If you give up on trying to change larger structures and just go off on what some would say is a personal indulgence or being a survivalist, it can be seen as incredibly negative or pessimistic. But the other way to think of it is this: through manifesting the way we live and acting as if it's normal, you're defending yourself against depression and dysfunction, but you're also providing a model that others can copy. And that is absolutely about bringing large-scale change.

If you understand it from an ecological or sustainability perspective, agriculture is the primary way we meet most of our needs, and it's the greatest form of human intervention on our environment. It has intimately shaped our culture as powerfully as industrial modernity, but for ten thousand years rather than two hundred.

The Earth is a living, breathing entity. Without ongoing care and nurturing, there will be consequences too big to ignore.

Some ideas need to be continually reinvented and rediscovered, particularly an idea like the omnipotence of humans. It takes a long time to give up.

I thought if something was a good idea, we should be able to apply it to ourselves as guinea pigs and do something with it, rather than just tell other people what they should do.

A lot of people do get stuck on the idea that they can't pour energy into something unless they own it. Given the current situation, property ownership is getting more and more unlikely. And it is not the essential part. If you're able to roll with adaption, and build the skill base of being a really useful person, there are so many more opportunities. And that's a skill for the future, because that's what the world is going to be like.

Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs.