The Great North American
"Can we Rehydrate California?" and Soil Carbon Sponge 2018 Tour

​with Australian climate and soil scientist Walter Jehne.

Former CSIRO microbiologist, climate and soil scientist Walter Jehne, and soil educator Didi Pershouse from the Soil Carbon Coalition, will be holding workshops and discussions from Marin down to LA between April 11th and 16th. (See speaker information below the schedule). 

Their stops in California:

April 11: Hollywood, CA "Rehydrating California" 12-2 pm luncheon and talk with Walter Jehne, sponsored by the Carbon Underground, TreePeople, and Climate Resolve.  Tickets and info HERE 

April 12: Santa Maria, CA
"Working Lands: Managing Flooding, Drought, and Wildfires" 
​Daylong workshop with Walter Jehne and Didi Pershouse
Cachuma Resource Conservation District  
San Antonio Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency
920 East Stowell Rd
Santa Maria, CA 93454
Contact Anna Olsen at aolsen@rcdsantabarbara.org  805-868-4013
Tickets and info HERE

[not listed on website]
April 13: Camarillo, CA
"After the Fire, Regenerating California's Soil Sponge"  Roundtable Discussion with Walter Jehne and Didi Pershouse. Listed as a private event, but will now be open to the public.
5 to 8 pm 
1801 Joliet Place, North Oxnard United Methodist Church
Oxnard, California
Please send questions or RSVPs to susan.cousineau@gmail.com or text to 805-819-9182. Thank you!

April 14: Camarillo, CA
"After the Fire, Regenerating California's Soil Sponge"  Daylong workshop with Walter Jehne and Didi Pershouse.
10 am to 4 pm 
1012 W Ventura Blvd
Camarillo, California 93010
Tickets and information HERE

April 15: Paicines, CA 
"Can We Rehydrate California?" Evening talk at Paicines Ranch with Walter Jehne and Didi Pershouse. 
6:30-8:30 pm. 

Paicines Ranch
13388 Airline Highway
Paicines, CA 95043
RSVP and information HERE.   Contact: Elaine@PaicinesRanch.com.

April 16: (Marin County) Meeting 12:30 to 3 PM with Marin Municipal Water District. 

April 16: Fairfax, CA (Marin County)
"Can we Rehydrate California for the long term?" 6:00-8:30 PM with Walter Jehne, Didi Pershouse, and Peter Donovan
Fairfax Women's Club
46 Park Road, Fairfax, CA, $10 donation
(please note time has been corrected.)  Contact Diana Donlon


More on the speakers:

Walter Jehne is an internationally recognized climate scientist, soil microbiologist and innovation strategist. He has field and research experience in forests, grasslands, agriculture and soils at national (CSIRO) and international (UN) levels.  Walter’s scientific work has focused on soil biology, plant root ecology, mycorrhizal fungi, glomalin, soil-carbon formation, as well as on biology's enormous influence on hydrological cycles, weather patterns, regional and global cooling, air quality, and cloud formation and precipitation. He has a remarkable ability to explain complex systems in easy to understand ways. 

Walter has worked more broadly beyond science, at Federal Government level, leading transformation in industry and policy. This diversity of experience has given Walter a unique and exceptional capacity to devise multi-stakeholder win-win strategies – turning challenges into opportunities. This year he was part of an invitation-only UN-FAO conference in Paris looking at bringing soil into the next IPCC report.

For more on Walter Jehne's work, see www.globalcoolingearth.org. Also search past videos of his workshop sessions and talks on YouTube using "Walter Jehne soil sponge".


Didi Pershouse is the author of The Ecology of Care: medicine, agriculture, money, and the quiet power of human and microbial communities as well as Understanding Soil Health and Watershed FunctionAs the founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine, she developed a practice and theoretical framework for systems-based ecological medicine—restoring health to people as well as the environmental and social systems around them.  

After 22 years of clinical work with patients, Pershouse now travels widely. Her workshops and talks engage farmers, schools, and watershed groups across the US in opportunities to improve soil health, public health, and climate resiliency through changes in land management. She is board chair of the non-profit Soil Carbon Coalition. You can learn more about her work at www.didipershouse.com, andhttp://soilcarboncoalition.org/learn.


Their full list of California events can be found here.

Hope to see you there!

Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and we should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don't need a diploma to plant a tree." ----- Wangari Muta Maathai – Unbowed, pp. 137–138.

The land we live and work upon is the traditional territory of the First Peoples of the Americas, and we are here because this land was occupied. 

In recognizing that this space occupies colonized territories, and to show respect for the rights of Indigenous people, it is our collective responsibility to critically interrogate our colonial histories and their present-day implications, and to honor, protect, and sustain this land that we now the United States and Canada.