In 2022, some camps are organising camp experiences for you to participate in. We are hopeful that they will be able to go ahead. Camps will follow the local conditions closely, and may have to cancel activities if the local COVID-19 situation forces them to do so. If you have already signed up for a camp-activity you will be informed when this happens. We will update the website also, when such decisions are taken. Please check your own local authority travel advisory to see if you can travel to or return from the camp after the activity. At all times, when at camps, please observe it’s COVID-19 policy (such as wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, etc).
Explore the inner workings of some of the world’s most inspiring ecosystem restoration projects and techniques, and use this knowledge to create a plan for how to restore an ecosystem close to your heart.
Learn from 18 ecosystem restoration practitioners and cover a wide range of topics! In Modules 1 – 3 we explore restoring natural, agricultural and urban zones. Modules 4 & 5 cover different business models that land regeneration projects use to fund themselves, and help you create a business development planning tool. You’ll also develop your own restoration plan for an ecosystem of your choice!
The first module is looking at how to restore natural forests in temperate and tropical biomes in the first two lessons. These lessons are given by practitioners with decades of experience in this work, and they talk the students through every step they took in restoring these forest ecosystems, looking at tackling invasive species, collecting seeds, creating a nursery, species reintroduction, tree planting, tree maintenance, managing grazing, fencing, as well as the social and cultural factors that accelerate and also inhibit this work.
The third and fourth lessons of module 1 of the course look at restoration in Deserts and the Ocean. The desert lesson looks at the causes of desertification, both natural and human-made, and how the teacher restored a desert in Saudi Arabia, both ecologically, socially, culturally and politically. The fourth lesson on Oceans looks at how to use art to regrow coral reefs and all of the challenges associated with doing this work.
This module is all about rehabilitating agricultural ecosystems. The first lesson is about Agroforestry, and why it is so needed around the world, how agroforestry systems can be created and maintained, and why agroforestry isn’t more mainstream. The second, on Holistic Grazing, focuses on how to restore grasslands using cattle, with examples from across Africa. The third lesson looks at how permaculture can be used to rehabilitate land and grow food to support food security, with an example of how this was done in Jordan. And the last lesson in this module looks at regenerative agriculture in the sea, with seaweed farming as an example. Joost talks about why seaweed farming is an important solution, how the seaweeds are grown, which species of seaweed are grown and why, and what the challenges are regarding seaweed farming and how they can be overcome.
Module 3 looks at ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation in urban contexts. The first lesson in this module looks at how to use floating, bioremediating, water based ecosystems to clean urban waterways. In this lesson you will learn how to create these floating ecosystems, as well as the challenges involved in implementing them. The second lesson looks at how to create tiny, natural, biodiverse forests in cities, where you’ll look at how to fund, plan, design and implement the planting of a tiny forest, using the Dutch city of Utrecht as an example.
The third lesson looks at urban food growing in Los Angeles and how to acquire urban land, what to do to restore it, including soil building for urban contexts, and some ideas for how to make urban gardens profitable. The fourth lesson looks at how to build regenerative housing that runs off of the rain, the sun and the wind, capturing energy flows through the houses and using them to restore the degraded land around them, with an example of such a project in Mexico. The students learn why the land in Mexico is degraded, how these houses work, what materials they’re made of, how they are built, what the challenges are that arise when trying to build such homes in terms of legal barriers concerning planning etc.
The fourth module looks at business models for ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation. The first lesson is given by the Commonland Foundation, where they run you through their 4 Returns model, and their Regenerative Business Model Canvas and how it works as a tool for planning and mapping out a business idea to fund an ecosystem restoration/rehabilitation project. They then interview a dutch regenerative landscape business as an example, and go through the business model canvas with them. The second and third lessons give you two examples of regenerative businesses, as their founders go through the ins and outs of how their business were set up, why they were set up, how their businesses work in terms of the everyday operations, the legal entities they’re registered as, how they raised initial investment, what the challenges have been in running such businesses, and how they are overcoming these challenges. The final lesson of the course is by Ecosystem Restoration Camps, where the ERC staff run through why regenerative businesses are needed, how to raise funds as a charity, an introduction to impact investment, and the business models that the camps use to fund their restoration activities.
Week 13: Introduction to Regenerative Business Models – Commonland
The fifth module gives you the chance to form a team with the other course students and together you will learn how to create a design for your restoration project, and how to create a business model canvas for your project as well. At the end of the course, you will have created connections with the other students and you may even have the opportunity to gain support for your restoration project from the other course students after the course is over.
The full Ecosystem Restoration Design Course consists of five modules. You can choose to study modules 1 to 3 as stand-alone modules, or sign up for the full 5 modules to receive a certificate on completion. Pay upfront for the full course to receive a discount, or pay per module as you go along.
Learn from the experiences of world class practitioners such as Alan Watson Featherstone from Trees for Life, Neal Spackman from the Al Bayda Project, and Simon Moolenaar from the Commonland Foundation.
This course is different because it covers a much broader number of topics (16 in total), and involves 18 teachers, rather than one or two. This is also a paid course (see last FAQ below). The true value of the course is that you get to learn from the world’s best ecosystem restoration practitioners, direct from their personal experiences of restoring every single type of landscape there is.
Permaculture is just one ecosystem rehabilitation technique taught on our course, out of a series of many different methods.
Our course covers the basics of a broad range of ecosystem restoration and regenerative agriculture techniques. Each lesson teaches you a range of techniques that that particular teacher has used in their own restoration project. There is then a host of additional learning materials that you can delve into if you want to go more in depth.
The full course (Modules 1 – 4) can be completed in six months, with one module lasting one month, with 4 week-long lessons. Each lesson lasts an hour, plus whatever time you choose to spend on doing the extra reading.
We don’t have the resources to develop this course without charging for it. Your fees go to paying the course teachers for their time and expertise, and thereafter directly to the movement to support the ecosystem restoration camps around the world with what they need to continue restoring their landscapes, economies and communities.
All of the lessons are prerecorded, so you can take the course from anywhere in the world, no matter the timezone. We also offer prerecorded sessions with the teachers, which cover most FAQs about the course content.