"The Maasai are essential for our climate future."
Seth Itzkan
"The Maasai, and all pastoral people, are essential for our soil future and our climate future."
https://youtu.be/-jTMDyPO3x0
Text and video of my comments at the Regenerative Future Summit, Boulder, Colorado, May 17, 2017. #RegenerativeFutureSummit
https://regenerativefuturesummit.org
Special thanks to Hunter Lovins and her team at Natural Capitalism Solutions, to Dalmas Tiampati and his wonderful #Maasai community in #Kenya, to the Savory Institute for advancing #HolisticPlannedGrazing, and to my colleague in Soil4Climate, Karl Thidemann, for clarity of purpose and direction.
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"Hello Everyone. My name is Seth Itzkan. I’m the co-founder of an organization called Soil4Climate. We advocate for soil as a climate solution.
I’m standing before you today representing that organization, but, more importantly, I am representing a Maasai community in Kenya south of Nairobi.
They entrusted me to speak on their behalf at conferences like this and they requested that when doing so, I wear this necklace and hold this talking stick.
I visited this Maasai community as part of my stay at the Africa Center for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe - That’s the first Savory Hub and is one of the birthplaceses for Holistic Planned Grazing, nearly 50 years ago.
My message today is to say how important is this conference, and how the future of the Maasai and all pastoral people and their ancient land wisdom depends, at least in part, on the outcomes of conferences like this and the motivation of people like you.
Without soil restoration brought forward through healthy pastoralism, we will not avoid catastrophic climate change.
Repeat: Without soil restoration brought forward through healthy pastoralism, we will not avoid catastrophic climate change.
The Maasai, and all pastoral people, are essential for our soil future and our climate future.
We live in disruptive times, and finding the regenerative course through and with these disruptions, is what Buckminster Fuller might term the "Critical Path." This conference is part of that path and each of you is a change agent, or as Bucky might say, the “trim tab” that is needed to steer humanity on spaceship Earth.
On behalf of myself and the Maasai community that has entrusted and empowered me to speak these words, I say Thank You."
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