Public Seminars

Regeneration at The Community Level: An Introduction to Regenerative Practice

With Ben Haggard and Sara Zwart, hosted by Damaris Kingdon.

American time zone: Tuesday, February 28 at 2 pm US Eastern time
Aotearoa time zone: Wednesday, March 1 at 8 am Auckland time
Duration: 90 minutes (60 minutes + 30 minute Q&A)

Regenerative development is about reweaving a co-evolutionary relationship between human beings and ecological systems–work that is even more urgent now than ever before in the face of the interrelated crises of climate disruption and biodiversity loss. But how do we work on this? The interface between ecosystems and human systems is entirely unique in each individual place on earth—which means that each human community has an entirely unique regenerative potential to explore and manifest. Join Ben Haggard and Sara Zwart in an exploration of general principles for what regeneration looks like at the community level, as well as a dive into how this work has unfolded around a constellation of projects around the regeneration of ancestral streams in Auckland, New Zealand.

Photo credit: Panuku Development

Ben Haggard, Core Faculty at Regenesis Institute, USA/Germany

Ben Haggard is a member of the core faculty at Regenesis Institute and a co-founder at Regenesis Group, where he works on a diverse range of regenerative development and planning projects and delivers educational programs to a global network of practitioners. He is the co-author of the book Regenerative Development: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability. Ben specializes in a holistic, systems-based approach to understanding and building upon the complex human, natural and economic relationships that create and sustain the vitality and viability of a place.

Sara Zwart, Principal Regenerative Design Lead at Eke Panuku Development, Aotearoa

Sara Zwart is principal regenerative design lead at Eke Panuku Development Auckland, the council-controlled organisation that delivers urban regeneration across Tāmaki Makaurau. With over 20 years of experience in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, Sara has worked alongside project partners to lead award winning environmental projects such as Te Whakaoranga o te Puhinui and Northcote’s Te Ara Awataha greenway. Sara is passionate about weaving social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes into regenerative urban projects. Her work is delivered in close collaboration with mana whenua, whom she values as critical partners, advocates and kaitiaki for the land and people of Aotearoa.

Damaris Kingdon, Regenesis Co-Faculty and Placemaker in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa

Damaris has found her niche as a creative entrepreneur and placemaker. She has founded several regenerative and socially-minded businesses including a creative co-working hub in Grafton. She works across a variety of sectors and enjoys working with others to develop new vision for projects and organisations and working creatively with restraints. She spends most of her time working with projects and businesses in and around Auckland city centre, offering facilitation and resourcing processes to groups and individuals, implementing her regenerative development training in all of her mahi.

Working from Potential in Our Projects: 

An Introduction to Regenerative Practice with Bill Reed

American time zone: Thursday, March 9 at 2 pm US Eastern time
Aotearoa time zone: Friday, March 10 at 8 am Auckland time
Duration: 90 minutes (60 minutes + 30 minute Q&A)

A core aspect of regenerative practice is the ability to move beyond the fragmentation that is inherent when clients, stakeholders and community leaders fix their minds on single issues or problems that they want addressed. In our work, we accomplish this through a methodology that orients us to the inherent potential of a system—a unifying force that addresses the myriad individual issues and problems that stakeholders care about without collapsing into fragmentation. Join Bill Reed in an exploration of what it means to work from a potential-based mindset, the new possibilities that this approach unleashes, and what it looks like in practice.

Note: This seminar is a repeat, first offered in November 2022. We are offering the seminar again now to provide an accessible  time for practitioners in NZ. Regardless of geography, if you missed it on the first go-around you are welcome to attend!

Abundance Basket, sculpture and photo by Caroline Robinson

Bill Reed, AIA, LEED, Core Faculty at Regenesis Institute, USA

Bill is an internationally recognized planning consultant, design facilitator, lecturer, and author in sustainability and regeneration. He is a principal of Regenesis Group and faculty member at Regenesis Institute. An author of many technical articles and contributor to multiple books, he is a founding Board of Director of the US Green Building Council and one of the co-founders of the LEED Green Building Rating System. In addition to being considered one of the leading thinkers in this field, Bill has also consulted on over two hundred green design commissions and is a keynote speaker at major building and design events as well as a guest lecturer to universities throughout Europe, North America, and Oceania including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and UPenn.

Working With the Patterns of Nature:

How Te Ao Māori and Regenerative Thinking Can Reshape
How We Work and Embrace Our Place in the Natural World

A dialogue session with Gena Moses-Te Kani, Rowan
Brooks, Lucy-Mary Mulholland, and Nicholas Mang

American time zone: Thursday, March 23 at 3 pm US Eastern time
Aotearoa time zone: Friday, March 24 at 8 am Auckland time
Duration: 90 minutes (60 minutes + 30 minute Q&A)

“We all whakapapa back to Papatūānuku.” -Dr Amanda Yates, Associate Professor, AUT
Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Te Aitanga a Mahakai, Rongowhakaata

“As people of the land, returning to place is how we heal ourselves and the earth.”          -Lucie Greenwood

This is a dialogue responding to the inspiring provocation from Johnnie Freeland (Ngāti Te Ata Waiohua, Ngai Tūhoe) of Te Ao Māori and regenerative thinking as binocular vision, two lenses for looking at the world that together, can help us see a way forward. We’ll explore a new trajectory that sees our places as whole living systems regenerating: waterways, ecologies, communities, cultures and economies.

Photo credit: Laura Forest Photography

Gena Moses-Te Kani, Ngāti Kuia Te Iwi Pakohe

No te takere o Kurahaupo ki Te Waipounamu
Ko Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Apa ki re Rā Tō, Rangitane ngā Iwi
Ko Gena Moses-Te Kani ahau

I descend from the people off the Waka/canoe Kurahaupo in the South Island, Aotearoa. I am a mother, grandmother and servant to my people. As a facilitator of mana motuhate/ self determination, I am focussed on being awake and engaging processes that reconnect people and groups to their aspirations and journey to achieve them. I am a forever student of living system processes with a focus on groups and organisations and a recent graduate of The Regenerative Practitioner.

Rowan Brooks, Facilitator and environmental campaigner, Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Rowan is a developmental facilitator and passionate environmental campaigner. Their facilitation practice has been heavily influenced by a decades work within activist movements, permaculture, community theatre, study in psychology and ecology, and their ongoing Buddhist practice. Rowan completed The Regenerative Practitioner series in 2021 which is now enriching their work as a community organiser on climate justice issues – focusing on ecological food systems transformation.

Lucy-Mary Mulholland, Regenesis Institute Co-Faculty, Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Lucy-Mary was a child and adolescent therapist before transitioning into the field of community development and regenerative practice. This shift came from a desire to work on systems change that could transform not only human mental health, but the health of place as a whole: people and their wider environments together. Lucy-Mary is in a community developer role within central Auckland, through the Aaiotanga Trust, and is co-faculty on The Regenerative Pracitioner Series. She continues to draw on her therapeutic skills, arts background, and Celtic whakapapa to help facilitate learning journeys of individuals, groups and organisations who see potential for regeneration in the living systems that they care about.

Nicholas Mang, PhD, Core Faculty at Regenesis Institute, USA

Nicholas Mang is a core faculty member at Regenesis Institute, where he has co-developed and taught developmental education programs for practitioners around the world. As a practitioner, Nicholas’s work has its roots is in community planning and organizing with a focus on urban regeneration work, developing leveraged intervention processes for reigniting community involvement in the stewardship of place. Nick’s educational background includes masters and doctoral level work in cross-cultural studies, living systems thinking, social transformation theory, ecopsychology (the bridge between psyche and ecological place), and spiritual psychology.