Stories from the field

For the Yurok, Karuk, and Klamath Tribes that live along the Klamath river, salmon are central to their diet, culture and spirituality. The river itself is understood as a living being, a sacred, life-giving force, deeply intertwined with the well-being of the people. Read about how local tribes, environmental organizations, and fishing groups united to advocate for dam removal and river restoration.

In the heart of Namibia, an alliance is unfolding between humans and one of the world’s most misunderstood creatures: the vulture. Their remarkable intelligence and ability to quickly detect fresh death in the landscape is now being harnessed by conservationists to protect threatened species from poaching - including the vultures themselves.

The buildings that house our culture, our institutions, our homes and businesses are home to our cosmologies and worldviews and can profoundly shape our actions. The Living Building Challenge asks: What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place - for all of us?

Sometimes the more-than-human world reaches out to us. Those that can hear them can become important bridges between the worlds. Monica Gagliano is one such person, and her research into plant cognition - guided by the plants themselves - is changing the way we think about plants and maybe about reality itself

On the coast of the West African country of Benin, where the sound of the waves and the wind mingle with the voices of ancient spirits, the ancient practice of spiritual guardianship is preserving sacred mangrove forests for future generations of all species.

In the liminal space where forest meets meadow, where stories are etched in the tracks of deer and whispered in the wind, Queer Nature is cultivating a radical revolution of belonging. Here, survival isn’t about dominance; it’s about returning to deep intimacy with the land, and with one’s own body.

In the space of just four months in 2016-17, three nations came to the same conclusion about key rivers in their jurisdiction, all granting legal personhood to the Atraro, Whanganui and Ganges/Yamuna rivers respectively. The start of a global movement, the stories of these rivers have taken different courses, but together they mark a shift from treating rivers as resources to recognizing them as living entities deserving legal protection.

In August 2022, Faith In Nature did something no business had ever done before - they appointed Nature to its board of directors. Ever since then, Nature occupies a seat and has a voice and a vote along with all of the other directors. Four years on and the field of nature governance is flourishing, with many legal inventions emerging for how to give non-human beings a binding voice in current dominant governance systems. What would happen if Nature always had a voice? 

In a broken food system where farmers are continually incentivised to treat animals and land as commodities to provide cheap food, and are often subject to the ruthless demands of the supermarket supply chain, it’s incredibly difficult to go against the grain and not go bust. There are, however, beacons of radically different life-centred farming that are showing it can be done. 

What if our future depended on beings most of us barely notice? To Giuliana Furci, that's fungi - mysterious, shape-shifting organisms that are essential to life on Earth. Through legislation, education, conservation, and art, Furci and her foundation are dismantling centuries of fungal neglect, showing that fungi are long overdue the reverence they've been denied.

Project CETI aims to ‘transform human understanding & connectivity’ and protect our oceans and planet. They combine cutting-edge AI, advanced machine learning, state-of-the-art robotics and sophisticated recording techniques to translate whale vocalizations into meaningful human language, which could lead to the first-ever direct communication between humans and cetaceans.

​By anchoring business in love rather than greed, Patagonia is showing what is possible within the current system. Business can be regenerative. Supply chains can be ethical. Work can be joyful. Activism can be a job requirement. And the Earth, not Wall Street, can be the bottom line.