Sylvia Boorstein

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open share - life update

Happy almost-solstice, Reader!

With solstice coming in about a week, I found myself tracing back in my memory to the last time I spent the summer solstice without super long days and short nights - and if my memory serves right - that the last time would have been during my time in Panama in 2011-12, where its proximity to the equator made for nearly unnoticeable variations of days and nights throughout the year.

A decade later, interestingly, I'd find myself not simply near the equator, but in the very country named after the the imaginary line that dissects the earth into northern and southern hemispheres and is equal distance from the north and south pole. Wild.

Add to the fact that I am once more finding myself leading groups of students in short, immersive environmentally-minded programs in the tropics of Latin America is quite radical to ponder about. I sit here, late in the evening on one of the bunkbeds in the staff room at the farm, feeling ready and pretty jazzed to receive the incoming group from Cal Poly University that arrives tomorrow (hence the available time to write + publish the newsletter earlier in the month!), which will be my last group to coordinate with RFI.

Between the last group and this moment has been filled with sweet, wonderful times with my dear friend Camila, who flew to Ecuador from New Zealand to join forces for some months of travel and explorations. Camila and I met in Ōtautahi - Christchurch, New Zealand in 2017 and remained connected in the years that followed via email and social media. A friendship grew and deepened, and last year as summer was coming to a close, I asked if we could travel together in 2022, and here we are. I am so thankful and chuffed for us to be together and share in this Latin America + US tour. Friends, if you're seeking for or in need of an amazing yoga teacher who can guide you through private 1 on 1 classes, look no further than Camila - shameless plug that she didn't ask me to do. ❣️

Wanting to jump to the patrons-only bonus album? Right here.

Supporting patrons, as always, get access to an expanded, bonus album filled with many more snippets and beauty from the past month or so. This month's is full of goodness from the Galapagos and the Ecuadorian Andes. Consider supporting me to receive full access to this and all previous posts and bonus content from the past 4 years with as little as $2 USD/month. This also allows me to continue doing my craft, sharing beauty and stories from the road, and publish my monthly newsletters and the upcoming Wilderness Within podcast. Thanks so much for considering!

​Here's the link and thank you so much to all of my supporters!

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global good news (you probably didn't hear about)

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Most of you love the good news section, and this month should not disappoint. There are some amazing heavyhitters that didn't make it onto your average mainstream news channels, but are absolutely worth celebrating for humanity, for wildlife, spirit, and the earth:
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​Ebola has been defeated. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Congolese doctor who first discovered the virus 40 years ago, says that the fight is now over, thanks to vaccines and effective clinical treatments. "For 40 years I have been a witness and a player in the fight against this terrifying and deadly disease and I can say today: it is defeated, it is preventable and curable." France24​

A new study has revealed a surprising decline in teenage drinking around the world, especially in northern European and English-speaking countries. The trend started in the early 2000s and has continued steadily over the past two decades. Addiction​

A big win for the LGBTQ community in Greece, after the country banned conversion therapy, adding itself to an ever-growing list of countries that have outlawed the practice. Meanwhile Canada has finally lifted its restrictions on gay men donating blood.

New South Wales has become the final state in Australia to introduce assisted dying laws. The legislation, which comes 20 years after the issue was first debated in state parliament, allows it for terminally ill people with a prognosis of six months, or 12 months for people with a neurodegenerative condition. SMH​

California has a new park for the first time in 13 years. Once used as dairy pastures and almond orchards, Dos Rios Ranch is a 2,100-acre riverfront property and will provide restored habitats for endangered animals like the sandhill crane, riparian brush rabbit and Chinook salmon. It's California's 280th state park. SF Gate​

A big milestone for the greater one-horned rhino, with the population in Assam, India reaching 4,014, an increase of 274 since last count thanks to a baby boom during the pandemic! This is an incredible recovery for a species that once numbered fewer than 100 individuals. Rhinos.org​

The largest private conservation project in Canada has just been unveiled - 1,450 km2 of boreal forest in northern Ontario. The protected land is more than twice the size of Toronto, and home to more than 100 lakes and 1,300 kilometres of rivers, streams, and shorelines, including habitat vital to freshwater quality and native fish species. Weather Network​

Vietnam is planning an aggressive switch from coal, to wind and solar to decarbonize its power sector and meet rising demand. Its new national power plan says no new coal-fired power plants will be built from now on, and aims instead for a 50.7% share of the generation stack for wind and solar by 2045. IHS Markit​

Three more African countries, Benin, Uganda, and Rwanda, have successfully eliminated trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) another big milestone for a global public health campaign that began in 2001. Togo and Côte d’Ivoire were the first countries to eliminate the disease in 2020. WHO

In the past three decades, suicides involving guns have steadily fallen around the world. Data from 204 countries shows that between 1990 and 2019, the global rate of firearm suicide decreased by an average of 2% per year. The reason? Stricter gun controls. Only one country is an outlier. New Scientist​

