Presenter: Kathryn
Alexander MA
Introduction: Kathryn Alexander, MA serves as Chief Strategist for the LivingGroundCollaborative.org, one of the first organizations to create a team of regenerative architects and ecological planners. She works as a consultant, author, and educator specializing in ethics, systems thinking, and regenerative change. Her approach centers on learning from nature as the ultimate expert, providing frameworks for effective change and regenerative building that work in harmony with natural systems—the largest, most successful, and complex system of all.
Kathryn's work has been shaped by the discovery of the biotic pump theory and her recognition of the interconnected crises we face today. This understanding led her to focus on educating others about how rain forms and how our planet has maintained its own cooling systems since the beginning of time. She is now focused on the applications of the Living Systems Framework™ as applied to resilient building and development.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
Please see the Lightning Presentations schedule for days and times.
Water and Living Soil: How the Biotic Pump will Save Us
Understanding the role of living soil in giving us rain and the responding with our agency to keep the water we get as rain, is the first step to cooling planet enough for us to survive. We CAN do this!
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm:
Presenter: Kirsten
Angell
Introduction: I'm currently the President of Spokane Urban Nature (SUN) and have a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning. I was a member of the City of Spokane's Sustainability Action Subcommittee (SAS) and helped write the Natural Environment chapter of Spokane's Sustainability Action Plan (SAP). I have spent my time and energy trying to advocate in favor of land use policy that protects important natural lands (as well as the lands that connect them) in our community, with the hopes of building a more robust network of interconnected ecosystems within our bioregion.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Urban Planning and Bioregionalism. I was asked to speak about my efforts to push a bioregional and sustainability agenda through a reluctant bureaucracy.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Bioregional planning
Presenter: Mary
Bishop
Introduction: Mary Bishop is Permaculture Design Consultant in the Inland Northwest Region, consulting with residential homeowners, small acreages, and community gardens. She obtained her Permaculture Design Certificate and Advanced Permaculture Design Certificate for Climate Resilience from Oregon State University. Prior to her consultant work, she was a public school teacher for 25 years. When she is not designing for other people you can find her building her own Food Forest and volunteering with community gardens. Though she's had various titles throughout her life, her favorite one is Grammy Mary.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
Please see the Lightning Presentations schedule for days and times.
Reducing wildfire hazard through land stewardship
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Reducing wildfire hazard through land stewardship
Presenter: Rachel
Buck
Introduction: Married to my husband 20 years, Mother of two and Memaw of one, born and raised in the Inland Northwest and have been on the journey to create our own family food system by supporting local and preserving the bounty for over 20 years now. Have a small business, Upper Left Trading Co. in which I use these skills to support the local system and collaborate with businesses around our area.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Rooted: Building Your Local Food Eco-System
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Local food production and food security
Presenter: Gregg
DePonte
Introduction: Gregg is a first generation Native Hawaiian farmer in Colville Washington and has operated Ola Aina Farms for 8 years producing pasture based pork fed non-sprayed grains, grass finished lamb, and beef. In that time he has also provided consulting services in regenerative grazing and land management working with landowners and producers to help them in their journeys of producing health food and functioning ecosystems. He is also active in community development around the regional food system.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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The topic I would like to present on is collaboration. Nature has great example of collaborative efforts, such as mychorrizae fungi and plant roots and rhizobia and legumes. I would also like to highlight how collaboration between humans can likewise lead to meaningful outcomes as well.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Local food production and food security
Presenter: Toby
Hallowitz
Introduction: I am Dr. Toby Hallowitz, a naturopathic medical doctor and acupuncturist trained in the classics of Chinese Medicine. I have been practicing holistic healing in Coeur d’Alene Idaho and Spokane Valley, WA for over 10 years now and have been in private practice since 2004.
CDA Acupuncture and Holistic Healing is an integrative health care clinic and center of healing resources focusing on holistic healing through the interconnectedness of the individual, families, community and our natural environment. With an emphasis on ``returning to nature`` we balance tried and true healing modalities of the past with evidence-based modern natural therapies.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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The Healing Power of Nature: Healing with Nature Cure and Permaculture.
Nature Cure is a holistic healing philosophy that emphasizes the body's innate ability to heal itself when supported by natural elements and lifestyle choices. It’s not just a set of treatments—it’s a way of living that aligns with nature’s rhythms and wisdom.
