CRRA2020

Executive Director

Trathen Heckman is the founder and Director of Daily Acts Organization. He serves on the Board of Transition U.S. and the California Water Efficiency Partnership and is an Advisory Board member of the Norcal Community Resilience Network. Trathen helps people and groups reclaim the power of their actions to regenerate self, nature and community. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while working to compost apathy. https://dailyacts.org/sonoma-climate-challenge/ 

Grassroots efforts to implement urban carbon gardening affecting climate change

Daily Acts works as an effective grassroots organization to transform our communities through inspired action and education, which builds leadership and local self-reliance. Many individual programs have been implemented over the years, such as lawn conversions and regenerative garden designs, that contribute to carbon gardening.  Currently they are working to bring all those pieces together to launch a comprehensive carbon gardening program that can be adopted by any community. From the ground up we can turn dispair and hopelessness about climate change, which leads to apathy, into hope and action.

President and Lead Carbon Analyst for urban, suburban, and municipal landscape systems

Rick has spent 25 years weaving ecological literacy into the landscape profession through practical cutting-edge solutions. This led to the development of the Landscape Carbon Calculator at Landscape Analytic Solutions. He has taught and at countless industry events as well as created curriculum and held a lead instructor positions at Sonoma State University's Sustainable Landscape Professional Certificate Program and the Ecological Landscape Immersion Program at the Permaculture Skills Center. In this role he helped train future professionals in how to merge ecology, design, professionalism, and economics to build a career rooted in regenerative, socially just livelihood. .https://www.landscapeanalyticsolutions.com/

Landscape Carbon Calculator: tools for granular landscape carbon sequestration assessment

The Carbon Calculator can be used to predict carbon impacts at the landscape design phase and to stimulate rethinking of urban garden design and management or during post-construction to monitor the carbon footprint. Rick will walk you through some of the parameters included in the Calculator both on carbon costs (concrete, irrigation supplies, patios, etc.) as well as the carbon gardening benefits from trees, shrubs and the inter-related benefit of creating healthy soils through the use of compost and mulches. The future of the gardeners, landscape industry, parks and recreation and schools is beyond aesthetics. We are keepers of many solutions that the world needs to address climate change.  Rick will explore with attendees, options to utilize the Carbon Calculator to provide financial incentives to urban carbon sequestration by tying compost and mulch use to rebates or discounts and or other benefits. As such it can be a tool in procurement of organics.

Program Services Specialist

Trevor Probert is a Program Services Specialist at StopWaste in Alameda County. He facilitates StopWaste’s public workshops on composting and carbon farming, partners with urban farms to support on-site composting, and coordinates soil testing to gather data on carbon farming practices. He has worked as an elementary school garden teacher, classroom teacher, and landscape contractor, and has bachelor degrees in Geography and Environmental Science and a master’s degree in Education.

How local government can support carbon gardening: education and partnerships

StopWaste is a public agency in Alameda County that provides outreach to residents on the benefits of compost and mulch. Trevor will share the agency’s experience educating the public on carbon farming through an array of partnerships with community groups, urban farms, cities, and other public agencies. Efforts range from working with urban farms to provide soil testing and on-site composting technical assistance, hosting public workshops at urban farm sites to educate home gardeners on soil health, encouraging new working relationships with non-profits through grants and events, and engaging citizen groups already invested in sustainable gardening and composting with city efforts codified in Climate Action Plans. StopWaste’s partnership with the Alameda County Resource Conservation District (RCD) provides an additional layer of support for urban farms as well as the creation of the agency’s own Carbon Farming Plan, and the StopWaste Environmental Educator Training (SWEET) expands the agency’s capacity for outreach by creating an active group of volunteers to educate residents.

Composter/Soil Scientist