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Your Weekend Read

If you are looking to deepen your appreciation for the quiet intelligence and grandeur of trees and forests, then Trees: An Illustrated Celebration by Kelsey Oseid is a remarkable place to begin.

This beautifully illustrated volume blends art and science to reveal why trees are among the most essential life forms on Earth. From the oldest living organisms to vast forest biomes that cover one-third of the planet, Oseid invites readers to see trees not merely as background scenery, but as dynamic ecological partners. She highlights their role in producing oxygen, storing carbon, supporting biodiversity, and even communicating through underground fungal networks.

What makes this book especially compelling is its balance of elegance and insight. Striking naturalistic artwork accompanies engaging scientific facts  from the microscopic scale of root hairs to the cosmic stories encoded in tree rings. Mangroves, redwoods, baobabs, and dragon trees all come alive in vivid detail.

Accessible yet substantive, this book is both a visual celebration and a scientific introduction, ideal for anyone seeking to better understand the living architecture of our planet.

This is one of two books that will be used in Jim Laurie’s upcoming course Emergent Intelligence of Trees

By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.

News and Insights

New Satellite Observations Show How and Where Earth’s Vegetation is Changing

Scientists from the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), and Leipzig University have created a new method to help us better understand how the living surface of our planet is reorganizing in a warming world. 

A Coordinated Conservation Effort Across Finland, the Canadian Arctic, and the United States is Working to Protect and Restore Peatlands in Europe and North America. 

Through grassroots mapping, community monitoring, and restoration projects rooted in traditional land use and knowledge, indigenous and local groups in Finland, Canada, and the United States are collaborating on a collaborative biodiversity replenishment model to protect and restore peatlands and surrounding forests. 

Events and Community

Courses

“There is a sky behind the forest. There are seas unbounded, seething waves made from the foams of dreams and churned by hands of light.” – My Story by the renowned Iraqi poet Nāzik al-Malā’ikah (translated by Emily Drumsta)

In the book The Genius of Trees, Harriet Rix opens with an image of forests as living interfaces between sea, sky, and land. In the cloud forests of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, where mist lingers and trees “chase” clouds, Rix shows how landscapes gather water from the air itself. But these hydrological partnerships are not confined to rare mountaintops. From Brazil to Borneo, Costa Rica to China, Australia to the Philippines, forests function as atmospheric engines.

Rix reveals a profound evolutionary insight – trees developed into trees to gain power over water. Through photosynthesis, they split water molecules using solar energy. Through vertical growth, they solved the paradox of needing both air and water reaching upward to harvest light and downward to access groundwater. Above ground, trees interrupt airflow, emit volatile organic compounds that seed clouds, and release water vapor through stomata helping to regulate rainfall. Below ground, roots collect, redistribute, and stabilize water tables. Across three trillion trees and 73,000 species, these minute adjustments accumulate into sweeping shifts in global water flow.

This understanding forms the scientific foundation of our upcoming course, Emergent Intelligence of Trees: How Symbiosis Shapes Living Systems, led by restoration biologist Jim Laurie. Beginning March 18, with an introductory webinar on March 11, this course explores how forests function as living climate systems regulating hydrology, stabilizing atmosphere, building soils, and generating resilience through symbiosis.

Your Weekend Read

Errata: Last week, we inadvertently misidentified the author of A Forest Journey. John Perlin is the correct author of this book. We encourage you to take a trip with John through the history of forests! 

A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization

By John Perlin

At first glance, you might think this is “just” a book about trees. But it is so much more! John Perlin shares the history of human civilization as it relates to forests. From commerce to conquest, every chapter of our history has been played out in relation to forests.

I first encountered John during our GBH talk and was fascinated to discover that our complex relationship with nature can be traced as far back as the epic tale Gilgamesh from 2100 BC. This reprint of Perlin’s 1989 book by Patagonia is full of stunning full-color pictures and was recently updated to include climate change and the biotic pump.

By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.

News and Insights

Grassroots Climate Action Returning Habitats and Coastal Defenses to Louisiana Coastlines Significantly Impacted by Extreme Weather 

For the past four years, volunteers and conservation groups have been working together to restore wetlands that once acted as nature’s buffer against storm surge and erosion by planting 30,000 native trees along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana.

Nature Moves to the Center of Mumbai’s Climate Defense

At Mumbai Climate Action Week, senior UNEP leadership emphasized the urgent need for nature-based cooling and climate-smart infrastructure in one of the world’s most heat-vulnerable coastal megacities. Strategies include restoring wetlands, expanding urban tree cover, and integrating green infrastructure into building design — all pointing to a broader global trend of prioritizing ecosystem solutions to heat, flooding, and sea-driven climate exposure.

Events and Community

New Course | Biodiversity 14

Emergent Intelligence of Trees: How Symbiosis Shapes Living Systems

A 10-week course with Jim Laurie

March 18 – May 20, 2026 | Wednesdays on Zoom (12 pm and 7 pm ET – choose one!)

What if the trees around us are not just carbon sinks—but intelligent, active stewards of life on Earth?

We’re thrilled to announce Biodiversity 14: Emergent Intelligence of Trees – How Symbiosis Shapes Living Systems — a 10-week online course starting March 18 through May 20, 2026, with restoration biologist and futurist Jim Laurie. This immersive learning experience invites you to dive deep into how trees shape our climate, soil, water, and living species, and why trees are central to restoring a livable planet.

Jim’s approachable and interactive teaching style blends short lectures, visuals, discussion, and breakout sessions, making this a great fit whether you’re new to the study of biodiversity or a seasoned learner. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of how nature’s intelligence works — and how we can support life-affirming systems for a livable future.

Your Weekend Read

This week’s book recommendation comes from Bio4Climate Executive Director Beck Mordini

A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization
By John Perlin

At first glance, you might think this is “just” a book about trees. But it is so much more! John Perlin shares the history of human civilization as it relates to forests. From commerce to conquest, every chapter of our history has been played out in relation to forests.

I first encountered John during our GBH talk and was fascinated to discover that our complex relationship with nature can be traced as far back as the epic tale Gilgamesh from 2100 BC. This reprint of Perlin’s 1989 book by Patagonia is full of stunning full-color pictures and was recently updated to include climate change and the biotic pump.

By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. 

News and Insights

Forests in Warm Conditions Capture More Methane as Temperatures Rise

While today’s carbon markets see forests primarily as a collection of carbon sticks (trees), Bio4Climate knows that forests are climate regulating ecosystems from the fungi to the canopy. New appreciation for the soil biome comes from  research which shows that in certain forests the soil is reacting to warmer temperatures by absorbing more methane!

“When soil absorbs methane, it lowers the amount that reaches the atmosphere, cutting warming pressure in the years ahead. Forest soils rarely get credit for this service, yet their performance can rise or fall with weather.”

“Its a Beaver Blind Date”

In Cornwall, England, two beavers met for the first time as they were released into a newly established habitat, marking the first time beavers have been legally released into an English river system. 

Beavers were hunted into extinction in the UK roughly 400 years ago, but their role as a keystone species is too valuable to local ecosystems to go on without. Beavers play a key role in rehydrating ecosystems, contributing to cooling, fire resilience, drought resilience and biodiversity.

The beuracratic process took years and a lot of money- was it worth it? Discover the challenges and rewards and whether this beaver blind date was a success.

Events and Community

Save the Date!

Emergent Intelligence of Trees: How Symbiosis Shapes Living Systems

Free Preview March 11; class begins March 18

Trees are not passive components of ecosystems. They are active system-builders that regulate water, carbon, climate, and biological relationships throughout Earth’s living world.

In this course, Jim Laurie examines the intelligence of trees – how trees sense, respond, and adapt through symbiotic relationships with fungi, microbes, insects, and animals, including humans. Drawing on contemporary ecological science and two companion texts—The Genius of Trees by Harriet Rix and Trees: An Illustrated Celebration by Kelsey Oseid—this course explores how trees drive transpiration and cloud formation, stabilize atmospheric chemistry and carbon sequestration, and generate large-scale cooling through the biotic pump.

Rather than treating intelligence as a uniquely human trait, the course reframes it as an emergent property of living systems, expressed through physiological feedback, cooperation, and adaptive symbiosis. These insights offer a scientific foundation to deepen your understanding of how trees and living ecosystems work—and how protecting and restoring biodiversity in nature can reset the path of humanity towards a livable future.

REGISTRATION OPENS SOON!

If you need financial assistance or are interested in a scholarship, please email courses@bio4climate.org.

Registration Deadline Extended! 

Due to increased interest, we’ve extended the registration deadline for How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate until Tuesday, February 17.

Recordings for all classes are made available weekly, including all previous classes and guest speakers.

through February 17, 2026. Recordings for all classes are made available weekly, including all previous classes and guest speakers.

Join us on March 11 for a free class! If you need financial assistance or are interested in a scholarship, please email courses@bio4climate.org.

Episode 5: Watershed Wide — Putting It All Together

Live Conversation with Bill Zeedyk & Shantini Ramakrishnan
Tuesday, February 17 | 7:30 PM ET (Optional screening at 6:00 PM ET)

As our Thinking Like Water series comes to a close, we turn our attention from individual sites to the watershed as a living system.

This includes a rare, live conversation with two very special guests: the legendary ecological restoration pioneer Bill Zeedyk and conservation scientist Shantini Ramakrishnan. Their combined experience spans decades of hands-on restoration, mentorship, and community-led learning to troubleshoot and restore degraded landscapes and waterways.

In Episode 5, the finale of this five-part series, we explore restoration approaches born from local wisdom. The film zooms in on Bill Zeedyk’s watersheds to witness a river’s rewilding through a town center with Lea Knutson of Hermit’s Peak Watershed Alliance, induced meandering on a wildlife refuge with Craig Sponholtz of Watershed Artisans, and a landscape-scale perspective from Josh Miner at Fort Union Ranch, where Zeedyk’s techniques have been applied across 95,000 acres of canyons, tributaries, rivers, uplands, and roads.

This final episode and live conversation reinforces the series’ core insights: water is not something to control, but to understand; reading the landscape is a key first step to restoring our land and waterways; and where there’s a will, there’s a way to coax a river back to its perennial nature.

Looking for a Weekend Read?

Beck Mordini, Bio4Climate’s executive director shares her recommendation for a book that is special to her both in honor of Valentine’s Day and as a tribute to the passing of our beloved co-founder and longtime Executive Director, Adam Sacks.

Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship
By Catherine Raven

From the preface:

“I realized that a fox, like a rainbow and every other gift from Nature had an intrinsic value that was quite independent of its longevity. After that, whenever I questioned devoting so much time to an animal whose lifespan barely exceeded the blink of an eye I remembered rainbows.”

It would be a disservice to describe this as a book about nature, it is rather a novel about two creatures from different worlds learning to see and appreciate each other.  It is a poetic telling of deep seeing as each clump of sedge becomes a home, a food source, a hindrance to finding food or a cover for not becoming food.  It is a gentle and patient tale of what it takes to truly know another, and in that knowing to discover love. And finally a story of how we are changed by our relationships.

This isn’t a book you rush to discover the ending, but rather a book you settle into and carry within you as you step back out into your own natural spaces.  

By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. 

News and Insights

New Study Links Miyawaki Forests to Early Soil Recovery

Since 2021, Bio4Climate has supported eight miniforests across Massachusetts, where restoring degraded soil is a central goal alongside planting diverse native species.

We’re excited to see new research—The Root of Urban Renewal: Linking Miyawaki Afforestation to Soil Recovery—examining early soil health changes in three of Groundwork Elizabeth’s miniforests in New Jersey. Led by Andres Ospina Parra (Rutgers–Newark) with Daniela Shebitz (Kean University) and John Evangelista (Groundwork Elizabeth), the study offers some of the first U.S.-based evidence that Miyawaki microforests can rapidly initiate below-ground recovery, showing gains in soil permeability, carbon, and microbial activity within just one to three years—even in highly degraded urban soils.

As the authors note, these changes reflect early signs of soil self-organization, where interactions among roots, microbes, and organic matter begin building long-term resilience.

Studies like this help illuminate what becomes possible when we create the right conditions for urban sites to recover—and we’re excited to keep learning as our own miniforests grow and mature.

Tree Bark Identified as Potential Climate Solution

A team of Australian researchers spent five years analyzing the microbiomes of tree bark from eight species of Australian trees. They found that bacteria present on the bark were able to consume gases, including methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide. 

“While people have talked about addressing climate change in part by planting trees, the discovery of this hidden world of bark adds a whole new dimension. It could also inform people’s calculations about which trees are the most potent climate warriors.”

Events and Community

Last Chance to Register for How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate!
Registration is open through February 12 for our eight-week course exploring how living forests regulate climate through water cycles, biodiversity, and ecosystem processes.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to talk live with these leading scientists, authors, filmmakers and practitioners and get your questions answered.

Be part of a community of fellow learners, each on a journey of understanding how living systems work to cool the temperatures and mitigate climate impacts. Recordings made available weekly. Private email group provides additional opportunities for rich conversations and deeper learning. 

Thinking Like Water — Docuseries & Live Conversations | Episode 4
Join us on February 10 for a live conversation with three trailblazers who have been rethinking water and climate from the ground up.

Hear from Brad Lancaster, rainwater harvester and featured expert in Thinking Like Water Episode 4, as he shares his bold, low-cost strategies to capture rainwater runoff, reduce flooding and drought, and build local water security in urban, suburban, and rural communities.

You’ll also hear from Zuzka Mulkerin and John Lambert of Bio4Climate’s Voices of Water initiative, who will delve into the New Water Paradigm developed by hydrologist Dr. Michal Kravčík. This groundbreaking approach to rehydrate landscapes and restore the small water cycle has reshaped our understanding of water’s role in climate change for more than 30 years.

Together, they’ll reveal how working with water can restore the land, our waterways and climate resilience right where we live.

Miyawaki Forest Program Update

An intergenerational miniforest now grows in Belmont, MA!

Last year, alongside organizing and hosting the inaugural Northeast Miniforest Summit to support knowledge-sharing and connection, our Miyawaki Forest Program reached an important milestone: planting a 3,000-square-foot miniforest at Belmont High School together with the Miyawaki Forest Action Belmont (MFAB) group and students from the school’s Climate Action Club (CAC).

On October 4, 2025, nearly 275 Belmont volunteers—spanning generations—came together to plant 1,144 native trees and shrubs across 32 species, jump-starting soil life with leaf mulch and compost tea and bringing a living classroom rooted in collective care to life.

What makes this miniforest especially meaningful is the way it was imagined, organized, and stewarded by the community and students—amplifying a web of relationships and a shared sense of care and responsibility to the ecology of place and to one another, while restoring biodiversity and ecological function.

To many more community-initiated, student-powered miniforests—built by many hands and grown for many futures.

With deep gratitude to everyone whose time, support, and care made this possible—and to those stewarding it forward.

Learn more about how this miniforest came to life.

A Moment For Art

We are delighted to share a piece of artwork from one of our community members, Ann Barrett! Ann Barrett works in watercolor and oil on a variety of supports. With roots in observational drawing, her imagery fluctuates between figuration and abstraction, and celebrates human interconnectedness with all of life.

Ann is a six-year member of Jim Laurie’s symbiosis team, a Biodiversity for a Livable Climate financial supporter, and on the board of directors of East Quabbin Land Trust in Hardwick, MA. This is the third piece of Ann’s we’ve shared recently, and we are grateful for her artwork!

Share Your Art!

If you have artwork you’d like to have showcased in this newsletter, please respond to this email to get in touch with our team. We are accepting submissions for artwork, which can be anything from a poem to a painting—use your imagination! We are also accepting book recommendations. 

What’s Your Favorite Creature?

Lastly, we want to invite you to write your very own Featured Creature article. If you are passionate about a specific creature that you have a personal connection to, we want to hear from you! 

We look forward to receiving your artwork, book recommendations, and Featured Creature proposals. 

News and Insights

Proposed Clean Water Act Revision Would Narrow Tribes’ Authority Over Water Quality

Bio4Climate values indigenous knowledge and supports Indigenous decision making. We encourage encourage you to submit public comments against the proposed rule change by February 17. 

Despite widespread opposition among tribes to these changes, the EPA has moved forward with a proposal to revise the Clean Water Act, limiting the power tribes and states have over water quality. “Experts say the move would dissolve one of the few tools tribes have to enforce treaty rights and hamper their ability to protect tribal citizens.” 

“‘It gets at their ability to put conditions on or, in extreme cases, block projects that are either proposed by the federal government or under the jurisdiction of the federal government,’ said Miles Johnson, legal director at Columbia Riverkeeper, an organization that works on issues affecting the Columbia River.”

Greenland Shark Discovery Shifts Understanding of Ocean Giants

You may recall our Featured Creature profile about Greenland Sharks from a few weeks ago, which was thoughtfully written by Anya Reddy. We’re excited to share a new development in the world of Greenland Shark research, furthering our understanding of these ocean giants. From their eyesight to their swimming patterns, this new research tells us more of the elusive sharks’ story.

“The newly published findings upend commonly held beliefs and expose the challenges of studying a shark that has long resisted the reaches of science. But the disruptive nature of the research also underscores the challenges scientists face in predicting how a rapidly changing climate might harm or help the elusive fish.”

Events and Community

These nine expert guest speakers will take you inside the living systems of forests in our upcoming course How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate — revealing how intact, biodiverse ecosystems regulate the climate through water cycling, cooling mechanisms, soil moisture control and the biotic pump, while sustaining life for a vast array of living organisms.

These experts will unpack the science, identify industry narratives, and separate fact from fiction on common forest management practices, especially as it relates to logging, thinning, clearcutting and biomass energy.  .

Discover how microbes, fungi, insects, wildlife, biodiverse plants and trees, and dead wood are all essential to forest health. Come away with practical insights and strategies to protect and restore forests, wildlife, and climate stability in your own community.

FREE WEBINAR: Want to test the waters and learn more about how our forests are being managed?  Attend this free webinar to find out if a new proposed “climate solution” of cutting down trees to “bury” the carbon is viable and the best way to keep the carbon in the ground?

Join us on Monday, February 2, at 7 pm ET for a 90-minute webinar, Is Tree Burial a Climate Solution?

Catastrophic wildfires are becoming more frequent, and their post-fire impacts—especially flooding and landscape degradation—are intensifying. 

On February 3 at 6:00 pm ET, we will show Episode 3 of Thinking Like Water, “Fire & Flood.” This episode explores how restoration practices can help landscapes adapt to the drought–fire–flood cycle. With less snowfall and earlier snowmelt, many ecosystems are becoming increasingly dry as warmer, windier seasons arrive. This episode examines how hybrid restoration approaches can slow and retain snowmelt on the land longer, reduce peak flooding, and support recovery in areas stressed by fire and drought.

Then, at 7:30 pm ET, our guest speakers Lia Griesser, Wildlife Conservationist at the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, and Cameron Weber, Habitat Conservation Director at Rio Grande Return, will highlight practical, place-based strategies for building resilience in fire-impacted and river-connected landscapes.

A Moment For Art

We are delighted to share a piece of artwork from one of our community members, Ann Barrett! Ann Barrett works in watercolor and oil on a variety of supports. With roots in observational drawing, her imagery fluctuates between figuration and abstraction, and celebrates human interconnectedness with all of life.

Ann is a six-year member of Jim Laurie’s symbiosis team, a Biodiversity for a Livable Climate financial supporter, and on the board of directors of East Quabbin Land Trust in Hardwick, MA. This is the second piece of Ann’s we’ve shared recently, and we are grateful for her artwork!

Share Your Art!

If you have artwork you’d like to have showcased in this newsletter, please respond to this email to get in touch with our team. We are accepting submissions for artwork, which can be anything from a poem to a painting—use your imagination! We are also accepting book recommendations. 

What’s Your Favorite Creature?