Permaculture — with its emphasis on designing regenerative gardens, food forests and living landscapes — is itself a profound form of nature cure, offering the body nutrient-dense whole foods while simultaneously restoring the soil microbiome, filtering air, sequestering wildfire-promoting carbon, and reconnecting humans to the rhythms of the natural world that have always been the deepest foundation of resilience and healing.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm:
Presenter: Sherpriya
Kaur
Introduction: I'm and urban mini homesteader with animals for fiber and food, community neighborhood outreach, sharer and utilizing permaculture principles.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Animals in the homestead; utilizing all aspects
Fiber arts 101
Urban connection; neighborhood outreach as your backyard classroom with permie principles
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Community gardens and neighborhood resilience
Presenter: samantha
lewis
Introduction: I like to design permaculture systems that integrate helpful animals into our woodlands and gardens. I grow and preserve most of my own food. I raise Finnsheep, rabbits, geese and chickens to provide meat, eggs, dairy and wool. The animals help with soil fertility, water retention and wildfire prevention. I spin the sheep's wool to make clothes. We use a hugelkultur polyculture style of gardening to increase our available land and create nutrient dense food. Our garden design focuses on long harvest window perennial crops to maximize food preservation and leave time for all the joys of life.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Rocket Mass Heater- Efficient wood heat. Using an armload of twigs and kindling you can heat your home or workshop, fire pottery or extend the season in your garden. In many cases, you can heat a home with one tenth the wood used in a modern wood stove. A Rocket Mass Heater is a custom, handmade, versatile solution for cooking, heating and even cooling your home.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Reducing wildfire hazard through land stewardship
Presenter: Craig
Madsen
Introduction: Craig Madsen
509-990-7132
Craigmadsen.consulting@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cemadsen/
https://integritysoils.com/pages/create-fellowship-coaches
Craig has over 30 years’ experience focusing on ecosystem management issues. For the last 20 years he has owned and operated Healing Hooves with his wife Sue Lani, a vegetation management business using goats. Craig is on the Board of Directors of Roots of Resilience, a non-profit, that works on regenerating grazing lands through educational workshops and the teaching of Holistic Management. He graduated from Nicole Masters CREATE Coaching Program in April 2022. The CREATE Program is a deep dive into soil ecology, the interrelationships between plants, soil biology and ecosystem function. He is currently a CREATE Fellowship Coach. He is a Certified Educator in Holistic Management with the Savory Institute since 2001. He was a Range Management Specialist with the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service for 14 years from 1989 to 2002.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Using goats for weed management and reducing fire risk. I been operating a business managing goats for vegetation management for the last 20 years. I will provide a different look at weeds and what they are telling us. I will also discuss how to use goats to help manage weeds and how you can use grazing to reduce the fine fuels around your property.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Reducing wildfire hazard through land stewardship
Presenter: Chrys
Ostrander
Introduction: I live and farm in far northeast Washington. The farm of 20 acres is known as the Bezaleel Israel Eco-Village and is nestled in a narrow valley on the southwest edge of the Selkirk Mountains. The valley floor is over 14 feet deep, a histosol soil type. Histosols are soils that are made up of mostly organic materials, such as fallen plant material, typically more than 20-30% by weight and are often called bogs, moors, peats, or mucks. (nrcs.usda.gov) It is extremely rich topsoil. One of our challenges as we design and implement a permaculture design for the property is to initiate and maintain practical approaches to food, fiber and energy production that do not mine that organic matter in an extractive, ultimately exhaustive manner but instead to become partners with the natural processes that produced the abundance in the first place and have that be one facet of the regeneration agenda we practice here.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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What can we learn from the mutual aid progarms organized by the Black Panther Party in the 1960's?
"In 1968, the Black Panther Party introduced its free breakfast program, which within a year feed 20,000 in 19 cities. This was one of 65 “survival programs” created by the party- with the slogan “survival pending revolution”. Other programs included children’s development centres, schools and adult education, free food/clothing, health clinics (with an ambulance service), free cooperative housing, free buses to prisons, and self-defence for retirees. These solidarity economy programs helped oppressed peoples meet their basic needs, and instead of being ashamed about not being able to feed themselves, people built a shared analysis about poverty and racism, breaking down isolation and making them able to work together for change." (https://www.mutualaid.coop/history/black-panther-party/)
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Mutual aid Networks
Presenter: Ronald
Reed
Introduction: Ron Reed is the founder of Seven Generations Innovation, an organization dedicated to advancing long-view thinking for a more democratic, empathetic, and sustainable future. He is also the co-founder of PacifiCAD, a technology company he helped build and lead for 28 years, as well as a lifelong musician and songwriter and a longtime wildlife and conservation advocate.
