The Great ReGeneration

After forest fires and after floods, after tornadoes and landslides and war, the world must rebuild itself. Or is it better to say re-generate itself? With the worst environmental effects clearly present as heat waves, storms, floods and fire, its clearly time in the history of humanity for a new generation to lead a Great Regeneration of the Earth.

It’s time to start thinking about how we can regenerate a more healthy earth. The concept of regeneration is wide and deep with things we don’t talk about as often. And we need to find and adopt some new ideas and approaches. As ACES sees it today, there are literally dozen of niche but important techniques to choose among to help the environment. And rather than concentrate on a few big solutions to big problems maybe we can adopt the mindset of multiple small solutions to smaller problems which taken together will solve our bigger issues. In seeking to find such fresh thinking ACES has found this good reference online  https://regeneration.org/nexus.It's packed full of interesting informative and perhaps a few locally feasible ideas for progress.

With their ideas alphabetically arranged, let’s start with the “A’s”.  Afforestation involves the introduction of trees to areas that have never or not recently had trees in order to create a forest. Some examples of afforestation, some large and some small, include Iceland where forests were first cleared centuries ago, and Bangladesh on degraded coastal lands, and in Beijing to connect fragment forest patches in the City. In Massachusetts old military firing ranges and Nike missiles sites from the 60’s may offer such an opportunity as well as shuttered landfills that dot all of New England. Is proactively reforesting such landfills feasible? Maybe even in Newburyport on Colby Farm Lane?  Another “A” is agrovoltaics, or having animals grazing and growing under solar panels as has been done in the past on the solar farm in Salisbury off Rabbit Road. Goats, It is estimated that using just 1% percent of US farmland in such a way can meet our entire US clean energy goals. Do the Massachusetts and New Hampshire departments of Agriculture have any such plans to encourage or educate on ‘harvesting sunshine”? Agroforestry is the intentional integration of forests with agriculture, and according to Cornell’s Small farms program it “integrates the sustainable production of livestock, forage, and trees on the same unit of land, has the potential to increase farm productivity and soil quality when compared to conventional pasture systems." Raising pigs on a combination of pasture and woodlots can work very well for such farms. It combines trees, shrubs and vines with a crop and animal farming to mimic natural ecosystems. Already used worldwide for food, fiber and wood, and now it's a modern and well studied regenerative farming practice.

Skipping past all the “B’s”  we get to Composting. Newburyport has become a leader with its Towards Zero Waste effort including for example in composting, both with street side pick up as well as the highly successful Senior Center ‘Drop a bag, get a bag” food scrap collection. Another ‘C”, relates to cranberry farming on the south shore which has a regeneration twist of its own. The cranberry industry in Massachusetts is facing financial challenges make it difficult to renovate aging bogs. So a state program is helping farmers retire some of their land and restore it to its original wetland state. It focuses on more productive bogs while reclaiming land for ecological benefits. One such cranberry grower, Edgewood Bogs in Carver, will be taking 27 acres of their cranberry bogs offline and converting them back to native wetlands.

Our premise, our need for a Great Regeneration, means its time to pass the torch to the next generation. Maybe regeneration starts as the new generation seeing the damage wrought by a century and a half of industrialization seeks to identify a mission for its adult years. We need new leaders like the many ACES interns who have worked with us over the last 6 years before moving on to college or the work world. We appreciate what they have achieved and who they are becoming. They will be the true drivers of regenerating the Earth.

Please send along your ideas for engaging with upcoming generations to help heal the Earth. Let’s plant seeds of a Great Regeneration locally. ACES believes everyone can make a BIG difference together. We invite you to stay updated on environmental matters by subscribing to our monthly newsletter on ACES’ website https://www.aces-alliance.org/. Please consider joining our community of stewards committed to Make Every Day Earth Day by contacting acesnewburyport@gmail.com and subscribe to our Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/acesalliancenbpt/ and Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/ACESAlliance/  pages to stay informed.

This educational column was originally Published by The Daily News of Newburyport on October 24, 2025.