handouts – John Thackara

Ecological Knowledge Systems

John Thackara — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 16:19:48 +0000

I’ve long been trying to understand this question: “under what circumstances would the large number of people from diverse backgrounds and communities, who are interested in earth repair, ecological restoration, and civic ecology, find each other and what they need?” To folk in the software world, l the answer seems to be obvious (see Github, below) – but this is totally not the case for climate scientists, soil restorers, seed savers, river rescuers, social entrepreneurs and climate and local economy activists..
 Bottom-Up AKIS – An Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement Strategy (ARC2020 2023) Innovation is increasingly seen as a social process, more bottom-up and interactive, than top-down science to implementation. Now placing a greater emphasis on the value of the multi-actor approach (MAA), projects being funded at an EU level by the European Commission funded under Cluster 6 of the Horizon Europe Work Programme (Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment related projects), and EIP-AGRI Operational Groups (OGs) projects at a national and regional level by Managing Authorities in each of the 27 EU Member States, are embracing this concept. The MAA makes the best use of different types of knowledge and complimentary expertise (practical, scientific, technical, organisational, etc.) by bringing together key actors (e.g. researchers, advisors, agri-businesses, farmers) in an interactive way to identify and implement innovative solutions in the agri-food sector and rural economy. Enabling farmers to be producers and not just simply recipients of agricultural innovations is an important shift in focus because a farm is not just a piece of land or a workplace, but rather represents the physical manifestation of generations of knowledge; knowledge developed and used over time by both the farmer and by those who have lived and worked there before. A 5-step engagement process (see figure 1) aimed at mapping, analysing, categorising and connecting with an extensive and diverse network of stakeholders in the agri-food sector and rural economy from across policy, research and practice groups at EU, National and regional level, Dr Shane Conway is Project Manager and Adjunct Lecturer in the Discipline of Geography’s Rural Studies Centre at the University of Galway, Ireland. Shane’s research interests are in agricultural and rural social sciences, with a particular focus on older farmers, AKIS, the Multi-actor Approach, stakeholder engagement; intergenerational farm transfer and the human side of farming.

Bottom-Up AKIS – An Inclusive Stakeholder Engagement Strategy

Ecological Knowledge Systems. N. Roling and J. Jiggins (paper) Ecologically sound agriculture is not just a question of changing farm practices. It also requires a transformation of a coherent system of learning, its facilitation, institutions and policies.
http://ifsa.boku.ac.at/cms/fileadmin/Proceeding1996/1996_WS03_31_Roling.pdf 
The Good Work Institute in New York State (founded by one of the people who started Etsy)  http://goodworkinstitute.org/programs/overview/  Les Colibris – Pres de chez vous To judge by project birth-rates, the next economy is emerging much faster in France than even a year ago. One page on the Les Colibris site lists 862 projects in the Marseille region alone; and Project Oasis lists 550_ next-generation resettlement projects (known in a bygone age as ecovillages).

Tweets by mvtcolibris

 Folk High Schools  If ecological restoration is indeed the “great work” of our time’ – then we need training centres in every bioregion. There are also many examples of existing, legacy institutions. I favour Folk High Schools for this role. They are in many ways an excellent model developed in the Nordic countries in the nineteenth century.Mainly in the Nordic countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_high_school
HF Cold Hawaii, a Danish high school, lessons are rescheduled when the surf is up. The French equivalent are the Maisons Familiales Regionaux. Elsewhere, numerous and fiverse legacy entities involved in agricultural extension, farmer field schools ….  Participatory City In big cities, amplifying the number and reach of grassroots projects takes structure, processes, commitment, and time. To this end, Tessy Britton’s Participatory City project involves, starting from 2018, a ‘demonstration neighbourhood’ of 200-300,000 people. They will test out up to 1,000 ideas over a five year period.