Lastly, we want to invite you to write your very own Featured Creature article. If you are passionate about a specific creature that you have a personal connection to, we want to hear from you! 

We look forward to receiving your artwork, book recommendations, and Featured Creature proposals. 

News and Insights

Restoration Led by Locals Deemed Most Successful

“Degraded lands and seas are nearly always occupied, most often by farming communities,” which is why it’s of the utmost importance to include locals in the restoration process. Restoration led by non-locals often “fail to achieve lasting results because of the mismatch with the lives and livelihoods of those most connected to the landscape.”  

“Restoring the ability of local communities to be the custodians of nature is a promising approach to both ecological and social recovery – and ultimately environmental justice.” Bio4Climate is aligned with this approach, as our Miyawaki Forests are planted by locals and have shown us the power of doing so. 

Keep reading to learn about the four levels of local involvement researchers have identified.

Beaver Dam-Building Supports Local Bat Populations in Switzerland

Beavers have a rightful reputation for increasing biodiversity in rivers and wetlands, but scientists have found that local bat populations have been found to benefit, too! Researchers studied eight streams with active beaver dams and found that bat activity increased by nearly 60%. 

“According to the study, bats are drawn in by a combination of better habitat and more food. Beaver activity creates standing dead trees that bats use for roosting, along with more open, varied forest edges that make hunting easier. These areas also support larger numbers of insects, giving the bats a more reliable source of food.”

Events and Community

Basil Camu joins guest speaker lineup for How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate!We’re excited to welcome Basil Camu, co-founder of Leaf & Limb a tree care company in Raleigh, NC, and Project Pando, a non-profit that aims to connect people to trees. He is also the author of From Wasteland to Wonder: Easy Ways We Can Help Heal Earth in the Sub/urban Landscape. A master arborist and “Treecologist,” Basil brings hands-on insight into how caring for trees, soils, and urban forests strengthens ecosystems and helps regulate climate at the local and regional scale.

FREE WEBINARS: You can join course instructor Hart Hagan for two free introductory webinars open to anyone interested in taking a course with Bio4Climate!

Join us on Monday, January 26 at 7 pm ET for Wildfires: Fact, Fiction, and Misinformation or How Industry and Government are Destroying Bird Habitat on Friday, January 30 at 3 pm ET. You are welcome to attend both sessions!

RETIRE YOUR LAWN: PLANT HOPE

Thirty to forty percent of all land is privately owned. Faith communities, businesses, schools, universities, local governments, and individual land owners can be part of the movement to transform their conventional lawns into regenerative landscapes—to promote ecosystem health, community well-being, and planetary repair. These models can meet the needs of various communities offering everything from naturalized yards, to deep rooted grasses, to moss for your shady earth.

Winter is the perfect time to get started!  You can transform your lawn to a diverse ecosystem based on healthy soil. 

Judith Black, a Symbiosis Team member and student of Jim Laurie’s Biodiversity Deep Dive courses, has put together the resources you need to get started! Imagine the impact we can have if neighbors, churches and businesses transform their square of dirt into thriving, regenerative ecosystems!! 

If you’d like a presentation, would like to review this slide deck, or you simply want to explore the possibilities, reach out to Judith Black at storiesalive@gmail.com.

A Moment For Art

We are delighted to share a piece of artwork from one of our community members, Ann Barrett! Ann Barrett works in watercolor and oil on a variety of supports. With roots in observational drawing, her imagery fluctuates between figuration and abstraction, and celebrates human interconnectedness with all of life.

Ann is a six-year member of Jim Laurie’s symbiosis team, a Biodiversity for a Livable Climate financial supporter, and on the board of directors of East Quabbin Land Trust in Hardwick, MA. Ann has graciously shared a few pieces with us, so stay tuned for more of her beautiful work in the coming weeks!

Share Your Art!

If you have artwork you’d like to have showcased in this newsletter, please respond to this email to get in touch with our team. We are accepting submissions for artwork, which can be anything from a poem to a painting—use your imagination! We are also accepting book recommendations. 

What’s Your Favorite Creature?

Lastly, we want to invite you to write your very own Featured Creature article. If you are passionate about a specific creature that you have a personal connection to, we want to hear from you! 

We look forward to receiving your artwork, book recommendations, and Featured Creature proposals. 

This week’s book recommendation comes from Jonas Davulis, a member of the Symbiosis Team and active participant in Bio4Climate courses and events. His pick is Becoming Earth: A Journey Through the Hidden Wonders That Bring Our Planet to Life by Ferris Jabr.

News and Insights

Miniforests Are Popping Up in Big Cities

As leaders in the East Coast Miyawaki forest revolution, we are excited to see coverage of this miniforest outside Los Angeles go mainstream on NPR. Learn how scientist use spider webs to track biodiversity and how park visitors become part of the citizen science team to measure plant growth.

NPR’s Short Wave dives into California’s largest miniforest, located in Ascot Hills Park. After just two years, scientists have noted significant increases in biodiversity and impressive growth of plants that tend to grow more slowly on their own, outside of miniforests. 

From decreasing the likelihood of weeds growing through crowding to mapping the types of creatures that frequent the forest through spiderwebs, this miniforest is teeming with life and helping scientists define the benefits of miniforests.

Nature-Based Solutions Take Hold in Boston

In coastal cities, traditional approaches to preparing coastlines for rising sea levels can actually intensify the process of erosion rather than preventing it. Instead of employing these more traditional (yet ineffective) “solutions,” Boston, Massachusetts has introduced nature-based solutions to protect their coastline. 

“[Nature-based solutions] offer a wealth of community and environmental benefits by enhancing the natural services provided by coastal ecosystems—including wetlands, dunes, barrier islands, seagrasses, coral and oyster reefs, and mangroves—that build climate resilience while providing key social and economic benefits.”

Events and Community

We’re excited to share the next two speakers in our upcoming course, How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate, offering a powerful sequence from permaculture to strategic communication on the science demonstrating the critical importance of our forests.

We will be joined by Michael Pilarski, founder of Friends of the Trees and the Global Earth Repair Convergence. Drawing on decades of experience as an instructor and a writer in permaculture design, Michael will ground the course in lived ecological practice. He will teach us how to apply permaculture principles to land and forest restoration and stewardship.Sonia Demiray, founder and Executive Director of the Climate Communications Coalition, will join us to share the up-to-date science and objective data that should be guiding our forest management decisions. Her organization’s “Keep It In The Forest” campaign shows us how to combat the disinformation around forestry in the U.S. in order to protect our remaining native forests and sustain a livable biosphere.

Register by January 17 to receive the lowest rate! Group rates, reduced rates, and scholarships are available. Email courses@bio4climate.org for more information.

The Bio4Climate Film Club Presents Thinking Like Water
January 20 – February 17
Tuesdays | 7:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm MT

Want to learn how to restore the watershed and landscape in your community? Join our upcoming live conversation series and film screening of Thinking Like Water with filmmaker Renea Roberts and facilitator Dr. Katie Ross. 

This five-part docuseries captures Bill Zeedyk, a legendary and visionary water steward, as he applies simple, nature-based restoration methods across the American Southwest. Over five weeks, you’ll see the inspiring impact of Native nations, ranchers, non-profits and communities collaborating with Bill to transform parched watersheds into lush, green, thriving landscapes.

Legendary urban desert water steward Brad Lancaster will join us on February 10 at 7:00 pm ET to share the innovative rainwater harvesting and water management strategies he demonstrates in the fourth episode, which he boldly implemented in his desert city of Tucson, Arizona. He’ll answer questions on how to “start where you are” to turn water scarcity into abundance.

If you have a willingness to get your hands dirty and a keen eye for observation, you can do similar work — this film shows you how it’s done. Join us for Thinking Like Water.

Registration is now open! Reduced rates and scholarships are available. Email films@bio4climate.org for more information.

Miyawaki Forest Program Update

The last session of the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit, “The Miyawaki Method vs. Ecology of Place: Experimentation & Curiosity in Canada’s Miniforest Network,” explored many interconnected themes—how planting a miniforest is fundamentally different from planting trees; what is negotiable and non-negotiable within the Miyawaki method; Canada’s growing network of miniforests and its evolving community of practice; and Heather’s four-year-old backyard miniforest in Guelph, Ontario.

Rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach, Heather highlighted the importance of experimentation, curiosity, and responsive adaptation to local ecological conditions. While the Miyawaki method offers step-by-step guidelines, Heather encouraged practitioners to honor the unique ecology of each site and shared lessons grounded in her hands-on experimentation and experience with the method. Through her examples, she opened space to consider climate-informed design and, where appropriate, assisted migration—not as a way to replicate the past, but to support miniforests as they adapt to changing environmental conditions.

This session leaves us with a few reflections to sit with:

• What does it mean to truly design with the ecology of a place—its soils, plant communities, and future climate—rather than applying a fixed method or template?
• What role should climate forecasts and assisted migration play in restoring ecosystems for future conditions, not just reconstructing the past?
• How might curiosity, adaptation, and continual learning from ecological processes reshape not only how we implement and steward miniforests, but how we understand responsibility, stewardship, and our place within the web of life?

We hope this reflection deepens your own thinking as well, and marks not an ending, but a continuation of shared learning, practice, and relationship-building across this growing Northeast community and beyond.

The Weekend Read

This week’s book recommendation comes from Jonas Davulis, a member of the Symbiosis Team and active participant in Bio4Climate courses and events. His pick is Becoming Earth: A Journey Through the Hidden Wonders That Bring Our Planet to Life by Ferris Jabr.

News and Insights

Stingless Bees From the Amazon Become First Insects with Legal Rights

Bees native to the Amazon are now internationally recognized as an endangered species, a first for insects of any kind. Stingless bees are the oldest bee species in the world, and they are key pollinators in the Amazon, responsible for the pollination of over 80% of the rainforest’s flora. 

“The ordinances [granting legal rights to stingless bees] are precedents with no equivalent worldwide. According to Prieto they will establish a mandate requiring policies for the bees’ survival, ‘including habitat reforestation and restoration, strict regulation of pesticides and herbicides, mitigation of and adaptation to the impacts of climate change, the advancement of scientific research, and the adoption of the precautionary principle as a guiding framework for all decisions that may affect their survival.

Though Recognized As Part of Climate Solutions, Forests Are So Much More

Yet another major organization has adopted Bio4Climate’s living climate systems perspective. This piece from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) delves into land-based climate action solutions and outlines key areas for the kind of improved policy required for effective forest climate action.

“Leveraging the potential of forests as a cost-effective means to drive progress on climate action requires looking at the bigger picture. Yes, forests are important carbon sinks and deforestation is a significant source of emissions – but forests, and natural systems more generally, provide far more than just climate benefits. They are diverse and complex systems, and policy and management practices need to reflect these traits to be effective.

Events and Community

Award-Winning Filmmaker John Feldman and Climate Strategist and Author of Cooling the Climate Rob de Laet join as guest speakers for How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate

John Feldman is an award-winning filmmaker whose films Regenerating Life and Symbiotic Earth reveal how living ecosystems—forests, water cycles, and biodiversity—actively regulate Earth’s climate. Symbiotic Earth, a documentary on Life and works of Lynn Margulis depicts how cooperation, interdependence, and symbiosis—not competition—are the driving forces shaping life, ecosystems, and Earth’s self-regulating climate systems. His upcoming works include the Gaia Perspective.

Rob de Laet is the founder of Cooling the Climate and a climate strategist working from a Gaia-based perspective to restore Earth’s water cycles and biosphere at planetary scale. As co-author of Cooling the Climate and a project lead with the Global Evergreening Alliance, he focuses on averting critical tipping points—especially Amazon rainforest dieback—by strengthening the biotic pump and regenerating living systems to cool the Earth within decades.

Don’t miss the upcoming course, How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate! The course runs from February 5 through March 26 and meets weekly on Thursdays from 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET.

Register by January 17 to receive our lowest rate! Group rates, reduced rates, and scholarships are available. Email courses@bio4climate.org for more information.

The Bio4Climate Film Club Presents Thinking Like Water
January 20 – February 17
Tuesdays | 7:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm MT

Join us this January to be part of a very special screening of Thinking Like Water, a five-part docuseries which follows restoration pioneer Bill Zeedyk and his collaborators, as they transform degraded watersheds into more resilient ecosystems – girding against the ravages of drought and climate change.   

The docuseries and conversations with filmmaker Renea Roberts and other featured speakers begin on January 20 and continue for five Tuesdays. Registrants can choose how they’d like to participate—watch each documentary episode in advance and join the live conversation, or come together for a weekly viewing party with discussion shortly after. Each session will also make space to connect with others in your watershed and discover ways to learn more about the local waterways that connect us.

Registration is now open! Reduced rates and scholarships are available. Email films@bio4climate.org for more information.

Miyawaki Update

This week we are highlighting The Life-Cycle of a Miniforest Project: Initiating, Creating, Stewarding & Educating, which brought together perspectives from municipal leaders, for-profit 

The session unfolded through a series of practical questions:

• What are the biggest challenges in securing land for miniforest projects, and how do implementers navigate competing land uses and pushback?
• How do existing municipal plans shape where miniforests can happen, and how can residents find and advocate within those pathways?
• When initiating a miniforest as a community member, where do you start, and what kinds of municipal support help move a project forward?
• How are concerns about maintenance, forest spread, and long-term protection addressed over time?
• When beginning to understand a site, what sources help identify appropriate forest plant communities?
• Using local ecotypic plants is part of the method—what does that mean, and what models or partnerships could help grow and source them?
• How can miniforests become part of more outdoor educational programs, especially in schools?

We hope this panel deepens your own thinking as you consider what meaningful action looks like in your own context. We’ll continue exploring these questions next week and beyond.

News and Insights

Group of “Water Guardians” In Hungary Seeks to Restore Land

After years of severe drought across the Great Hungarian Plain, farmers are taking steps to bring water back to their land. Through a partnership with a local thermal spa, overflow water is being used to flood various fields in an attempt to mimic the natural cycle of flooding that would usually take place. 

“The water guardians hoped that by artificially flooding certain areas, they wouldn’t only raise the groundwater level but also create a microclimate through surface evaporation that could increase humidity, reduce temperatures and dust and have a positive impact on nearby vegetation.”

Tree Hugging Takes Off Among China’s Younger Generations

It’s no secret that everyday stresses have never been as abundant as they are today. In Beijing, China, young people are seeking relief from stress through forest therapy, which includes interacting with and connecting to trees.

“For young people like Wong and Mo, trees emerged as spaces to explore themselves and connections to each other. And while the story of China’s urbanisation is often told through images of polluted air, water and soil, young people like Wong and Mo present an alternative narrative: that young Chinese generations seek to repair the urban environment by connecting with others while caring, nurturing and even hugging the trees with their friends and strangers.”

Events and Community

The Bio4Climate Film Club Presents Thinking Like Water
January 20 – February 17
Tuesdays | 7:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm MT

Did you know there are thousands of watersheds across North America that flow into seven major drainage basins?

Imagine if each of us took steps to restore our own local watersheds, and return life and rain to our landscapes!

Are you curious to be inspired by people who have already begun this work, and to learn practical next steps you can take where you live?

Join us this January to be part of a very special screening of Thinking Like Water, a five-partdocuseries which follows restoration pioneer Bill Zeedyk and his collaborators, as they transform degraded watersheds into more resilient ecosystems – girding against the ravages of drought and climate change.   

The docuseries and conversations with filmmaker Renea Roberts and other featured speakers begin on January 20 and continue for five Tuesdays. Registrants can choose how they’d like to participate—watch each documentary episode in advance and join the live conversation, or come together for a weekly viewing party with discussion shortly after. Each session will also make space to connect with others in your watershed and discover ways to learn more about the local waterways that connect us.

Registration opens soon with early bird savings available. More info to come in Featured Creature. You can also email us and we’ll send a registration email directly to you once registration opens.  

Check out this short video that further explains how the biotic pump works: The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain, created by Jimi Sol.

Throughout the course, you’ll hear from and speak live with author and journalist Judith Schwartz, Scot Quaranda of the Dogwood Alliance, and several other expert guest speakers still to be announced!

Don’t miss the upcoming course, How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate! The course runs from February 5 through March 26 and meets weekly on Thursdays from 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET.

Register by January 17 to receive our lowest rate! Group rates, reduced rates, and scholarships are available. Email courses@bio4climate.org for more information. 

Miyawaki Forest Program Updates

This week’s session, “Scientific Research (Current and Emerging) around Miniforests,” explores what we’re beginning to learn from early scientific research and data collection methods on miniforests in Massachusetts and Belgium. 

The presenters shared early findings from the first summers of data collection, including research on how miniforests might cool their surroundings by comparing different surface covers and tracking temperature changes throughout the day; studies designed to measure insect diversity and herbivory in Miyawaki forests compared to other urban spaces; observations of plant growth and survival over time; and data on soil biology, water infiltration, and data collection methods. The session also drew on a detailed Report on the Evolution of Six Miyawaki Forests in Belgium.

This session leaves us with a few reflections to sit with: 

• How does knowledge of miniforests unfold over time, and what comes into view through different ways of studying them?
• What early signals—cooling patterns, soil change, insect activity—are most important to track in the first few years of a miniforest, and which signals require much longer timeframes to fully understand?
• How do the tools and methods we choose (from sensors to simple field observations) shape what we are able to notice—and what might they still miss about how miniforests function?

We hope this reflection deepens your own thinking as well.

Staff Reading Picks

This week, we’re sharing a book recommendation from Alexandra Ionescu, Bio4Climate’s Associate Director of Regenerative Projects. 

From the Millpond to the Sea: One River, Three Tributaries, Four Dams by Akiko Busch

From the Millpond to the Sea: One River, Three Tributaries, Four Dams by Akiko Busch centers on the Hudson River watershed and its many dams. Busch traces how these structures restrict biodiversity, block fish migration, warm water, and trap sediment, reshaping rivers over time. The book also made me reflect on how other species create barriers differently: when beavers build dams, they don’t simply stop movement, but create conditions that allow life to self-organize. Even when a beaver dam eventually fails, the pond it created will become a forest—supporting diverse life cycles along the way.

After sharing the book with our restoration biologist, Jim Laurie, he asked a simple question that stayed with me: “What do you want the Hudson River to become?” It made me wonder what the closest waterbody to my own home might want to become. I hope it inspires you to ask the same question.” -Alexandra Ionescu

News and Insights

Birds Exhibited Changes In Beaks Due To COVID-19

A new study from the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) details the changes in birds living in urban areas, such as college campuses, during the COVID-19 pandemic. As food scraps and other sources of food became scarce due to the lockdowns, urban birds’ beaks shortened in length from one generation to the next.  

“Birds hatched during the pandemic had beaks similar to wild juncos, but as human activity picked up again, their beaks reverted to the short, stout form seen in urban populations. These results indicate that city birds quickly adjusted their behavior when human activity stopped and started again.”

Largest Wildlife Crossing in the United States Opens in Colorado 

On a stretch of highway between Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado, wildlife now have a safe way to travel from one side to the other. The Greenland Wildlife Overpass connects roughly 40,000 acres of habitat that were previously disconnected for wildlife. 

Though it will be used by a variety of animals, the 200-foot-wide overpass was designed with elk and pronghorn in mind. The overpass is the final piece of a wildlife crossing system that has been in progress for many years and now connects roughly 18 miles of safe crossings for wildlife.

Events and Community

Don’t miss this opportunity to talk with award-winning author and journalist Judith D. Schwartz in our upcoming course How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate on Thursday, February 12 from 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm ET.

Judith’s work brings complex science to life through powerful, human-centered storytelling. She is the author of three influential books including The Reindeer Chronicles, Water in Plain Sight and Cows Save the Planet, which document successful ecosystem restoration projects around the world that are healing landscapes while strengthening ecological, economic, and social resilience. Judith is also a journalist for publications including The Guardian, Scientific American, Yale E360, Discover, and The American Prospect, and she speaks internationally on restoration ecology and regenerative climate solutions.

