The (R)evolution Series - Deep Conversations with Leaders in Regenerating the World

Altair has a background in law and a master’s in development studies at SOAS University of London. Eight years ago she switched careers – she felt the urge to engage with issues around organic farming and food sovereignty. Since then she’s been working with agroforestry and agroecology, with a focus on turning her family farm into a global model of best regenerative practice.

He envisioned a healthier alternative to coffee — and a “holistic approach to saving the rainforest,” using the yerba mate cultivation as a way to empower the indigenous population, providing work for them and preserving their culture. (Click here to see Guayaki’s global impact report, including contributing to economic sovereignty for 1,190 indigenous and smallholder family members producing yerba mate in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil).

He is the author of:

• Planet Home: Conscious Choices for Cleaning and Greening the World You Care About Most
• The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win
• What Matters Most: How a Small Group of Pioneers Is Teaching Social Responsibility to Big Business, and Why Big Business Is Listening

He is the founder of Purpose and a co-founder of Brave Earth Tierra Valiente, an intentional post-capitalist community and healing center in the jungle of northern Costa Rica, and a board member of Culture Hack Labs and The Emergence Network. He is also a member of the Our Land Our Business campaign, a coalition of over 280 civil society organizations demanding an end to the World Bank’s Enabling the Business of Agriculture project.

He is the founder and president of the University for International Cooperation in Costa Rica, offering a curriculum and degrees in regenerative systems.

He has participated in the negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in the development of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, in the Earth Charter movement, and in UNESCO’s MAB Programme. 

For 40 years he has worked all over the world in a wide array of fields — innovation in higher education, global and climate change communication, nature conservation and nature-based solutions, business and biodiversity initiatives, public and private partnerships, conservation and development, sustainable development, sustainable tourism, rural community development, and poverty reduction.

Müller is a proponent of spirituality as the major change-maker in human behavior, working closely with the Earth Charter initiative and Laudato Si.

He also works with Arizona State University, Texas A&M, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, and directly with growers — exploring paths to improve food security, reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and increase productivity and profitability through the development of beneficial soil microbial communities in farm and rangeland soils. 

David co-created the Johnson-Su Bioreactor that creates fungal-dominated compost for carbon sequestration and improved soil health and crop yields, using a method called BEAM — Biologically Enhanced Agricultural Management. With this method, soil can recover quickly, leading to dramatically improved crop yields and carbon sequestration. 

David is part of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Resilient Systemsat California State University, Chico.

Tim grew up on a dairy farm and worked his way through college and a master’s degree milking his cows. He has spoken all over the world, challenging audiences to realize the need for new systems to regenerate devastated natural ecosystems.

Tim earned a doctorate studying the deep psychological roots of human participation in environmental destruction, and how individuals can awake to the task of repairing the planet.

He has served as:

• CEO of the Rodale Institute
• Consultant, advisor, and research coordinator for the Howard Buffett Foundation in Africa on soils and food security for smallholder farmers
• Executive director of the Savory Institute for Holistic Management
• President and CEO of the California Agriculture Leadership Foundation, where he arranged educational leadership programs in more than 80 countries with heads of state, ministers, and community leaders

Tim cofounded the Center for Regenerative Agriculture & Resilient Systems at California State University, Chico, where he is the Center’s director of outreach and development.

Roland Bunch is one of the most well-respected leaders in regenerative land management, for food security and for addressing ecological degradation and the climate crisis. 

He has worked as a consultant in sustainable agricultural development for over 40 NGOs and governments in 50 nations, including Cornell University, the Ford Foundation, OxfamAmerica, Save the Children, CARE, and the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, Swaziland, Laos and Vietnam.

He is the author of four books. His second book, Two Ears of Corn: A Guide to People-Centered Agricultural Improvement, has been published in ten languages and is one of the all-time best-sellers on agricultural development programs in developing nations. His book Restoring the Soil: How to Use Green Manure/Cover Crops to Fertilize the Soil and Overcome Droughts describes the green manure/cover crop systems used by tens of millions of farmers around the world.

Born in Zimbabwe, Allan has been an independent scientist working on the cause of global desertification and climate change for many decades.

In the 1960s he made a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world’s grassland ecosystems and, as a resource management consultant, worked with numerous farmers, ranchers, fellow scientists on four continents to develop the Holistic Management framework to manage complexity.

He is the cofounder and president of the Savory Institute for Holistic Management. He is the author (with his wife, Jody Butterfield) of Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making, which describes his work to address the universal management and policy development of today that is the cause of desertification and climate change. Long blamed on livestock and fossil fuels, almost all scientists are today agreed that humans are causing climate change. This has only one possible interpretation as Savory points out – management is the cause of climate change.

His 2013 TED talk was voted one of the 50 most intriguing TED talks of all time.

In 2003, Allan received Australia’s International Banksia Award “for the person or organization doing the most for the environment on a global scale.” In 2010, Savory and the Africa Centre received the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Challenge award for work that has “significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.”

Dr. Lal has transformed the way the world looks at soil — and has shown how, in a single stroke, we can address the climate crisis and other major global challenges. 

Dr. Lal began his life as a refugee growing up on a small subsistence farm in India, where he watched his family use oxen to plow hard soils in an environment of soaring heat. From there he rose to become one of the world’s most celebrated scientists.

In 1997, Dr. Lal co-authored the first documented scientific report showing how restoring degraded soil could also safeguard against rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. His many subsequent studies demonstrated that by creating healthy soil we can safeguard the planet against carbon emissions as well as address the challenges of food security, water quality, and pollution. In other words, with healthy soil, we can create healthier food, healthier people, and a healthier planet.

As part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Last June Dr. Lal was honored with the World Food Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture.”

He has received eight honorary doctoral degrees and nearly fifty other distinguished awards and prizes.

The agricultural practices Dr. Lal has championed — no-tillage farming, cover crops, agroforestry — today are among the leading strategies for improving agricultural systems around the world.

Dr. Lal is Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and the director of the recently-renamed Rattan Lal Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University.