Last week’s very special guest was legendary rancher from Chihuahua, Mexico, Alejandro Carrillo. The episode was titled Re-Greening the Largest Hot Desert in North America with Donkeys, Love & Water. In doing that, Alejandro says donkeys have been a ‘secret weapon’. Sound familiar? That’s what Chris Henggeler at Kachana Station has been arguing is the backbone of the extraordinary regeneration he’s managed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia – similarly from dust and rock, to rehydrated soils and grasslands; and similarly, still getting better year on year.

Indeed, Alejandro visited Kachana on his Australian tour recently, and was blown away. But the WA government still intends to have Kachana’s donkeys shot by August.

Tellingly, Alejandro, too, used to kill donkeys as pests, then realised the grave mistake, and lost opportunity, especially with so many landscape, climate and biodiversity challenges right now.

This excerpt from last week’s episode felt worth highlighting as a release on its own this week, given the urgency and importance of what's playing out at Kachana, and given the opportunity this presents further afield.

It starts with Alejandro’s Kachana visit, leading to a fascinating exchange featuring some of the latest research and his successes in landscape regeneration, improved livestock outcomes, and wildfire suppression (growing more grass, not less!) - all with donkeys at the heart of things. And it sums with Alejandro’s proposal for the WA government right now.

If you care about holistic management, soil health, fire risk, and practical regeneration, hit play, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find these ideas.

And if you've not yet heard the conversation in full, you can head to episode 296 here (with some photos) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 9 March 2026.

Title slide: pride of place on Alejandro’s Christmas card last year.

Music: Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

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The Chihuahuan desert could sound like a place you endure, not a place you regenerate, yet Alejandro Carrillo has seen grasslands, birds and beauty take the place of erosion and rocks on the family’s Las Damas Ranch. Conservation organisations now seek this ranch out. And the broader region is now regarded as a regenerative hotspot.

Here we unpack how livestock management, a lineage of too-little-known Mexican legends going back to the beginning of holistic management in the Americas, and a repaired water cycle have “rewatered” country that averages about 230ml of rain and has no rivers, streams or springs.

Along the way, we compare lessons from Mexico, the western US, and Australia, including what Alejandro noticed on his visit to Kachana Station and why a helicopter view made management differences impossible to ignore. And speaking of Kachana, Alejandro calls donkeys a 'secret weapon', and has a suggestion for the WA government as another alternative to its donkey shoot order.

And, of course, we talk about Alejandro’s journey. Far from smooth sailing, we explore the many transformations, stumbles and reasons for his story to never to have happened this way – starting with his father encouraging him to study whatever he wanted, so long as it wasn’t ranching.

Alejandro is loaded with fascinating insights, and also elaborates here on why he still feels optimistic. Though there is more he'd like to see happen. I hope you enjoy the listen.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 9 March 2026.

Title image: the quintessential shot of Alejandro on horseback (inset: as a 7 year old).

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

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Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

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The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

A room full of farmers, food system and other folk. Elders through to young voices. Wadandi Boodja underfoot. A simple, radical idea on the table: put life at the centre of every act and decision, and watch how agriculture transforms from a driver of degradation into a catalyst for healing land, health, and community. That’s the energy we carry back to Margaret River as we share a short presentation I gave to introduce the Regenerative Agriculture conference in Margaret River WA, back in September 2023.

A little dig into the archives this week revealed some hidden gems from that event. I had put out a couple of episodes at the time, featuring all-star panels that were charged with debriefing on each of the two days of that conference. But equally, I’d stored away these other smaller gems, and having come to mind again at the Regenerative Food Systems conference in Perth last year, it still feels like they’re worth dusting off.

So let’s head back to Margs, and start at the start - at once an introduction to a conference and, framed by an old favourite film, an appraisal of what I’d been seeing inspire people like nothing else.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 6 September 2023.

Title image by Daniela Tommasi.

Join us at the next Grounded Festival in April (10% discount for paid subscribers).

