219 Stef van Dongen - Regenerating a 100.000HA watershed in Spain while preventing the forest from burning and people from burnouts

A conversation with Stef van Dongen, founder of The Pioneers of Our Time, about how to regenerate a whole watershed, how to see value again in a super overgrown forest, water, the meaning of life, burnouts, farming, eggs, cows and a lot more.
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Transcript

Why are you doing what you are doing? Why Soil?

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Listen to an interview on top of a mountain talking about how to regenerate a whole watershed, how to see value again in a forest, a super overgrown forest that is, and how to connect a multi-billion dollar tourism industry with the source of its water. Join me in this wide-ranging interview from Spain where we talk about water, the meaning of life, burnouts, farming, eggs, cows and a lot more. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's that we as investors, big and small, and consumers start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community. And so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you, and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. Or find the link below. Welcome to another episode. Today we're in a very, very special place, the home of Stefan Dongen, our guest. Thank you so much for hosting us here. You're gonna hear a bit of background noise, there's a small airplane flying over, and a lot of birds that are singing their evening song as the day is slowly coming to an end. We're in a forest, not a very natural forest, we're going to talk about that, but in a beautiful place a few hours north of Barcelona in the direction of the pre-Pyrenees, the pre-mountains. It's definitely hilly. And we're going to talk about what brought Steph here and what are his plans and also what already has been done, which is quite a lot. So thank you so much for having us here and welcome to the podcast. Great to have you, Kun. Finally, Stefan's been pulling us for many years. I mean, considering COVID and some family things, we were busy and we... We're waiting for the right moment to pass by, which is definitely now. And to start with, I mean, you're obviously not Spanish, so let's start with a short introduction to how did you end up on a mountain a few hours north of Barcelona, basically trying to regenerate a watershed?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Well, first of all, it's great to have you and your beautiful family here. And... In the end, I ended up here walking from the San Sebastian, which is basically the west coast of the Pyrenees. I walked to the east coast to find a place. But before that, why I actually started walking was my insight during my time with Enview. I worked there for 20 years, basically all over the place, all over the world. And I say too much again. Don't worry about it. It's a conversation. Sorry, where was I? 20

SPEAKER_02 3:47

years of Enview,

SPEAKER_00 3:47

working everywhere. My 20 years of Enview, during my 20 years of Enview, I had a big insight that the cause of the mass immigration to the big cities, where we were working a lot in the slums to find business solutions, for the social and environmental problems there. That most of the people went there because of their degraded soils, they were not productive anymore, they could not live there anymore. And so I did some research and during that research I met Willem Verwerda who was just starting Common Land. And during our conversations we built a relationship and trust and actually he invited me to be part of the management team, the startup of Commonland in that phase, this first two years. And I was so inspired and also shocked, basically, that already 30% of the world's soil is severely degraded and we are on our way to degrade a lot more. And the role of forests in the production of water, a lot of insight that inspired me and that made me decide, okay, all what I do at Enview, building this business, activist businesses, to create change in the world, actually do not matter anymore if there is no healthy soil, no healthy forest that produce water, and water is life. So that's the short version. I started looking for land when I was 35. So I looked for land for 12 years in the Nordics, throughout Europe, basically. and decided in the end it will be Spain. And then I made a journey, a pilgrimage, to actually feel where I wanted to live. And you

SPEAKER_02 5:41

almost made it to the other coast. Basically, if you start from Bilbao, we can see almost

SPEAKER_00 5:46

the sea. Yes, exactly. It's a 900-kilometer trip.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

So what made you choose or made you connect to this place differently than other places you passed through? Because many are rural, many are degraded, abandoned. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

One is the energy. It feels very good here for me to silence the darkness, the remoteness. It truly feels like wilderness. Of course, it's not because you're really connected very close by Girona and Barcelona. And this is a forest area with a history. And so that's my personal reason. Besides that, I always wanted to be a forest guard as my childhood dream. Now you have a few hectares. Yes. But the more professional reason is this area is basically 95,000 hectares abandoned forest. It's a valley, it's a watershed, the source of the Muga River until it reaches the sea. There are a lot of socio-economic, ecological issues in this valley due to its abandonedness. My wish is to create a demonstration case in Europe for the transition of an abandoned valley like this with all these issues to hopefully a flourishing, real, regenerative economy that is thriving of life. It ticks all the boxes.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