Stock Over Flow, Git Hub. Mozilla Badges, Envato, Laborator The most inspiring platforms are now emerging that combine web-platforms with real-world groups. that thrive on the basis of real-time question-and-answer knowledge-sharing. My favourite examples, so far, are Ravelry (5.5 million knitters) Endless-Sphere (e-bike hackers) and the UK Alzheimers Society Talking Point https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/. In each case, they do the job of helping people find what they need (including each other) just by asking – and not by ploughing their way through databases, knowledge managers, wikis and suchlike. To folk in the software world the answer seems to be obvious – but this is totally not the case for climate scientists, soil restorers, seed savers, river rescuers, and the like.
 Guilds John Michael Greer has been making hints for some time about the benefits of old-fashioned benevolent societies from Freemasons to Moose to the Odd Fellows. Not so long ago, they played an important role in America’s public life, a role that stretches all the way back to the early days of the republic. Providing a powerful social presence in each community, they were committed to improve local quality of life above all. Most of these groups fell on hard times in the 50s and 60s as the result of the government taking over the caregiving functions which once provided inexpensive health care and other welfare benefits to member families.

Other legacy institutions The locally-organized folk high schools developed in the Nordic countries in the nineteenth century, the Maisons Familiales Regionaux in France , and community colleges in the US, are good example of regional institutions that we invented to ease our transition once before – and can do so again. Other examples of legacy institutions, abound. There are more public libraries in the US (120,000) than there are McDonalds. There are hundreds of YMCAs (now known as Ys) in the US, and hundreds of working mens clubs in the UK. There are the Consumers Association and Citizens Advice. Many regional and speciality museums are looking to refine their role. Untold thousands of post offices and local shops act as informal information and meeting points. So, too, do many pubs. In addition to building-based institutions, a wide variety of friendly and benefit societies still maintain active networks of volunteers: Rotary Clubs, Oddfellows, Lions, Freemasons, Elks,
 “Third Spaces” – Between disciplines; between geographies; between worldviews Green Transition Ecosystem (GTEs) UNDP Labs (global/South) Missions (New European Bauhaus Mission)  Bioregional Weaving Labs (EU)

There are great opportunities to connect with existing legacy or anchor institutions – such as
Public libraries (120,000 in US, more than McDonalds)
YMCAs – now known as Ys.
Community Colleges 1,100
Folk High Schools 80+  Maisons Familiales Rurales
Local and Regional Museums
Working Mens Clubs
Post Offices   Land Grant Universities
Local shops
Learning farms
Guilds
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
Friendly and Benefit societies
Rotary, Lions, Oddfellows, Masons
Agricultural extension services
Friendly Societies
Ethnic solidarity networks

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Bringing together municipalism and bioregionalism

John Thackara — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 16:15:25 +0000

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Marin Schaffner municipalism and bioregionalism

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Watersheds, Swamps and Wetlands

John Thackara — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 16:11:55 +0000

New Water Paradigm https://www.tamera.org/wp-content/uploads/The-New-Water-Paradigm.pdf

In Defense of Swamps
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drain-the-swamp-donald-trump_us_585c2caae4b0de3a08f4a211? 
The Slave in the Swamp: Disrupting the Plantation Narrative William Tynes Cowan http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/7913341?selectedversion=NBD26412210 
Great Swamp Conservancy http://wibx950.com/hidden-gem-of-cny-the-great-swamp-conservancy/ 
Polluted Land Thyboron East Jutland Denmark (Tatjana Stenvad) http://c2ccc.eu/english/action-c17-thyboron-by-og-havn/ 
Transition Swamp De Zegge (The Swamp) Belgium 120HA nature reserve. Marcel, its 92 year-old steward, complains about the farmers. Connections with Antwerp Zoo. Natuurpunt.

