Bioneers

Rakus, a wild male Sumatran orangutan, was observed treating his own wound with a healing plant – a first for humans’ recorded observations of the animal kingdom. Fibraurea tinctoria, the plant Rakus carefully chewed and applied to his wound, is used in ethnomedicine for its pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties. It is also known to be antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, and is used against malaria, diabetes, and for wound treatment. “Because of these pain-relieving substances, it could be that he felt immediate pain relief inside the mouth while chewing and feeding on it, then (made) the connection and put that on top of his wound,” explains Dr. Isabelle Laumer. “But it could also be that he accidentally touched the wound with his finger, so then felt, ‘Oh, yeah, this is pain-relieving,’ and then he continued doing that.” What are the greater implications of this groundbreaking observation? In a Q&A with Bioneers, Dr. Laumer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, discusses the research team’s observations and how the paper’s findings relate to her other research on animal cognition. The findings of the international research team, which includes researchers from the Max Planck Institute and the Universitas Nasional in Indonesia, were reported in a paper published in Scientific Reports. 🦧 Read our Q&A with Laumer: https://buff.ly/46pfy79

A surprising paradox lies within the Amazon rainforest. Despite being one of the most diverse ecosystems and largest carbon sinks on earth, its soils are some of the poorest in the world. This is because the lion’s share of nutrients are held above ground, and heavy rains easily strip the thin layer of topsoil of its nutrients. When an area is deforested for agriculture or cattle ranching by outsiders who don’t understand the local ecology, those soils become barren after just a year or two, leading to a vicious cycle of further clear-cutting and an alarming loss of precious rainforest. It turns out Indigenous land stewards and farmers have applied an ancient technique of carbon sequestration called eegepe (commonly known as biochar) for over 2,500 years. When stewarded with Indigenous wisdom, dark rich soils fertilize the forest floor for decades. Biochar is a form of charcoal that is created by heating carbonaceous feedstocks under low oxygen conditions, resulting in a soil amendment that has a very high percent of stable carbon and that can remain in soils for hundreds of years, providing a number of benefits for Kuikuro farmers. It increases pH, buffering overly acidic soils, and it helps build a healthy soil structure, which increases water-holding capacity and reduces erosion. Read more: https://buff.ly/3YjDeI8

🌿 Join Us for a Transformative Retreat! 🌿 📅 Dates: October 23-27, 2024 🏞️ Location: Art of Living Retreat Center, Boone, NC 👩🏫 Facilitators: Deborah Eden Tull & Nina Simons In these times of rapid change, Relational Mindfulness helps us navigate human relationships with peace, understanding, and resilience. This retreat offers practices to meet community, adversity, and trauma with compassion and conscious response. 🧘♀️ What You'll Experience: -Embodied meditation & conscious movement -Deep listening & mindful inquiry -Reflective writing & nature immersion All are welcome! Let's come together to heal and grow. 🔗 Register Now: https://buff.ly/3LNV3I1

Young activists have emerged as the most significant and impactful voices in global movements to combat climate change and demand environmental justice. In this 2023 Bioneers panel discussion, learn from the perspectives, projects and aspirations of three outstanding young leaders. The panel features the award-winning, globally renowned activist Alexandria Villaseñor, founder of Earth Uprising International; grassroots environmental justice organizer Alexia Leclercq, recipient of the 2021 Brower Youth Award and co-founder of Start:Empowerment; and Oakland-based spoken word poet and performer Aniya Butler, a Lead Circle Member of Youth Vs Apocalypse. Callie Broaddus, Founder and Executive Director of Reserva: The Youth Land Trust, moderated the panel. Read the panel transcript: https://buff.ly/3WCqOdk

In her essay “Black Land Matters,” Black farmer and food justice activist Leah Penniman (all pronouns) tells how the ancestral grandmothers in the Dahomey region of West Africa braided seeds of okra, molokhia, and Levant cotton into their hair before being forced to board transatlantic slave ships. 🌱 As expert agriculturalists, the seeds and the ecosystemic and cultural knowledge they represented were their most precious legacy. The ships brought them to a country with a food system based on the stolen land of Indigenous people and the stolen labor of African people. Penniman says by stashing these seeds in their tresses, the ancestral grandmothers believed in their Black descendants and in a future of tilling and reaping the earth. By honoring the gift of the seed, their descendants do not let the colonizers rob them of their right to belong to the land and to claim agency in the food system. Read Penniman’s essay, excerpted from “Portraits of Earth Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth,” a book series by Robert Shetterly: https://buff.ly/3y77prp