And the challenges, yeah. And I think the second... You said my first big insight, and there's a second one which is fundamental here because it's not that you bought these hectares, of course you didn't buy all of them, and you're in the process of buying more and basically creating alliances with other landowners, et cetera, and creating this case of a forest that is not very natural and has a lot of opportunities, but you don't base it fully on, let's say, the agricultural forest case. You had a second big insight of what a place like this could be for others as well to come and quote-unquote hospitality, which is a weird word in this case, and we'll let you explain better what you're doing here, and you create the home, and not just living off forest products and farming products, which is definitely an important part. But there's another driver that you, you didn't want to be alone on this mountain, let's say. You wanted other people to come, and specific people to come

SPEAKER_00 8:22

as well. Yeah, so the other big insight during my time at Enview is that a lot of my peers, fellow changemakers, had the tendency to lose themselves in their passion and to slowly burn out. Which is a

SPEAKER_02 8:40

risk for the change-making sector. Like if we lose people after five, ten, eight years for a couple of years when you burn out, that's not something we can afford.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

No, so I saw that people cannot be their most beautiful self or live their full potential. And I wondered why I did not burn out those 20 years, in those 20 years. And my insight was like I spent every year one or two months in silence in nature. Even in the busiest

SPEAKER_02 9:17

periods of NVU in those 20 years, consistently, every 12 months at least.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Yeah. So it was a regeneration of myself, basically. And it really worked well. And so I wanted to create a safe space for changemakers, basically, to regenerate, rejuvenate themselves, to connect to nature themselves and their inspiring peers. And so I created the home, the home for the pioneers of our time. We can host here from 8 to 60 people. We have water from the mountain. We are very remote in the middle of the forest. You drove up with your Tesla and really... Rented, for anybody riding,

SPEAKER_02 10:05

rented a Tesla. But it's, yeah, it's... The road is... I've seen worse. But it's remote. It's a good 20, 25 minutes up if you're not in a Jeep. And the interesting thing is, what I really know, it's because we've been in quite a few remote places, remote farms, is that you don't see any other ruins or farmhouses. Your neighbor is all the way down the mountain, basically, pretty much. And that remoteness, of course, really helps with reconnecting. You can walk for... I wouldn't say days, probably pretty much without seeing another house. In the nights here, you don't see other lights. Except all the way down the valley, which is really far. And that's really unique. I haven't seen that in any other places. And with all the comfort and luxury you need, it's a very interesting combination.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

And

SPEAKER_02 11:00

do you see that people come here and... What's the typical week looks like for people? They come here and they... really high energized, like a group of changemakers come here, let's say risk of burnout, what do you do with them or what do you offer them or what do you don't do with them, let's

SPEAKER_00 11:19

say? Yeah, exactly, it's more that. Go and walk and sit. Yeah, so the concept is you come at my home, and so it's not a hotel, that atmosphere is not there, it's like you come at my home and I try to make you feel at home, so everything is thought through, okay, so what if you come to somebody's home, what do you want, no? So that's one, I think that feeling of welcome, being welcome and coming home, homecoming. It's really interesting, we had groups from the UNFCCC, we have mayors from different cities and they come in their suits. Which is not a fit here, let's say cultural fit, it's not a suit place. And they come with their laptops, a lot of people, entrepreneurs, and within actually people arrive we let them walk down so already the silence now grabs them and you see them okay what i do what am i doing here in my suit and and so within like half an hour an hour people are like making the first step of becoming themselves again.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, and it's not like you force. You design it that way because there's great internet, you can do amazing co-working, but somehow, of course, the outside and the inside design triggers you to not really want to be on your laptop, basically.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

The silence, does it work? The force, does it work? The vultures do their work. We have a restaurant for the vultures here up at the mountain. It's super impressive if you see those three-meter-big birds

SPEAKER_02 13:02

flying over. It's really like every morning you see them with the right term of energy taking their flight and seeing them circling up, up, up, and then going down the valley.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

They're big. Basically, the theme here is well-being, taking care of yourself, rest well, eat well. We have all the food here. from the valley, ecological, healthy, very tasty and nicely presented. We call it co-working in the sense of people can help each other, but it's like creating me time. the things that actually are really important for you to do, but you actually don't prioritise because they're like your personal things, no? Like writing your journal, or writing a poem, or like reflecting on your life. What do you know? Where do you want to go for your next steps? Those kind of things. And we really create space for that here. And... So this working actually on your, doing your inner work, that's basically what we facilitate by basically creating space and taking care of you.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