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Send a text

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

A life on the edge can sharpen your senses. That’s the unmistakable feeling of hearing Allan Savory recount the untold stories in and around Unsavory, his new memoir spanning childhood, wildlife, war, political exile, and the birth of Holistic Management - the extraordinary global movement regenerating the world’s grasslands, and by extension, everything else.

Allan shares why he resisted writing a memoir and what changed, largely thanks to Jody Butterfield, former journalist wife of over 40 years, and co-founder of the Savory Institute and the Africa Centre for Holistic Management; and Bobby Gill, SI’s Director of Development and Communications, and self-described ‘reformed biomedical engineer turned systems thinker’, prompted by his time as lead scientific reviewer for the US FDA.

The conversation weaves personal turning points with systemic insights: exile in the Caymans and a home emptied; the unlikely, letter-born partnership with Jody; field intuition that saved lives; and the hard-won habit of swallowing bitter pills early to hasten a path to wisdom.

This story isn’t a promise of a silver bullet, but a way to proceed. We also talk about what it would take for one government to model a statesmanlike pivot that others can follow. There’s levity too - army pranks, 'the red dress', cricket framing life, and death - and we close with a moving reading of Kipling’s If.

Now the book is out in the world, I asked Allan, Jody and Bobby, if they would gather with me to talk about it – Allan and Jody from Zimbabwe, and Bobby from Spain.

If this conversation moved you, share it with someone who influences land, policy, or capital. Follow for more and leave a review so others can find it.

Allan in one of this pod's most popular eps.

Allan’s TED talk with 9 million views.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 23 February 2026.

Music:

Call Me Voodoo, by Mooveka (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

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Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

Now for something a bit different, and really special. Today we’re off to seaside Maine, in the far north east of the US, to visit Rachel Carson’s summer cottage. Here was where Rachel wrote much of her last few books. It was a place she loved, and where she also soaked up her last days in Maine with best friend Dorothy.

It did feel like something of a pilgrimage, visiting the spirit of the woman who is regarded as pivotal in launching the modern environmental movement, with her landmark 1962 book Silent Spring. A response to her dismay and outrage at the impact of pesticides on human and environmental health, it was written, and then defended, under all sorts of ill-considered industry and bureaucratic attacks, while she herself had become ill with cancer.

She actually wrote plenty of other world-shaping stuff before that too. Rachel was a marine biologist whose best-selling sea trilogy preceded Silent Spring. But it was the latter that met the moment like few books have, and shaped generations. Still.

So it was that after visiting Chloe Maxmin and Bill Pluecker ahead of their wonderful successes in the 2024 elections, we headed off along the Sheepscot River a little south, to the place Rachel built ahead of writing her third sea trilogy book, ‘The Edge of the Sea’. This is where we start. And where we finish? Well, let’s just say there was some magic about that day, back in the Fall of ‘24.

Chapter markers (with accompanying images) & transcript.

Rachel Carson Council.

Robert Musil’s piece on Rachel’s cottage.

Recorded 9 September 2024.

Title image: the magazine cover at the Inn.

Join us at Grounded Festival in April (10% discount for paid subscribers).

Support the Strathbogie Disaster Relief Fund, set up by podcast supporters.

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

A line of turbulence marks the edge of a burn scar, and the plane starts to buck. That jolt becomes a metaphor for the entire conversation: when we strip biology, we disrupt wind, heat, and water. Restore it, and everything changes. We link Perth to the wet season Kimberley and a bright winter’s day in Beijing to ask a practical question with planetary stakes: how do we turn knowledge into actual regeneration?

Filmmaker and restoration catalyst John D. Liu joins Kachana Station’s Chris Henggeler to map a path from storytelling to soil building. John lays out a simple physics of living systems—grow organic matter, raise canopy height, and infiltrate every drop to repair the lower hydrological cycle and cool the land. Chris brings the Kimberley into focus: lightning seasons, split-second fire calls, and the creation of microclimates through tight management. Together they propose Kachana as a living laboratory and virtual university—open to researchers, engineers, and restoration communities.