How do we “close the gates to hell” – the rampant coal, oil and gas industries – and plot the course for a just transition to clean energy and low-carbon solutions? Cara Pike, Senior Communications Advisor to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, explains, “What we’re really trying to do with this initiative is to go after the fossil fuel industry, which has long been deceiving us about its impacts on climate, human health and wellbeing, and the entire web of life. Those companies have engaged in massive greenwashing campaigns and lobbying efforts to water down the language in climate agreements, to dupe the public and to halt or slow progress to a green economy.” In this Bioneers panel discussion, learn about the international movement calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty from a group of civil society, government and Indigenous leaders involved in the effort: https://buff.ly/3Wd8pSK #ClimateJustice #FossilFuelNonProliferationTreaty #FossilFuelDivestment

🥕 All life depends on food. It is that commonality that connects diverse species and is the basis for a relationship with our environment. Dive into the Food Web with Bioneers and learn more about how a transformed food system can be a source of community wealth, creative culture, and individual health, as well as a way to fulfill our sacred calling as humans for environmental stewardship. We share stories and celebrate people of the food web – young Black farmers, Indigenous Food Sovereignty leaders, ranchers, chefs, and so many more! 🥦 Sign up for Food Web newsletters: https://buff.ly/46EMKqh

Grapevines, like many fruiting plants, have developed unique strategies to reproduce. But what we often take for granted is, upon reflection and close observation, a compelling and fascinating series of steps and choices. “It’s measuring the angle of the sun and the phase of the moon, the tug of the planets, the temperature in the soil, the moisture content in the soil, the kind of pheromones the fungi in the soil are giving off, when the birds and insects are coming through the vineyards and what life stage they are in, when the acorn’s falling off the tree next to it — everything in its environment is a clue,” explains winemaker John Williams. “This is the life of a grapevine.” John founded the legendary Frog's Leap Winery, an organic, dry-farmed vineyard that sees biodiversity as part and parcel of compelling winemaking. He is deeply familiar with the plants he cultivates and summarizes his approach to winemaking as simply, “thinking like a grapevine.” Read more about how his agricultural practices come from close attention paid to the “intelligence” of the grapevine itself in this interview with Bioneers Restorative Food Systems Director Arty Mangan: https://buff.ly/46eWSHs

After sustaining a deep wound to his face during an assumed fight with another male, a wild Sumatran orangutan named Rakus did something that astounded researchers. First, he began feeding on a liana, a plant with potent medicinal qualities. After a time, he stopped swallowing, but continued chewing. Then for several minutes, he applied the fluid from the chewed vegetation to his wound before covering the open flesh with the plant mash. This observation was groundbreaking — the first time that a wild animal was observed treating his or her own wound with a healing plant. Bioneers spoke with Dr. Isabelle Laumer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany and the lead author of a recently published paper in Scientific Reports, about the observations of the international research team, the broader implications of Rakus’ behavior, and how the paper’s findings relate to her other research on animal cognition. 🦧 Read our Q&A with Laumer: https://lnkd.in/gCrCruAE

Western psychotherapy aims to bring clients back to baseline “normal.” But our collectively traumatized world must not be accepted as “normal” when it is, in fact, profoundly unwell. Moving toward healing and purpose in uncertain times means evolving the way we do therapy and the way we think about mental health. “Climate, Psychology, and Change,” edited by climate psychologist Steffi Bednarek, invites us to co-create a field that navigates unknown futures with skill and grace – one that helps clients build resilience and holds space for the uncertainties unfolding before us. 33 contributors from both the Global South and Global North explore decolonizing therapy, helping clients recognize and move past unhelpful responses to the climate emergency, and nurturing creativity in the face of crisis. Read the anthology’s foreword, written by Thomas Hübl, PhD: https://lnkd.in/gzdE-jk9