Want to Get “Back to the Land”? You’re Not Alone

Over the past century, generations of young people have turned their backs on city life to embrace small-scale farming and back-to-the-land ideals. The exact circumstances for each generation’s return have varied: the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Vietnam War in the ’60s and ’70s, and, more recently, the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity to … Read more

In California Wine Country, Restoring Salmon Habitat After More Than a Century of Dams

In freshwater waterways along the coast from Marin to Mendocino counties, agencies are restoring salmonid streams to create habitat diversity, areas that provide deep pooling, predator protection, and side channels of slower-moving water.

Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution – Excerpts

This book explores a lot of territory. It discusses climate science, climate policy, and aquifer depletion — as well as mythology, meditation, and beekeeping. These and other topics herein have been written about in greater detail elsewhere. There are entire volumes devoted to backyard chickens. So why mention them here, in a book with “climate” in its title?

How Green is my Alley: Public Produce on Public Lands

Public Produce: Cultivating Our Parks, Plazas and Streets for Healthier Cities is an unusually important book, if only because the topic is so unusual — how people in cities and towns can grow food on public lands.

Could We Run Modern Society on Human Power Alone?

Unlike solar and wind energy, human power is always available, no matter the season or time of day. Unlike fossil fuels, human power can be a clean energy source, and its potential increases as the human population grows. In the Human Power Plant, Low-tech Magazine and artist Melle Smets investigate the feasibility of human energy production in the 21st century.

Holistic Agriculture Returns to Remotest Appalachia

In 2011 Berman decided to take the plunge into expanding her vision of planting a new local food economy in Appalachia by turning her farm into a major educational endeavor. She launched the Allegheny Mountain Institute (AMI) in an effort to attract young people from throughout the country for six-month fellowships on her 550-acre mountaintop farm.

The Richness of the Land

The Weirauchs got their first two dairy sheep as a wedding gift fourteen years ago. The operation began as a hobby, but grew in scope (as hobbies involving living things that multiply tend to do), and after eight years of figuring things out, the Weirauchs have been in business for seven years as a licensed sheep dairy.

Exploring Placemaking in Amsterdam

Amsterdammers have been doing placemaking for years, and for us, it’s a huge part of what makes the city so lively and full of creative energy. Project for Public Spaces has a long history of working with the planning department and district managers of this great city, and we’re excited to return.

On Brewing Beer to Capture the Imagination

Shaun Hill is the founder and CEO of Hill Farmstead in Vermont, who are, for me, one of the most imaginative breweries in the world. Based on the farm that has been home to his family for over 230 years, Hill Farmstead’s mission statement is “to hand craft succinct, elegant beers of distinction and to revive and diversify the farmscape of the Hill Farmstead in Greensboro”.

Food Versus the City of Istanbul

Istanbul, like many other cities, is under heavy pressure from urban development projects. In the face of this threat, the DÜRTÜK collective supports small scale farmers in and around Istanbul by organising reliable demand for the produce from urban gardens, and by building a supportive community around them.