And then that, again, quote unquote, hospitality side, obviously creates a nice revenue stream when done well, which is absolutely not easy, but creates a revenue stream which makes you not completely dependent on the agriculture and forestry part, which is

SPEAKER_01 14:28

nice. And,

SPEAKER_02 14:30

of course, brings a lot of people here, which is great. And then on the forestry side, or on the land side, let's say, because this is a forest, you said, with a history. It's not a natural forest, whatever that might mean. What's the history of the place here? Why is there actually... Was there a ruin or was there a farmhouse that you could rebuild into a home? It wasn't abandoned, you didn't start from scratch because you can't in Spain, you needed some structures. Why was there a structure on that mountain?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

First I will explain a bit about the history here and then I will go into more the approach I took to actually develop the project. This side of the Pyrenees was basically a charcoal production place. The farm you see here was historically one of the main farms managing these forests for charcoal production, which actually was the input for the energy production in the Mediterranean area. So what you see here, basically oak forest, beech forest. Now you see a lot of pine, but they were not here 100 years ago. And so the trees were cut every seven years. So this is a specific type of oak, it's called a stone oak, and it sprouts like multiple trunks on one root system. So they could harvest every seven years a new batch. And that's what they did. for hundreds of years. Early 1900s, oil and gas took over. So it collapsed. Within a couple of years the whole thing collapsed and people moved away and the farms became ruins and the forests like exploded because if you keep it small for hundreds of years on the big, big root system, like you see like, yeah, it's like the 10x4 human forest or more with invasive species like these pine trees that are everywhere. Pushing out wildlife. Basically

SPEAKER_02 16:41

closing the canopy, no light hitting the ground. Exactly. Starting to become a risk for fires, lower down the valley, low

SPEAKER_00 16:48

life, low biodiversity. No vultures anymore. Yeah, no vultures anymore. The response function of the soil degrades. A lot of water has been sucked up by these trees, a lot of water has been spread out by these trees and so the microclimate is also changing. So that's a bit the situation here. And you talk about like...

SPEAKER_02 17:15

It's funny because you look at it and you see, oh wow, so many trees. Of course, with a non-expert view. And then like hearing now the story, which basically means it's very overgrown and very degraded in terms of soil and biodiversity in terms of plants, et cetera. So a lot of opportunity, but it had a hundred years to explode. And now it's no large mammals or no large animals to maintain, nor humans to cut or prune. So no keystone speed.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

People like abandon the valley, like there's no economy here. There are actually a lot of 60, 70 plus people living here. So keeping all the houses. occupied for the young people, I have a lot of trouble finding housing for my team.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Which we hear in a lot of cases, actually, in these rural economies. Real estate is an issue. Housing, apartments for young families or young people that don't want to live 10 years in New York is an issue.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

So when I came here, I first did not much for two years, I actually reapplied the concept of emergence, like to see what's the need of the land, what's the need of the house, look at the people that come here, how do they flow over the land. But I've quickly realized that at least people here in Catalonia don't see value in the forest, so to create a business case with the traditional way of working is absolutely not possible, or is barely possible. Agriculture here was basically not present. Zero. And so I thought, okay, where can I start in also creating cash, you know, like on the short term. And so I decided to start with hospitality, because I could start right away. after some small construction work. Well, we're now three years on the road, it's not small. That's an

SPEAKER_02 19:19

understatement. If you see the before and after, yeah. Let's say in the history of the forest, it's a small glimpse, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yes,

SPEAKER_02 19:28

we

SPEAKER_00 19:29

did a lot of construction. So by doing that and also realizing, okay, in order actually to be able to start, I need to create housing possibilities for the teams that are coming here. We have now over 20 people and yeah, they still live in Girona, Barcelona, Vieira. So it's a big problem, but also cost-wise paying for all the travel costs.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

But you wouldn't have guessed that probably when you started here, that that would have been a bottleneck.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