In this course, Judith will share stories of earth repair including the restoration of forests, soils, and water cycles, that demonstrate the vital role that forests play in regulating climate, water, and life on Earth.Read more about Judith’s work and our upcoming course – How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate

Register by January 17 to receive our lowest rate! Group rates, reduced rates, and scholarships are available. Email courses@bio4climate.org for more information. 

Miyawaki Forest Program Updates

This week we spotlight The Role of Miniforests in the Homegrown National Park by Doug Tallamy, author, entomologist, and co-founder of Homegrown National Park.

In this presentation, Tallamy invites us to look closely at the places we move through every day—lawns, backyards, streets—and to notice how biodiversity loss is woven into how these landscapes are shaped and managed. Miniforests suggest another possibility: small, multilayered, diverse pockets of life where key host-plant relationships can be re-established.

At the heart of his work is a simple but profound idea: plants are not just plants. They are relationships. Many insects can only live, grow, and move through landscapes that contain the specific native plants they evolved alongside. Without these host-plant relationships, energy moves less easily through food webs. Tallamy emphasizes the importance of landscapes that support caterpillars because caterpillars are a primary way energy moves from plants into broader food webs.

With residential land covering vast stretches of the U.S., Tallamy reminds us that the future of biodiversity will be shaped not only in parks and preserves, but in the everyday places in between—especially private and residential land.

He also leaves us with an open question that invites continued inquiry over time: how well can miniforests support biodiversity?

This presentation leaves us with a few reflections to sit with:

• Can you choose one native tree or shrub near you and imagine—or draw—the relationships it supports?
• How might we shift our relationship with plants from aesthetics alone toward ecological function?
• Life depends on movement. In what ways could miniforests reopen pathways for species, energy, and relationships to move through human-dominated landscapes?

We hope this reflection deepens your own thinking as well.

Staff Reading Picks

This week, we’re sharing a book recommendation from Jim Laurie, one of our course instructors and co-founder of Bio4Climate.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

This book is also a love story. Suzanne Simard has been greatly saddened by the loss of so many forests due to clear cutting and increasing fires in a warming world. She now spends much of her time working with First Nations Tribes on the Canadian West Coast, teaching future forestry students how to regenerate forests as well as sustainably harvest. 

Finding the Mother Tree has elaborate sources, pictures, and notes. It was featured and very well received in one of our Biodiversity Deep Dive courses.

News and Insights

How Exposing Children to the Outdoors Could Improve Health Outcomes

It’s no secret that biodiversity has positive effects on all aspects of life, and Finland is leading the charge on increasing children’s exposure to the outdoors. Outdoor playtime is a daily occurrence, and sections of the forest floor are dedicated to growing vegetables and composting leaves and weeds. Various kindergarten classes were included in a study looking at how increased access to biodiversity affects children’s health. 

“A year later, it found children playing in the green kindergartens had less disease-causing bacteria – such as Streptococcus – on their skin, and stronger immune defences. … Other research showed that in just two weeks children’s immune system regulation could be improved by playing in a sandpit enriched with garden soil.”

“The kindergartens provide more evidence of just how crucial healthy ecosystems are to human health. As biodiversity, habitats and wild species are lost around the planet, there are huge potential repercussions for human wellbeing”

Sloth Bridges In Costa Rica Inspire Action In Brazil

Solutions that support wildlife conservation and biodiversity are right up our alley, and efforts to help sloths safely navigate forests in the face of urbanization is the newest example. Keeping sloths away from predators and man-made threats, such as cars, is crucial to ensuring their survival.

Seeing the need for a safe method of passage within fragmented forests, the Sloth Conservation Foundation set up rope bridges. The impact of this conservation effort doesn’t start and end with sloths: at least 14 other species have utilized the rope bridges according to camera traps. 

In response to these efforts, “a conservation project in Brazil recognized it was similar to the challenge faced by the endangered northern maned sloth, a species endemic to the country’s Atlantic Forest.”

Events and Community

Our upcoming course How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate has new dates.
The course will now run from February 5 – March 26, 2026, meeting live in weekly, 90-minute classes on Zoom on Thursdays at 12:00 pm ET.

This eight-week course explores how forests cool the climate through water cycles, biodiversity, and ecosystem processes, while challenging common myths about logging, wildfires, and forest management. The course also dives into the mechanisms of the biotic pump and what makes forests one of the most powerful ecosystems on the planet. Featuring expert guest speakers, the course offers science-based insights and practical perspectives for meaningful climate action.

Register by January 17 to receive our lowest rate!

Group rates, reduced rates, and scholarships are available. Email courses@bio4climate.org for more information. 

Miyawaki Forest Program Updates

This week, we spotlight Using the Miyawaki Method to Empower Agroecology and Food Forestry with Coakee William Wildcat, Founder of Mother Tree Food & Forest. 

In this talk, Coakee explores how the Miyawaki Method applies to food production, and how its core principles—dense, multi-layered planting, high diversity, and living soils—align with syntropic agroforestry as a form of ecological restoration. He discusses potential natural vegetation (PNV), the forest as a meta-organism, and Indigenous agroforestry practices, showing how these inform both food forests and afforestation.

This presentation leaves us with three questions to reflect on:

1. What changes when we approach the forest as a living community rather than an inventory of species—and what practices help us learn to listen?
2. What responsibilities emerge when we grow food in ways that restore soil, water, and biodiversity?
3. What emerges when we study ecological succession more deeply, and what aspects of the Miyawaki Method still call for real, on-the-ground experimentation?

We hope this reflection deepens your own thinking as well.

Staff Reading Picks

This week, we’re sharing a book recommendation from Executive Director Beck Mordini.

A Forest Journey by John Perlin 

News and Insights

Australia Recognized by United Nations for Reef Restoration

Along Australia’s southern coast, shellfish reefs were nearly extinct by the time efforts to restore them were underway. The plan to rebuild the lost reefs has now been recognized by the United Nations as one of three World Restoration Flagships. Through these flagship projects, over 1 billion hectares of land will be rehabilitated. 

The Australian coastline project is rooted in Indigenous knowledge and practices. Alongside community members and volunteers, scientists and Indigenous experts have worked together to rebuild the reef.

Social Justice Must Be The Root of Environmental Restoration

We couldn’t agree more. Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) found that “placing social justice at the center of restoration practice remains vital to success, with ecological targets aligned to local social, economics and cultural ones.” 

“Too often there is a superficial consideration of justice, creating unjust interactions and outcomes which impede the effective long-term restoration and protection of both nature and human well-being. However, there are increasing numbers of ‘bright spots’ of just and transformative restoration, many involving Indigenous Peoples, and these case studies provide evidence of what works and illustrate how deeper justice leverage points are actionable in practice.” – Prof. Rodriguez, UEA School of Global Development 

Miyawaki Forest Program Updates

This week, we’re highlighting Asphalt to Miniforest, a panel on how depaving and miniforests can help cities restore their hydrology, cool neighborhoods, and bring life back to paved places. Caseylee Bastien, RLA, CPSI (Landscape Architect/Ecologist, BSC Group Inc.), Leigh Meunier (Project Manager, Green & Open Somerville), and Max Rome, PhD (Director of Green Infrastructure, City of Boston) joined Alexandra Ionescu, Bio4Climate’s Associate Director of Regenerative Projects, for a conversation on what it takes to restore the water cycle in urban settings.

Max offered a clear framing:

 “What we know in New England, is that basically, if we could capture the first inch of rain that runs off impervious surfaces and get that back into the ground, we would be very closely approximating and recreating the natural hydrology in this area, the way the rivers responded to storms before we built our cities, the nutrient loading into rivers before we built our cities.”

The discussion also explored political, cultural, and community realities—from simplified landscapes to joyful depaving parties—and offered a hopeful reminder that cities can transform when people learn and act together. It also invited us to step outside during a storm: to stand under a tree, watch how it slows the rainfall, and notice how nature works with water.

Asphalt to Miniforest left us with two questions to reflect on:

We hope these questions deepen your own thinking as well.

A Moment for Art

Today, we are sharing another beautiful piece from Sue Butler, one of Bio4Climate’s board members. Susan Farist Butler’s exhibit, “Gaia Song: Seeking Equilibrium,” was featured on the Bio4Climate website in 2023, and it takes readers on a journey through essays, articles, and paintings about climate.

Artist Statement: Rewild. Protect Forests. Vegetation must be a sacred healing wrap on all the Earth, restoring the soil biome and the sky biome. Trees and all plants link the soil biome to the sky biome and keep a healthy climate balance. Photosynthesis pulls carbon dioxide from the air and builds sugars to feed trees and the soil biome, near and far. This healthy carbon sequestration has minimal cost, uses no energy from our grid, generates no pollution. As the sugars are built and distributed, the remaining oxygen is released to the sky. As photosynthesis occurs, the leaves are simultaneously evapotranspiring and cooling the locale.

News and Insights

The Power of Restoring Ponds to Boost Britain’s Climate Resilience

When we think of bodies of water, ponds are not often thought of as the most “important.” Though small and oft-overlooked, ponds are crucial to storing water and supporting biodiversity. Ponds act as buffers during floods and periods of drought in ways that rivers, wetlands, and other bodies of water don’t. 

“Restoring ponds – old and new, rural and urban – is one of the simplest, most effective steps we can take. Every pond counts, from a farm hollow to a garden bowl. Together, they form networks that wildlife needs to survive and make our landscapes more resilient to climate change.”

In the face of a nearly 60% decrease in the number of ponds in areas of Britain from 1900 to 2019 along with a stark decrease in pond density, conservation efforts to restore ponds and encourage biodiversity are underway. Learn more about the importance of ponds and how you can build a wildlife pond in your own backyard.

Movement to Accelerate Nature Recovery in the UK Takes Flight

What was once a retirement home for horses has been transformed over four years through rewilding led by young people. Called the Youngwilders, this youth-led movement aims to support nature recovery in Britain, one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. 

Slowly, they have witnessed wildlife returning to Maple Farm, the plot of land where their movement began. Nightingales and butterflies take flight, while snakes and insects burrow in the ground among the scrub and hedgerows. Oak saplings take root, and bees nest in the hollows of the trees their seeds came from. 

“From a planetary perspective, restoring small parcels of land might feel insignificant, but this is the way a global nature restoration movement starts: one field, one sapling, one nightingale at a time.”

Events and Community

How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate Guest Speaker Highlight

In her recent presentation at the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme at UNESCO in Paris, atmospheric physicist Dr. Anastassia Makarieva highlighted a scientific idea that is rapidly reshaping global climate understanding: forests are not passive carbon sinks—they are active atmospheric regulators, generating rainfall, stabilizing moisture flows, and moderating extreme weather. Speaking at the Green Water Dialogue, convened to raise awareness of the active role that vegetation plays in sustaining the water cycle, Anastassia drew from her pioneering work on the biotic pump to show how intact forests create pressure gradients that pull moist air inland, sustaining rivers, agriculture, and regional hydrology. Her message at UNESCO was clear: without healthy forests, the world’s water cycles falter.

Anastassia’s insights go to the heart of our upcoming course, How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate, where she will join us as a featured guest on February 5 at 12:00 pm ET. She will expand on how forest structure, biodiversity, and energy exchange processes regulate climate far beyond carbon—revealing why forest protection must be central to climate strategy.Don’t miss this opportunity to learn directly from one of the world’s leading voices in forest–atmosphere science. Scholarships are available; please reach out to courses@bio4climate.org for more information.

Bio4Climate Outreach Intern Participates In Indigenous Tree Planting

On November 28th, 2025, Betty Bitengo Atandi, Outreach Intern for Bio4Climate based in Nairobi, Kenya, participated in a major tree-planting activity organized by AAR Healthcare in Ngong Forest, planting over 24,000 indigenous tree seedlings to help restore the forest and improve Nairobi’s environment. She worked alongside AAR staff, community groups, and other volunteers, preparing the planting spots, placing the seedlings, and covering them with soil. 
“It was a meaningful experience because we contributed directly to long-term forest recovery and climate action” – Betty Bitengo Atandi

Miyawaki Update

This week we’re highlighting Stories from the Field: Miniforests in Cities, Schools, and Farms in the Northeast US, where four presenters shared grounded insights from transforming leftover urban spaces, schoolyards, and riparian buffers into miniforests across MA, CT, NY, and PA. Together they illuminated the nuances of site selection, density design, early establishment, and community-based monitoring.

Caseylee Bastien encouraged practitioners to look for “wastelands”—stump dumps, polluted edges, and odd gaps between roads—because “those are the spots where you have the opportunity to make big changes.” He emphasized that a miniforest is “a community, not just a plantation,” and that “the secret is in the soil,” where duff layers, fungi, and macroinvertebrates build early resilience.

Bram Gunther situated miniforests within Plan It Wild’s broader mission “to rewild the metropolitan areas of the United States.” He emphasized studying density in context and shared a collaborative density experiment with a student exploring how planting intensity influences growth and habitat function. Bram also introduced WILDr, Plan It Wild’s ecological scoring and planning framework.

Mary Ellen LeMay described installing seven micro forests at Bridgeport elementary schools through a Climate Smart grant—planting 4,688 natives and integrating a fourth-grade “student scientist” program using iTree. Teachers are now using the forests as outdoor classrooms, and by year two, shade and groundcovers have significantly reduced weeds.

Andrew Leahy shared a riparian restoration approach: fourteen dense Miyawaki plots planted along a degraded stream buffer using broadfork decompaction, six inches of leaf litter, and a low-intervention establishment strategy. Even with minimal inputs, these plots are showing remarkable vigor and outperforming adjacent conventional plantings.

The Q&A underscored that miniforest maintenance depends on reading each site’s conditions—from low-intervention resilience building to more supportive early care—and that long-term success ultimately rests on community adoption, context-aware stewardship, and designs that help people feel at home with “wildness.”

Stories from the Field left us with four questions to reflect on:

• How do we determine the right level of maintenance for each site—balancing low-intervention approaches with the support young miniforests need in challenging urban and suburban conditions? 
• What shifts when we approach a miniforest as a living community—one that forms its own relationships—rather than as a planting project to be managed? 
• How can we better understand and support the belowground community—duff layers, fungi, and macroinvertebrates—so that their relationships meaningfully guide how we design, plant, and care for miniforests, especially in urban and suburban soils?
• What unique opportunities arise when miniforests are planted along stream buffers, and how might the method help us rethink riparian restoration practices?

We hope these questions deepen your own thinking as well.

A Moment for Art

Today, we are excited to share artwork by one of Bio4Climate’s board members. Susan Farist Butler’s exhibit, “Gaia Song: Seeking Equilibrium,” was featured on the Bio4Climate website in 2023, and it takes readers on a journey through essays, articles, and paintings about climate. Keep reading to read part of the artist statement for Map of the Devastation of the Amazonian Rainforest. 

Because of enormous clear cutting in northeast Amazonian rain forest, rainfall has decreased by 20% in the south and east of the rainforest. The RED on the map shows where there is drought, desiccation, wildfire, savannah and desertification. Those places were recently rain forest.

We must protect the Amazonian Rainforest. Without it, the global climate and weather system will collapse. If the Amazon becomes the Sahara, we are cooked.

News and Insights

Seabirds Determined as Essential to Healthy Ecosystems

The life of a seabird includes two major phases: their life at sea, and the times when they return to land to breed. Through these cycles, seabirds bring ocean-derived nutrients to their colonies on land, initiating a transfer of nutrients that land ecosystems would otherwise not have. 

These sea nutrients enrich soil and support biodiversity, from plant communities to insects, birds, and reptiles. The benefits of sea nutrients from seabirds are not limited to land, though. These nutrients often find their way back to marine ecosystems when they are washed back into the ocean. 

“Compared to islands without seabirds, marine environments near islands with seabirds have ‘coral reefs recovering faster after bleaching events, fish growing faster, higher fish biomass, and increased macroalgae,’ Holly Jones, lead author of the study and an ecologist at Northern Illinois University, U.S., told Mongabay in an email.”

From puffins to pelicans, these sea-and-land-dwellers have inspired a new term to describe their roles in their respective ecosystems: the circular seabird economy. 

Communities Built On Nature Reserves Take Root In England 

Instead of uprooting trees and changing landscapes to accommodate new construction, investor and author Shiv Malik has a vision for a new kind of city: a forest city. 

“Powlesland said: ‘I think the question is, can we build what is necessary for humans to have a healthy, happy society while either not degrading nature or ideally restoring nature? That is the question of the 21st century, and it feels like nobody is answering that question.’”

The city would be just east of Cambridge, and, if successful, it’s likely that a slew of other similar cities would follow. Could a future where our towns and cities are built around nature become a reality?

Events and Community

Meet the Guest Speakers of Our Upcoming Course: How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate

In the new year, join us for How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate, a course that explores how forests cool the land, bring rain, protect biodiversity, and counter destructive logging narratives. Register by December 20 to secure Early Bird pricing. Scholarships are available; please reach out to courses@bio4climate.org for more information.

We’re honored to feature three outstanding guest speakers:

Judith D. Schwartz (Jan 8, 12 PM ET) – Author and journalist whose books illuminate global stories of ecosystem restoration and nature-based climate solutions.

Scot Quaranda (Jan 29, 12 PM ET) – Communications Director at Dogwood Alliance, offering insights on industrial logging, biomass, and the role of storytelling in forest protection.

Dr. Anastassia Makarieva (Feb 5, 12 PM ET) – Atmospheric physicist whose pioneering work on the biotic pump reveals how forests generate rainfall and regulate moisture flows.

Together, they’ll deepen our understanding of how healthy forests stabilize climate and how we can help protect them.

Miyawaki Update

Today, we’re excited to share the introductory keynote of the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit. Hannah is the author of Mini-Forest Revolution: Using the Miyawaki Method to Rapidly Rewild the World—a book many of you may already know well.

Hannah’s presentation brought us back to the heart of the Miyawaki method and what it really asks of us. She drew a clear line between planting trees and planting an actual forest community. She emphasized the method’s goal of skipping ecological succession by planting climax species from the start—supported by soil preparation, multi-layered planting, and early canopy formation. She walked us through Dr. Akira Miyawaki’s original work and how the approach has expanded globally through hands-on experimentation and a growing network of practitioners. 

In the Q&A, Hannah underscored the importance of stable, shade-tolerant climax species and shared examples of how colder climates face added pressures from non-native plants. She also noted a key distinction: Dr. Miyawaki worked largely within evergreen forest communities, which function differently from the deciduous systems we are working with in the Northeast U.S.

Hannah’s presentation left us with two questions to reflect on:

If Dr. Miyawaki developed his method largely within evergreen systems—where shade persists year-round—how should we think about applying the method in our deciduous Northeastern forests, where light and shade shift so dramatically across the seasons? What seasonal dynamics deserve closer attention in the early years?

As ecological roles shift across contexts, how do we determine which species are truly “climax species” for the forest community we’re emulating—and what the right ratios across canopy, sub-canopy, understory, and shrub layers should be?

We hope these questions deepen your own thinking as well.

A Moment for Art

We are continuing the celebration of this month’s Beaver Moon! One of Jim Laurie’s students, Holly Ewald, shared a reflection on a painting by Kathy Hodge. 

“[This painting] takes on the bewilderment of beavers today in light of the forest fires and loss of their habitat. The wisdom of animals and the prescient vision, sense of light, and detail come together so beautifully in this painting.” 

Be sure to check out Kathy’s incredible work. Thank you for sharing, Holly!

News and Insights

Bringing Awareness to the World’s Most Forgotten Rainforest

Can you name the three largest rainforests in the world? The average person may only be able to name the largest: The Amazon. The Congo and Mekong basins garner much less global attention than the Amazon, but they are just as important and worthy of protecting. 

Rainforests act as carbon sinks, making these rainforests crucial to using nature as a climate solution. A recent report released by the Science Panel for the Congo Basin detailed that the Congo basin absorbs 600m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. However, the number is decreasing due to deforestation. 

