Act Resources

RARE

“Farming for Biodiversity” Solutions Unearthed by Solution Search Competition Provide Blueprint for Achieving Global Goals for Biodiversity Protection During the UN-led Convention on Biological Diversity - Conference of the Parties (CBD COP) in 2018, a new report was released of 338 community-based solutions to help farmers and other agricultural practitioners adopt ecologically-friendly practices that protect biodiversity. The report catalogs solutions unearthed by Solution Search: Farming for Biodiversity, a global competition held in 2017 and run in joint partnership by Rare and IFOAM - Organics International, to identify, spotlight, and reward promising solutions for sustainable small-scale farming. Download the full report at http://bit.ly/FarmingForBiodiversity. Solutions were submitted from over 75 countries across 6 continents. The vast majority – 85 percent - came from developing countries where biodiversity hotspots, high levels of poverty, food insecurity and climate impacts come together. A quarter of successful solutions specifically target youth, a third focus on the empowerment of...

November 19, 2018

Dirt to Soil

By Gabe Brown, Chelsea Green Publishing

Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But as a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown and his wife, Shelly, in desperate financial straits, they started making bold changes to their farm. Brown—in an effort to simply survive—began experimenting with new practices he’d learned about from reading and talking with innovative researchers and ranchers. As he and his family struggled to keep the farm viable, they found themselves on an amazing journey into a new type of farming: regenerative agriculture. Brown dropped the use of most of the herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers that are a standard part of conventional agriculture. He switched to no-till planting, started planting diverse cover crops mixes, and changed his grazing practices. In so doing Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life—starting with...

October 29, 2018

Transforming Capitalism Session: Awareness-Based Systems Change

Presencing Institute

The September 2018 live session dove into detail about awareness-based systems change: an approach to leading profound change in social systems, that focuses on creating new outcomes by facilitating shifts in consciousness for the stakeholders in a system.

September 25, 2018

Everything for Everyone

By Nathan Schneider, Hachette Books

The origins of the next radical economy is rooted in a tradition that has empowered people for centuries and is now making a comeback.

September 20, 2018

Warehousing Wealth

By Chuck Collins, Helen Flannery, Josh Hoxie, Institute for Policy Studies

At a time of staggering inequality, wealthy individuals are using donor-advised funds, or DAFs, to claim substantial tax benefits, while often failing to move funds in a timely manor to independent nonprofits addressing urgent social needs.

September 5, 2018

The Production of Money

By Ann Pettifor, Verso Books

In this accessible, brilliantly argued book, leading political economist Ann Pettifor explains in straightforward terms history’s most misunderstood invention: the money system.

August 24, 2018

The Power Manual

By Cyndi Suarez, New Society Publishers

This concise action manual explores major concepts of power, with a focus on the dynamics of domination and liberation, and presents methods for shifting power relations and enacting freedom.

August 21, 2018

Emissions Impossible: Report

By Staff, IATP, GRAIN Staff, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

In direct contradiction to JBS’s outlook for strong growth, the imperatives of climate change necessitate a significant scaling back of production from the world’s largest meat and dairy companies without delay.

July 26, 2018

Resistance

By Jeff Biggers

Resistance is a masterful chronicle of the arduous, courageous, and often squabbling resistance movements that insured the benchmarks of our democracy—movements that served on the front lines of the American Revolution, the defense of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the defeat of fascism during World War II, and various civil rights struggles.

July 25, 2018

Building the Solidarity Economy

By David Cobb, Transition US

Cooperation Humboldt exists to develop a solidarity economy across the North Coast. They identify, support and nurture local cooperative economic efforts that help people meet their needs without exploiting or oppressing anyone, without being exploited or oppressed by anyone, and commit to do so in an ecologically sustainable manner.

July 18, 2018

A Love Poem to the Words “What If”

By Rob Hopkins, ManagEnergy

For its first edition, the ManagEnergy Talk chose to invite serial storyteller Rob Hopkins (UK). Founder of the Transition movement, Hopkins gave insights to how bottom-up actions can have very real impacts through imagination.