No, no, no, no, no. So with this vision, creating this demonstration case for a real regenerative economy, knowing that it's a huge project, I can never do it alone, I should always involve other stakeholders. So where do I start and what would be my role in this project? The first thing is... lead by example and start doing it so hospitality and starting real estate development was one and while doing that with the profits from there we create a farm just to see actually to revive the farm that was here we put chicken cows we did we tried essential oils didn't work actually the cows didn't work either We had 50 cows here in the forest to see if they could open up the forest before we go into the forest and clean it. It was a really interesting experience. The cows preferred the football fields in the local villages above the forest. So the first time it's a lot of fun in the front page, but after 10 times people don't tend to like it. And we started to explore the forest products. And while doing that, I realized, okay, I need something more. An innovation lab or like a campus where we actually pull in universities, academics, innovators, entrepreneurs, funders to start doing this together. Because nobody knows what to do with a 100-year overgrown forest. No, nobody knows. Especially not inaccessible like this on steep hills. That's actually already in development. It's an interesting project. Another thing that we did is uniting the valley. And so we started the Muga Valley Partnership, and it's actually looking at the governance for the watershed and the forest, where you see on the one hand that there's a lot of forest actually producing the water, and then on the other hand of the watershed, in the Costa Brava North, where millions of people every year go using the water, and they literally say, sit back to back, don't look at each other, actually don't talk to each other. We have here governance systems like with 26 villages that never work together.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And they're all connected by the same river and the same watershed. And yeah, you look at a multi-billion euro tourism industry down the valley that desperately needs water and every summer now is in shortage of can we still fill the swimming pools and the showers and the hotels are running dry, etc. Without ever looking at their watershed. The point is the water come from, nobody has to do themselves. Not from the sea, I can tell you. It's not the

SPEAKER_00 23:39

type of water you want to shower with. So the urgency and the need to actually unite the stakeholders, the key stakeholders in the valley, the political field, the private sector, The people with passion is really a necessary and interesting thing to do. Do you enjoy that? Yes, I love it. I really love it to find the common interest of the people. And actually after a year we found it. It's easy actually. Of course the water is the fire. Nobody wants fire. Fire risk. And actually a sense of belonging, creating community between the villages because people like to create relationship and trust. do things together and so those three things basically are the nucleus of the of the mooga valley partnership the the three topics that we work and collaborate on yeah

SPEAKER_02 24:35

and in that the sense of belonging the water side and is the food part or the farm part also part of that or is you say okay let's start let's start with the forest because it covers so much land and it dictates so much here or how do you see the the farming side of things

SPEAKER_01 24:59

yeah

SPEAKER_02 25:00

developing or after your experiment with the cows

SPEAKER_00 25:03

yeah yeah yeah no so i actually started more thinking okay what what do we have with the forest uh i started for instance we started market gardens um Because

SPEAKER_02 25:16

you need quite a bit of food, of course, in the hospitality part. Plus, there are, like you said, millions of people staying here that for sure absorb a lot of food. Yes,

SPEAKER_00 25:27

and so we started with that. And what you see is the wildlife is a big thing. They eat everything. They eat everything the first three years, forget it. We tried several things. And now you start to see, okay, what can co-exist, what can co-grow basically with the wildlife, the wild boar, the deer, etc. And so we found different types of herbs, different types of wild plants that actually, like wild asparagus, things that grow here naturally and are not eaten by the wild animals.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

So much more on the foraging side and collecting in the forest, which of course for the people that visit here is an amazing experience as well. To connect back to nature, to collect wild asparagus in the right season, it's an interesting experience. Plus all the wild herbs and all the smells, etc.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

So that's one thing that we are actually looking into. We have been piloting for now two years and actually now are making a plan for the coming five to ten years. together with a consultant specialized in regenerative agriculture, but also in the back of our mind to make actually the investment plan for it. So one part is that food production and the other part is what can we do with the forest? The forest needs animals to clean actually the understory to prevent fire. We tried goats. Oh, sorry, we tried cows. It didn't work out. We will now try goats as the first animal. They will actually do the big job and then see if after the goat we can introduce the sheep. And so we're making the plan for that, the business case, and it looks good. So that's another part that we're looking into. reducing our own food because we need to provide extra food in the wintertime. And so cereals is one of the things that we look at in the fields. We have now 15 hectares of fields. We'd like to expand that to 30, perhaps 60 hectares.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Which is in the lower part of the valley, which is not overgrown by the forest. So it's accessible at least with machinery, et cetera. And the water part, coming back to it, like, have you seen the first, I mean, you united the valley, let's say, but the first connections through the water with the Costa Brava north, like the people, let's say, by the sea, has that been, is that a next step, or when do you see, like, have there been up here, has there been any connection yet, or is it more, okay, we first have to unite this valley before we start talking to the people down the mountain?