“[The basin’s] significance extends far beyond its borders. The basin’s rainfall feeds main river systems across the continent, sustaining life as far away as the Sahel.”

We hope this coverage helps bring critical attention and funding to the Congo basin and other large, underfunded rainforests.

oices continue to be honored as climate leaders around the world. 

Return of the Parrots: Red-browned Amazons Find their Way Home

Earlier this year, twenty red-browned amazons were released in a forest reserve in Alagoas, Brazil. At the time, only four wild birds remained. Due to illegal trade and deforestation, the species was nearly driven to extinction. 

After a decade of silence, these birds have brought their cheerful chirps back to the forest. 

Before being released into the wild, these birds spent a couple of years in a large aviary within the forest, where they learned to identify food sources and adjust to the environment. The released parrots are all young, and it’s likely that they will be able to breed in the next few years. Keep an eye out for updates on red-browned amazon chicks in 2027!

Events and Community

How Trees & Forests Shape Our Climate – Kicking off in January 2026

Discover how forests actively regulate climate through wind, water, carbon, biodiversity, and the “living water cycle” that modern climate models often overlook. This course distills what leading scientists now recognize: forests don’t just store carbon – they cool landscapes, stabilize rainfall, buffer heat extremes, prevent floods and droughts, and sustain the wildlife networks that keep ecosystems functioning.

Across eight weeks, we’ll unpack myths, examine logging, biomass, thinning, wildfire narratives, and explore what truly makes a forest healthy. With expert guest speakers, weekly live sessions, and advocacy coaching, you’ll learn how to protect forests in your own region and recognize industry narratives that undermine them.

Join us for a grounded, science-based exploration of why protecting forests is one of the most powerful climate actions of our time.

Register now to receive our Early Bird Price of $97!

Miyawaki Update

This week we ground ourselves in with the opening reflection by Hartman Deetz, Mashpee Wampanoag, which Alex Ionescu shares, “reminds us of the importance of cultivating relationships with both human and more-than-human communities — as relatives connected through what we all hold in common: symbiosis, interconnection, and our shared Earth.”

For the next few weeks, we will be sharing videos from the 2025 Northeast Miniforst Summit!   From a seasoned forest maker who has already planted several forests to a public official focused on cultivating biodiversity in their district, everyone will have something to glean from this summit and something to share with your community.

A Moment for Art

In honor of this month’s full Beaver Moon, one of Jim Laurie’s students from the Symbiosis Team shared her beautiful painting entitled Beaver Moon. Thank you, Melissa Guillet of 15 Minute Field Trips, for sharing your beautiful artwork with us!

News and Insights

COP30 Creates Finance Program for Forest Preservation

At the COP30 Leader’s Summit, in Belém, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) was officially launched with leaders of more than thirty countries to create a global financial incentive to protect standing tropical forests, rather than destroying them.

We were encouraged by these remarks from Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara:

“The TFFF boldly and justly acknowledges the essential role of Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities in forest protection. Ensuring that at least 20% of resources go directly to these guardians is a historic achievement and a decisive step toward equity and the recognition of ancestral knowledge.”

20% doesn’t sound like nearly enough to me, but it is a start. Let’s hope that indigenous voices continue to be honored as climate leaders around the world. 

Farmers are Building Wetlands to Reduce Pollution

While we would rather see farms converted to regenerative agriculture, it is encouraging that even some conventional farmers are willing to give up crop land to build wetlands. They are discovering what Jim Laurie, Bio4Climate Biologist and Cofounder discovered decades ago- nature can clean up chemical waste in ways we don’t even understand. The new wetlands are designed to prevent nitrate runoff and protect waterways. 

But that is not all. Farmer Jim Fulton shares, “We’ve had nesting ducks, herons, egrets in the summertime, hundreds of red-winged blackbirds that are out roosting in all the tall grasses, which is great. A lot of frogs. We had an exceptionally high amount of water, and at one point, we even had fish in it,” he said, which came as a surprise. 

Events and Community

WATCH NOW!

The Miniforest as a Microcosm (and an Overview of Bio4Climate’s Miyawaki Forest Program)

Miniforests are more than trees—they amplify a web of relationships.

Watch and learn as Bio4Climate’s Associate Director of Regenerative Projects explains how miniforests provide hands-on opportunities to explore ecological processes and witness firsthand how ecological restoration can transform our landscapes. Plant growth, the water cycle, and soil health become moments of inquiry and awareness, helping to reconcile natural processes with urban challenges like stormwater management and the heat island effect. 

Alex’s presentation is the perfect introduction to Bio4Climate’s 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit videos that we will be featuring here over the coming weeks. 

Events and Community

Online | The Goldilocks Strategy: Getting Our Relationship with Bears and Lions Just Right

Bio4Climate’s GBH conversation series returns!

Join South African novelist and photographer Tony Eprile from his home in Vermont in conversation with CLAWS Botswana director, Dr. Andrew Stein, and biologist/tracker, Meghan Walla-Murphy, as they share their adventures and insights from working with animals such as lions and black bears.

As a keystone species, we humans need to safeguard other powerful animals while protecting the safety and livelihoods of local communities. Learn firsthand from researchers working with dangerous predators and communities that live alongside them, how they are using a combination of new technology and indigenous wisdom to coexist.

In their own words: A Miniforest on Campus

Dispatch from the Field

Former Bio4Climate intern Adrianna Drindak recently led an off-trail backpacking trip in Kings Canyon National Park through her college’s outing club. Over the course of eight days, the group traversed rocky passes, explored vibrant meadows, enjoyed the incredible mountain views, and spent many hours alongside blue alpine lakes. Below, Adrianna shares a special moment from her travels. Photos and words by Adrianna Drindak.

It was our last night in the alpine zone. We reached our destination, Moose Lake, in the early afternoon, and had the rest of the day to enjoy our last night at elevation. I was chatting with a friend, and many of the people on my trip were sitting by the lake, taking naps and reading books. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sleek figure meander along the shore. The shape of the creature came into focus, and before I knew it a Black Bear was wandering only twenty feet from those resting. I shouted, managing to get the attention of those down by the water, and we all stared in awe as the bear walked by, barely looking our way as it scrambled along the shore. We watched as it continued along the water’s edge before disappearing on the far side of the lake. The bear was at peace, so unattuned to human presence and entirely unfazed by the group of people sitting nearby. 

A Miniforest Grows in Belmont

Belmont, Mass. | Belmont High School Miniforest

Words and images by Alexandra Ionescu,
Director of Regenerative Projects

On October 4th, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and the Miyawaki Forest Action Belmont (MFAB) community came together to plant a 3,000 sq ft Miyawaki forest — 1,140 native trees and shrubs across 32 species at the Belmont High School site. 

Our 8th miniforest is especially meaningful — a true intergenerational effort shaped from its early formation to the day of planting by the dedication of students and community members. Around 275 local Belmont residents of all ages joined throughout the day!

We’re also grateful to local native nurseries — New England Wetland Plants, Oakhaven Sanctuary Nursery, Butterfly Effect Farm, and Russ Cohen — for growing these plants; to Black Earth Compost for transforming food waste into rich compost, leaf mulch, and soil full of life; to New England Biochar for contributing biochar that helps build healthy, living soil; and to the Belmont Department of Public Works for their assistance with soil preparation.

News and Insights

The Magic of Mini Forests

American Planning Association

Miyawaki mini forests are catching on in the U.S.

Alexandra Ionescu, associate director of regenerative projects at Biodiversity for a Livable Climate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, helped organize the first Northeast Miniforest Summit this past summer. With more than 500 registrants, the two-day symposium brought together educators, scientists, local government officials, volunteers, and others with an interest in mini forests to share insights about how to increase the use of the Miyawaki method.

“It is wonderful to see people coming to the planting day with so much excitement,” Ionescu says. “They come back to see the progress of the trees they helped plant and form this connection with place.”

Ionescu sees a potential role for planners to identify suitable mini forest sites, one of the largest challenges. Other mini forest programs have been launched by the Natural Urban Forests in Seattle, Washington; Urban Pocket Forest, Berkeley, California; and LA Microforests, Los Angeles.

News and Insights

‘Microforest’ takes root in Providence, reflecting worldwide trend
Edward Fitzpatrick, Boston Globe

Bio4Climate Director of Regenerative Projects Alexandra Ionescu recently spoke with the Boston Globe about the growing interest in the miniforest movement in the Northeast and beyond, featuring our friends at the Pearl Street Garden Collective and Groundwork Rhode Island. 

“In 2021, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and SUGi teamed up to plant the first Miyawaki forest in the Northeast in Cambridge’s Danehy Park, a former landfill. Massachusetts now has at least 20 microforests, according to Alexandra Ionescu, a Providence resident who is associate director of regenerative projects at Biodiversity fora Livable Climate, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that promotes ecosystem restoration to address climate change. And she expects to see many more in the region in the years ahead.

‘A lot of people right now are feeling the effects of climate change and they want to take meaningful action. It responds to the energy of those who want to engage in earth repair,’ Ionescu said.

These small but rapidly growing forests help clean the air and create a unifying focal point for the community, proponents said.”

Events and Community

Belmont, Mass. | A forest grows in Belmont!

It’s planting day in Belmont! Today, more than 200 volunteers will gather at Belmont High School to plant 1,140 native trees and shrubs, transforming the school grounds into a 3,000-square-foot mini-forest.

Beyond ecology, the effort to bring this forest to life has become a bridge for community healing, youth engagement, and redefining schooling through ecology. One young Girl Scout, living in an apartment with no yard, has nursed a sapling all year to plant it in the forest today. 

The miniforest’s journey taps into a richer vein of what these forests can mean as instruments of care and learning and their power to bring communities together at a time when many are being pushed and pulled apart.  

We look forward to sharing more stories and photos as things get underway!

Courses

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

News and Insights

How To Be A Better Parasite
Sophie Pavelle

Only foolish parasites kill their host; smart ones hold them close. What if humans could learn from that? What if we mirrored the restraint, reciprocity, and sustainability of Earth’s most successful exploiters? Could this new sort of parasitic relationship offer our host planet the chance to survive—maybe thrive—in balance?

Evolutionary biologist Dr. Lynn Margulis famously argued that symbiosis is not an exception, but the root of life itself, responsible for the evolution of organelles like mitochondria and chloroplasts. Since its genesis, the tree of life has branched through chance, tension, and opportunity, its tips entwining through symbiotic alliances. Species contend and negotiate, fusing in networks that pulse with resilience.

Biodiversity as Climate Infrastructure: Micrometeorology, Fluxes, and the Living Earth
Dr. Poulomi Chakravarty

Climate change is usually framed as a problem of greenhouse gases and rising global temperatures. Yet the real heartbeat of climate stability lies closer to the ground, in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and even the work of animals. These ecosystems continuously interact with the air above them, shaping weather, rainfall, and temperature patterns.

Welcome to the realm of micrometeorology, the science of small-scale processes at the land–atmosphere boundary. 

Events and Community

Rio de Janeiro | Confluência LATAM 2025

Last week Brendan wrote in from São Paulo after an evening listening to Ailton Krenak. Today, he’s checking in from Rio de Janeiro where for the last few days he’s been attending a conference on narrative change in Latin America. 

Whether you’re working in the region or not, I wanted to share a few general takeaways on narrative change principles so far that I think can help inform the work that each of us in the larger Bio4Climate community are doing across contexts. 

1. Prioritizing short and longterm storytelling. Archiving and sharing stories that connect to immediate struggles, the kind that mobilize action and meet people where they are today, but that also nest inside a larger arc of transformation.

2. Narrative change doesn’t happen in isolation. It requires rooting stories in lived realities: the politics people navigate, the cultures they belong to, and the social bonds they rely on.

3. Are the tactics we’re using actually aligned with the futures we imagine, or are they perpetuating old patterns and reinforcing old social or political ecosystems?

4. Mapping areas of consensus, creating spaces for dialogue, and investing in the infrastructure to hold alliances over time are just as important as the narratives and stories themselves. 

How do these things manifest in your work and your activism? What would you add?

Courses

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

Events and Community

Celebrating Allan Savory

This week we joined many around the world to celebrate the 90th birthday of regenerative farmer and champion of all things alive, Allan Savory. 

Bio4Climate’s Jim Laurie first met Allan Savory in Houston in the 1990s, learning holistic management alongside Texas ranchers and driving hundreds of miles for workshops. Years later in Colorado, Jim was presenting on stage, with Mr. Savory sitting right before him in the front row. Never one to miss an opportunity for a good conversation, Jim called to Allan from the stage to broach the idea of applying holistic management to fish. Savory lit up at the idea; the world’s oceans and rivers were areas he hadn’t yet explored. 

Jim took this photo (above) in Boulder, Colorado on June 23rd, 2013 while attending the first Savory Institute HUB Training Course with attendees from 6 continents. There are now over 50 Savory HUBS.

Seated from left are Jody Butterfield, Allan’s wife and his co-author of Holistic Management 3rd edition, Allan Savory, and Elsa Tung, a Tufts International Relations graduate student attending Hub Training.

São Paulo | An Evening with Ailton Krenak

Hi everyone! It’s Brendan Kelly here, writing in from Brazil. I had the chance to see Brazilian thinker, writer, and activist Ailton Krenak speak this week in São Paulo. Much of Krenak’s work is rooted in care and reciprocity, in the idea that forests, rivers, soil, and non-human beings all have their own agency and value and rights. 

He had more to say than could possibly fit here, but a provocation he put to all of us stood out and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Can we hope within ourselves to hear what the earth is saying? Can we hope to have the courage to provoke new things to come out from these urban ruins? Can we hope to summon the forest as an internal transformation as much as an external one?

News and Insights

How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change
Allan Savory

Today, we’re revisiting one of his great lectures. After you give it a watch, check out above for a more personal account of our own Jim Laurie’s time with Savory. 

Courses

Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.

Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?

Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.

This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom. 

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

News and Insights

Shaping a Vocabulary for Ecological Design – Stir World

If the point of science might be to understand and inform how we live and coexist, then design shapes the very choices we make in response. More than Human is an exhibition at the Design Museum in London that reimagines how we might design with care, connection, and respect.
 
“The show is ‘hopeful’ because it imagines an alternative relationship between humans and the living world, one that is respectful and supportive, one where natural bodies have rights, one where the needs of other species are catered for, one where design plays a new role in supporting the health of ecosystems.”
 
Jim Laurie’s upcoming course explores the rights of nature. How do we translate those rights into material practice be it art, policy, advocacy or restoration? How do you?

Why We Need Forests
Their Vital Role in Climate Dynamics, Rain, and The Biotic Pump
Anastassia Makarieva on The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

In a newly release podcast episode, Nate Hagens from The Great Simplification sat down with friend of Bio4Climate Dr. Anastassia Makarieva to go deep on the critical yet still overlooked role forests play in maintaining ecological balance and climate stability. Through the lens of the biotic pump theory she helped author, Anastassia highlights the importance of moisture and rainfall cycles, the dangers of ecosystem tipping points, and the escalating risks of deforestation. 

Events and Community

Boston | Inaugural Massachusetts Sustainability Day

On September 9, Bio4Climate joined more than 350 participants for the inaugural Massachusetts Sustainability Day at the State House in Boston. The afternoon of exchange saw legislators, senators, representatives, advocacy groups, municipalities, state agencies, and members of the public come together to share ideas and showcase solutions for a more sustainable future. 

Coming on the heels of the Governor’s announcement of new Biodiversity Goals, Sustainability Day was the perfect opportunity to center Bio4Climate’s message that biodiversity is climate infrastructure.

Boston – Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change
Thursday September 18 7:00 pm

The city of Boston and other coastal cities are facing major impacts of climate change. What can we learn from Indigenous communities? Could Traditional Ecological Knowledge be one of the many tools to help us become more resilient?

The Museum of Science hosts an evening of powerful dialogue exploring how Indigenous communities are leading efforts to protect land from the growing threat of wildfires. Speakers will delve into traditional and contemporary fire management practices, the deep-rooted relationship between fire and land, and what it means to be human in the face of climate change.

This speaker series is a collaboration between the museum, Amira Madison (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Hartman Deetz (Mashpee Wampanoag), the Harvard University Native American Program, and the Salata Institute. 

What if we can balance our climate quickly, naturally, affordably?
Virtual | Thursday, September 18 | 12:00 PM ET

Dr. Katie Ross leads this free workshop, offered in partnership with Climate Land Leaders and Biodiversity for a Livable Climate.

We’ll discuss – and potentially be awed by – how the living skin of our landscapes and oceans create our climate from the ground up. Spoiler alert: it’s through the profoundly fascinating intelligence of nature, and how water flows from soil to branch to leaf to cloud and back again, powered entirely by the sun and life. This session will also offer time for you to look at your own patch of Earth and develop questions and insights for climate-restoring actions in your community. 

Courses

Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.

Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?

Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.

This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom. 

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

News and Insights

Rethinking Biodiversity Loss:
Why Climate Change Isn’t the Whole Story
Dr. Poulomi Chakravarty with Hart Hagan

Conserving biodiversity is not only about saving species for their own sake, it is also a powerful climate strategy. Ecosystems like forests, savannahs, and wetlands actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, regulate water cycles, and buffer against climate extremes (Caro et al., 2022).

By protecting these ecosystems, we achieve a double win: slowing biodiversity loss and tackling climate change in a cost-effective, nature-based way.Keep reading below, and dive even deeper with the new course from Bio4Climate: Wildlife & Climate. 

Events and Community

Cambridge | Water is Love!

Thank you to everyone who came out and joined our community screening (and lively discussion) of the film, Water Is Love, at the Cambridge Public Library the last week of August! 

If you haven’t seen it, the documentary showcases case studies from India, Kenya, and Portugal where communities are using decentralized water management methods to restore local water cycles. These efforts not only secure clean water for villages and farms but also help regenerate microclimates. That means cooler landscapes, recharged soils, and, ultimately, regional and global climate stability.

If you find yourself asking, as one young attendee did, “What can we do?” read more from Poulomi Chakravarty, PhD., on her takeaways from the discussion and how we can all take a little more responsibility for the water in our communities.  

Virtual | Beaver-Inspired Landscape Design 

Remember Beaverland, the book by Leila Phillips that most of us couldn’t be pulled away from? It was there we first learned about the work of Dr. Jordan Kennedy, an interdisciplinary researcher whose work bridges non-human animal engineering, hydrodynamics, and Indigenous-led conservation.

Now you can learn directly from Dr. Kennedy! The Beaver Institute is hosting a webinar with her as part of their Beaver Science Speaker Series on September 11, 2pm ET. Holding a Ph.D. and M.S. in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering from Harvard University, Kennedy’s research spans beaver damming behaviors, logjam hydrodynamics, biomimetic design, and beaver-inspired robotics.

Courses

Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.

Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?

Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.

This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom. 

A free introductory webinar is available on September 10. Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

Just looking to dip a toe in? Join us for a free webinar!

News and Insights

The blind conservationist fighting to save nature’s soundscapes
CNN

Juan Pablo Culasso is capturing the voices of Cundinamarca’s diverse landscapes and ecosystems in Colombia, preserving them before they fade, and opening new ways for people to connect with nature.

“Soundscapes are used in science to tell you how healthy is an ecosystem. The most amazing indicator for that are birds. If you can record 2 or 3 different species, that’s a healthy ecosystem.”

Animal Cultures, Under Rising Threat, Are Key To Species Survival
Atmos

Though culture was previously thought to be unique to humans, a growing body of research finds evidence in species of all ilk, from elephants to bumblebees. 

That day in 1998, in his office at the University of Sydney, Dr. Michael Noad uncovered tangible evidence of a rapid, Beatlesque cultural revolution among whales: A song crossed the ocean, cleared a population boundary, and eclipsed what had come before. These song revolutions, it later turned out, happen every few years. More than a decade after his original discovery, Noad and his collaborators found that the leaps don’t stop there. A year later, a new song would appear in New Caledonia, and a year after that, in French Polynesia, in what scientists have aptly come to call “cultural ripples.”

