Growing Resilience to Floods, Fire, and Drought
The Soil Sponge and Living Climate Workshop
Scheduling and Delivery
This live, participatory workshop will meet on Zoom, for 5 Wednesdays (2.5 hours per class) on the following dates:
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- September 3rd to October 8th, 2025 (No class on October 1st), 12-2:30 EDT (UTC-4).
Use this Time Zone Converter to find the time in your region.
- The sessions will be held on the Zoom platform. You will be sent the relevant link after registration.
- Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a session, you can get caught up.
Workshop Overview
Get ready! This workshop on whole-systems landscape function will give you an entirely new view of climate, soils, water, and economics. You will meet people from around the world, and come away feeling inspired by a new understanding of how we can address many of our major challenges through simple changes in land management. You will learn why the living matrix of a healthy “soil sponge” is fundamental infrastructure that makes life on land possible, and how the work of other species creates our climate and weather and underlies all successful economies.
If you sign up, be prepared to get into deep discussions with other participants, and to reflect on your own experiences. The class includes small group discussions, large group discussions, journaling, the use of living systems frameworks, as well as short informational lectures and powerpoints.
Completion of the course also serves to fulfill the prerequisite requirement for those who want to join the international Land and Leadership Development Community.
The regeneration of a deep soil sponge can provide interrelated benefits such as:
- Healthier crops, animals, and people
- Food and water security
- Cooler regional temperatures
- Reduction of wildfire risk
- Increased resilience to flooding and drought
- Reduced erosion, dredging, and road repairs
- Prevention of algae blooms and dead zones
- Cleaner air and water
- Reduced conflicts over resources
- Thriving local economies
- Putting atmospheric carbon to work creating landscapes that support all of life.
This isn’t your usual “how to” workshop. It isn’t about using heavy equipment to move soil around. It isn’t about buying biological or chemical products. This workshop helps to develop the mind that can see watersheds/catchments as working wholes, see and measure the work of other species, and understand where specific well-designed local actions can create enormous positive outcomes downstream.
We will draw on the diverse experiences within the group, as well as successes of innovative land managers who are providing real value to their communities by reducing damages from storms and crop diseases, while restoring the dignity and profitability of farming.
Participants will gain:
- An increased ability to evaluate the effectiveness of land-management decisions, practices, and policies
- A clearer picture of soil’s central role in addressing current economic, social, and environmental needs
- An introduction to working with living-systems frameworks as an instrument for personal development and effective decision making
- A community of practice: deep discussions with people working toward similar goals
Workshop Topics
Landscapes that Work for All Life
A living “soil sponge” can soak up rain, store and filter water; and provide health, resilience, and thriving economies for the communities that grow from it. What is the “soil sponge” and why is it essential infrastructure for life on land? How does biology slow and sink water on a total landscape scale? How does nature grow a soil sponge, and how can we help? How does a healthy soil sponge provide resilience to flooding, drought, heatwaves, and wildfires?
Collaborating with the Essential Workforce of Other Species
Other species are the essential workers that build and repair the foundational infrastructure of the living Earth. What are the job descriptions in a functional landscape? How does biological work regulate temperatures, create rain, and drive the water and carbon cycles? What are the processes of land management that this natural workforce uses, and how can we apply those principles to urban design, farming and ranching?
Measuring Change for Long Term Success
Many people assume that following industry’s Best Management Practices will automatically lead to favorable outcomes, but that has led to major failures that could have been avoided with some simple observations along the way. How will YOU know if your soil’s structure and function is actually improving? What tests are useful and affordable? What can you tell with just a shovel and your own eyes? Should you share your data or keep it private? When should a project use monitoring, versus relying on computer-simulated models of landscape function?
Money, Life, and Land
Our economic systems and our land systems are inextricably linked, in ways that are often hidden to us. How can we deepen our understanding of the relationship between the soil sponge and functioning ecosystems and economies? What are the costs of degraded land, and who is paying those costs? Can we redirect those funds toward land regeneration? Where will the money for regeneration come from and what difference does the sourcing of funding make? Are the emerging global markets for carbon offsets, water, “natural capital,” biodiversity credits, and “ecosystem services” actually working from a living systems perspective? What other approaches are there?