SPEAKER_00 28:26

No, no, we're already talking, actually, first people that came up were the So we have the Minister of Climate Action and Agriculture here. Which is the same? Yeah. That says something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Biodiversity and Forest CS4. Wow. Two weeks ago I was there with the director generals and the secretary of state. It's

SPEAKER_02 28:55

interesting in a progressive region like we are, first of all those four themes and it's a she, that helps. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 29:02

there were three she's.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

That's amazing. What was their... Reaction is not the right word, but when they arrived here, what was the biggest surprise for

SPEAKER_00 29:15

you? The biggest surprise for me was that they really see the urgency. It's an alarm phase, and I did not expect that at all. It was a beautiful thing, a welcoming thing, because then they're receptive to the message. And, well, you always have to wait, like it's politics or like, but, yeah, they publicly state that. And they're really open to collaboration. So it's not only words, it's not only talk, it's actually also the walk. We created, basically not on their initiative, but a collaboration that came out of this research group, a research coalition. It's going to do a baseline study on the valley. on the quality of soil, but also the water situation, and also how the water is being used, because there's a lot of leakage of water, spilling of water, basically. One of the persons in that meeting said, like, if on Thursday it's farmer's market, and there was a camping owner, And he said, I have more water in summer if there's market than in winter because they just let it go. So the irrigation is just on because they're at the market. Yeah. So there's more water in the river in summer than in winter on Thursdays. So it was like, for me, a very strong image.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Okay, yeah. It's not seen as a precious resource yet. Although I think the last... Yeah, the lake is at 30%.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

in winter. So this is mostly after summer.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Yeah, and that means fire risk way up a mountain that hasn't seen that for a long time. And so there's the baseline and then What's your long-term strategy with the land? I mean, nobody sees value here, so you've been able to buy quite a bit and are in process of maybe buying more. Like you said, we might go to 30 or 60 hectares in terms of arable or fields that we can use, and that comes with a lot more forest. Are you planning to buy the whole valley and then be the big land owner? Like, what's your vision in terms of the ownership of all this land and all the potential? Because... as we hope there will be a flourishing regenerative economy based in this valley.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

So the strategy from the beginning has been it's a 100,000 hectares valley. If we create a laboratory zone, an area of 5,000 to 9,000 hectares where we can actually do experiments, pilots, research, well, everywhere it's necessary actually to fuel this regenerative economy. And that would be like a sizeable area that's actually interesting for universities to come in, for politicians to actually declare this area as a sort of innovation zone. And so we look at the farm ideally between 5,000 and 9,000 hectares. And my vision for that is like to break also the cycle of access to land for young farmers, for farmers in general, I think. So what we try to develop, what the intention is to develop is like a sort of an app store. We see the land as a platform where our developers, farmers could be psychologists, it could be tourism operators, it could be anything. Foresters. Foresters, yes, of course, that operate on the land and develop their application. And by doing this, we make it much easier for people to get access to land and develop it and to use actually the multifunctional aspect of the land because it came from the root system to additional value of the forest. We look at the forest in a multidimensional way and also multidimensional use and that is actually what we want to offer in this platform. And for me, I don't have children. I have a foundation. So in the end, my goal will be, okay, how can we bring back the land back in the comments, the end of the comments?

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Yeah, because

SPEAKER_00 34:47

the multi,

SPEAKER_02 34:48

the app store, analogy here requires that you don't have to pay an enormous rent on the land or lease on the land and that it won't be sold to whoever because suddenly we're going to be in a biochar boom and the forest has a value again and everybody that was doing nice forest work or whatever will be kicked off so the commons and the land ownership discussion of course is the elephant in the room

SPEAKER_00 35:13

yeah and so there is like um Governance access. Governance access is also financial models that actually provide a horizon of, I would like to say, seven generations to actually be able to keep on maintaining and regenerating the land. And that doesn't exist at the moment. And so... That's why it's 100 years overgrown, yeah. And so that's why my strategy is, okay, I first buy it, unite it, and create this campus, this innovation lab, to actually, a big part of that will be on that topic. Like, what's the future of finance, future forest? financial model behind it, how can we keep it or help it actually, because the forest will do its own thing, but how can we help it to come back in balance again and for seven generations.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

So you use your wealth and investment money to buy and then transition it to the commons in due course. And then the rest of the 90,000 hectares that, like you mentioned 100,000 and this will be five to nine, what is your vision for?