Events and Community

Courses

Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.

Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?

Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.

This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom. 

A free introductory webinar is available on September 10. Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.

Guest speaker Joel Berger, PhD, is Barbara Cox Anthony Chair of Wildlife Conservation at Colorado State University and a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Berger will speak on Thursday, October 16 at 12:00 PM.

Just looking to dip a toe in? Join us for a free webinar!

Courses

Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.

Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?

Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.

This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom. 

A free introductory webinar is available on September 10. Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change in a way that works and can be implemented wherever we live, work and play.

Meet your second guest instructor, fourth generation rancher and founder of the Grasslands Regeneration Project, Alejandro Carrillo. Carrillo will speak on Thursday, October 9 at 7:00 PM.

Birds, hares, rattlesnakes,  desert turtles, mountain lions, black bears, and javelinas, and also populations of lynx, skunk and bobcat all live in balance. 

Carrillo’s “secret” is the careful rotation of his livestock, using techniques that mimic natural rhythms, thereby providing food not only for his cattle, sheep, horses and donkeys, but also for wildlife populations.

Events and Community

Massachusetts Commits to Biodiversity Action

This week, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s administration released a 25-year plan to restore and protect nature across the Commonwealth, a major step forward in recognizing the critical role of biodiversity in climate resilience.

“Nature is our first line of defense against the impacts of climate change — the more biodiverse our forests, wetlands, and marine environments are, the more resilient they are,” said Mass. Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer. 

Bio4Climate contributed to the agenda’s public comment period, advocating for strong protections of mature ecosystems, science-based conservation targets, and a clear emphasis on ecosystem and habitat restoration.

We’re encouraged to see many of these priorities reflected in the final plan, including commitments to restore essential habitats, safeguard key wildlife corridors, and support nature-based solutions across working and urban landscapes. We’re optimistic that this agenda can serve as an actionable blueprint for other governments to prioritize nature-based solutions to climate breakdown. 

“Biodiversity is the foundation for life—it anchors our history, heritage, and culture, supports our health and well-being, food security and economy, and enriches our lives. It is also a key climate solution—nature protects our communities from extreme weather, drought, floods, and heat.”

Miyawaki Dispatch from the Field

Site preparation began this morning at Belmont High School in Belmont, MA, for a new Miyawaki miniforest set to be planted on October 4 (stay tuned).

Designed to emulate a High Terrace Floodplain forest community, the project will bring 1,400 trees and shrubs to the site, representing around 30 diverse native species.

Water Is Love

Celebrate World Water Week with Bio4Climate in Cambridge, MA. Join us in person on Wednesday, August 27 from 6:45 to 8:30pm for a screening of the inspiring film, Water is Love, with brief discussion and snacks at the Cambridge Library Main Branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Water is Love follows a group of youth facing climate change challenges leading to a journey around the world with shared stories of regenerative practices such as ecosystem designs to create water retention in communities, villages, and regions.

The film weaves together traditional ecological knowledge, the role of water in shaping climate, and the urgency of restoring complete water cycles.

News and Insights

Small Fixes for a Big Problem
New York Times

Miniforests. State and local action. Community networks and partnerships.

What if the key to solving big problems isn’t too much more complicated than a heck of a lot of small actions taken together, just like the work everyone in this community is doing every day?

The New York Times has been profiling the potential of regional and hyperlocal climate solutions. And what do most have in common? Deep connection to the earth’s living systems. 

“Local fixes alone won’t stop big environmental problems or stop global warming. That will require a wholesale remaking of the world’s energy, transportation and agricultural systems. But these are precisely the kinds of small-scale solutions that are desperately needed as the world figures out how to live on a hotter, more volatile planet.”

Courses

Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?

Wildlife & Climate, the new course from Bio4Climate taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change in a way that works and can be implemented wherever we live, work and play.

Meet your first guest instructor, agroecologist, Executive Director of the Ecdysis Foundation, and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm, Dr. Jonathan Lundgren. Lundgren will speak on Thursday, October 9 at 12:00 PM.

Lundgren’s work demonstrates how biodiversity fuels the resilience and productivity of agroecosystems, directly linking healthy wildlife populations to climate stability and rural vitality.

His remarkable story featured in What Your Food Ate reveals his courage and integrity as a scientist.

As a graduate student studying genetically modified Bt corn, he discovered that while lady beetles survived for ten days, they were all dead by day eleven. Bound by a nondisclosure agreement, he was barred from reporting the findings yet refused to stay silent. Later, at the USDA, he turned down a thinly veiled bribe to suppress research, choosing instead to publish his results.

Don’t miss this chance to hear Dr. Lundgren share how ecologically intensive farming can restore biodiversity, protect wildlife, and stabilize our climate.

Events and Community

Water Is Love

Celebrate World Water Week with Bio4Climate in Cambridge, MA. Join us in person on Wednesday, August 27 from 6:45 to 8:30pm for a screening of the inspiring film, Water is Love, with brief discussion and snacks at the Cambridge Library Main Branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Water is Love follows a group of youth facing climate change challenges leading to a journey around the world with shared stories of regenerative practices such as ecosystem designs to create water retention in communities, villages, and regions.

The film weaves together traditional ecological knowledge, the role of water in shaping climate, and the urgency of restoring complete water cycles.

Protect Roadless Ecosystems

Bio4Climate joined 150 organizations to co-sign a letter urging Congress and the USDA to go above and beyond preserving the current Roadless Rule and instead enact strong, loophole-free, permanent protections for the nation’s inventoried roadless areas. The USDA announced on June 23, 2025 that the Roadless Rule would be rescinded. 

Dear Members of Congress,

We, the undersigned public lands advocates, ask Congress to urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture to both immediately preserve the “Roadless Rule” (36 CFR, Part 294) and update the policy to enact permanent protection of these 58.2 million acres of priceless and irreplaceable ecosystems. A reformed Roadless Rule needs to end all forms of logging, grazing, mining, and drilling within Inventoried Roadless Area boundaries and close existing loopholes that allow logging and road-building…

News and Insights

International Law Now Demands Climate Action – Atmos

Ever since our GBH conversation with Ecocide International last year, we at Bio4Climate have been fascinated by global legal strategies and the rights of nature (if you can keep a secret, we’ve got a course coming up on this soon).

If you’ve been following along, you may know that Pacific Island nations have long been among the most powerful voices pushing for stronger international climate law. A new advisory ruling from the world’s highest court strengthens the case for reparative and protective interventions and gives advocates new legal ground to stand on.

A five-year quest by Pacific island countries to clarify states’ legal obligations to tackle climate change, triggered by an assignment given to 27 university students, has led to a landmark ruling delivered last week by the world’s highest court in The Hague.

The International Court of Justice ruled unanimously that failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions may be “internationally wrongful.” It said those responsible must stop polluting activities, and—where restoring infrastructure or ecosystems proves impossible—must compensate communities that suffered as a result. The decision also holds states accountable for companies under their jurisdiction which fuel the climate crisis.

Courses

Is wildlife simply at the mercy of climate chaos, or could its survival hold the key to restoring balance?

Wildlife & Climate, the new course from Bio4Climate taught by Hart Hagan, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change in a way that works and can be implemented wherever we live, work and play.

Classes are held twice each Thursday — October 9, 16, 23 & 30. (Afternoon and evening)

We are literally crowding out the natural world and the systems it manages. If we don’t stop, it will not matter how much we reduce emissions. We can live with nature. We cannot live without it. 

What’s it like in a Bio4Climate course? Here’s Dr. Katie Ross earlier this month guest-lecturing in our Water & Climate course. Dr. Ross argues that while transitioning to energy-efficient, renewable, and regenerative systems is vital, a sole focus on carbon technology is insufficient to address the full scope of the climate crisis. Dr. Ross stresses that nature can remove this carbon far more effectively by embedding it into the processes of life, underscoring the need to pair emissions reductions with ecosystem restoration to achieve lasting climate stability.

News and Insights

How healthy are the oceans? Ask a whale shark
New York Times

Each year, researchers gather at Ningaloo Reef off the coast of Australia to study the whale shark—a mystifying ocean giant and a window into global marine health.

“By monitoring them, we’re not just learning about the sharks, we’re learning about ocean health more broadly,” says Dr. Mark Meekan.

As an indicator species, whale sharks reveal the condition of marine environments. Migrating across oceans to feed on plankton-rich waters, they signal nutrient abundance and thriving ecosystems, while also helping track plankton growth.

Events and Community

Transformation in Worcester, Mass.

In the mid-sized Central Massachusetts city of Worcester, long known for its industrial activity, city leadership has undertaken ambitious initiatives to address some of their climate resilience goals using the Miyawaki method.

Together with BSC Group and the City of Worcester, Bio4Climate planned and created two Miyawaki Forests in the heart of downtown last year, bringing together hundreds of community volunteers over multiple planting events to cool, green, and beautify the urban landscape and create a space for nature to thrive.

One forest has been planted at the Worcester Public Library at the McGrath Parking Lot, while the other is located at Plumley Village Apartments. 

News and Insights

• Coaxing Water to Stay on the Land Across N.C. Peatlands
  New York Times
  
  “In its natural state, the soggy, spongy soil known as peat stores exceptional amounts of planet-warming carbon. Peatlands cover only about 3 percent of land on Earth, but they sock away twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests put together. They also offer protection from wildfires, floods and drought, and support rare species.
  
  “But decades ago, in peatlands across North Carolina, people dug ditches to drain the waterlogged earth, often to fell old-growth trees or plant new ones for timber.
  
  “As peat dries, its virtues turn upside down. The soil itself becomes highly flammable. Even without burning, drained peat starts to emit the carbon it once stored, converting a climate solution into a climate problem.”

• Wetland are disappearing
  
  The Convention on Wetlands reports that nearly one-fifth of the world’s wetlands have been lost in the last 50 years. It’s easy to shrug off abstract statistics like that, but what does that loss mean for life on Earth, including ours?
  
  These ecosystems feed human and animal populations, support the water cycle, and reduce the impacts of climate change by buffering extreme weather. But agricultural expansion, urbanization, water drainage, pollution, invasive species, and infrastructure development all threaten these delicate, essential ecologies.
  
  Indigenous and local communities, who often have the deepest ties to these landscapes and depend on them for sustenance, are also key stewards and must have a central role in decision-making. In many cases, preventing destruction in the first place is more cost-effective and ecologically sound than attempting restoration later.
  
  The wetlands that need our help are all around us. What’s in your neck of the woods? Explore the interactive map below!

Events and Community

• The Forest is the Sea’s Lover”
  
  Large chunks of human and more-than-human communities dodge a geological bullet this week, as tsunami threats after an historic earthquake in the Pacific largely failed to materialize. But it certainly got our community thinking. 
  
  From Jim Laurie’s Symbiosis Team, Tim Jones (Gladney Farm, Hokkaido, Japan) thought of Shigeatsu Hatakeyama.
  
  Hatakeyama-san, whom Jones met in 2011, was a fisherman and essayist who championed the connections between living systems. 
  
  He began planting trees at the age of 45. He understood that the nutrients sustaining oysters in the sea are carried by rivers—so to nurture the sea, one must first enrich the forests at its source.*
  
  “For a fisherman to plant trees in the mountains is also to plant trees in people’s hearts.”
  
  *The Asahi Shimbun

Events and Community

• That’s a wrap on the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit!
  
  Across a two-day virtual program and in-person bus tour, the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit drew more 600 registrations from around the region and beyond. Together, we explored the web of relationships that make miniforests, and the communities that care for them, thrive. We’re walking away energized by the care, clarity, and collaboration that emerged from so many corners of this growing movement.
  
  Be on the look out for full session recordings, a new Northeast Miniforest Guide, Mighty Networks community, and so much more! In so many ways, this was just the beginning!

• Thank you to the staff, presenters, and attendees whose enthusiasm made the week what it was, with special gratitude for our sponsors and outreach partners.  

• Cambridge Moth Ball
  
  More than 300 people came together under the stars at Kingsley Park in Cambridge, MA on Wednesday evening for the 2025 Cambridge Moth Ball, a National Moth Week celebration co-hosted with Boston Birding Festival, Earthwise Aware, Cambridge Wildlife Arts, Mystic Charles Pollinator Pathways, the City of Cambridge Fresh Pond Reservation, and other local partners.
  
  This year’s theme focused on micro-moths, the tiny, often overlooked species that play a vital role in ecosystems and climate resilience.
  
  Families, artists, scientists, and nature lovers came together for hands-on activities, moth observation, art-making, and talks by author Cara Giaimo and entomologist Dr. Jane Waters. We also learned to use tools like Buggy and iNaturalist to contribute to real-time biodiversity research.

News and Insights

• In New Jersey, Benefits Bloom in Tiny Forests
  
  The New York Times spoke with experts and miniforest practitioners around Deleware and New Jersey, including Northeast Miniforest Summit keynote speaker, Dr. Doug Tallamy of Homegrown National Park.
  
  “The downsides are few, and the potential benefits could be large.” Dr. Tallamy said. Because the forests start with small seedlings and require little maintenance after the first few years, he said, microforests are one of the cheapest options for boosting nature and biodiversity in cities.

• Governments Are Legally Required to Address Climate Change, Top Global Court Says
  
  The International Court of Justice came out swinging this week, saying that countries that have historically driven the climate crisis have a legal responsibility to clean up their act. If not, they could be on the hook legally, with courts able to order them to stop or pay up.
  
  As international courts call on governments to take responsibility for climate harm, how can they invest in and scale up nature-based solutions to meet the moment?

Courses

• What if your lawn could fight drought, sequester carbon, and grow food?
  
  In the first Water & Climate class last week, Brock Dolman shares how transforming suburban lawns into ecological powerhouses is easier (and more impactful) than you might think!

News and Insights

• Glaciers are dying, and so few of us have even ever met them. 
  
  These powerful monuments of ice, rock, and sediment carve out our landscapes, serve as a water source for 1.9 billion people, enhance biodiversity, and drive natural systems.
  
  Artist, Ludwig Berger, traversed the retreating Morteratsch Glacier in Switzerland simply to listen. We hear the glacier sing and cry as it cracks, carves, and thaws.

• Life finds a way.
  
  Sorry to go all Jeff Goldblum on you, but it had to be done. Tucked away in the Owens Valley area of central California lies Mono Lake. This body of water is a testament to the evolution of life, and how ecosystems can teem with life in the most unlikely of places.
  
  “Twice as salty and alkaline as the ocean, Mono Lake has no outlet. For more than 760,000 years, water has flowed in but escaped only through evaporation, leaving behind dense mineral deposits. The result is an extreme environment where no fish can survive, yet life has adapted in extraordinary ways: Trillions of brine shrimp and alkaline flies thrive in its waters, forming the base of a food web that supports millions of migratory birds each year.”
  
  Read: The Strange, Salty Power Of California’s Mono Lake 

Events and Community

• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  We’re less than a week from the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit, and the Massachusetts bus tour hits the road today!
  
  Meet the speakers and explore the panels that will guide this two day exploration! 
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  
  Register and Learn More
  
  
• Online | Upcoming Free Webinars from Hart Hagan
  
  Discover how habitat loss drives both extinction and climate chaos, and why electrifying everything alone won’t fix it.
   
  Wildlife & Climate Change (July 21)
  
  Wildlife & Wildfire (June 23)
  
  Learn More

News and Insights

• Floods are getting more dangerous around the country.
  
  When storms hit, it’s easy to keep our focus on the weather and the rain. And we’ve certainly seen evidence that climate change is fueling wetter wets. But often, the other half of the story is what the land can no longer do…and all that water has nowhere to go.
  
  Part of the reason is that the land no longer works the way it used to. Forests absorb water. Wetlands slow it down. Healthy soil holds it like a sponge. But when those systems are removed, drained, paved over, and purged of native wildlife, water moves faster, hits harder, and runs off.
  
  We’re not here to point fingers, we’re trying to expand the conversation. When we see how changes to land and water systems shape extreme weather, we also start to see where regeneration can make a difference.
• A Story of Fire and Water
  
  This week the Washington Post looked at how land that’s been burned and denuded from repeat wildfires is seeding the ground for back-to-back flooding in New Mexico. 
  
  And it’s not just proliferating wildfires. Runoff is also driven by degraded land, the lack of biodiverse vegetation, and the absence of natural water engineers like beavers.If you want to better understand floods, you’ve got to look down at the dirt, not just up in the clouds. 

Events and Community

• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  Can you believe we’re just two weeks out from the summit? And fear not, there’s still time to register!
  
  Miniforests are more than trees—they amplify a web of relationships. This summit plants seeds for stronger connections, collective action, and resilient ecosystems. It’s a response to the energy of those eager to help restore Earth, and a step toward a shared path forward rooted in collaboration.
  
  Meet the speakers and explore the panels that will guide this two day exploration! 
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  Register and Learn More

Courses

• Learn from the very best. 
  
  Water is one of nature’s most powerful, yet most overlooked, climate regulators, acting as a built-in cooling system. Join us and a roster of the leading experts and thinkers in an exploration of how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.
  
  REGISTER FOR WATER & CLIMATE

News and Insights

• Is It Time to Break Up With Fireworks?
  
  “I’ve seen first-hand the devastation that fireworks can cause. For several years, when I volunteered as a marine mammal rescuer with a local rescue organization, we reliably collected dozens of distressed sea lion pups and disoriented birds in the days after the big bang of Independence Day. Animal shelters routinely clear their kennels before the Fourth of July (a.k.a. euthanize resident dogs who haven’t been adopted) in preparation for the influx of panicked dogs and cats that jump their owners’ yards, terrified when the big booms go off. Studies in Europe confirm that fireworks displace migratory birds long-term, cause birds to abandon their nests for good and lead wild horses to injure themselves when they flee the noise.” 
  
  “Call me a party pooper, but once I learned all this, I began to hate fireworks with a passion. When I started asking why we need to set off destructive explosives in order to have a good time, I found that all of this could easily be avoided because safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives are readily available.”

Events and Community

• We recently received this powerful message from Cindee Karns in Fairbanks, Alaska, where rising temperatures and wildfires are reshaping daily life with temperatures well above the norm this time of year. Her reflections are a reminder of how urgent, local, and personal climate breakdown has become, and how many people are hungry for regenerative models grounded in living systems.
  

• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  Landscape architect, ecologist, and educator Heather Schibli will close out the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit, delivering the final presentation of the event.
  
  With over a decade of experience designing environments for both humans and non-humans, Heather’s research draws on her expertise in ecological restoration and investigates the emerging field of multispecies design. In an era marked by mass extinction and climate crisis, it is essential to embrace design practices that foster and enrich biodiversity. Landscape architects are uniquely positioned to enhance ecological health and resilience through collaborative approaches and interdisciplinary partnerships. Heather actively welcomes insights from a wide range of fields, recognizing the creative potential in cross-disciplinary exchange.
  
  Presentation:
  The Miyawaki Method vs. Ecology of Place: The Importance of Experimentation and Curiosity in Canada’s Mini Forest Network
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  Join Us!

• Bringing Back the Night Lights: Fireflies and the Power of Small Changes
  
  Homegrown National Park outlines what you can do to help the fireflies in your yard:
  
  Plant Native | Dim the Lights | Reduce Pesticide Use | Skip Mosquito Fogging | Leave Some Leaf Litter | Leave Decaying Wood | Establish No-Mow Zones | Maintain Moist Spots
  
  Learn More

Events and Community

• Mass. | Join us for a miniforest bus tour!
  
  Registration for the 2025 Massachusetts Miniforest Bus Tour is now open! 
  Part of the Northeast Miniforest Summit, this bus tour to four different Massachusetts miniforests on Saturday, July 19, provides a reference point for how the Miyawaki method can be used in urban settings, in rural environments, and in collaboration with school groups.
  
