Land Listening
October 11, 2024, 9 am - 4 pm PST
In Person in Spokane at the: Spokane Conservation District, 4422 E 8th Ave. Spokane Valley, WA 99212
Hosted by: The Spokane Conservation District
Presented by: Peter Donovan
Dedicated - Registration - $130 Click Here
Interested - Registration - $50 Click Here
Curious - Registration - Free Click Here
Soil health is increasingly recognized as a key or hub for water cycling and carbon cycling on land, watershed function and water quality, atmospheric regulation, human health, and of the viability of civilization itself. The enormous flows of energy and matter in and out of soils remain camouflaged by our natural human focus on problems, on categories, species, and the constituents of soil. These problems organize and categorize our policy efforts, government and foundation funding, the disciplines of knowledge, and the boundaries between them.
If we can grasp soil health and watershed function, we have great potential to connect most of our serious problems and challenges into actionable opportunities. Yet we routinely turn this opportunity back into problems with our traditional modes of information delivery: lectures, dogma, expert information, and even advocacy of best practices.
If we can grasp soil health and watershed function, we have great potential to connect most of our serious problems and challenges into actionable opportunities. Yet we routinely turn this opportunity back into problems with our traditional modes of information delivery: lectures, dogma, expert information, and even advocacy of best practices.
Confucius said, Tell me, and I forget. Show me, and I remember. Let me do it, and I understand.
"When a problem can't be solved, enlarge it." (Attributed to Eisenhower.)
A one-day initial session introduces the complexity of soil health, watershed function, and supporting principles through simple hands-on and participatory demonstrations and experiments that participants can share with others. Because these are not merely technical issues, we also introduce some skills and practices of participatory learning: wider and more inclusive frames and contexts, listening to others learn, and acknowledging problems and barriers while clarifying opportunities to learn to work with the sunlight-powered circle of life, coupled carbon and water cycling, the most powerful planetary force. We adapt each session to the needs and skill levels of the participants, and can include:
"When a problem can't be solved, enlarge it." (Attributed to Eisenhower.)
A one-day initial session introduces the complexity of soil health, watershed function, and supporting principles through simple hands-on and participatory demonstrations and experiments that participants can share with others. Because these are not merely technical issues, we also introduce some skills and practices of participatory learning: wider and more inclusive frames and contexts, listening to others learn, and acknowledging problems and barriers while clarifying opportunities to learn to work with the sunlight-powered circle of life, coupled carbon and water cycling, the most powerful planetary force. We adapt each session to the needs and skill levels of the participants, and can include:
- sharpening focus on the possible discrepancies between current reality and the results you would like to create
- reframing conflicts and power struggles over species and practices toward growing a shared intelligence on land function and sunlight energy
- recording geolocated, repeatable observations of soil health and watershed function on public and open-source maps and databases or apps (such as soilhealth.app for groups).
- finding and incorporating existing and legacy data that can illuminate trends in how water cycles and circle of life function.
Peter Donovan
I have a background in forestry, farm, and ranch work, sheep and cattle herding, Holistic Management and decision-making, rangeland monitoring, community development.My first effort in sharing what I was learning about ecosystem process and function was reporting on holistic managers in the 1990s (see managingwholes.com). In 2007, I founded the Soil Carbon Coalition. This second effort was traveling around the continent for a decade measuring soil carbon change, with open data. I was spread too thin, not a good context for sharing or fostering shared intelligence on the circle of life. Without a coherent group, the context of this work was vague and unfocused. Much of the conversation and buzz about soil carbon quickly turned to the commodification of soil carbon as "offsets" which to me is the wrong question—for both our intentions, and our ability to implement them. (Vandana Shiva observes that the financialization of nature equals the rape of the earth.) soilhealth.app is the third try: can this help locally driven efforts to ask better questions, and engage more people in asking and answering?