Rescope Radio

Welcome to the new trailer for the podcast! We hope you enjoy it. Hit play, share it with a friend, follow the podcast, subscribe if you can, and enjoy the hundreds of episodes available. What if the stories we tell ourselves could help us change the world - for the better? For the last decade, my family and I have been travelling Australia and the world to find out, and created a podcast to share the journey. What we found, and continue to find, has blown us away. From regenerating farms, cattle stations and Aboriginal communities around Australia, to Mayan communities in Guatemala. From Blackfeet Amskapi Piikani Country in Montana to urban regeneration in Melbourne. From the producers of the healthiest, secure, local food, fuel and fibre, to the ancestral stories we all share everywhere.This is The RegenNarration podcast — conversations with the people changing the systems and stories we live by, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet.Music (sourced from Artlist):The Lonely Ramblers - Rowdy - Inst

How does a fashion editor cotton onto regenerative agriculture, and then find that thread leads her back to the witch hunts? Lucianne Tonti is a prominent journalist, author and consultant specialising in regenerative fashion systems. Her first book was duly called Sundressed: Natural fibres and the future of fashion. That’s now being developed into a docuseries.Lucianne’s subsequent epic tale is told in her new book, Good Witch: In Search of Our Lost Feminine Power, published by Summit Books. It’s described as ‘A paradigm-shifting book that asks what the world might be like if divine feminine power had never been devalued. And shows us how it is being reclaimed.’This is the book I wish I read as a young bloke in my teens. I hope both women and men get hold of it in numbers. Lucianne has been on some incredible journeys in the last half dozen years, including visiting many guests on this podcast. But her last couple of years have really dug back into the roots of our struggles, and possibilities. And it makes

Easkey Britton is a pioneering marine sociologist, writer and surfer. She has continued her family legacy in Ireland, becoming a legendary surfer in her own right – from being the only kid surfing in her area, to later becoming a 5x national champion and the first woman to surf the huge wave near Mullaghmore, to inspiring and guiding more women and girls into the sport, even where you might least expect it (think Iran - where it was her life that was transformed). For her, though, it’s always been much more than a sport. Her PhD, best-selling books and immersive ocean retreats are all about our deeper connections with water, and its power to revive old stories, places and kinships, that heal and inspire. And for Easkey, it all turned on a decision her grandmother made. And an impromptu moment of crazy, or brave, or maybe flow state. With some key mentor presences along the way, including one we share. So that's where we start.Chapter markers & transcript.Recorded 17 July 2026.Easkey riding a giant wa

Mara Tasker is the director of the new award-winning documentary The River. It follows the people living inside the Colorado River Basin, from farmers and ranchers to suburban families, tribal communities, and the seven state negotiators trying to rewrite the rules of a river that no longer matches the paperwork. What starts as a personal admission of “I didn’t really know the river I depended on” becomes a map for charting how we might be able to breathe life back into the Colorado, and really, rivers everywhere.  Mara’s story, too, is worth the telling – with no straight lines, from rabble rousing school girl, to gutsy cold calling young creative, with a passion for engaging with all kinds of people, and a river running through it all. Plenty of uncanny laughs run through this conversation too.I was introduced to Mara by Melissa Grumhaus, who was an Executive Producer on the incredible documentary film Bring Them Home, about the Blackfeet Nation's effort to restore wild buffalo herds. You might remembe

Linley Dixon is co-host of The Real Organic Podcast, the weekly Anthem Award-winning ‘Best Sustainability, Environment and Climate Podcast’, recently also named one of the ‘best climate podcasts’ by Earth.org. That pod is produced by The Real Organic Project, that Linley co-directs with Vermont organic farmer Dave Chapman, a farmer-led movement, and add-on food label, dedicated to preserving the integrity of organic food. Right now, Linley sees the same patterns that have beset organics, coming for the regenerative movement. And in response to a challenge from Paul Hawken, and inspiration from so many pioneers, including some Aussies, Linley argues it’s time to join forces. Linley is a power of knowledge and experience in all this, with an incredible story to tell. Having started with nothing, her family did the hard yards and made a go of farming, but in the face of industrialised headwinds almost had to give it up, before a legacy moment occurred. But then, a horror contamination event. It was gutting. And