West Country Rivers Trust UK Transition Watersheds. Works with many partners across a variety of aquatic systems – from freshwater to saltwater – to restore the ecological integrity of degraded habitats for the benefit of people and the environment. Concerned with: data and evidence; community engagement; blue-green infra; Water Sensitive Rural Design. http://wrt.org.uk. https://issuu.com/westcountryriverstrust/docs/south_devon_evidence_review_1-0/1 
City-rural watershed solidarity in Ecuador onthecommons.org/magazine/protecting-drinking-water-preventing-pollution-upstream-communities  Le Furan, France / City Eco Lab thackara.com/notopic/city-eco-lab-the-river-runs-through-us/  River Restoration Centre, UK http://www.therrc.co.uk/ 
Ljubljana Marshes Barje The largest marsh in the country is challenged by extensive farming, building business – residential – industrial – commercial complexes, floods. It covers 163 square kilometers or 0.8% of the Slovene territory. https://www.artsadmin.co.uk/artist-development/advice-info-training/imagine-2020-summer-labs  Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Conservation charity that saves wetlands, which are essential for life itself. Wetlands are the primary source of drinking water for people and wildlife. They also connect us with nature, and with ourselves, through beautiful landscapes and inspiring encounters with wildlife. http://www.wwt.org.uk 
Wetland Link International  A global network of wetland education centres – places where people interact with wetlands and wildlife, and learn irst hand. http://www.wwt.org.uk/conservation/saving-wetlands-and-wildlife/saving-wetlands/
Division of Ecological Restoration, Mass, USA https://twitter.com/MassEcoRestore http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dfg/der/  SEQ Catchments A community based not-for-profit organisation – partner with community groups, governments, councils, businesses, schools, universities, other not-for-profit organisations, private landholders and Traditional Owners. http://www.seqcatchments.com.au
 Challenges in irrigation system governance http://www.solvingforpattern.org/2013/04/01/challenges-in-irrigation-system-governance/#.UVmenV7eTKA.twitter  Creek Watch The goal of the project is to provide field experience opportunities for Amador science students while at the same time support efforts in transforming the “creek” channel into an environment that is respected, enjoyed, and maintained by the Pleasanton Community. + http://creekwatch.researchlabs.ibm.com

Reconnecting with rivers – India  http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/rivers-close-and-personal …  How 6,000 small farm ponds transformed an agricultural landscape in peril  http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/penny-foolish-pond-wise …  Marco Casagrande’: Natural river restoration in the urbanized Taipei Basin http://casagrandetext.blogspot.fr/2009/10/guandu-river-urbanism.html  Crabs do not exist to feed tourists. Bioregional activism in the Chesapeake watershed http://platformlondon.org/2014/01/28/it-exists-because-it-exists-bioregional-activism-in-the-chesapeake-watershed/  ’Balance in the Klamath Basin’ – an agricultural community that uses less water *and* drives ecological restoration http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/24040

Andra Pradesh 600 villages Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater Systems (APFAMGS)  Waterkeeper Alliance (50k). https://twitter.com/Waterkeeper  Zenrainman (Vishwanatrh Srikantaia) https://www.facebook.com/zenrainman?hc_ref=NEWSFEED  International Wetlands Conference http://intecol-10iwc.com/EN/Abstract/MeetProvide.aspx  People and Water (Slovakia) Ecosystem Restoration  http://www.ludiaavoda.sk/. http://www.theflowpartnership.org/people-and-water/  Kosmos. http://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/human-watershed-the-emerging-politics-of-bioregional-democracy/
New Water Paradigm https://www.tamera.org/fileadmin/PDF/GlobalEcologyInstitute/PressArchive/waterParadigm_GEN.pdf

Bioregioning as Health Care: Wordy Slides

John Thackara — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:56:59 +0000

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Wordy slides: Bioregioning as Health Care

Bioregioning as Health Care: Thackara Aral School talk selected slides

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Design for Multi-Species Cities

Kris — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 16:23:05 +0000

Contents
1 BACKGROUND READING AND VIEWING
2 THREE OPPORTUNITY AREAS
A] Soil Care, Composting, Fermentation
B] Trees, Microparks, Edible Forests
C] Microbiome Inspired Green Infrastructure (MIGI)

1 BACKGROUND READING AND VIEWING

Bottom-Up Biodiversity (John Thackara text, 1,500w) also Biodiversità dal basso verso l’alt
http://thackara.com/place-bioregion/bottom-up-biodiversity/ + Chinese version PDF

From Microbe to Bioregion, Designing for Life (John Thackara Video, 20’)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb2saRte9BE&t=301s]

Relational Ecology and Design (John Thackara Video, 45’)
Takeaways: sustainable design is about relationships, not just transactions; it’s about care, not consumption; sustainable design means care for all of life not just human life; these better relationships – between places, communities, and nature – can be enabled by social infrasructure, which we can design.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqjfPuLVo_w]

