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Speakers
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| BRAD LANCASTER |
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 Brad Lancaster is the author of the award winning Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks www.HarvestingRainwater.com. Living on an eighth of an acre in downtown Tucson, Arizona, where rainfall is less than 12 inches annually, Brad practices what he preaches by harvesting over 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year.
Brad and his brother Rodd have created an oasis in the desert by directing this harvested rainwater not off their property and into storm drains, but instead incorporate it into living air conditioners of food-bearing shade trees, abundant gardens, and a thriving landscape that includes habitat for wildlife. This living example, dynamic public talks, and countless hands-on workshops have inspired thousands of citizens and businesses in Tucson and around the country to also harvest water.
Brad's engaging style and entertaining and informative speaking and teaching are in demand resulting in interviews with National Public Radio, New Dimensions, and Natural Home and Garden, along with presentations and workshops for the Bioneers Convergence, the Green Festival, the Texas Natural Building Colloqium, the New Mexico Xeriscape Conference, Organic Farming Conferences, and more.
Brad Lancaster is a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant and co-founder of Desert Harvesters www.DesertHarvesters.org. Brad has taught programs for the ECOSA Institute, Columbia University, University of Arizona, Prescott College, Audubon Expeditions, and many others. He has helped design integrated water harvesting and permaculture systems for homeowners and gardeners, including the Tucson Audubon Simpson Farm restoration site, the award-winning Milagro and Stone Curves co-housing projects.
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| ART LUDWIG |
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 Art Ludwig is an ecological systems designer with 27 years full-time experience in water, wastewater systems, energy, shelter and human powered transport. His specialty is complex, integrated "systems of systems." Art has studied and worked in 22 different countries, consulted for the states of New York and New Mexico on water reuse policy, and given dozens of lectures and workshops.
He designed his own education in Ecological Systems Design, graduating from UC Berkeley. At Berkeley, he developed the first cleaners specifically designed to be biocompatible with plants and soil, and founded a successful business to manufacture and distribute them. Art has authored numerous articles (including one on water testing procedures) as well as the books "Water Storage" "Principles of Ecological Design," and "Create an Oasis with Greywater."
Art and his family own and run Oasis Design, a home-based design consulting and publishing business www.oasisdesign.net.
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| JOHN D. KELLEY |
 Award-winning architect John D. Kelley specializes in environmentally friendly design. His mission is to encourage his clients, colleagues, and community to live and build in a sustainable manner.
A Southern California native, John graduated from UCSB in 1968 and has been living and working in Santa Barbara for over 35 years. He and his wife Ellen, an award winning poet, children's book author, and teacher, have two grown children.
John has been involved in design and construction since 1972 and founded his architectural firm in 1989. His completed projects in California, Colorado, and Utah include homes and remodels as well as offices, restaurants, classrooms, libraries, and auditoriums. Several of the projects have been featured on green building tours, and several have received design awards.
A founding member of the Sustainability Project www.sustainabilityproject.org and the Green Building Alliance www.gballiance.com, John chaired the Green Building Now conference in 1996 and led the creation of the Santa Barbara Green Building Guidelines in 2001. He teaches green building classes for Adult Education and supports other local efforts to promote sustainability www.jdkaia.com.
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| GEOFF LAWTON |
 Geoff Lawton is a world renowned permaculture consultant, designer & teacher. Since 1985, he has undertaken a large number of jobs consulting, designing, teaching and implementing in seventeen different countries around the world. Clients have included private individuals, groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, non-government organizations and multi-national companies.
In 1996 Geoff was awarded the Permaculture Community Services Award by the permaculture movement for services in Australia and around the world. Currently, Geoff is the Director of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia www.permaculture.org.au, a registered charity and global networking centre for permaculture projects.
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| HEATHER C. FLORES |
 Heather C. Flores is an artist, dancer, writer, teacher, singer/songwriter, gardener, and activist. She is a certified permaculture designer and holds a BA degree in ecology, education, and the arts from Goddard College. Her skills in design, horticulture, education, and the arts stem from her extensive work in Permaculture, community organizing, Flamenco, Vaudeville, and nonviolent direct action. She offers environmental landscape design and consultation services and is the author of the book, "Food not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community" (Chelsea Green 2006). For more info about her work, please visit www.foodnotlawns.com or www.myspace.com/foodnotlawns.
Gabriel Howearth
Gabriel Howearth is a Botanist, Landscape Architect and Seedsman. He is the founder of Buena Fortuna Botanical Garden, located in Baja Mexico, and president of Siempre Semillas AC, a Mexican NGO whose main focus is to preserve seed diversity by teaching and planting. His center offers educational workshops and apprenticeships in botany, permaculture, organic gardening and seed harvesting. Currently he is working with several ecological organizations in Central and South America and travels worldwide to teach about organic seeds and ways to preserve our genetic seed purity locally in order to contribute to the global change in positive ways. He provided professional consultation for "Dreaming New Mexico" a strategy to achieve food & energy self-sustainability for the state by the year 2020. This ambitious project initiated by Bioneers brings government together with a number of NGOs, farmers, indigenous groups, and schools.
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