‘A brilliant exploration of wildness in both nature and humankind.’ That's what Alice Winn said about the new book by Cal Flyn. Cal is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland, and the book is called The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness. A five-year odyssey she sometimes thought would kill her, Cal travelled the world exploring the concept of wilderness as it ‘shifted from a spiritual notion to an aesthetic and later to an (increasingly controversial) conservation ideal.’ Which led to a critical question, as we go about things like rewilding and the 30 by 30 conservation target, how do we decolonise that ideal, while not losing all it has gained? Then, having been introduced to the new book, I got even more excited looking over Cal’s back catalogue. Her previous book was the award-winning best-seller, Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape. What a collection of stories that was too. And out of both books, Cal says ‘coming out hopeful was a surprise

A plant that gives you salt and sugar. A forest “supermarket without the bills.” And a business model that treats farmers, foragers, and fishers like artists with a world stage, not beneficiaries waiting for help. We’re live at the 2026 Grounded Festival in the Otways with Helianti Hilman, founder of Javara, following her mission to help revive Indonesia’s rich food culture and turn food biodiversity into dignified livelihoods.We talk terroir across an archipelago of landscapes and 1,300 ethnic groups, and what traditional knowledge still holds: slow cooking methods that protect nutrition, hyper-local souring agents and herbs, and delicious ingredients that serve many different functions. Helianti shares vivid examples, from lower-sodium salt in Papua to spice diversity that challenges what “normal” flavors even mean, plus the practical reality of mapping edible ecosystems without damaging them.Then we get into the reeds in conversation: commercialisation without extraction. Helianti explains why rarity matte

This is somewhat of a momentous occasion. Liz Carlisle wrote a book called Healing Grounds a few years ago, and a listener brought it to my attention. Just as it was for Liz, it’s been really significant for me. Initially setting out to test regenerative agriculture’s claims on carbon and climate restoration, a bigger picture opened up. And a line from the last page has stayed with me since – ‘this is ancestor work’. Longer term listeners will have heard me recall it a bit on this podcast. It even came up in the recent chat with Nicole Masters at Grounded Festival, such is its synergy with where so many others seem to be finding themselves. And it's our starting point here. Liz also has a new book out, a compilation with dozens of amazing stories and contributors, co-edited with Aubrey Streit Krug of The Land Institute. It’s called Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods (global release here). While Healing Grounds is also coming out in paperback, with a new foreword. These are works so full of ever

What happens when a regenerative farmer decides the land deserves a soundtrack? Cathy Briant joins us alongside Australian music legend Charles Jenkins (of Icecream Hands and other fame) to tell the story behind Country’s Calling, the album launched at the recent Grounded Festival.Country's Calling stemmed from the trials in Cathy's journey to becoming a regenerative farmer in Victoria’s Gippsland region. During a particularly difficult time in her life, Cathy discovered how deeply music could help. So she found herself asking: what if music could help us listen to the land?She then teamed up with Charles, alongside fellow Oz music legend Douglas Lee Robertson, and young Indigenous talent Casii Williams, and Country’s Calling was the result. It’s wonderful, and we hear plenty of it in this rollicking ride of emotion, groove and inspiration. It begins with some of Cathy's family history and farming pressure: rising costs, stressed relationships, sleepless nights and the deep ache of watching lan

Soil can change fast, but what about people? We're coming to you live from the 2026 Grounded Festival on the extraordinary Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, stewarded by the Stewart family, in the Otways of Victoria, Australia.It’s early on day 1, the marquee Ironbark Tent is full, and we’re joined by global figurehead in agroecology, author of For The Love of Soil, and founder of the CREATE program with Integrity Soils, from Montana USA, Nicole Masters.The session is billed ‘Soil Health Isn’t Always Sexy’. But we start by questioning the premise, and run from there, in conversation with me and those present, squarely in the moment, through a series of unplanned places and stories - bold, vulnerable and so instructive - woven together by Nicole’s unique, hard-won and globally influential wisdom. Nicole challenges the badge-of-honour culture of farming, and most other fields these days, at the outset: 'hard work takes no discipline'. From there we unpack the gap between what we say we want and what our da

