[Full Length] Designs for Life — with Herb Hammond

“What I do in the world is to be part of nature. That’s my goal.”

- Herb Hammond

SYNOPSIS:

Herb’s career in British Columbia has centered on forestry, land based communities and natural systems. From his work as a conventional forester he went all the way to launching an embodied learning forestry school and The Silva Forest Foundation, which he ran with his wife for 30 years. They developed over 25 nature-based plans across Canada, and around the world, upending ways that large landscape management was done by communities.

In our conversation, we speak about the role of intuition and heart based thinking in developing nature-directed communities, how you get everyone on board, and the differences in indigenous thinking when it comes to forests. We also touch on the absurdity of exporting wood pellets for ‘biofuels’, how decaying wood acts as a natural sponge cleaning precious water, why “sustainable” forestry is not so sustainable, and his experience of getting the skeptical to hug a tree.

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GUEST BIO:

Herb Hammond is a Registered Professional Forester with a B.Sc. in forest science and forest management and a M.F. in forest ecology and silviculture, with over 25 years of experience in applied research in soil and water degradation and practical planning systems, as an industry forester, as an instructor of silviculture and forest ecology, and as a consulting forester working with First Nations, environmental groups, and communities.

QUOTES:

• What I do in the world is to be part of nature. That’s my goal.

• It's not so much nature-based as it is nature-directed. Nature is in the driver's seat here.

• I think that most people have lost touch with their hearts, and they they've lost touch with common sense that comes along with heart-based thinking.

• Economies are a part of human cultures, and human cultures are a part of ecosystems. So it follows logically from that, that if you protect ecosystems, you will always have healthy cultures, and if you have healthy cultures, you defacto have healthy economies.

• It's amazing how many people make decisions about forests without ever being in the forest. Their problems come in envelopes and leave in envelopes.

SHOW NOTES:

• Silva Forest Foundation

• Book: David Korten’s Change The Story, Change the Future

• Book: Maintaining Whole Systems on Earth's Crown by Herb Hammond

LINKS

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