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Yeah, so what we are doing with the Muga Valley Partnership is basically looking at what governance model could be uniting the different governance model that are there already, but are not governing the watershed. And so how can we make the watershed the principle? driver of this governance system and the forest ecosystem. So the quality of the water, the quantity? The water, the forest, and also what will be the foundations of this new economy. And I think the regeneration of the forest and actually all the work that has to be done to actually secure the future water supplies, there's so much work. And

SPEAKER_02 37:17

I'm looking down the valley, The Costa Raba Nord would be nice if they somehow pay for that. Exactly. There is a connection between who uses and who produces. Yeah. And... So they're here for

SPEAKER_00 37:28

the economy.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah. You have a stream and it's... I mean, it's nice that we talk about water and not necessarily about carbon, which could be a potential driver for short-term cash or cash in general, but water is very... I mean, it's tangible and intangible at the same time, but it sort of flows down. It ends somewhere in a sea or a large water body at some point, and you can follow it and track it and actually measure. And we have a deep connection with water and watershed and not necessarily with the carbon cycle, which is actually not at all. Everybody calls carbon and sexy is probably wrong or delusional. So there's an interesting, yeah, it's an interesting model with, of course, a region down there that really needs water and a reliable source, a clean source, because there are literally billions on the line because tourists won't show up anymore if their swimming pool is empty. And there's a whole valley that can provide that, or at least that's what we hope

SPEAKER_00 38:28

in a different model. No, no, it's very scientifically proven. That's research we have. Yeah. We can actually, as projected over the coming 25 years, we will lose 30% of the water volume, the current water volume. And two-thirds of that is directly related to being non-active in the forest. Wow. Two-thirds.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Imagine if you get active, plus what kind of restorative... Research comes out in the next decades on what triggers water, what triggers rain, what triggers this big sea, what's called the Mediterranean, to bring in more clouds or bring in more humidity and make sure it falls here before it reaches the Pyrenees.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

This is exactly what you say. this valley could be in itself then the demonstration valley for Europe, because there are thousands of valleys like this with probably similar problems.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

There

SPEAKER_00 39:31

are thousands

SPEAKER_02 39:32

of watersheds that are not maintained or not thriving, let's say, or they're under, somebody called it an underperforming ecosystem. They could do so much more.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, and it's interesting because I think it's a global trend, like all the rural areas being abandoned at the moment. Well, actually, the biggest challenge for humanity lies in the rural areas. How do you regenerate those soils and forests?

SPEAKER_02 39:58

I can say a friend of the show, Abby Rose, calls the farmers and land stewards, and I'm for sure butchering the quote, but the key decision makers of our time. And we don't give them that power. If they decide left or right, it determines everything else. And... Somehow we haven't come around that yet in the cities and in the hotels. So what do you see when we look at this landscape? We're in this landscape now. We're sitting on two beautiful stones. There's a dog sleeping down there. And we're surrounded by birds, as you can hear. What do you see when you see this? Do you see an overgrown pine forest and you think, okay, we need to get to work? Or what does this land now, after being here a couple of years, what effect does it have on you?

Biggest transformation of people with wealth when visiting The Home?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

It's a great inspirator and teacher. I must say, I've never lived fully in nature for four years in a row. Is it a month or two? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's amazing if you see every day something is happening and there's a rhythm. Every year around the 14th of September, the roaming of the deer starts, exactly two weeks. Or like the swallow flying over at 19th of August at 7 o'clock in the night, come to eat. You can put your watch on it. Those kind of things, yeah, you can... you get a sort of, it becomes family. The land becomes your family, or I become their family. I became their, part of their, I became part of it. It's really special. Energetic, so I don't see, I see the, for the suffering, it's asking, you know, either to learn or to be helped in, by bringing, by being in balance. That's what you see, especially in summers. But it gives so much energy and inspiration. I do my silent walk in the morning at seven. see me running around like, but I have so much energy here.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Yeah, but you also had that before. Let's be fair. It wasn't that you were laying on the couch a lot in the 20 years of MVU. And when the people come here, and especially you've had retreats here, and of course a lot of impact investors and investors and people working in the big banks, et cetera, what do you see... After a week they spend here and they connect, what do you see as the biggest transformation with people with wealth or in control of money? What have you seen that this valley affects them or the home affects them?