Birds chirping in the background of an interview might sound like a small detail, but a listener voicemail reminds us it can be the difference between a nice conversation and a felt sense of real regeneration. We’re back in the mailbag sharing the messages that have come in from subscribers, land workers, authors, career changers and long-time listeners, and what those reflections reveal about storytelling, trust, and hope in a complicated time.We also sit with a sharp question raised by a listener after my conversation with holistic management founder Allan Savory: what happens when intuition gets dismissed as “a waste of time”? That tension between scientific legitimacy and other ways of knowing runs through regenerative agriculture, systemic change, and climate work, so it’s well worth exploring more. Along the way, we hear messages of praise for crystal-clear explanations of water cycle and climate dynamics, and musing why radiative forcing and water’s role in climate often fail to reach the wider public

The Colorado River is treated much like plumbing on a map, but out on the ground it’s a living system with thresholds, memories, and consequences. I’m joined by award-winning photographer, filmmaker and adventurer, Pete McBride, whose latest book Witness to Water: One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River traces two decades of unexpected reporting and personal reckonings on the river he grew up with. We talk about the alarming reality of collapsing Rocky Mountain snowpack, rising heat, and a basin-wide standoff that pushes reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward 'power pool' and 'dead pool' levels right now.From there, the story gets visceral. Pete describes walking into Glen Canyon as the water recedes, finding ghost forests, vanished rock art, and signs of life returning fast as habitat reappears. We dig into why dams create ecological surprises, including endangered fish dynamics and invasive species risks, and why water policy can’t be solved only in fluores

Clouds, soil moisture, and plant life are doing more climate work than most of us were ever taught and ignoring them leaves a huge gap in how we respond to warming. Here's the keynote from Dr. Katie Ross, at the recent Australian Water Association conference, that connects climate science to the living landscape, making the case that the climate “stands on two legs”: the familiar atmospheric story of greenhouse gases and a bottom-up ecological story driven by water, biology, and energy flows.We dig into radiative forcing using a simple Earth energy budget, then follow what happens when solar energy meets healthy country: diverse plants photosynthesise and transpire, shifting heat into latent form, while microbes and plant compounds act as cloud condensation nuclei that help water vapor form thicker, lower, more reflective clouds. That cloud cover matters for cooling, for gentle local rain, and for clearer nighttime re-radiation windows that let heat escape. We also zoom out to the blue planet, where phyt

Water policy often gets framed as engineering, compliance, and competing demands. Then Sheryl Hedges steps up at the Australian Water Association conference and resets the baseline: for First Nations people, water is not a resource, it’s a living being that carries memory, knowledge, and songlines. That single shift turns “allocation” into responsibility, and it turns river health into a measure of cultural, ecological, and economic life across generations. Sheryl is a Walbanga woman leading the First Nations Water Branch within Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and her keynote lands right in the hard numbers. First Nations people hold rights to around 40% of Australian land, yet control less than 0.2% of surface water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. She names the structural roots of that gap, including the fiction of aqua nullius and the way water entitlements have been tied to land ownership and capital inside a multibillion-dollar water market. We walk t

Back in March, Dr Katie Ross and I ran a canoe journey along the Murray/Dungala River, Australia’s longest, most regulated and mythologised river - to, as the bill put it, listen, witness, and create, in deep immersion and deep time. Could that help change the story of a magnificent but sorely ailing River and its communities? By changing our stories? By asking the River even? We headed to the confluence of the Murray Darling/Dungala Baaka Rivers, and called the journey Confluence. It filled in days. And come the Equinox, 16 of us climbed aboard and disembarked for a week together.We’ve had many folk asking about it since. Including many who wanted to be there but couldn’t. So with thanks to you all for your interest, we decided to record our initial debrief for you. There’ll be more to share over time. But if you’re interested in how Confluence came about, was set up, and turned out in its first running, then here’s a starter. We also debrief on Katie’s broader tour of Australia, delivering related keynotes.

