Books: Ecological Living & Transition

Living with the Land is a three-volume gardener's handbook in a beautiful slipcase, comprising 1,048 pages, 2,000 illustrations, and 100 chapters. This exceptional manual is for anyone, amateur or professional, who wants to create a natural and productive farm or garden.

Climate change is accelerating, biodiversity is collapsing, our model of civilization is faltering… Isn’t it time to invent together a new way of inhabiting the Earth, letting ourselves be inspired by nature?

At the Bec Hellouin Organic Farm, Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer and their team strive to meet human needs while caring for all forms of life. They practice ecoculture, a new form of agriculture that mimics natural ecosystems. Scientific research has validated the results of this approach, which, thanks to simple and effective hand tools, allows them to produce vegetables and fruits of excellent taste and nutritional quality, with yields that can be ten times greater, per unit area, than those of mechanized organic farming. This abundant production is accompanied by a rapid increase in soil fertility. A micro-farm designed according to the Bec Hellouin approach constitutes a carbon sink and an oasis of biodiversity.

More than any other book to date, this practical manual covers a wide range of topics: growing vegetables and fruits, forest gardens, small-scale livestock farming, cereal crops, tools, and the design of a micro-farm in all its aspects. It is intended for anyone, amateur or professional, who wants to create a natural and productive farm or garden. It will guide beginners through their first steps and support experienced professionals for years to come.

This exceptional book proposes a way of life in harmony with the earth. It allows everyone to take concrete action for the world of tomorrow.

The organic farm of Bec Hellouin , in Normandy, has become an international reference in permaculture and ecoculture!

You can read an excerpt by clicking here: Excerpt from Living with the Earth.

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Authors: Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer
Publisher: Actes Sud
Dimensions: 24 x 32 cm (9.5 x 13 in)
Page: 1048
Publication date: May 2019
ISBN: 9782330119478

A perspective and techniques that change our vision. We can stop desertification!

A perspective and techniques that change our vision!

With this new book, Sepp Holzer continues to profoundly transform our approach to agriculture, fish farming, and gardening. The author expands upon and extends the teachings of his previous book, "Sepp Holzer's Permaculture Design," delving deeper into the creation of fish ponds and aquatic landscapes. He also introduces key new insights into growing vegetables on raised beds, cultivating grains and fruit trees, and raising poultry, pigs, bees, and more.

Like a true educator, he also teaches us how to integrate these new practices into our land, allowing us to better understand the ecological functioning of landscapes. For it is only under this condition that we can cultivate in harmony with nature.

We can stop desertification!

The theme of water is at the heart of this book. Sepp Holzer shows, with concrete examples of his remarkable actions carried out particularly in Spain and Portugal, how to transform areas devastated by drought and parasites into lush and sustainable aquatic landscapes, allowing the redevelopment of local agriculture and economies, in places where it sometimes only rains 400 mm a year!

A book that's a remedy against fatalism!

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Author: Sepp Holzer
Edition: Imagine a Hummingbird
Size: 24 cm x 18.5 cm
Color photos
Pages: 207
Publication date: 01/06/2014
ISBN: 978-2-9537344-5-4

Practical advice and methods for adopting Theory U. This model for managing change in organizations and individuals, through collective intelligence, proposes to follow five steps: initiate, perceive, be present, create and deploy.

Driven by hundreds of thousands of actors in the transition, more than ten thousand social innovation projects have emerged from Theory U worldwide. It is no longer just a model for managing change, but a global movement that is sparking profound transformations at all levels of our systems: economic, political, agri-food, educational, innovation...

It was therefore high time that the essentials of Theory U were made accessible to everyone!

Every action we take impacts our entire ecosystem. So how can we contribute to the necessary transformations of our world? It begins with the quality of our presence—as individuals, teams, and organizations—that we must learn to observe and feel ourselves, to be fully present to the future that seeks to emerge through us. Through concrete tools and a comprehensive method, the author helps us to envision and implement our best possible future.

Ten years after the first edition of Theory U: Renewing Leadership, Otto Scharmer revisits the essence and key principles of the U-shaped process with inspiring testimonials and concrete examples of profound transformation initiatives. He provides us with a practical guide to redefining the organization of our world in crisis, beginning with a fundamental reflection on what motivates each of us, the source of our actions.

The Zero Waste Goal is a tool to support them in this civilizational shift. This short essay raises awareness of a new ecological civic responsibility.