Design for Multispecies Cities (results of this workshop in 2022)[https://thackara.com/civicecology/design-for-multi-species-cities/]

Sharing The Land With All Life (Rebecca Hosking, 35’ video)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJeeTDgIEm0]

 The historical roots of our environmental crisis (Lynn White jr 1967 text)[http://www.zbi.ee/~kalevi/lwhite.htm]

What does green infrastructure mean to you? (Kate Raworth, 5’ video)  It’s not just the metric of money.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ime4XO9-oGg&feature=emb_logo]

2 THREE OPPORTUNITY AREAS

2A] Soil Care, Composting, Fermentation

Soil Care Network | Soil Talks  (dip into one or two of these talks)
https://www.soilcarenetwork.com/soiltalks

Soil Care, Dr Elaine Ingham 
https://www.bostontreepreservation.com/blog/2021/4/1/compost-tea-and-the-soil-food-web-with-dr-elaine-ingham

Berlin as a Farm: The case of LebensMittelPunkte
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.913412/full

Depaving Guidelines (143 page guide, pdf)
From the Horizon 2020 REGREEN project on nature-based solutions in urban environments in Europe and China
https://www.arb-idf.fr/fileadmin/DataStorageKit/ARB/Articles/fichiers/regreen/REGREEN_Report_3.2_IPR.pdf

Butyrite pathways
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844020323173
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33684759/

Business-2-Place (B2P) Copenhagenize
https://copenhagenize.eu/project-gallery

Urban-Rural Exhibition China – Soil Zone (PPT)
The slideshow (link below) explains how the story was told in words and images.
1. The soil, and us, are one systemThe health of the soil, and the health of people, are the same story.
2. “From the Soil” (book cover: classic Chinese text)
3. The ecological restoration industry (Society of Ecological Restoration).
4. Most Ecosystems Can Recover in One Lifetime. Example: Loes Plateau, China
5. The Ten Elements of Agroecology: At its heart, the idea of a farm as a whole system, or organism.
6. The ClimateTech wiki, and the booming AgTech scene,
7. Soil Restoration: Four indicators of healthy soil: structure | microbial life | nutrient density |
8. Five farming methods
9. Five Citizen Actions
https://www.slideshare.net/johnthackara/urbanrural-exhibition-shanghai-november-2019-john-thackara-personal-slides?qid=7d8c9ff8-5a17-431e-a0e2-da7fbd2ce354&v=&b=&from_search=1  Farmer Live Streaming (Alizila article)  https://www.alizila.com/taobao-helping-farmers-reap-gains-in-livestream-boom/

2B] Trees, Microparks, Edible Forests

Microforests
https://www.sugiproject.com/projects

Tree Care As A Product Service System
Billions of trees are being planted around the world – but who will look after them, and how? New kinds of equipment and diverse disciplines need to be involved in Tree Care.Possible actors: @dmmclimbing @TreeKIT #arborist @TreekitARB[http://thackara.com/learning-design/arborists-arising-from-tree-care-to-tree-camping/]

Replacing streets with parks
Running a ‘find-and-replace’ over the city, replacing streets with parks
https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/rethinking-parks-visions-future-innovation-parks/

Urban Nature Atlas
The richness of urban biodiversity in what used to be regarded as useless wastelands is documented in a growing number of platforms. The Urban Nature Atlas contains more than one thousand examples of nature-based solutions from across 100 European cities
https://naturvation.eu/atlas

Urban wastelands? (French article)
Unrecognized , unloved, belittled. However, studies carried out throughout Europe show that neglected spaces can incorporate the greatest urban biodiversity in flora and fauna.
https://reporterre.net/Les-friches-urbaines-sont-d-etonnants-reservoirs-de-biodiversite

The Fifteen Minute City In Images 
https://www.paris.fr/pages/la-ville-du-quart-d-heure-en-images-15849

Fringe Farming 
New opportunities for peri urban farming in fiveUK cities.
https://www.sharedassets.org.uk/resources/fringe-farming-2021

The bird-friendly city[https://naturecanada.ca/defend-nature/how-you-help-us-take-action/bfc/resources/?]