  Please note that two bus options are available. 
  
  Bus A: Saturday, July 19 at 9am ET
  Bus B: Saturday, July 19 at 10am ET
  Join Us!
• As many of you in our Bio4Climate community may know, our co-founder, biologist, futurist and friend Jim Laurie is on the mend following knee surgery. Katya Stupina recently spent a day with Jim, connecting and healing over nature. 
  
  Today was a day full of learning and time spent well with a dear friend. Jim and I started our morning at a local diner (where of course, everyone knew Jim). Two quick hours later, we went to Horn Pond, saw Pluto, and conquered a hill.
  
  We talked about robins, fungi, beavers, lichens, grasslands and grazing animals, tides, the water table, flooding forests, and Jim’s four principles for healthy lands:
  
  1) Bringing infiltration teams to the land
  2) Making bare ground illegal
  3) Maximizing the consciousness of species, in the soil and everywhere
  4) Developing living shorelines
  
  From there, we set off on a quick field trip to an abandoned parking lot in Woburn to see how soil is reclaiming the land, how natural succession takes the reins once people move on and life simply knows just what to do.
• Virtual | A FIRST LOOK
  
  Join master storyteller Judith Black for an early telling of her newest piece: Feedback Loops, a 45-minute story about climate collapse, political action, and staying tender in the face of it all.
  
  What does it mean to act with clarity, with care for others as well as ourselves, and with an open heart?
  
  Live in Marblehead, Mass.
  
  June 29 at 6 PM
  July 13 at 6 PM
  
  Live on Zoom
  
  July 9 at 6PM
  RSVP via email

News and Insights

• Roadless Rule A Reckless Attack On Climate Regulators
  
  Read our full statement on the federal government’s move to declare “open-season” on 58 million acres of native forests, paving the way for road and development construction.
  
  “…Tearing up these ecosystems for short-term profit threatens to unravel climate stability through cascading, long-range feedbacks. What harms a forest in one place can disturb rainfall, heat balance, and ecological life somewhere else…” 
• Perspective: Bio4Climate in Washington
  
  Last week, Bio4Climate Science Communications Intern Adrianna Drindak attended a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., by The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Federation of American Scientists about how federal policies can bolster resilience to extreme heat.
  
  “While it is important to identify ways to survive the present conditions, that is not a long-term solution to limiting the effects of extreme heat. We must target the source of extreme heat, which lies with our carbon emissions and disrupted ecosystems, to work towards a cooler future. And that HAS to be a part of every heat mitigation briefing, conversation, and agenda.”
  
  Read the full dispatch. 

Courses

• Learn from the very best. 
  
  Water is one of nature’s most powerful, yet most overlooked, climate regulators, acting as a built-in cooling system. Join us and a roster of the leading experts and thinkers in an exploration of how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.
  
  Want to start with a brief introduction on how water regulates the climate?  Attend a free webinar hosted by instructor Hart Hagan:
  
  The Cooling Power of Evaporating Water
  Monday, June 30 – 12:00 noon ET
  
  Your Climate Friendly Backyard
  Wednesday, July 2 – 7:00 pm ET
  
  Regenerative Farming & Water
  Thursday, July 3 – 3:00 pm ET
  
  The Worldwide Loss of Soil Moisture
  Monday, July 7 – 12:00 noon ET
  
  Reforestation has Cooled the Eastern US
  Wednesday, July 9 — 7:00 pm ET

Courses

• Much of the US is (or is about to be) buried under record-shattering heat to start the summer. 
  
  Water is one of nature’s most powerful, yet most overlooked, climate regulators, acting as a built-in cooling system. Join us and an impressive roster of experts and thinkers in an exploration of how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.

News and Insights

• First Day of Summer Brings Record Heat Around Globe
  
  Any doubt in much of the northern hemisphere that the summer solstice has arrived is sure to be shattered, or sweat out, this week. 
  
  And it’s not just the U.S. From London to Madrid to Beijing, temperatures across the hemisphere are either flirting with or exceeding 100° F this week. In most of these geographies, these temperatures would be near record-setting in the deep summer, let alone on the season’s first day. 
  
  Cooling centers and fans are frequent public safety measures in times like this, but they’re limited bandaids that don’t always reach the people who need them most, nor do they address the root of the problems we’re collectively facing. 
  
  Unpack how nature cools our overheating planet & restores the systems that balance the climate & keep it in check in the first place. 

Events and Community

• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  Coakee William Wildcat, founder and executive director of Mother Tree Food & Forest, will close out the first day of the Northeast Miniforest Summit!
  
  Presentation: Using the Miyawaki Method to Empower Agroecology and Food Forestry
  
  To conclude our first day together, Coakee invites us to explore how the Miyawaki method and successional agroforestry systems illuminate and empower each other. Native species forests are food forests. We’ll take a look at what the Miyawaki method teaches us about the ecology of the metaorganism, and how we can use this wisdom to grow healthier farms and gardens.
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  
  Keep an eye out…but tour tickets go on sale next week!
  LEARN MORE AND REGISTER
• Big news from Cambridge! On June 15, our partners the Native Plant Community Gardeners launched the very first native-plant pollinator garden in a Cambridge (MA) public park, right by our first Miyawaki Forest at Danehy Park.
  
  More than 30 volunteers (with invaluable support from the Danehy Park staff) planted 160 native flowers, shrubs, and grasses (20 species) across a 450 sq ft bed. From Swamp Milkweed, Wild Geranium, and Butterfly Weed to Calico Aster, Wild Bergamot, and Bee Balm, these plants will feed and shelter the location’s hardworking pollinators for years to come. 
  
  We’re proud to have supported this community-powered project alongside the City of Cambridge, and we’re excited to see the garden grow. If you’re local, stop by Danehy Park to check it out, and consider volunteering as a garden steward to help with watering and weeding through the season.
  
  You can find the new garden about 80 feet west of the Miyawaki Forest, just off the main path!
• Online | Upcoming Free Webinars from Hart Hagan
  
  Sometimes there’s nothing more enlightening than looking down to figure out what’s up with the climate. A series of free webinars from journalist Hart Hagan goes digging in the dirt for some surprising answers. 
   
  The Worldwide Loss of Soil Moisture (June 23)
  
  My Kentucky Garden (June 25)
  
  Plants & Climate Change (June 27)
  RSVP & LEARN MORE

Courses

• What are climate models missing about water?
  
  The planet has a built-in cooling system—through the cycling of water—and it’s one of nature’s most powerful, yet most overlooked, climate regulators.
  
  Join us and an impressive roster of experts and thinkers in an exploration of how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.

News and Insights

• Oceans: Legal Personhood For Whales
  
  In a June 4 address at the One Ocean Science Congress, Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho of the Kingdom of Tonga announced plans to grant legal personhood to whales. Personhood is a legal maneuver that recognizes non-human beings as rights-bearing entities under the law, giving governments stronger tools to protect their lives and habitats.
  
  This proposed legislation is a continuation of efforts to maintain Tongan waters as a refuge for whales, often a keystone species in ocean ecosystems. 
  
  The announcement for expanded whale protections coincides with the United Nations Oceans Conference, which concluded on June 13th (more on this below). At the summit, UN members advanced Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) significantly closer to ratification, expanding sustainable practices within international waters.

Events and Community

• Nice, France | 2025 UN Ocean Conference
  
  Earlier this week, Bio4Climate board member Shannon Scrofano spoke at Ocean Literacy Practices: Knowing, Feeling, Acting for the Ocean, part of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Alongside representatives from Escuna Criativa e.u., Ocean Generation, The Marine Diaries, and Red Sea Global, Shannon’s panel explored how creative practices, from art and design to movement and storytelling, can foster deeper emotional and sensory connections with the sea. 
  
  Shannon’s interdisciplinary work in design, education, and communication centers place-based approaches to strengthen both social and ecological systems.
  
  Way to go Shannon!
• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  Meet our Northeast Miniforest Summit opening keynote speakers! 
  Hannah Lewis, Author of Mini-Forest Revolution
  Keynote: The Miyawaki Method: Past, Present, Future
  
  In this opening keynote address, Hannah will present what the Miyawaki Method is, who Akira Miyawaki was, how this practice became a global phenomenon, and mini-forests as a mechanism for embracing and understanding ecology.
  
  Doug Tallamy, Professor of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and co-founder of Homegrown National Park
  Keynote: Miniforests as part of the Homegrown National Park
  
  Doug will address the ecological potential of miniforests. Urban centers have never been seriously considered for conservation, yet adding productive native plants to our cities can help manage the watershed, support complex communities of pollinators, support local food webs, and sequester carbon. Evidence is mounting that mini forests can meet all of these essential ecological goals.
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  LEARN MORE AND REGISTER

Courses

• Join Walter Jehne in the classroom!
  
  Soil Microbiologist and Innovation Strategist, and Co-Founder of Regenerate Earth Walter Jehne joins what might be Bio4Climate’s most stacked classroom ever. Instructor Hart Hagan leads a four-week study of water & climate, and how forests, grasslands, and wetlands act as Earth’s air conditioners, and how we can restore these powerful systems right where we live.
  
  He’s accompanied throughout the course by guest instructors Jehne, Katie Ross, Didi Perhouse, Anastassia Makarieva, and Brock Dolman. 
  
  Join us is an exploration of how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.

News and Insights

• The Microbial Garden Within
  
  Biodiversity is not just something found in forest, wetlands, and oceans. It’s in the soil and on your skin. Diverse life is all around, and within, us. 
  
  “Inside you, there is a garden. It teems with microscopic communities of life forms—microbes including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa—that are rich in purpose we are only beginning to understand. This garden also envelopes you, growing on all your surfaces to form an invisible barrier. It is the threshold where you interface with the world, a world rich with its own unseen gardens. What I’m talking about here is your microbiome: the world within you.
  
  Humans might act as if the Earth belongs to us, but microbes were here long before us. ”
  KEEP READING ON ATMOS

Events and Community

• Virtual | 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit
  
  Did you catch our big announcement this week? We’re thrilled to open registration for the 2025 Northeast Miniforest Summit, a multi-day event focused on advancing miniforest projects and cultivating a spirit of collaborative ecological restoration across the region.
  
  Spread virtually across two days and an in-person bus tour, the Northeast Minforest Summit brings together practitioners, researchers, and leaders from a range of disciplinary perspectives—including city officials, landscape architects, scientists, and community organizers—to explore the Miyawaki method from root to canopy.
  LEARN MORE AND REGISTER
• Virtual | Ecorestoration & Social Justice Around the World, June 10
  
  Join us on Tuesday, June 10, as we team up with MAPA Peace & Climate Group to explore ecorestoration efforts around the world that challenge colonial models and extractive climate responses with community-driven solutions. As top down aid programs face political challenges, we will talk with programs in Senegal and the Amazon working from the ground up with local communities to leverage eco-restoration into both climate and economic resilience. 
  
  John Leary, Executive Director, Mother Trees
  Rob de Laet, Project Lead, Cooling the Climate
  Ousmane Aly Pame, PhD, distinguished professor of literature at Université of Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal and founder and President of REDES
  
  Moderated by:
  Beck Mordini, Executive Director, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
  REGISTER AND LEARN MORE
• Greater Boston | Miyawaki Forest Bike Tour, Self-guided
  
  Lace up and clip in for a summer of regenerative riding. 
  
  This self-guided cycling route, designed by a Boston University student team for Cycle to Science, winds through four Miyawaki mini-forests across the Boston area, including our very own forests at Danehy Park and Greene-Rose Park. These densely planted forests are small in size but mighty in function, cooling neighborhoods, restoring biodiversity, and reconnecting communities with nature.
  
  Have fun, send us some photos, and please wear a helmet!
  GIVE ME THE ROUTE DETAILS

Courses

• More expert instructors added!
  
  Katie Ross was raised in central Wisconsin and graduated with a degree in Ecology from Columbia University. She has focused on climate change by supporting Tribes and rural communities in their transition away from fossil fuels, both in Wisconsin and later in Australia.  After 15 years as a transdisciplinary action researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures within the University of Technology Sydney and a doctoral inquiry into transformative learning, her focus shifted to the life beneath our soles – within our soils. She worked for and led Soils for Life, an Australian organisation supporting farmers transitioning to regenerative agriculture. 
  
  Didi Pershouse is the author of  The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities and Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function. She teaches participatory workshops on the nested relationships between soil health, human health, water cycles, and climate resiliency.  She is the founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative and the Center for Sustainable Medicine, and a co-founder of the “Can we Rehydrate California?” Initiative. She is an independent trainer and curriculum developer for the UN-FAO Farmer Field School Program and the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Initiative in India. 
  
  New research has uncovered a surprising driver of sea level rise: shrinking soil moisture is sending more water into the oceans than melting glaciers—more than twice as much.
  
  It points to something most climate conversations miss: nature’s water cycles are breaking down.
  
  In our new course, Water & Climate, you’ll learn how forests, grasslands, and wetlands act as Earth’s air conditioners, and how we can restore these powerful systems right where we live.
  
  Join us and discover alongside a roster of experts how water, not just carbon, holds the key to a livable future.
  
  Early bird registration ends today and gives you immediate access to our private Water Cools group, where you’ll receive valuable resources and conversation ahead of the course.

News and Insights

• In Death, New Life: The Science And Symbolism of a Whale Fall
  
  Writer Omnia Saed explores how a whale’s death becomes a deep-sea cradle of life, and an expression of renewal, memory, and transformation.
  
  What’s happened in the past can sustain life in the present in ways we are only beginning to understand.
  
  A whale fall is more than just the end of one life—it is the beginning of countless others. Each stage transforms the carcass into a foundation for vibrant ecosystems, offering sustenance in the ocean’s darkest, most inhospitable depths.
  
  The whale’s final descent becomes a poignant testament to this relentless cycle of life—a story of renewal echoing through the ocean’s depths, where nothing is wasted, where the large feeds the small and the small feeds the large in a potentially endless loop, and everything is repurposed to sustain the next chapter. 

Events and Community

• Virtual | Ecorestoration & Social Justice Around the World, June 10
  
  Join us on Tuesday, June 10, as we team up with MAPA Peace & Climate Group to explore ecorestoration efforts around the world that challenge colonial models and extractive climate responses with community-driven solutions. As top down aid programs face political challenges, we will talk with programs in Senegal and the Amazon working from the ground up with local communities to leverage eco-restoration into both climate and economic resilience. 
  
  John Leary, Executive Director, Mother Trees
  Rob de Laet, Project Lead, Cooling the Climate
  Ousmane Aly Pame, PhD, distinguished professor of literature at Université of Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal and founder and President of REDES
  
  Moderated by:
  Beck Mordini, Executive Director, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate
  REGISTER AND LEARN MORE
• Greater Boston | Miyawaki Forest Bike Tour, Self-guided
  
  Lace up and clip in for a summer of regenerative riding. 
  
  This self-guided cycling route, designed by a Boston University student team for Cycle to Science, winds through four Miyawaki mini-forests across the Boston area, including our very own forests at Danehy Park and Greene-Rose Park. These densely planted forests are small in size but mighty in function, cooling neighborhoods, restoring biodiversity, and reconnecting communities with nature.
  
  Have fun, send us some photos, and please wear a helmet!
  GIVE ME THE ROUTE DETAILS

Courses

• Meet your instructors! Visionary experts Brock Dolman and Anastassia Makarieva will each join our upcoming Water & Climate course to teach a class as guest experts. 
  
  Instead of “Planet Earth,” biologist, educator, and policy changemaker Brock Dolman calls our home “Planet Water” to help reframe thinking about more progressive settlement systems, land use and water management practices at the watershed scale.
  
  Dr. Anastassia Makarieva is a leading researcher of howecosystems shape the water cycle. Listen to her explain the biotic pump theory she co-invented.  
  
  Water & Climate is a new 4-week course that will change the way you think about climate solutions. Early bird registration gives you immediate access to our private Water Cools group, where you’ll receive valuable resources and conversation ahead of the course.

News and Insights

• Is a river alive?
  
  Robert Macfarlane sat down with Emergence Magazine to talk about his upcoming book and how we can reimagine our relationship to, and understanding of, water. 
  
  I take the opportunity to “who rivers” all the way through: “the river who flows; the river who runs; the river who reaches the sea”—not which. And English is a language of “it”-ing, of objectifying. In French, as you’ll know very well, it’s la rivière or la fluve qui coule—who—so they have the “who” present, but we don’t. And I also kind of scratched my head very early on: I suddenly realized that “to river” is not a verb in English. But what could be more of a verb than a river? 

Events and Community

• Community Spotlight: Andover Climate Changemakers Forum 
  
  At the recent Andover Climate Changemakers Forum in Andover, Massachusetts, where representatives from 24 towns across Essex County gathered to share local climate solutions, Dianne Plantamura presented her own “recipe card” laying out a thoughtful, replicable plan for rewilding Veasey Park’s underutilized spaces using the Miyawaki forest method, planting a variety of native trees and plants to restore biodiversity, improve soil and water health, and build community connection through hands-on ecological stewardship. It’s part of a powerful collection of local action “recipes” aimed at regenerating ecosystems from the ground up.
• Cambridge | Call for Volunteers, June & ongoing
  
  Join us in bringing a Native Plant Pollinator Garden at Danehy Park to life!
  
  This summer, Bio4Climate is teaming up with NPCG and the City of Cambridge to plant a Native Plant Pollinator Garden at Danehy Park, near our existing miniforest.
  
  We’re looking for volunteers to help with soil preparation (June 7), planting (June 15), and ongoing stewardship (watering and weeding) throughout the season. Whether you can help for a single day or throughout the summer, we’d love to have you!
  Volunteer for the Native Plant Pollinator Garden
  
  

Courses

• Register early to start learning now. Early bird registration for Bio4Climate’s newest course gives you immediate access to our private Water Cools group, where the instructor is already sharing valuable resources and sparking conversation ahead of the course.
  
  Water & Climate is a new 4-week course from Bio4Climate that will change the way you think about climate solutions. You’ll come away with clear, practical steps to restore water cycles and cool your community, starting in your own backyard.
  
  Through the cycling of water, plants, clouds, grasslands, and forests help stabilize Earth’s temperatures. When these systems are healthy, they cool the planet and we hardly notice them. And when they’re not healthy? Well, we all notice that.
  
  Register for Water & Climate
  
  

Events and Community

• Earlier this month, students, teachers, and neighbors came together to trace the future footprint of a miniforest at Belmont High School, set to be planted this fall in a joint effort by Bio4Climate and Miyawaki Forest Action Belmont. This tiny but mighty forest will support the campus ecosystem, spark curiosity as a living classroom, and empower students to be stewards of the living world. Stay tuned!
  
  Photo by David Mussina
• Virtual | Native Plants Planted Right, May 20
  
  As part of Week 3 of the Less Lawn More Life Challenge, Wild Ones is hosting a free beginner-friendly webinar: “Native Plants Planted Right: A Practical Guide for Beginners” on Tuesday, May 20 at 6pm ET. 
  
  Designed for those new to native gardening, the 30-minute webinar covers site assessment, plant selection, planting techniques, and simple maintenance tips, plus real-world garden examples to inspire any yard transformation.
  
  No advance registration required.
  
  Tune in for Native Plants Planted Right
  
• Cambridge | Call for Volunteers, June 
  
  Join us in bringing a Native Plant Pollinator Garden at Danehy Park to life!
  
  This summer, Bio4Climate is teaming up with NPCG and the City of Cambridge to plant a Native Plant Pollinator Garden at Danehy Park, near our existing miniforest.
  
  We’re looking for volunteers to help with soil preparation, planting, and ongoing stewardship (watering and weeding) throughout the season. Whether you can help for a single day or throughout the summer, we’d love to have you!
  