Text or Voicemail the Show (inc. if you're happy for it to be shared on the pod)This bonus travelogue traces a walk through Concord, Massachusetts, as we step into the living neighbourhood behind some of the most influential American writers and ideas. Last week, we celebrated the 300th episode with a visit to the legendary site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on the shores of Walden Pond, where he wrote the famous book going by the pond’s name. The next day, we drifted into the town of Concord to visit the Thoreau family home, Henry David’s birthplace. Then, on our way to his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s place up the road, we came across another famous house - Louisa May Alcott’s family home. They were family friends of Emerson and Thoreau, and Louisa became another famous writer in town, as the author of Little Women. We didn’t have time for the tour, but to our great delight, the two elders who were running the tours, Beth and Anne, were out front and became fascinated by our tour of the country. We wer

Text or Voicemail the Show (inc. if you're happy for it to be shared on the pod)Walden Pond looks like the postcard version of New England, though the first thing I notice is the sound. A semi-trailer growls past, a train snaps by the lake, and a plane cuts the sky. That friction is exactly why I wanted to record this 300th-episode pilgrimage from one of the most iconic places in conservation history, where Henry David Thoreau lived for two years and turned detailed journals into Walden, the renowned masterpiece of nature writing, and cultural and self-examination.I walk the shoreline, having started at the Walden Center, and follow the trail toward the replica cabin and on to its original site. Along the way I sit with what’s been restored and what’s still under pressure: crystal-clear water filtered through sands and soils, protected land surrounded by encroaching development, and the ongoing question of whether our technologies deliver more than they take. Standing at the stones and reading Thoreau’s “

Text or Voicemail the Show (inc. if you're happy for it to be shared on the pod)Three West Australian farmers sit down for a sharp, honest Q&A that cuts through the glossy version of “regenerative agriculture” and gets into the real work: what happens when your new practice fails, your numbers get tight, and the supply chain refuses to reward better outcomes. Jake Ryan, Tom Mitchell, and Rod O’Bree share the mindset shifts that keep them moving, from treating mistakes as learnings to building the skill of self-diagnosis when there isn’t a standard playbook to follow.Today we dust off one last gem from the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River in late 2023. Jake Ryan is a global award-winning vegetable and livestock farmer from Three Ryans farm in Manjimup; Tom Mitchell is an award-winning market gardener from Worrolong Produce near Gin Gin; and Rod O’Bree is the bloke described to me as taking Natural Sequence Farming to the next level (to say nothing of his supply web work with distri

Text or Voicemail the Show (inc. if you're happy for it to be shared on the pod)A barley grower sees his farm logo on a beer can prototype and gets emotional, not because it looks cool, but because it represents a long journey to a certified sustainable, low-emissions supply web that holds up under scrutiny. From the stage at the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River back in 2023, we trace how this story runs from soil to sip and why “walk the walk” matters more than a pretty label. I recently dug into the archives and found some hidden gems from this conference. So episode 295 became the story I told as MC, to kick it off. And today, its first panel, featuring a couple of outstanding stories, and how they came to intertwine.Before the panel, Senior WA Departmental Economist, Brad Plunkett, presented his research on Tolga farm in Kulin, in WA’s wheatbelt – its dryland production system, business set up, and significant ‘accidental’ carbon related outcomes. Fourth-generation farmer there, B

Many might think the hardest part of community conflict is finding the “right” solution. What if it’s often something deeper: listening well enough that a solution can even appear?We’re fresh off the Murray River / Dungala here in Robinvale, Victoria, as our first Confluence journey winds up. And a bloke who came up a bit during a transformative week of paddling, firesides and other yarns was Jeff Goebel. So while we gently come back to machines, here’s the last 20 minutes or so of my first conversation with Jeff, online, ahead of meeting and witnessing his alchemical facilitation processes in person over in New Mexico. It drifts from the nature of his work, to a pivotal encounter with a glacier, on to how this work is spreading, how the uncanny tends to follow it, and perhaps even how it can help with this and other Rivers.Welcome to the 10th instalment of Vignettes from the Source, the short form series featuring some of the unforgettable, transformative and often inexplicable moments my guests have shared