Ron co-founded Washington Wildlife First and has worked extensively on wildlife policy, coexistence, and conservation issues in Washington State. Through Seven Generations Innovation, his work increasingly focuses on the connections among ecological stewardship, civic responsibility, community, innovation, and our obligations to generations yet to come.
He is particularly drawn to permaculture because its emphasis on working with natural systems, restoring rather than depleting, building resilience, and thinking across generations closely reflects the philosophy behind Seven Generations Innovation.
Ron lives in the Spokane area with his wife, Debbie.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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What does it mean to make decisions today with children who will come in the future and whom we will never meet in mind? My talk will explore the connection between the Seventh Generation Principle and permaculture, asking how long-view responsibility can move from an inspiring idea into everyday practice.
This talk will explore the connection between the Seventh Generation Principle and permaculture as a practical form of intergenerational responsibility. I also want to draw correlations between your guilds and Seven Generations Innovation.
Through the ethics of earth care, people care, and fair share, we will consider how restoring soil, conserving water, growing food, strengthening community, and building resilience can help us move from simply imagining a better future to creating one—through the choices we make in the living places we call home.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm:
Presenter: Stefanie E
Skupin
Introduction: Married to a dedicated permaculturist for 20 years, he does the garden design, and I do the plant care. I'm a retired veterinary homeopath and have used homeopathic remedies for plant care (strengthen, treat weather- and pruning-related trauma, and treat fungal, bacterial, and viral diseases) for close to 10 years. I have taught an introductory workshop on homeopathy for plants in June 2026 in our garden.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Poison-Free Plant Care with Homeopathic Remedies - Introduction to homeopathy as a complete system of healing that empowers people to support their own health and healing, and can treat children, animals, and plants in all acute diseases. Homeopathy is a truly holistic healing art that looks at humans, animals, and plants as whole beings within a social structure or ecosystem.
This presentation would give a short overview of homeopathy and a few examples of remedies for common problems with plants.
Unfortunately, I can only give this presentation on Sunday as I am working my day job on Saturday.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Community gardens and neighborhood resilience
Presenter: Ramman
Turner
Introduction: My family has lived off-grid in the Pend Oreille forest for over 40 years. Stewardship of the land has been front and center across generations. Over the last three years, my wife Dayna and I have been dedicated to reducing wildfire challenges so our family's legacy doesn't go up in smoke. In that time, we've learned a variety of tools and techniques to do this work safely and effectively.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
Please see the Lightning Presentations schedule for days and times.
Reducing wildfire hazard through land stewardship
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm:
Presenter: Aaron
Weiss
Introduction: For over 20 years I made my living as the vocalist in the punk/indie band "mewithoutYou." About six years ago I started teaching anthropology at the College of Idaho in Caldwell, ID, where I still work. My early anthropological research focused on Islamic education and Sufi mysticism, but my interests have gradually shifted to incorporating permaculture-inspired gardening into my teaching and scholarship. I currently live in Nampa with my wife, two children, cats, rabbits, chickens and worms. We hold a monthly potluck dinner and a capella singing at our home, to which all are welcome.
Lightning Presentation(s) by this presenter.
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Anthropology literally means "the study of humans." This has often translated into an educational practice that treats humans as the primary actors in the world while relegating to the background plants, animals, soils, fungi, ecosystems, etc. Even courses in environmental anthropology frequently "discuss nature" rather than learning with and within the living communities they describe.
My presentation will explore my ongoing efforts to make anthropological education less anthropocentric by moving significant portions of coursework out of the classroom and into a garden. I will discuss how permaculture principles have not only informed that garden's design, but have also helped me and my students move beyond human-centered thinking toward a richer understanding of kinship, reciprocity, and interdependence.
Work Group Breakout Session Topic - Sunday 12:30pm to 1:30pm: Community gardens and neighborhood resilience
