IN THIS
GREENHORNS NEWSLETTER
YOU WILL FIND
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RESTORATION, ADAPTATION, REGENERATION
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Extraction, extinction, degradation - we see it from the roadside - you could say it’s the predominant feature of our time, the consequences driving most of our headlines.
But what about making a paradise from the parking lot? What if that were happening a lot! Restoration, adaptation, regeneration - here we enter a less accessible world of learning. We, Greenhorns, see a hole and we’re here to help fill it. We’re focusing our learning and online curriculum on the drivers of ecosystem healing, the immune response of living systems, reforestation, interventions for riparian cover, hydrologic health, fungal growth, leaf area index, nectar sources, cool pockets and ribbons of habitat that we can protect, enhance and create with our own two hands. What is left to us is what is left.
Our first episode is about fish—about restoring a fishway that lets the fish swim up and over the dam. About how the dam nearly damned the river. About the extraordinary abundance of a spring run.
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Filmmakers: Elizabeth L. Smith and Noah David Smith, Editor: Archer A. Grano
Design: Amy Franceschini, Music: Pete Fitzpatrick, and special thanks to the Quimby Foundation for supporting this work.
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They say places like ours in Downeast Maine have been ‘fished out.’ Not one of the once-upon-a-time 27 canneries is still in business. And yet, we are visited here yearly by some of the remaining 400 Right whales on Earth - they choose to come here because this is still a place of globally significant marine productivity. The big tides, forested uplands, rich rivers and the cold Labrador current conspire to keep a plentiful population of forage fish, a seaweed understory and a planktonic food source for hundreds of species, migratory birds and whales alike. They keep coming, the animals keep on coming, keep on trying.
Many rural areas like ours have seen an out-migration of youth, like so many other places around the world—people leaving to seek opportunity elsewhere. As the centers sethe with overcrowding - will the peripheries become a place of experimentation and resilience-making? If the fish come back, will people come too? Decolonization is not a metaphor, and neither is re-connecting a functional ecological cycle. Life systems that work, work for us all.
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Severine interviews Passamaquoddy Chief Hugh Akagi - chief of the Passamaquoddy peoples of Canada.
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The good work of reconnecting the rivers to the sea has been the mission of the Downeast Salmon Federation’s biologist Brett Cicotelli on the Pennamaquan River, and that of the chief of the Canadian Passamaquoddy Chief Akagi on the St. Croix River...
We also learn how to smoke the fish we catch in the spring run! Restoring the fish to the river means restoring a native foodway, a living carbon flow, a cascade of ecological benefits for up and downstream creatures. The simple fish passage repairs the severance created by those industrial economies - in repairing the riparian, we might envision a new economic and social spring - can we imagine restoration tourism? A healthy fishery driving culinary innovation in Downeast Maine? Place-based, ecological education for youth? How can we as young farmers and new arrivals contribute to the thriving of our home region?
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Photograph by Nolan Altvater
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Human life on earth depends on our collective agency, this much we know! With our Earthlife series we present to you a learning journey, for beginning careers or switching careers. It’s a multi-format curricula for young people, and any and all people who are interested to work on Earthlife. Or for Earthlife, or with Earthlife! If you know a young person whose learning has been interrupted by COVID, please do spread the word to them-- our platform is smart-phone accessible, and very ear-buddable.
Tune in! You can find EARTHLIFE podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc - and for short films, find and subscribe to our Youtube channel.
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As we tune in to discover non-extractive ways to relate to the landscape, future episodes include BERRIES, MUSHROOMS, HALLS, LUMBER, and OYSTERS. What alternatives do we have to clear-cuts, plastics, and the pollution of fish farms? We commit to ACTION RESEARCH on wild and cultivated mushrooms, oysters and seaweeds, and look to low-impact forestry as a guide. You can benefit from our learning by listening to the EARTHLIFE PODCASTS as they come along.
As you listen, consider your own home place. Where is your home river is flowing to and from, which trees will grow as the climate changes? Were and how can you get involved in the destiny of the community of life to which you belong.
Meanwhile, Volume V of our beloved Almanac nears the last phases of its long season of production - it includes 400 pages, 100 contributors, art, essays and original agrarian thinking laid out in quite a contemporary kind of a way. We think you’ll be pleased by the evolution of this publication. Its not too late to come in as a printing sponsor - get in touch at almanac@greenhorns.org.
Or if you can, chip in with a donation or a purchase from our webstore today.
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Until soon,
Severine, Lydia, Ian, Kate, Lucy, Evangeline, Matt, Mary, Margie, Alex, Briana, Kate
Greenhorns and Smithereen team
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P.S. We have a good team of winter peeps here in Maine, and have space for a few more. If you or someone you know is ‘ between things’ at the moment and wants to rent a room with woodstove parlor, wifi research library and proximity to endless hiking and cold weather sports - be in touch. We have quite a number of bedrooms available for self-motivated learners/ renters/ collaborators. It seems like quite a nice time to disappear in Downeast Maine and take it easy for a winter rest.
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