Environmental Affairs ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS

Community Roots Apprentice Fellowship Final Presentations

The mission of New Perennials’ Community Roots Apprentice Fellowship is to create a cohort of students that explore the day-to-day practices of regional artists, makers, teachers, and scientists as a community of learners. These final presentations are the culmination of this exploration and partnerships as they developed over the course of their time together.

Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103

The Future is Nuts! Forests, food, and Bioregionalism with Elspeth Hay '07 and Cherry Liley

Can we build bioregional foodways for the Northeast centered on trees? Join Elspeth Hay (‘07), author of the new book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food and Chez Liley of Wellspring Commons for a conversation exploring how our food systems might change if we broadened our vision of farming to include the native nut trees of our forested landscape, and how that might reshape our relationships to the world around us.  

Aimed at students with an interest in sustainable agriculture, wildlands conservation, ecosystem restoration, food policy, and journalism, this discussion will delve into some of the assumptions underpinning our current food system and focus on practical ways to transform climate anxiety into action as we look to feed ourselves while regenerating and protecting our home ecosystems.

Elspeth Hay ‘07 is the creator and host of the Local Food Report, a weekly feature that has aired on the Cape and Islands National Public Radio station since 2008, and the author of the award-winning book, Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food. Deeply immersed in her own local-food system, Elspeth’s work focuses on the people, places, and ideas that feed us. Learn more at elspethhay.com.

Cherry (Chez) Liley is co-founder of Wellspring Commons, a nonprofit working to foster bioregional foodways in the Northeast, including reviving acorns as an important crop for the human diet, in ways that protect the standing forests. Learn more at wellspringcommons.org.

Axinn Center 229

Open to the Public