Choosing Effective Intervention Points
Human relationships play a large role in effective land regeneration, but many initiatives rely primarily on markets and impersonal incentives. Artificial intelligence is also entering the scene. How do we design projects and policies that grow human and ecological capability and engage people for the long haul? Why are some regenerative land projects gaining enormous momentum while others are stalling? We will look at several examples of how support groups, mentoring, and communities of practice are growing healthy landscapes and driving change at a regional and national scale.
(Note: these topics may change somewhat based on our discussions, but this gives an idea of where we likely will go.)
About your Instructor
Didi Pershouse
Didi Pershouse is well known as an innovative international educator both in-person and online. Her teaching style is specifically designed toward creating long-term working groups of diverse people with common aims: clean water and abundant food for all of life; healthy, safe, and resilient communities; thriving ecosystems and economies; and purposeful lives. Her facilitator’s manual Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function is in use in over 100 countries.
She became deeply involved in the intersection of food systems and health systems while providing rural health care for two decades at the Center for Sustainable Medicine, and wrote The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities. She is also a contributing author to The Climate Emergency: How Africa Can Survive and Thrive; Climate Change and Creation Care; and Health in the Anthropocene.
She is the founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative and a co-founder (with Australian scientist Walter Jehne) of the Can we Rehydrate California? Initiative. She has been an independent trainer and curriculum developer for the UN-FAO Farmer Field School Program and the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Initiative in India, involving over 1,000,000 farmers. She is a Planning Commissioner for her town, and a district supervisor for the White River Natural Resources Conservation District. She led a successful effort to conserve the Zebedee Headwaters Wetlands while serving as a Vermont Conservation Commissioner, and was one of five speakers at the United Nations-FAO World Soil Day in 2017.
You can learn more about her work at https://didipershouse.substack.com/ and www.landandleadership.org
FAQs
Is this course completely online?
Yes. The workshop is held on Zoom. You will need to download Zoom to your computer if you don’t already have it. Please do this ahead of time so you don’t miss the start of the first session.
Is this course self paced?
No. This is a five-part, live online discussion workshop.
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- The first workshop is a 5-week event (once per week for 5 weeks with a 1 week break). Sessions last ~2.5 hours and will be held once a week for five weeks.
- Sessions are scheduled for the following 5 dates: September 3, 10, 17, 24, and October 8th.
- Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a session you can get caught up.
- The sessions will be held on the Zoom platform. You will be sent the relevant link after registration.
If you choose to watch the recordings, rather than participating live, you can do this as a self paced course. However, if you can attend live we recommend it as you will get to meet others and participate more fully.
When can I start?
This is a five-part, live online discussion workshop. The first session is live on September 3, 2025.
Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a session you can get caught up.
What will I learn?
Participants will gain:
- An increased ability to evaluate the effectiveness of land-management decisions, practices, and policies
- A clearer picture of soil’s central role in addressing current economic, social, and environmental needs
- An introduction to working with living-systems frameworks as an instrument for personal development and effective decision making
- A community of practice: deep discussions with people working toward similar goals
How many sessions are in the Soil Sponge Workshop?
There are 5 sessions per Workshop, each 2.5 hours long.
How much does it cost?
The workshop costs $300USD
How long will it take me to complete it?
- The first workshop is a 5-week event (once per week for 5 weeks with a 1 week break). Sessions last ~2.5 hours and will be held once a week for five weeks.
- Sessions are scheduled for the following 5 dates: September 3, 10, 17, 24, and October 8th.
- Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss a session you can get caught up.
- The sessions will be held on the Zoom platform. You will be sent the relevant link after registration.
Do I need any qualifications to start the course?
This course has been meaningful and useful to people with a wide range of backgrounds and qualifications: from those with no formal training, to those with decades of farming experience or multiple PhDs! All are welcome.
Is there any homework?
No homework is required, however you will be given links to readings, videos, and activities that are suggested to deepen your understanding.