The Soil Sponge Workshop

This live, participatory workshop will meet on Zoom, for 5 Mondays (2.5 hours per class) on the following dates:

• •  July 22, 29, August 5, 12, and 19, 2024.

There will be two options of session times, to allow for people in different time zones. Use this Time Zone Converter to find the time in your region, and pick the session that works best for you.

• • Session A: Mondays, 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time Zone (New York, UTC-4)​
  • Session B: Mondays, 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time Zone (New York, UTC-4)
• The sessions will be held on the Zoom platform. You will be sent the relevant link after registration.
• Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a session, you can get caught up.

Landscapes that Work for All Life

A living soil sponge can soak up rain, store and filter water, and provide health, resilience, and thriving economies for the communities that grow from it. What is the soil sponge and why is it essential infrastructure for life on land? How does a healthy soil sponge provide resilience to flooding, drought, and wildfires? How does biology slow and sink water on a total landscape scale? How does nature grow a soil sponge, and how can we help?

Collaborating with the Essential Workforce of Other Species 

Other species are the essential workers that build and repair the foundational infrastructure of our Earth, and provide the goods and services that we depend on every day. What are the job descriptions in a functional landscape? How does biological work regulate local and global temperatures, create rain, and drive the water and carbon cycles? What currencies does this natural workforce use in its economy, and how can we participate in a larger economy (without money) that enfolds our own? What are the principles of land management that this natural workforce uses, and how can we apply those principles to farming and ranching?  

Measuring Change for Long Term Success 

Many people assume that Best Management Practices will always lead to favorable outcomes, and trust that change can be modeled and predicted by experts. That assumption has led to some catastrophic failures that could have been avoided with some simple observations along the way. How do YOU know if your soil’s structure and function is actually improving? What tests are useful and affordable? Should you share your data or keep it private? When should a project use monitoring, and when is it safe to trust in computer-simulated models of landscape function? 

Money, Life, and Land 

Our economic systems and our land systems are inextricably linked, in ways that are often hidden to us. How can we deepen our understanding of the relationship between the soil sponge and functioning ecosystems and economies? What are the costs of degraded land, and who is paying those costs? Can we redirect those funds toward land regeneration? Where will the money for regeneration come from and what difference does the sourcing of funding make? Are the emerging markets for soil carbon, water, and ecosystem services actually working from a living systems perspective? What other approaches are there?  

Choosing Effective Intervention Points 

Human relationships play a large role in effective land regeneration, but many initiatives rely primarily on technology, and impersonal incentives. We will look at several examples of how support groups, mentoring, and communities of practice are growing healthy landscapes and driving change at a regional and national scale. Why are some regenerative land projects gaining enormous momentum while others are stalling? How do rules, “experts” and research studies help make change, and when do they disempower people from taking action? How do we design projects and policies that grow human and ecological capability and engage people for the long haul?
 

(Note: these topics may change somewhat based on our discussions, but this gives an idea of where we likely will go.)