We update you on the donkey controversy and opportunity still alive, and hear the call for evidence-based policy that aligns regulation with how soft systems self-regulate. We explore the remarkable rise (and unexpected beginning) of Ecosystem Restoration Communities, why peer-to-peer learning scales faster than conferences, and how true wealth should be tied to functional ecosystems and healthy watersheds. From canopy height to hydrological function, from policy design to ethical investment, from daily fieldwork to music and shared meals, this is a blueprint for turning concern into coordinated action.

Note: the Australian Story episode on Kachana has now eclipsed 1.5m views. And this episode celebrates the International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 12 February 2026.

Join us at Grounded Festival (10% discount for paid subscribers).

Join the wait list for the Murray River Confluence.

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

And John on guitar.

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Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

We’re off to Parliament House in Canberra today. But don’t let that put you off. Hot off the press, the Regenerative Food & Farming Alliance (RFFA) has just launched there.

The Alliance has been brought together with many a guest on this podcast over the years. Though one woman behind it all – and so much else – is someone I have been looking forward to having on the podcast since we met a few years ago. Rebecca Gorman is a highly respected former journalist turned farmer, philanthropist and company director, and she has been a key figure in convening the new Alliance.

We speak about the launch, the Alliance of course, the appetite for it, Rebecca's fascinating back story bringing her to this moment, even some initial reticence to this path, some varied influences, what she's seen work over the decades, how the Alliance will work, what's next, how we can back it in, the extraordinary hidden costs of the current systems, and full circle to how it feels for Rebecca to find herself here in the light of some early heartbreaks in life, and how that has spurred her connections with First Nations peoples. And she sings for us at the end, in honour of some other passions in life.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 11 February 2026.

Title image sourced here.

Please support the Strathbogie Disaster Relief Fund, hosted by the Australian Communities Foundation.

Join us at the next Grounded Festival in April (10% discount on offer for paid subscribers on Patreon or Substack).

Join the wait list for the Murray River Confluence journey.

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!

Welcome to the 10th year of the podcast! And thank you. As an entirely listener supported show, it only happens thanks to listeners like you.

To start off the year, another form of thanks, and tribute, to a guest from 2023 who was so wonderful, as much for his brilliance as his grace. I’m talking of the late Manchán Magan, acclaimed Irish travel writer, documentary maker, radio producer, theatre performer, builder of the first straw-bale house in Ireland, regenerator of the 10 acre block it stands on, and best-selling author. Manchán died in October last year at an age not too senior to mine, just a couple of months after a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Beautifully, I’ve learned he and long-term partner Aisling married a few weeks before he died. Aisling described how they fell in love too, as she later posthumously accepted the Best Irish-Published Book of the Year award for Manchán's latest work ‘Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun)’. You can find that story here.

Manchán and I signed off our podcast chat looking forward to meeting, given the various threads emerging at the time, including tracing more of my roots back to Ireland, and the connections between those roots and Aboriginal cultures and Country here - so a little slice of me cut away with the news too. But what a blessing to have had that yarn. Thanks Manchán for your fleeting but unforgettable presence in my life. And of course, for being so much more for so many more people all over the place. That, no doubt, will continue on. Right now, in fact.

For here are the last 25 minutes or so of my conversation with Manchán from a couple of years ago. So much to love in just this small window.

To listen to the full episode with Manchán, and find further links, head to episode 173. Recorded with thanks to the Derby Aboriginal Media Corporation, at 6DBY deadly Derby radio in the West Kimberley, on the heels of the Aboriginal Irish festival in Fremantle WA.

Title image source.

Chapters and transcripts.

Music: The Blackbird (Irish Song Dance), by Ennis, Morrison and Muller (from Artlist).

Thanks again for listening, and for supporting The RegenNarration.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road, and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll also find my writing).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing!