Join Goatapelli Foundation Instructors Lani Malmberg & Donny Benz
This stand-alone class is a conceptual overview of past land practices & policies and their unintended consequences, with a focus on how we need to move forward in climate change with increasing human population, record high temperatures, extreme weather events, more fires, extended drought, and less available freshwater.
It’s unknown how to proceed. It’s unknown which plants, animals, and humans will survive.
This online Goats Work Introductory Class is for those who:
- Own or manage land
- Manage public lands and are responsible for designing treatments
- Entrepreneurs who want to later begin Goatapelli Foundation’s 2-year Goats Work Boot Camp to become a certified Goatapelli goat grazier
- Support for the above 3 categories
Class participants at these levels are given a comprehensive overview of how we perceive land stewardship, how we got to the problems we face, how we can fix them and move forward in climate change, with an appreciation for the complexity.
We plan for all class participants together to bring perspective to each role, see what each needs to be most successful as we tackle our local challenges on the land. Philanthropists, goat herders, landowners, and managers learn together as we shift this paradigm. Lectures will be interspersed with walks-a-bout on landscapes to observe and trigger lively discussions.
This class is a prerequisite for all Goatapelli’s higher-level training courses; Internships, Apprenticeships, and Boot Camp.
We have hope; we believe healing begins in the soil. We can reshape landscapes that have been negatively impacted by natural events and man-made causes. We know it works because we’ve been working with the goats for 25 years to rebuild degraded, polluted lands back into living, functioning ecosystems.
Opportunities exist where we can imagine a different outcome with managed systematic goat grazing.
Overview
This Introductory Class is for:
- Decision-makers and practitioners
- Owners and land managers
- Tribal land managers
- Managers of Federal, State, and Local parks and Forest Services, Historic sites
- Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and other public lands
- Department of Defense, Military reservations
- Home Owners Associations
- City Open Space
- Entrepreneurs who want to begin our 2-year Goats Work Boot Camp to become a Goatapelli certified professional grazier
- Philanthropists who want to financially support:
- The general fund
- A specific project
- A specific student(s) through Boot Camp
- A student(s) scholarship
- A specific land area
- A specific watershed
- A specific vegetation problem
- Retrieving atmospheric carbon
- Address regenerative ag reskilling our workforce
- You decide
- Get creative
Participants will be offered a broad overview and a basic outline of how work may be accomplished with professionally managed goats. We recognize the following five categories and bring perspective to each participant’s local land problem:
- Past vs Future perception of how we perceive land ownership and stewardship
- Past vs Future perception of how we value Earth as our home
- Past vs Future perception of how we face and how we got into this predicament
- How we can address these problems by quickly moving forward
- Simple solutions available now
The takeaway philosophy is how to use a large traveling goat herd to:
- Prevent wildfires and stabilize soils on steep terrain
- Increase water quality and quantity
- Eat unwanted vegetation and recycle it to natural fertilizer
- Rejuvenate soil microbes and balance soil properties
- Encourage plant species diversity
- Re-shape landscapes impacted by human activities and extreme weather events
- Retrain the American workforce of those who want to reconnect to the land
- Build stability and resistance in all life levels of communities both above and below ground
We are leading the paradigm shift; how our civilization values land.
This Introductory Class is a prerequisite for Boot Camp beginning Fall 2021.