episodes, from the heart of Mayan culture, Guatemala, Central America.

This was actually the first series recorded in 2025, but took a lot more time to produce given the episodes released in both Spanish and English. And it was so worth it.

Here are the voices, places and tunes you're hearing:

0m - Salta Montes, by Migra (from Artlist) (eps 285-8)

0.21 - Patrik Mucía (ep 285 and in Spanish), at I...

Our curtain-raiser series of bite size highlights drawn from the 2025 wrap up episode continues, with some pinnacle moments from the huge week in Western Australia on our return home.

Here are the voices, places and tunes you're hearing:

0m - Oral McGuire (ep 279), Noongar leader, with possibly the quote of the Regenerative Food Systems conference, Perth Stadium WA

0.28 - My day's summary at that conference (ep 280), with Barefoot, by Mark Grundhoefer (from Artlist)

1.40 - Heidi Mippy (ep 281), Bridgetown WA (at the 2nd running of the Grounded Festival, and the 1st in W...