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