  Volunteer for the Native Plant Pollinator Garden
  
• Boston | Women’s Fly Casting Clinic, June 14
  
  Greater Boston Trout Unlimited is hosting a free Women’s Fly Casting Clinic on Saturday, June 14 (9am–12pm) at Herter Park, along the Charles River in Boston. Open to all skill levels, this event offers women a welcoming introduction to the art of fly casting and the joy of connecting with nature through fishing.
  
  Led by experienced female instructors, including Cynthia Harkness of Fearless Fly Fishing, the clinic will cover casting techniques, body mechanics, and different casting styles. Participants will receive hands-on instruction, opportunities for practice, and a chance to build community with fellow women anglers. Pre-registration required.
• 
  
  

Courses

• The climate is overheating, but nature has a built-in cooling system.
  
  Water & Climate is a new 4-week course from Bio4Climate that will change the way you think about climate solutions. You’ll learn how water, not just carbon, regulates Earth’s temperature, and how forests, grasslands, wetlands, and animals work together to keep the planet cool.
  
  More importantly, you’ll come away with clear, practical steps to restore water cycles and cool your community, starting in your own backyard.
  
  ♦ 4 live Zoom sessions starting July 10 (recordings included)
  ♦ Real-world examples, strategies, and a powerful new lens on climate
  ♦ Taught by climate journalist Hart Hagan
  
  Register for Water & Climate
  
  

News and Insights

• In a forest deep in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, a multinational team of scientists recorded something extraordinary: spruce trees syncing their electrical activity, communicating with each other, just hours before a solar eclipse. Older trees responded first. To the research team, this suggests they may hold “ancient memories” and help guide younger trees, like elders anchoring a community.
  
  The research adds a rich new layer to our understanding of the underground network of roots and mycorrhizae as a dynamic, living intelligence that responds collectively to changes in the world (and worlds) around it. 
  
  This trend underscores the broader ecological crisis, and is a big reason why we have a Featured Creature series in the first place. Every creature is an important part of some system. Birds play crucial roles in pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control. Their decline signals deeper environmental issues that also threaten human and non-human health and well-being.
• A new Miami Herald investigation dives into Florida’s “climate denial bubble,” where real estate values continue to climb in flood-prone neighborhoods, even after devastating storms and King Tides. In many cases, prices actually rose after extreme flooding, driven by short-term thinking and demand that ignores mounting risk.
  
  It’s a reminder of what’s often missing from mainstream climate conversations: the planet will endure, but the systems we (and all living things) rely on for stability, safety, and survival may not. As risks accelerate, so does the urgency to work with nature to protect what makes life livable. The most immediate tools we have are living systems that regulate water, heat, and resilience beneath, on, and above the ground.

Events and Community

• Cambridge | A day of Biodiversity
  
  On Saturday, May 3rd, Bio4Climate, in partnership with the City of Cambridge and under the leadership of Andrew Putnam, Superintendent of Urban Forestry and Landscapes, planted our third Miyawaki forest — and our seventh forest overall. Covering 2,000 square feet, this new forest mirrors the planting density of the thriving Greene-Rose Park miniforest, marking another important milestone in our ongoing efforts to restore urban biodiversity and enhance climate resilience. We were joined by around 30 enthusiastic volunteers of all ages, whose support made the planting day a success — and for that, we are truly grateful.
  
  The words “earth repair,” “reciprocity,” “meaningful connection,” “stewardship,” and “ecological functionality” reflect the core purpose of mini-forests. These small yet powerful ecosystems symbolize the relationships we are working to rebuild — between people, the land, and the more-than-human world. We are especially excited for students to experience this living classroom, participate in its care, and grow alongside it! 
  
  Afterwards, we joined our friends at Boston Birding and Native Plant Community Gardeners at Danehy Park for an afternoon of communal knowledge exchange and outdoor fun in celebration of Biodiversity Day. 
  
  Here are just a few of our favorite moments from the weekend!

News and Insights

• A recent Washington Post article by Sarah Kaplan highlights a record-breaking spike in atmospheric CO₂ in 2024, an increase far beyond what fossil fuel emissions alone can explain. Scientists are beginning to recognize that stressed ecosystems, particularly forests, are no longer able to absorb carbon the way they once did. Drought, wildfire, and extreme heat have weakened nature’s carbon sinks to the point that they may now be releasing more CO₂ than they absorb.Because it’s not just what we’re putting into the atmosphere, it’s what we’re destroying that would otherwise keep it in balance. Taking this reporting further means looking at the full climate function of ecosystems, especially their role in managing water. Forests don’t just store carbon, they create clouds, move heat away from the Earth’s surface through evapotranspiration, and help bring and hold water inland, buffering drought and building healthier soil. When ecosystems break down, the whole climate system begins to unravel.
• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has revealed alarming declines in bird populations across every U.S. habitat, with 229 species in urgent need of conservation efforts.
  
  This trend underscores the broader ecological crisis, and is a big reason why we have a Featured Creature series in the first place. Every creature is an important part of some system. Birds play crucial roles in pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control. Their decline signals deeper environmental issues that also threaten human and non-human health and well-being.

Events and Community

• Your own backyard! | Less Lawn, More Life
  
  Bio4Climate is partnering with Plant It Wild, Homegrown National Park, and other leading organizations on the nationwide Less Lawn, More Life Challenge, a FREE program to help transform more yards into thriving ecosystems! 
  
  Weekly challenges are designed to engage your curiosity and help you transform your lawn into a vibrant ecosystem teeming with life. Discover simple techniques to create habitat that butterflies, birds, and beneficial insects can’t resist. 

News and Insights

• In a world where carbon is often cast as the villain, Judy Schwartz sits down with Paul Hawken for an interview that invites us to see it instead as the lifeblood of all living systems.
  
  Judith Schwartz: How might humanity’s relationship with the broader living world change if we asked questions like “what does carbon want?” or “what would carbon do?”
  
  Paul Hawken: This objectifies carbon as well. We might ask: What do we want? Do we want to live in a world where 60-70 percent of pollinators have disappeared? Did we want a 73 percent reduction in animal life on the planet in the past fifty years? Do we want to see the mantle of Earth, the soil, the source of all land life, obliterated by chemicals? Do we want to pursue bogus technological solutions such as direct air capture (DAC), carbon capture systems (CCS), bio-energy carbon capture systems (BECSS), etc? We might ask ourselves this: there are approximately 8.4 million species and about 3.4 trillion creatures overall on Earth. Do we want to be the only species that dysregulates the atmosphere by destroying the biosphere?
• Does what happens in the soil impact what happens in the sea? 
  
  Uh, yeah. 
  
  Rob Moir, Director of the Ocean River Institute, explains how Miyawaki forests like ours at Danehy Park and Greene-Rose Park (both featured here) reduce runoff and help cool coastal ecosystems.

Events and Community

• Cambridge | Celebrate Biodiversity Day With Us!
  
  In the Boston area? Spend the day with Bio4Climate celebrating the power of nature, community, and biodiversity on Saturday, May 3. 
  
  8am–12pm: Pant a new Miyawaki forest!
  Join us at Peabody Elementary School (70 Rindge Ave, Cambridge, MA) to help plant a new miniforest. This is the third collaboration between Bio4Climate and the City of Cambridge, and we’d love for you to be part of it. Volunteer for one of two morning shifts and help create a thriving urban ecosystem. Volunteer sign-up here.
  
  3pm–5pm: Keep the celebration going at Danehy Park.
  Join Native Plant Community Gardeners, Bio4Climate, and Boston Birding for an afternoon of nature, learning, and community fun. Enjoy nature walks, bird-watching, live music, games for all ages, and a preview of a new native plant pollinator garden coming to the park. RSVP here. x

• Our Looming Water Crisis: Is It Already Here?
  
  Join Taunton Area AAUW for a free virtual conversation with a few familiar faces exploring the urgent realities of the global water crisis, and what we can do about it.
  
  Featuring author Judith D. Schwartz, Voices of Water Director Zuzka Mulkerin and Bio4Climate Associate Director of Regenerative Projects Alexandra Ionescu in conversation together on nature-based solutions for restoring water cycles, building resilience, and protecting this most essential resource.
  
  Open to all with an interest in water, ecosystems, and climate solutions.
  
  Register Here for Our Looming Water Crisis

News and Insights

• They call him “Yoda for scientists.” But to Bio4Climate’s Jim Laurie, John Todd has always been a wonderful mentor, and a friend.
  
  They first met at the New Alchemy Institute in 1988, when John was building systems of bacteria, microbes, plants, fungi, and animals—self-organizing communities capable of breaking down toxic wastes from agricultural and septage lagoons.
  
  It changed the trajectory of Jim’s career as a scientist, steward, and curious mind.
  
  Guided by John’s breakthroughs in these eco-machines, Jim went on to design and construct his own living ecosystems, capable of breaking down toxic industrial pollutants like ammonia, chloroform, and BPA.
  
  In 1995, John Todd designed an EPA-backed Vermont Eco-Machine housed in a greenhouse, and Jim moved to Vermont to operate it. That greenhouse treated municipal sewage to a high standard, even through the bone-chilling New England winters.
  
  These were not just experiments in biology; they were critical turning points for Jim, moments when he saw firsthand that nature, when nurtured (if not always fully understood), could often repair humanity’s worst environmental damage.
  
  John’s words still guide Jim to this day. “When you include all kingdoms of life, nature is self-organizing and relentless.”

• Last week we talked about the arrival of new data painting a clearer picture of what we already know: that the planet’s land is drying out—and fast. Soil moisture levels are dropping across large parts of the Earth. And not just in historically dry regions, but in places once thought to be stable too. 
  
  The data shows where the land is drying. But it doesn’t tell the full story of what happens next, or how we can fix it…

Events and Community

• Our Looming Water Crisis: Is It Already Here?
  
  Join Taunton Area AAUW for a free virtual conversation with a few familiar faces exploring the urgent realities of the global water crisis, and what we can do about it.
  
  Featuring author Judith D. Schwartz, Voices of Water Director Zuzka Mulkerin and Bio4Climate Associate Director of Regenerative Projects Alexandra Ionescu in conversation together on nature-based solutions for restoring water cycles, building resilience, and protecting this most essential resource.
  
  Open to all with an interest in water, ecosystems, and climate solutions.
  
  Register Here for Our Looming Water Crisis

• Essex County, Mass. | What does it mean to love a forest?
  
  Join author & forester, Ethan Tapper, at Veasey Park to explore the deep connection and meaning behind loving a forest on May 5th, 2025.
  
  Tapper, author of How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World, will lead an exploration of what it means to care for forests and other ecosystems at this moment in time.
  
  Prior to Ethan’s talk, at 6:00, all are invited to tour the new Miyawaki Forest on the Veasey property with Massachusetts Master Gardener, Dianne Plantamura.

News and Insights

• Over the last two decades, satellites have revealed something that we’ve been ringing the alarm bell on for some time: the planet’s land is drying out—and fast. Soil moisture levels are dropping across large parts of the Earth. And not just in historically dry regions, but in places once thought to be stable too. 
  
  The culprit isn’t as simple as “less rain.” Rising temperatures are causing more evaporation, and human activity, like deforestation, agriculture, and land degradation, is making it harder for the soil to hold on to water. 
  
  That water doesn’t just vanish. It flows downstream, into rivers, and eventually into the ocean. When land dries out, it loses its ability to cool itself, feed plants, and support ecosystems. And once that cycle breaks, it gets harder and harder to bring the water back.
  
  But we CAN bring the water back.

Events and Community

• Our Looming Water Crisis: Is It Already Here?
  
  Join Taunton Area AAUW for a free virtual conversation with a few familiar faces exploring the urgent realities of the global water crisis, and what we can do about it.
  
  Featuring author Judith D. Schwartz, Voices of Water Director Zuzka Mulkerin and Bio4Climate Associate Director of Regenerative Projects Alexandra Ionescu in conversation together on nature-based solutions for restoring water cycles, building resilience, and protecting this most essential resource.
  
  Open to all with an interest in water, ecosystems, and climate solutions.
  
  Register Here for Our Looming Water Crisis

• Online | Bio4Climate is proud to co-host the 2025 Midwest Beaver Summit this June, centered on the theme, “Resilience Through Relationships.”  Thursday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT
  
  This theme reflects a fundamental truth: thriving ecosystems depend on strong relationships—between species, landscapes, and people. Advocating for beavers means fostering connections across different perspectices, listening to concerns, and working together to find solutions that benefit both communities and ecosystems.
  
  In-person attendance available in Des Plaines, Illinois. 
  
  Whether you join us online or in person, we hope to see you there!

News and Insights

• What happens when you bury a highway? Madrid Río is a transformative ecorestoration project that revitalized the Manzanares River corridor in Madrid, Spain, by rerouting a section of the M-30 highway underground and rewilding the river it once traversed, becoming a benchmark for urban ecological recovery. And in a city particularly susceptible to temperature extremes as the planet warms, the project demonstrates the value of investing in nature-based solutions to keep the city, and all who spend time there there, livable and cool. 
  
  Want to learn more about Madrid Río?
  Check out our short video on Instagram!
• At the recent R-Futures Conference, ecological designer Zach Weiss presented From Dreamer to Doer, a talk focused on practical pathways for restoring local water cycles. Drawing from recent scientific insights and on-the-ground experience, the presentation outlines how water cycle restoration can reverse drought, reduce the risks of floods and fires, and support the return of healthy, abundant ecosystems.

Events and Community

• Oberlin, OH | Join Peace Community Center for a screening and group discussion of the film, Regenerating Life. Sunday, April 6, 1 pm to 4 ET
  
  Regenerating Life takes an ecological look at the environmental crises and, by challenging the prevailing climate change story, offers new, attainable solutions. It also features a cameo by our own Jim Laurie 😉
  
  Contact organizers for more information.
• Online | Bio4Climate is proud to co-host the 2025 Midwest Beaver Summit this June, centered on the theme, “Resilience Through Relationships.”  Thursday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT
  
  This theme reflects a fundamental truth: thriving ecosystems depend on strong relationships—between species, landscapes, and people. Advocating for beavers means fostering connections across different perspectices, listening to concerns, and working together to find solutions that benefit both communities and ecosystems.
  
  In-person attendance available in Des Plaines, Illinois. 
  
  Whether you join us online or in person, we hope to see you there!

• Did you see that the United States just shut down a national tree-planting initiative that helped communities mitigate increasing heat, flooding, and climate collapse across the country?
  
  With heat intensifying each summer, and government support drying up, our work together just became even more urgent. Areas without trees will be sweltering as concrete and asphalt soak up the sun and reflect back heat.
  
  Learn more about how our Miyawaki Forest Program is helping local community groups to plant these dense, biodiverse forests in the schoolyards, vacant lots, and urban heat islands that need them most.
• How Native Plants Help Reclaim Water Resilience in Kansas City
  
  In Kansas City, Carl Stafford and My Region Wins! are using native planting as a tool to address two growing environmental challenges: stormwater runoff and future water insecurity. Through its Go Green Campaign, the organization is encouraging residents, business owners, and community groups to explore the role that native grasses and plants can play in improving local water cycles and restoring ecological balance.
  
  The initiative also invites reflection on the cultural and historical dimensions of urban landscaping, challenging the legacy of non-native species like Kentucky bluegrass, and making space for art, equity, and ecological restoration to intersect.
  
  Learn more and pre-order your own native plants
• Join Katya Stupina for an upcoming Planetary Boundaries Fresco workshop to understand the bigger picture and gain a systemic perspective. This interactive workshop will help you make sense of the complex relationships between biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate, and how we can act to keep the planet within a safe operating space.
  
  Grounded in the Planetary Boundaries Framework — a scientific model that defines the thresholds within which humanity can thrive — the workshop explores the root causes of ecological breakdown and the collective steps we can take to secure a safe, just, and resilient future.
  
  Register for the upcoming workshop on Saturday, April 12

• Virtual/Des Plaines, IL | Bio4Climate is proud to co-host the 2025 Midwest Beaver Summit this June, centered on the theme, “Resilience Through Relationships.”  Thursday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT
  
  This theme reflects a fundamental truth: thriving ecosystems depend on strong relationships—between species, landscapes, and people. Advocating for beavers means fostering connections across different perspectices, listening to concerns, and working together to find solutions that benefit both communities and ecosystems. 
  
  Whether you join us online or in person, we hope to see you there!

• International Forest Day, International Water Day, International Rewilding Day. It’s been a week of days. A little overlooked perhaps in the shadow of these larger, more thematic days? World Frog Day, celebrating “natures tiny guardians.”
  
  “They outlived dinosaurs, weathered ice ages, and adapted to shifting climates. Yet today, despite their incredible resilience, frogs stand on the brink of disaster. These small, unassuming creatures do far more than fill the air with their evening croaks. They control insect populations, provide food for countless predators, and serve as nature’s bioindicators because they are sensitive to environmental changes long before these become crises.
• Wet wood doesn’t burn. New York Times: Many California Trees Survived the Wildfires. Here’s Why.
  
  “The trees survived because they are filled with water: The roots draw moisture from soil and transport it through branches to its leaves. When the fires erupted in January, trees in Los Angeles had been especially nourished after two previous rainy winters. All that water makes burning a living tree akin to trying to start a campfire with wet logs”, Dr. Jacobsen said.
  
  For good measure, we tried a little experiment on this at home (though we can’t exactly condone playing with fire at home, even for science).

• Virtual/Des Plaines, IL | Bio4Climate is proud to co-host the 2025 Midwest Beaver Summit this June, centered on the theme, “Resilience Through Relationships.”  Thursday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT
  
  This theme reflects a fundamental truth: thriving ecosystems depend on strong relationships—between species, landscapes, and people. Advocating for beavers means fostering connections across different perspectices, listening to concerns, and working together to find solutions that benefit both communities and ecosystems. 
  
  Whether you join us online or in person, we hope to see you there!

• A Familiar Voice | Building upon this year’s Midwest Beaver Summit theme, the relationships we culvivate with eachother are just as important as those we build with nature and the environments around us. If you tuned into This American Life last week, you may have heard a few familiar voices; Harriotte and Frank are both students in Jim Laurie’s Biodiversity 12 class!

• Wherever you are in the world, we hope spring is starting to find you (or autumn, for our southern hemisphere friends). And we think the change in season is a good time to take stock in nature’s ability to heal not just planet, but ourselves as well. 
  
  Kiley Price for Inside Climate News writes, “Exposure to green spaces can improve mental health, speed recovery and relieve pain…But climate change and human activities could disrupt this effect.”
  
  We hope you find the time and space to get out for a stroll or dig a little in the dirt this weekend!
• We already know that trees bring the rain. But new research demonstrates how deforestation in the Amazon doesn’t just reduce rainfall, it redistributes it. During wet seasons, deforested areas see a slight increase in rain due to shifting air circulation, but rainfall drops significantly in areas surrounding the bare ground, disrupting regional water cycles. In the dry season, rainfall decreases everywhere, as fewer trees mean less moisture released into the air.
  
  So you see, protecting forests isn’t just about the trees. It’s about safeguarding water, climate, and the intricate web of life itself.

• Boston | The 19th annual Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T) is coming to the Somerville Theater on April 12, hosted by Greater Boston Trout Unlimited. Enjoy screenings of 10 curated fly fishing films from around the world to get you ready for the upcoming fly fishing season. This year’s event features with a diverse lineup of films that highlight remote locations, unique challenges, and the passionate anglers who pursue them. Grab your tickets or learn more today!

• You’ve probably heard about keystone species. But what about a keystone molecule? Molly Herring writes in Quanta Magazine about the profound impact rare compounds, termed “keystone molecules,” can have on ecological interactions. 
  
  “The biological world is awash in chemical signals…If the message is powerful enough, the impact can ripple out across an ecosystem.”
  
  “’One small, simple molecule can be tying together these seemingly unrelated species and whole ecosystem processes,’ said study author Patrick Krug, a marine biologist at California State University, Los Angeles.”
• What do you see below? No, it’s not an abstract painting. It’s a map. 
  