SPEAKER_00 43:13

I see that a lot of people recognize their need to be in connection with nature and they come back. sometimes four times a year. A repeatable customer, very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's good. You don't have to explain things anymore. They come, they know where the

SPEAKER_02 43:28

fridge is, things work, they know the Wi-Fi code.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Yeah, with the recognition of, okay, this is a fundamental need that I have as a human being. I think it's the first one. And people get really silent, so there's space to reflect. And we talk a lot about nature as a teacher, but also the values and how you reflect on life and the purpose that you work on. And those things I think a lot of people don't take time for. And that has a lot of impact because here you can come for a week or two weeks or sometimes people come for a month. Actually, like you said, people are changing jobs or taking important decisions in their life. So they take, they use this time here to actually reflect and prepare those decisions and things. Sometimes not knowing that, well, coming, but, well. It's fine, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

It doesn't need to be in the brochure. No. Be ready for important life decisions. Maybe it shouldn't be in the brochure. It happens.

UNKNOWN 44:49

It happens.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Who cares,

SPEAKER_00 44:50

as long as it happens. Yeah. So, and I actually, I promote also, like, okay, it's important to align basically what you believe in and what your values are with how you invest or, like, not even your invest, like, how you spend your life energy.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

but also your investments. Because otherwise you get this huge disconnect that we've both seen in Tonic with people with amazing life values and then investments, portfolio full of fossil fuels and sugar companies and Coca-Cola's of this world. How do you sleep at night? How does that reflect? Because that's, yeah. You can drive your Tesla, separate your waste, have amazing solar energy, but if a lot of your wealth is doing horrible things, or in your job you're putting money to work, while we're talking it actually starts to drip a bit. And very little, not enough at all, but still good. How do you reconcile that or connect that? And what would be your main message for... because many people listening, unfortunately, cannot pass by here because of calendar, distancing, distance, et cetera. What would be your main message from the home to them? Especially people in entrepreneurship, in managed resources, either their own, because they're really good at building companies, or money, which could fuel other people to build. What would be your main message from the mountain?

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

The main message from the mountain is to, if you cannot come here, find that spot somewhere else near, close by, where you can be in silence. connect with the nature and also feel that you that it's not separated from you it we are nature like this is also a big insight that i have here and that i had here like you remember when that happened

SPEAKER_02 47:24

like was there was that a gradual process because it sort of i feel that that's the big switch

SPEAKER_00 47:30

yeah

SPEAKER_02 47:31

And you remember when that insight

SPEAKER_00 47:33

came? Actually this happened, the realization of it happened during my walk, those 900 kilometers. I was two months by myself with the animals around me, with nature, and realizing that this soil is basically a composition of us all. I will go there too. You will go there one day. Our ancestors are lying here. The animals that are walking around before us, they make this soil. They're giving us their nutrition, their nutrients. And... And so everything comes from there. The trees, it's a being, it sweats, you know, it drinks water. It's like, it's a slow river, basically. It pumps the water up, which defines physics. Yeah. So, yeah. And for me, that's... You

SPEAKER_02 48:39

said the realization came on the walk?

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

And did it... saying it like that sort of suggests it landed when you were really here. Is that

what would you do differently?

SPEAKER_00 48:48

fair? Yeah. Actually, I always had the feeling when I was a young boy already, I really felt in resonance with nature. And then life took me. And so you lose a bit. You feel that you're out of resonance. No, you don't feel really that you're out of resonance. But if you're in nature, you feel really in resonance. And that realization came really strongly here after being here for so long. And now I go as less as possible from down the mountain without becoming a hermit. You have people coming up the mountain. You

SPEAKER_02 49:31

have the luxury or the great pleasure of hosting people here, which makes sure you don't become a hermit. And... What would you do differently, actually? You've been here now four years, five years into it, I think. Yeah, four, yeah. Looking back at those years, any big lessons learned, or the main thing you would do different, or actually you would say, actually... Spending the two years on looking at emergence and looking and seeing what's happening and setting up the partnership.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

I'm

SPEAKER_02 50:06

seven years ahead of planning, so when I made my first planning. That's a first. Somebody says I'm ahead of planning with these kind of extreme ambitious projects. So it's faster than you thought.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Much faster than I thought. The farm not really. The farm I learned a lot, and I'm still learning, and I think if I would have...

