The Greenbelt Alliance is hosting a virtual event: The Future Climate: Regenerative Agriculture for a Climate-Safe Future on December 10, 2020 from 3:00PM-4:00PM.
Join us as we learn about the potential of regenerative ranching to sequester carbon and combat climate change.
Many people understand the connection between greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and the climate crisis. However, few are familiar with the vast potential for carbon sequestration in our soils. Healthy soils are a critical component of achieving our urgent climate goals and increased resilience to climate-driven extremes like drought, heat, and floods. Carbon sequestration is the process of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and converting it to plant material or soil organic matter.
This approach provides multiple benefits to human communities, wildlife, ecosystems, and the climate. Regenerative ranching can cost-effectively reduce fire-prone vegetation while also helping to build soil organic matter, reduce soil compaction, and improve land fertility. It can also improve healthy water cycle functioning and support beneficial populations of native plants, songbirds, pollinators, and other wildlife.
Join us on Thursday, December 10th as we learn from Torri Estrada the Executive Director and Director of Policy of Carbon Cycle Institute, and Wendy Millet, the Ranch Director of TomKat Ranch where we will break down the principles behind carbon sequestration and regenerative agriculture and discuss the policy opportunities and myriad of beneficial possibilities carbon sequestration can have on climate impacts, water, biodiversity, and local food.
About the Speakers:
Torri Estrada, Executive Director and Director of Policy, Carbon Cycle Institute
Torri Estrada is Executive Director at CCI and directs its policy and climate justice work. Torri has worked with non-profit, community-based, and public institutions to advance solutions to social and environmental justice, climate, and environmental issues for over twenty years. Previously, Torri was the program director at the Marin Community Foundation, where he managed the Foundation’s environmental grantmaking program and climate change initiative. He was also a program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, where he managed its environmental justice, media reform, reproductive rights, and civil rights portfolios. Torri was the co-founder and a senior policy fellow with the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; served as Director of the Latino Issues Forum’s Environment and Sustainable Development Program; and was a Program Director at Urban Habitat, where Torri managed the Brownfields and Community Revitalization Project and co-developed its Leadership Development Program. Torri holds an MS in Environmental Sociology and Policy (with an emphasis on environmental justice) from the University of Michigan, and a joint BS/BA degree in Environmental Science and Policy and Ecological Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Wendy Millet, Ranch Director, TomKat Ranch
Wendy Millet is the Ranch Director of TomKat Ranch, TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation and LeftCoast Grassfed. For more than twenty years, Wendy has worked to bridge a love of conservation and working landscapes with practical economic solutions and effective partnerships.
In addition to working for several years on cattle and dude ranches in Wyoming and Montana, she ran a local land trust, worked for a timber investment company, developed programs for an environmental economics research foundation, led education and leadership programs for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and spent 12 years at The Nature Conservancy working with farmers, ranchers, and timberland owners to protect and restore ranches, rivers and forests. Her efforts to share best practices led to work on several publications including: Land Use in America (Island Press), A Place-Based Partnership Manual (The Nature Conservancy of California) and Preserving California’s Natural Heritage: A Guide to Land and Water Conservation (California Resources Agency).