  A new study from UFZ reveals that there is hidden order to the chaos of a forest. These distinct patterns shape how different forests grow, creating the conditions for thousands of species to thrive side by side. In tropical forests, animals spread seeds far from parent trees, reducing competition between the same species. In temperate forests, trees tend to cluster together, benefiting from underground fungal networks that help protect young saplings. 
  
  So what do you think, is this the map of a tropical or a temperate forest?

• After a U.S. Senate Committee hearing this week, just a few swing votes could make or break the so-called “Fix Our Forests Act” (H.R. 471). This logging bill, disguised as wildfire “management,” enables industrial deforestation in the name of fire prevention by giving loggers a way to bypass critical environmental protections. 
  
  Help defend our forests by signing and sharing our petition to put your support on the record. We’ve done a social post about this too

• Remote/Northern Virgina | Join ACT! for the next Climate Friendly Friday on March 14 at 7:00 PM ET, featuring Doug Tallamy, renowned environmentalist, entomologist, and author of Bringing Nature Home and Nature’s Best Hope. Doug will inspire us to create Homegrown National Parks by transforming our own yards into thriving ecosystems.
  
  Join live via Zoom or attend our on-campus watch party for an immersive experience. Be in the first 20 to RSVP for the in-person party and receive a free packet of native plant seeds to start your own green space! 
• Providence | Got prickly pear cacti on your mind? The 2025 Living Landscapes Learning series by Prickly Ed’s Cactus Patch brings together local experts to reimagine our own outdoor spaces in ways that boost biodiversity, absorb carbon, and connect us to nature. Through science, design, and creativity, these fun and practical workshops help transform our own spaces into thriving, eco-friendly havens. 
  
  Learn more and register. Next workshop March 14

• Reintroducing wolves to the Scottish Highlands could restore ecosystems and help fight climate change. A research team from the University of Leeds explains their findings in depth, but the gist is that the wolves would naturally control booming red deer populations, allowing native forests to regrow and sequester around one million metric tons of CO₂ annually. 
• Breaking News from our friends at the Devon Wildlife Trust! The British government has moved to allow beavers to live wild across English rivers for the first time in centuries. Hear directly from Devon Beaver Project Lead Matt Holden below! 

• We don’t wade into politics very often. But every so often, a piece of legislation comes along that strikes right at the heart of everything we know to be true about the power of biodiversity in nature. 
  
  Now making its ways through the U.S. Senate, the so-called “Fix Our Forests Act” (H.R. 471) is a logging bill disguised as wildfire “management,” enabling industrial deforestation in the name of fire prevention by giving loggers a hall pass to bypass critical environmental protections.
  
  Help defend our forests by signing and sharing our petition to put your support on the record. 

• Remote | Calling all Climate Educators and Communicators! Do you use games and simulations to educate your students about climate change, solutions and justice? 
  
  Join Solve Climate 2030 on Tuesday March 4 at 9 am or 8 pm to learn how to participate in the first Worldwide Climate and Justice Games Day April 11, 2025 during Worldwide Climate and Justice Education Week 2025. 
  
• Long Island | The North Fork Environmental Council  will host a special three-part screening of Regenerating Life on March 13, 20, and 27 from 5:00-6:30 PM in Southold. Each session includes a film segment and a conversational exploration of tangential topics like Zero Waste, Circular Economy, and Systems Thinking. Light refreshments provided. Contact NFEC to register. 

• Robin Wall Kimmerer recently sat down with Yale Environment 360 to discuss her new book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
  
  “The language of natural resources suggests that we own them, that we deserve them, whereas I want to remember that it’s a gift. We haven’t earned berries. We have not earned oxygen to breathe. We can’t buy it. It is not a commodity. It’s not a natural resource. To me, it’s a gift from the natural world.“
  
• Earth is warming, so why is it so cold? Martin Keubler of DW explains that climate change impacts regions differently. The Arctic is warming up to four times faster than other areas, and some scientists believe this rapid warming might be weakening key wind systems, like the lower jet stream and the upper polar vortex, that normally confine extreme cold to the far north.
• How can we leverage the power of fungi, microbes, and plants to reduce erosion, clean up pollutants, and promote natural recovery?
  
  Southern California’s recent fires, along with the risks of debris flows and widespread contamination, have raised serious concerns about protecting homes and ecosystems. Danielle Stevenson and the new The Center for Ecological Remediation (CAER) present “Strategies for Bioremediation of Fire-Impacted Sites in Southern California“, a webinar conversation with bioremediation practitioners & scientists. We hope to see you there! Wednesday, February 26, 7–9pm EST
  
• This one’s for our Providence folks! Break free from “Lawn and Order” with Prickly Ed’s Cactus Patch and the 2025 Living Landscapes Learning Series! This event series brings together local experts to reimagine our own outdoor spaces in ways that boost biodiversity, absorb carbon, and connect us to nature. Through science, design, and creativity, these fun and practical workshops help transform our own spaces into thriving, eco-friendly havens. 
  
  Learn more and register. Next workshop Feb. 27.

• On Valentine’s Day exactly 10 years ago, Bio4Climate Restoration Biologist & Futurist Jim Laurie uploaded this photo from his camera to his computer for a closer look. Earlier he’d watched a critter leave a neighborly message, a trail of “hearts,” in the sidewalk snow.
  
  What creature do you think left them? Send us your guesses!
  
  And in the meantime, explore more curiosities with Jim in his new course, Earth Alive: Exploring Our Home. Classes begin February 26.
  Enroll today!

• At the heart of climate action is a fundamental question: Who controls the land, and how is it cared for? In recognition of Indigenous Women’s Day in New Mexico, Indigenous leaders, youth, and activists gathered to reaffirm what many scientists increasingly recognize, that protecting Indigenous sovereignty and listening to leadership are critical to safeguarding biodiversity and mitigating climate change.
  
  “It is time to restart our sacred relationship with the land and honor our matriarchal societies,” said Jolene Tsinnijinnie (Navajo and Kewa Pueblo). 
  
• Let beavers be beavers. A million dollar wetland restoration project in Czechia was mired in bureaucracy and delays. A group of beavers took matters into their own paws and re-engineered the landscape in days. Watch our quick recap below, or read here to learn more. 

• Bio4Climate’s Associate Director of Regenerative Projects, Alexandra Ionescu, will present on Miyawaki forests at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum on February 23rd from 2 to 3 PM, introducing attendees to the micro forests we’ve helped establish in Massachusetts! While the event is sold out, you can register for the waitlist.

• In 2023, record-breaking warming was linked to a global decline in Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight, caused by reduced low-level cloud cover (Goessling et al.). The exact cause of the reduced cover remains unclear, but a team of analysts led by Anastassia Makarieva suggests that disruptions in global biospheric functioning could be a contributing factor, noting the significant drop in cloud cover over the word’s great forests, as seen below.
  
  “The good news is that the recent extra warmth could wane if the forests partially self-recover. With the many unknowns remaining, we urge more integrative thinking and emphasize the importance of urgently curbing forest exploitation to stabilize both the climate and the biosphere.”

• Bio4Climate’s Associate Director of Regenerative Projects, Alexandra Ionescu, will present on Miyawaki forests at Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum on February 23rd from 2 to 3 PM, introducing attendees to the micro forests we’ve helped establish in Massachusetts! While the event is sold out, you can register for the waitlist.
  
• After taking Bio4Climate’s “Systems Thinking and Scenario Building” course in 2022, Erling Jorgensen wanted to share his learnings in a fun way that people with little training in biology and science could connect with. The result is “Journey of An Apprentice,” a written and visual essay about Life. Join Seacoast NH Permaculture for a fireside chat with Jorgensen on Thursday, February 20.  
  
• Climate action requires…action! Here’s a dispatch from Dianne Plantamura in Massachusetts about “The People’s Forest” at Veasey Park:
  
  “A new Miyawaki forest rises from rubble at Veasey Park after 160 volunteers planted 1800 trees in Groveland, emerging from what was a plot of invasive vines. Thanks to startup funds by the Groveland Community Preservation and corporate grants, the area is now known as ‘The People’s Forest.'”
  
  Do you have a project in your community or even your own backyard you’d like to share?  Contact Us!

• The new Transformative Change Report makes clear that “Fundamental shifts in how people view and interact with the natural world can help accelerate the system-wide changes needed for a more sustainable world.” Truth is, there’s a lot we can do to kickstart that change.
  • Educate your Neighbors. Host a talk at the library or local coffee shop on the vital importance of wetlands, grasslands, and forest ecosystems.
  • Keep water on your property. Install rain barrels, rain gardens, and gray water systems.
  • Green your community. Cool your town with biodiverse Miyawaki forests, pocket parks and rain gardens.
  • Support regenerative farmers directly through farmer’s markets and Community Supported Agriculture. 
• Check out this update from Mother Trees on their seed bank project, made possible in part by support from Bio4Climate. They help farmers, community leaders, and forest stewards restore degraded landscapes. 

• On Sunday, March 9, Bio4Climate is teaming up with a handful of our Northern Virginia community partners to host renowned entomologist and best-selling author of Nature’s Best Hope, Doug Tallamy, in conversation on creating habitat in our own backyards. Learn more or rsvp!.
• Attention Suffolk County! Our friends at the North Fork Environmental Council are hosting a screening of John Feldman’s film, “Regenerating Life,” on February 8. We’re obviously big fans of the film (you might recognize a few familiar cameos), but so much of the material around farming and mitigating wildfires is particularly prescient right now. 
• After taking Bio4Climate’s “Systems Thinking and Scenario Building” course in 2022, Erling Jorgensen wanted to share his learnings in a fun way that people with little training in biology and science could connect with. The result is “Journey of An Apprentice,” a written and visual essay about Life. Join Seacoast NH Permaculture for a fireside chat with Jorgensen on Thursday, February 20.  

• No single industry impacts our world more than farming. Our industrial farms could be carbon sinks. Instead, most emit significant amounts of carbon. They could double as water-rich oases of biodiversity, preventing both flooding and drought. Instead, many contribute to both. 
  Join us for Food & Farming: How Farming Impacts Our Water, Wildlife, Climate, Health & Economy, taught by Hart Hagan. This 8-week course runs Thursdays from February 6 – March 27, live on Zoom.
• It’s not too late to register for Jim Laurie’s free seminar on January 29th! From starting your own microgarden to restoring large, fire-scarred landscapes, increasing water infiltration, and supporting wetlands, this dialogue hopes to inspire actionable solutions for Earth’s most pressing challenges. Email us to get the link.
• After taking Bio4Climate’s “Systems Thinking and Scenario Building” course in 2022, Erling Jorgensen set out to understand how life processes work and how they can be restored, and he wanted to share his learnings in a fun way that people with little training in biology and science could connect with. The result is “Journey of An Apprentice,” a written and visual essay about Life. Join Seacoast NH Permaculture for a fireside chat with Jorgensen on Thursday, February 20. 

• What if you could help change farming practices, transforming them into systems that build healthier soils that capture carbon, grow nutrient-rich food, and strengthen our communities’ resilience to climate change? As a citizen, shopper, or gardener, you have the power to make an impact. Join us for Food & Farming: How Farming Impacts Our Water, Wildlife, Climate, Health & Economy. This engaging 8-week course runs Thursdays from February 6 – March 27, live on Zoom.
• Mark your calendars! Join us for a free seminar on January 29th with Bio4Climate Restoration Biologist and Futurist, Jim Laurie, as we explore practical ways to heal our planet. Whether you’re a first-timer or a long-time student of ours, join us for a shared experience that will leave you with new tools, ideas, and a deeper connection to our living planet. Email us to get the link.
• We’re global! Check out our new Global Outreach page, documenting our support for organizations around the world. After extensive research conducted in collaboration with Linsey de Jager, our Ecological Research Intern in South Africa, we are excited to introduce you to a cohort of organizations doing important, impactful work on the ground across localities. 
• Why do some areas burn worse than others? Often times the answer has a lot to do not with the water we pour on a fire after it’s started, but the water already in the ground before the first ember falls. Check out this clip from Jon Feldman’s film, Regenerating Life, on the efficacy of restored, intact ecosystems. 

• There’s a lot to unpack behind the fires raging through Los Angeles County. But right now, efforts to contain the blaze continue as people evacuate, animals seek refuge, and firefighters work around the clock. Our friends at Earthrise Studio said it right; “When crisis hits, community answers.” If you’re looking for ways to support the Los Angeles community right now, Earthrise has aggregated a few on Instagram. 
• Wildfires have become more frequent and devastating, affecting communities, economies, and ecosystems worldwide. In a hot, dry world, it makes sense that forests are more flammable. Wetter wets and drier drys can increasingly lead to hydroclimate volatility—or climate ‘whiplash’—with profound implications for flooding and, yes, wildfires. Learn more at Bio4Climate about how wildfires have changed over the last 10 years, and what pieces of the puzzle policy solutions tend to miss. 
• The World Meteorological Organization officially announced on Friday that 2024 was, globally, the hottest year on record. Little surprise there; we know we live on a warming world. That’s why we need to work with nature to mitigate the damage; plants and healthy ecosystems play a pivotal role in cooling the Earth. Learn more about how #NatureCools at Bio4Climate. 

• If you’ve got “take down the Christmas tree” on your to-do list this weekend, consider giving it a chance to support life beyond the season. From creating habitats for freshwater fish to enriching soil in gardens, your tree can be repurposed in ways that nurture ecosystems in your community. Be on the lookout for local lake habitat drives and mulch programs, or even more creative reuse options—like crafting coasters or natural sprays. 
• How much nature do we need? So asks Dr. Anastassia Makarieva to ring in the New Year. “We should protect wild nature as a working mechanism for climate stabilization…All ecosystems that are still capable of self-regeneration must be protected from our exploitation as much as possible. Stop taking from them. They are our gold standard, our ultimate treasure.”  
• As we look ahead to another year championing nature-based solutions, we look back on a year of growth, curiosity, and Life. Whether you’ve joined us online, on the water, or out in a forest, thank you for being a part of our community last year. Here were just a few of our favorite moments. 

• Look, we’ve all been there. When your work and passions are rooted in care for the earth, it’s hard not to feel deflated sometimes. But as the year comes to a close, it’s important to take stock in the progress made around the world. This weekend, we’re reading Wild Hope’s 10 Conservation Stories that Gave Us Hope in 2024. Whether it’s a global story or something in your own backyard, we’re curious: what would you add? What gave you hope this year?
• Did you catch our shoutout from Post Carbon Institute senior fellow Richard Heinberg in Resilience Mag? “Destruction of habitat—as a result not just of climate change, but industrial agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization as well—is driving native species to the brink. Simply planting trees, if they’re non-native, may not help much and can even make the situation worse. In contrast, native trees and shrubs provide a food forest for birds and insects that would otherwise go hungry. The folks at Bio4climate have more ideas along these lines.”
• Nature-based solutions must be a global priority. A new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services explores just how interconnected global crises are with the natural world, using data to detail the extent to which biodiversity loss exacerbates issues of food and water security, public health, and climate change.

• If you haven’t noticed, we talk a lot about the water cycle here. And for good reason–from the soil to tree-top canopies, healthy ecosystems are fuel for the local and global water cycles that keep things cool. But it’s not just about rain and evaporation. A research team led by the Alfred Wegener Center found that much of 2023’s record high temperatures could be attributed to declining low-cloud cover in key regions, reducing the planet’s ability to reflect light and heat back into space.  
• “…and it did all of that with the wings of an owl, the belly of a penguin, and the nose of a kingfisher.” The more-than-human world has learned what works in context over billions years. Biomimicry is the practice of studying and emulating nature’s forms, processes, and systems to solve our own challenges, ideally in a way that creates conditions conducive to all life. Even if you’re not building a bullet train, you can learn from nature in your own ecosystem – consider how other species harvest water, capture energy, recycle materials, form symbiotic relationships. What can you learn from them? 
• There’s so much to love in this interview with Zoë Schlanger (author of The Light Eaters, required reading for Bio4Climate’s recent Biodiversity 11 course). But what sticks with us right now is how she bottles the desire we all have to connect with and understand the world around us, “I think that words are all we have, and for those of us who are not super acquainted with scientific jargon, we have to use these words like ‘language’ and ‘intelligence’ and ‘desire’ to talk about plants, in part because these are the metaphors that we have at hand. It’s the closest thing we can understand that gives us this little bridge of understanding between plants and ourselves.“

• New! Story and science convene in this recent conversation between adventurer and photographer Jon Waterman, and climate scientist Flavio Lehner. Buckle up for a journey into the Arctic and its threatened future, led by the experiences and research of those studying it. The full episode is available now, produced in collaboration with the GBH Forum Network. 
• We champion ecorestoration initiatives around the world, but we still believe that the best place to start is right in your own backyard! Join permaculture instructor Andrew Millison on a tour of his 15-year-old food paradise in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and discover how five key principles transformed his urban backyard into a vibrant, life-filled oasis brimming with abundance.
• What we’re excited for: the December 19 virtual premiere of Beaver: A Medicine of Possibility, co-created by Beaver Institute and Indigenous Led, will explore what beavers have to teach us about ecological healing and reconnection. Directed by Laurie Hedges with narration by Lailani Upham, the film spotlights beavers’ crucial role in climate resilience, Indigenous culture, and ecosystem restoration. A live Q&A will follow; rsvp required.

• There’s still time to enroll in Bio4Climate’s new course, Trees & Forests: wildlife, wildfires, water & climate change. This 8-week course, taught by Hart Hagan, begins December 5 and dives deep into the power of forests to absorb and hold billions of metric tonnes of CO2, and nurture water cycles.
  
• “The greatest risk we face is the temptation to surrender to helplessness…I may not be able to save the zebras and the leopards, but I can help save the zebra swallowtail butterflies and the giant leopard moths. I can do that, at least in my own small yard, by nurturing the host plants they need to reproduce.” In her New York Times essay, Easing the Biodiversity Crisis One Flowerpot at a Time, Margaret Renkl makes an impassioned plea for biodiversity’s capacity to make a difference, and our ability to help by starting with our own backyards.  
• A small village in Romania is home to one of Europe’s most successful bison rewilding projects. Since 2014, 170 bison have been reintroduced to the Southern Carpathian Mountains after a 200 year absence. The short film, Zimbrul (Romanian for “bison”), explores their role in shaping this particular ecosystem and emphasizes the importance of participatory rewilding strategies. Scientists found that this herd alone could store enough CO2 to offset the emissions of 43,000 cars annually, underscoring how animal activity can enhance a given ecosystems’ capacity for carbon storage.

• It can be difficult describe and convey our fascination for this ecosystem, that is in a way hostile but also very fragile,” says Polar Bears International climate scientist Flavio Lehner. Join us this Monday, Nov. 25, for a conversation on the science and the stories reshaping the Arctic with Lehner and Patagonia author and explorer Jon Waterman. 
  
• Our world doesn’t work without forests. The “earth’s lungs” are home to 80% of land-based species, absorb and hold billions of metric tonnes of CO2, and nurture water cycles. And they’re in trouble. Trees & Forests: wildlife, wildfires, water & climate change is a new 8-week course from Bio4Climate, taught by Hart Hagan. Registration is open now for December enrollment!
  
• Get a bird’s eye view of the difference our Miyawaki forests can make. This interactive page from the City of Worcester explores both of our Miyawaki forests in the city and provides fresh perspectives for understanding how they can cool, green, and beautify the urban landscape while creating space for nature to thrive.
  
• “I like to imagine the moment of liberation for a molecule of carbon dioxide. Imagine being held tight for centuries in the embrace of an ancient tree, locked up in lignin until… the gasp of a fungus-eating beetle sets you free to become a free-floating molecule, a thing of the air, a part of something vast and fluid. Is that how the spirit leaves the body? Released from the weight of wood, into the afterlife of cedars, there is no boundary between the sacred and the mundane.” Robin Wall Kimmerer reflects on the death of a tree during a recent a visit to the Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.