Warning: a clash of civilizations is on the horizon! Within a few years, our economy will have found ways to completely recycle the waste it currently generates. Glass, paper, cardboard, plastic, electronic devices—a truly post-industrial society will finally be organized so that every manufactured product is recycled or reused. From broken toasters to threadbare clothing, from empty bottles to leftover food.

But to achieve this, consumers will also have to change their lifestyles. The Zero Waste Goal is the tool to support them through this civilizational shift. This short essay raises awareness of a new environmental civic responsibility and encourages us to be more vigilant in our consumption choices and purchases. The "popa" played by Claude Meunier in the popular television series La Petite Vie is resolutely relegated, with his green bag, to the old world.

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Author: Marlène Hutchinson
Publisher: MULTIMONDES
Publication date: April 2017
ISBN: 9782897730277
Language: French

What would our societies be without oil? Brutally transformed. We would have to quickly relearn how to produce countless things to ensure our survival.

What would our societies be like without oil? Brutally transformed… No more computers, no more food from around the world, no more cars or planes, no more plastic; we would have to quickly relearn how to produce countless things to ensure our survival. But would we be capable of such self-sufficiency?

This catastrophic scenario is far from paranoid. On the contrary, it represents a near future that we will have to face sooner or later. Combined with climate change, peak oil (the end of abundant and cheap oil) demands a drastic change in our lifestyles, an energy transition that would end our collective vulnerability. Since our governments refuse to take the necessary measures, it falls to us, as citizens, to take the initiative and prepare ourselves.

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Author: Rob Hopkins
Edition: Ecosociété
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9782923165660

Do you dream of running a small family farm where you would raise 2 cows for their milk, 200 hens for their eggs and 500 chickens for their meat? Abandon your dream! This book is a passionate plea for the return of family farms.

Do you dream of running a small family farm where you would raise 2 cows for their milk, 200 hens for their eggs and 500 chickens for their meat? Forget your dream! In Quebec, the laws governing the production and marketing of agricultural products (joint plans, quotas, sales agencies, etc.) are all obstacles to starting such a business.

In *The Impossible Farm* , a book that expands upon the eponymous lecture he delivered across Quebec, Dominic Lamontagne recounts the difficulties faced by all those who want to practice artisanal, transformative, and resilient agriculture. Echoing the conclusions of the Pronovost report, he vehemently denounces the legislation and industrial structures that are literally stifling the next generation of farmers. His targets? The Quebec government and the union monopoly of the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA).

“Our ancestral freedoms have been strangled by a devastating duo: the State, which has abdicated its role as legislator in favor of a single union that dictates the rules for everyone. […] That large producers have appropriated the near-exclusive supply of supermarkets, thanks to a union monopoly, is already questionable. But that this system is a major obstacle to the free operation of a small, multifunctional farm is utterly unacceptable. […] The rage I feel every time I mention this reality is more intense today than ever.”

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This book is a passionate plea for the return of family farms, local cuisine, and a dynamic re-occupation of the land, inseparable from the social fabric. It is time to give Quebecers back the opportunity to practice small-scale, environmentally friendly agriculture and the freedom to eat the food of their choice.

Preface by Joel Salatin

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Author: Dominique Lamontagne
Publisher: Écosociété (Montreal)
Publication date: 2015
Pages: 126
ISBN 978-2-89719-8

The organization of cities has emerged as a key to addressing the major economic, social, and environmental challenges of our time.

In recent years, urban planning has emerged as a key to addressing the major economic, social, and environmental challenges of our time. Cities are now seen as the places where all solutions are being invented.

• new economic models (circular, collaborative, resilient, etc.);
• emerging energy systems (solar, methanization, geothermal, etc.);
• innovative modes of mobility (cable transport, electric cars, bicycles, etc.);
• new cultural forms (urban art, festivals, events, etc.);
• renewed democratic practices (citizen participation, wiki city, etc.).

Eco-urbanism is this cross-cutting approach that aims to give all these spontaneous initiatives a new sense of coherence. The authors present concrete examples of cities around the world that foreshadow the eco-cities of tomorrow.

The stakes are high: according to the two authors, the organization of cities could become, in the 21st century, a "resource" as important as oil in the 20th century and agricultural land in pre-industrial societies.

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Authors: Jean Haëntjens and Stéphanie Lemoine
Publisher: Écosociété/Practical Guides Collection
Publication date: 2015
Pages: 120
ISBN 978-2-89719-213-6
Language: French