SPEAKER_02 50:31

No. You wouldn't have taken the 50 cows, maybe. Yeah, no, no, because I had to learn that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I had to take the learning. You could learn with 20. Yeah, no, but yeah, there's... You plant a lot of trees that didn't make it, but that's also... Lessons, payments for lessons.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

So nothing big... If you would start somewhere like the next valley, let's say, you would do differently?

What do you believe is true about regenerative agriculture that others don’t believe to be true? Inspired by John Kempf

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Of course I would take learnings from here. I don't know if it was possible, but I would try to find the right mentors around me. I started with a lot of local people. and it's good because they know the valley, they know the forest, they have the connections here. I think it could have taken in more international benchmarking to go even faster. I don't have to go fast, but I mean... You do. You see

SPEAKER_02 51:42

the forest suffering. We see summers that are... Lakes and 30%, that's probably also seven years before... like ahead of schedule, ahead of scary schedule. And the question we like to ask, inspired by John Kempf and his great podcast on where do you think differently than others? Normally we're asking on, let's say, regenerative agriculture, but I think in this case on regeneration, it's fair. Like when you are with the groups, in the home, and where do you see where you really think differently with most people that visit here, like people that, fellow chainsmakers that spend a week or a month, et cetera, here. Where are you, apart from the fact that you live on a mountain, but where do you think fundamentally different? Where are you contrarian, let's say?

SPEAKER_00 52:44

That's a good question. You asked it to me before.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

You thought he escaped it. There must be something. It could be compost toilets are not that bad, or something much more deep or fundamental. What surprises you in that? You think, come

SPEAKER_00 53:05

on. I think the app store thing is well, the metaphor for the app store is different for people.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

the land

SPEAKER_00 53:13

as

SPEAKER_02 53:13

a

SPEAKER_00 53:13

platform yeah the valley even like yeah yeah yeah i think the aspect of well-being and taking care of yourself is also very important i think

SPEAKER_02 53:30

it's interesting that you started this not because you burned out. Which is quite an interesting realization. I never burned out and everybody around me did. So I should make sure that the next generation doesn't or the next wave. But not because you had a severe burnout yourself.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

Which is interesting. I think also the long-term perspective that I take is different. I think in 20 to 40 years and actually the plan that we make for the forest is 1,000 years because the Texas tree here can become 1,000 years. So like... You have to think about that. That's also a thing, long-term thinking. Then I think the financial aspect, also for me, money is a means. Of course, you should be really careful with it and do good management. I take also from the money aspect, the long-term perspective, and also the return for me is much more than financial. If in 10 years we have the water level at 70%, that's a return.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

You might figure out a way to get paid for that. But the return, the important piece is the water. Of course

SPEAKER_00 54:47

I don't throw away the money. A part actually is a donation or a subsidy or a grant. The dog is signaling that we are boring. I

SPEAKER_02 55:18

think that's a big question to answer. How do you put a value and whatever that non-financial value is on a thriving valley? reduces endless amount of relevant, very relevant things that actually without that we can't survive. I said to somebody, actually somebody we both know, but I'm not going to mention her, I said something like, but a risky investment, or let's say financially it was risky, deep in regeneration, and The advisor said, this is a very risky advice from a financial point of view. And she said, if it's very risky, not doing it. And that's the time we're in. It doesn't mean you should throw away your money, put it on fire, etc. But you should be very diligent with it. Of course, this is not financial advice. But we are in a time of quite desperate measures. And

SPEAKER_00 56:16

I'm lucky to find people that think along, aligned

SPEAKER_02 56:19

on that. Yeah, they're fine. I mean, if you connect here, you walk in here and you fit, that's probably a good filter if you make it up the mountain with whatever car you brought or preferably a 4x4 Jeep. Or let's say a higher, just a higher ground floor is better. Let's see how we get down tomorrow. But that means something. In fact, you come here, it's not remote, remote, but still remote if there's nothing around and that means you you're searching for something, or looking for something at least. I can imagine many people find it here. I want to thank you so much for the conversation, the hospitality, and for the work you do.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

I hope to see you back soon. And all your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

All the

SPEAKER_00 57:09

length's good.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Thanks again and see you next time.