2C] Microbiome Inspired Green Infrastructure (MIGI)

Microbiome-inspired green infrastructure’ (MIGI) + Healthy Urban Microbiome Initiative (HUMI)  Jake Robinson
“Promoting connections with nature — including the microbes many of us currently shun — should be a key part of any post-pandemic recovery. strategy. Our cities are often lacking in biodiversity. As a result, urban dwellers are far less exposed to a diversity of health-promoting microbes. We set out a framework for construction projects so that multidisciplinary teams of researchers and practitioners can explicitly consider environmental microbiota in design and construction contexts, thereby increasing ecosystem functionality and public health”[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341284747_Microbiome-Inspired_Green_Infrastructure_A_Toolkit_for_Multidisciplinary_Landscape_Design https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/9/2/40]

  Invisible Friends | Jake Robinson
https://www.jakemrobinson.com/

Bacterial Urbanism, Ann Whiston Spirn
“Cities, and the people who live in them, are part of the natural world. Cities are habitats. Cities are ecosystems. And urban ecosystems are dynamic and interconnected. Ecological urbanism weds the theory and practice of city design and planning with the insights of ecology – the study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment and the processes that shape both. It’s an approach that necessarily interacts with other environmental disciplines, such as climatology, hydrology, geography, psychology, history, and art”
http://annewhistonspirn.com/pdf/spirn_ecological_urbanism-2011.pdf

Invisible City Life: The Urban Microbiome (Marina Alberti)
Since microbes are invisible to humans, we tend to underestimate their importance in maintaining ecological and human wellbeing. Microbes play a key role in the function of ecosystems. They contribute to biodiversity, nutrient cycling ,pollutant detoxification, and human health. In urban ecosystems, microbes account for most of the biodiversity and are major agents in nature’s material cycles and food webs ). Thus the sustainability of cities over the long term is inextricably linked to microbes and their evolution.

Invisible City Life: The Urban Microbiome

Microbial Metrics and the Multi-Species City, Kevin Slavin, Elizabeth Hénaff
Ninety nine percent of all life on earth is invisible to the human eye, both unnamed and unnoticed. Cities are filled with people, and these people are in turn filled with billions and trillions of microorganisms. Over the past decade, this notion has become familiar through the popularization of the so-called “human microbiome,” a unique microbiological ecology in the gut of people. But does New York have a gut biome? Is it different from the gut biome of Tokyo? Lagos? Hyderabad?
https://www.aiany.org/architecture/featured-projects/view/subculture-microbial-metrics-and-the-multi-species-city/

From Control, to Kinship: Ecological Restoration in a More Than Human World (JT video 20’)
“The true potential of AI is to help us reconnect with the living, and the real:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYHUYEnjPfI&t=249″

The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities (Didi Pershouse)
https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Care-A…

Microbes and Social Equity (30’)
Dr Sue Ishaq founder of the Microbes and Social Equity working group, discusses microbes, broccoli, scallops, the digestive system of cows, food deserts, spatial planning, and social equity. It adds up to another to-do list for all of us in regenerative design.
https://video.maine.edu/media/%E2%80%9CMicrobes+at+the+nexus+of+environmental%2C+biological%2C+and+social+research%E2%80%9D%2C+Dr.+Sue+Ishaq/1_otisjuzm

Multi-Species Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures, Christoph Ruppert et al (solarpunk book)
Cities are alive, shared by humans and animals, insects and plants, landforms and machines. What might city ecosystems look like in the future if we strive for multispecies justice in our urban settings? In these more-than-human stories, twenty-four authors investigate humanity’s relationship with the rest of the natural world, placing characters in situations where humans have to look beyond their own needs and interests. Set primarily in the Asia-Pacific, these stories engage with the serious issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability that affect the region, while offering optimistic visions of tomorrow’s urban spaces. https://www.worldweaverpress.com/blog/cover-reveal-multispecies-cities

D Other John Thackara Content
Blog, PPTs, Case Studies, Handouts: http://thackara.com/
Publications: http://thackara.com/publications-john-thackara/
 Talks on video: http://thackara.com/talks-on-video/
Slideshares: https://www.slideshare.net/johnthackara
Twitter: @johnthackara
FB: https://www.facebook.com/thackarameetup

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