Announcing Wisdom of the Woods, a collection of illustrations and poetry borne out of the Regenerative Rubber Alliance. When Terra Genesis began partnering with Wanakaset farmers for the Regenerative Rubber Alliance, we understood that we were connecting with a community with a rich cultural and spiritual relationship with nature. Our work there was primarily driven by an objective to develop a regenerative rubber origin to be purchased by VF and integrated into Timberland products, but our philosophy of supply relationships impels us to form deeper and more complex commitments to the producer communities that we work with.
Specifically, when designing the Regenerative Outcome VerificationTM program, which we iterated in this initiative, we integrated the 8 Forms of Capital framework (developed by Terra Genesis founders Ethan Soloviev and Gregory Landua), a sequence of categories that indicate the health of a community: Financial, Social, Cultural, Material, Experiential, Living, Intellectual and Spiritual. Put simply: we hope to support and measure the enhancement of a community on all of these levels as a result of our collaboration.
This type of multidimensional thinking helps explain how an environmental consultancy and international apparel company came to support the creation of an anthology of poetry and illustrations by Thai farmers.
Terra Genesis designer Michael Commons was moved by Vinai Nuansanong’s poetry, and received his permission to translate the writing and share it with his colleagues, and their partners at VF who, in turn, were moved to elevate the work with a publishing budget.
Natural dye artist and Wanakaset member Jaroon Noipan contributed illustrations and an introduction, and a limited number of hard copies were published in March 2022 for distribution at the regenerative rubber summit held March, 22, 2022 in the community of Tamot, Phatthalung where the author and other key leaders in the vision and practice of regenerative rubber agroforestry live.
For the first time, this anthology is available for the public’s enjoyment here.