Europe removed a record-breaking 239 dams in 2021. With wind and solar outcompeting hydroelectricity, more dams are likely to be made redundant, and a key element of the European Union Biodiversity Strategy is to restore at least 25,000km of rivers to a free-flowing state by 2030. Dam Removal EU​

Togo has become the third country in Africa to eliminate trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. Significant progress has been made across the continent, with infection rates falling from 189 million in 2014 to 116 million by June 2021. WHO​

An island in Sydney Harbour will be returned to its Indigenous owners, with the new government pledging $43 million towards restoration. Me-Mel, also known as Goat Island, is a significant part of the Aboriginal creation story of Boora Birra; the Dreaming spirit that created the waterways of Sydney Harbour. The transfer has been decades in the making and is expected to take place in 2026. ABC​

The Pacific Island state of Niue is creating a marine park to protect 100% of its ocean, an area the size of Vietnam spanning 317,500 km2. The island’s waters are a birthing ground for humpback whales and boast the world’s highest population of grey reef sharks and the katuali sea snake. Niue follows the lead of the Cook Islands which has also committed to 100% protection. Guardian​

Brazil’s iconic golden lion tamarin, found only in the Atlantic Forest, has been saved from extinction with the population rebounding from 200 in 1977 to over 2,000 today. Local conservationists have worked tirelessly for 50 years to protect natural habitat and bolster the population through breeding programs. Work is now underway to protect the other three species — the black lion tamarin, golden-headed lion tamarin, and black-faced lion tamarin. Mongabay​

​A Sacramento police department held a gun “buyback” event in exchange for gas money, and ran out of gas cards in under an hour. Gun buyback programs are a great way to anonymously get unwanted or illegal firearms off the streets.

​Zimbabwe's first all-women anti-poaching unit is changing the face of conservation, fighting both poachers and poverty. Wildlife populations, like elephants in the area have declined in recent years largely due to poaching, illegal hunting, and drought.

​Finland's oldest city has cut emissions by more than half and is now looking to use sewage to produce energy and get to net-zero emissions. The sewage treatment plant uses large industrial heat pumps to extract energy from waste flowing from the city's drains and sewers.

​The Spanish Parliament just passed a landmark “Only Yes Means Yes” sexual consent bill. The legislation defines consent as an explicit expression of a person’s will and emphasizes that a person’s silence does not equal consent.

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original & curated work

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Reposting the video I made last month for RFI and the group from University of Virginia. I was able to take a step back as a student-volunteer coordinator and put my visual storyteller and interviewer hat on for the week. Here's a short featuring testimonials + reflections from a few students and one of the teachers with scenes from the farm and the projects we worked on together:

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"Life in Syntropy" is a short documentary that showcases the Syntropic Agriculture system as it has been developed and implemented with incredible results in Switzerland, Costa Rica, and Brazil, and the manner in which Lucas and his team here at RFI has been utilizing to rebuild the soil health as well as productive long term systems at the farm. I was introduced to the Syntropic Agriculture upon arriving here back in February, and have been learning more and more about it by witnessing its growth through the months. I think it's such powerful method in leveraging nature's existing designs and also our knowledge to speed up the regenerative processes to support life, diversity, as well as food production and carbon sequestration.

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You may have noticed the quote by Sylvia Boorstein at the opening of the newsletter. Sylvia Boorstein's conversation with Krista Tippett, first aired in 2011, has recently been re-aired on the podcast/show 'On Being,' and it's an absolute gem to listen to and learn from:

"... where the matter of raising new human beings feels as complicated as ever before. Sylvia gifts us this teaching: that nurturing children’s inner lives can be woven into the fabric of our days — and that nurturing ourselves is also good for the children and everyone else in our lives."

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gratitude + shoutout

For those of you who are new to this newsletter, welcome and thank you! Your time and attention are invaluable, and I sincerely hope you find value here.

This publication is a labor of love and devotion. Each month, I spend over 10 hrs culling & editing captured media, compiling good news & content I've consumed, and weave them altogether. It is made possible in huge part due to patrons who pitch in regularly on patreon. This income, as minuscule as it might be relative to salaries of those jobs in economically "developed" countries, is an enormous pillar of additional support for my frugal lifestyle in regions of the world where services and goods cost relatively less.

Without these supporters, there would likely be no newsletter, and it'd be a higher challenge for me to commit the additional time and resources to kickoff The Wilderness Within this year amidst commitments and life itself. So for that, I am ever thankful for their financial support month after month so that I can produce content like this, explore other ideas, "tip" other creators and entities that I think make our world a better place, and offer pro-bono or discounted documentary work to those with(out even) a small a budget. If you're able to or keen to learn more, head over to my patreon page, or if regular contributions aren't your thing, I also have a tip jar - think of me as a "street busker" with my cameras, curation, and musings.

These are the humans that make this publication, the podcast, and so many other aspects of my life possible:

Grateful for you Reader, catch you in July!

Jonathan