Earth Day 2026 · Turning Tides Sustainable Futures
The soil beneath
our feet is alive.
So is this campaign.
Climate systems are under strain. Food systems are fracturing. And at the root of both — literally — is a biological system we have been treating as a disposal problem. Today, we launch a campaign to change that.
Released today
Our draft white paper —
a case for consultation
Today we are releasing a draft of our white paper. This is not a finished position. It is a case we are putting forward — built on soil science, regenerative agriculture research, and the knowledge Indigenous communities and women-led organizations have practiced and preserved across generations — and we are asking for it to be stress-tested.
The paper makes a direct argument: living soils, restored through regenerative agriculture and biological composting infrastructure, represent a priority climate intervention that international frameworks have consistently undervalued. The science is there. The measurement technology exists. What's missing is the coordinated claim — made with validated evidence, credible partnerships, and a clear policy proposal.
Read it. Push back on it. Disagree with it. Improve it. Forward it to someone whose voice belongs in this conversation — particularly those working in composting operations, municipal organics policy, soil science, Indigenous land stewardship, and climate advocacy.
Why today
Earth Day is not a celebration.
It's a reckoning — and a start.
The crises converging on this Earth Day — climate disruption, food insecurity, deepening poverty — are not separate problems. They share an underlying thread: the degradation of the biological systems that sustain life. Beneath all of it is soil. Not dirt. A living system of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and microbial networks that sequester carbon, hold water, and make food production possible.
Decades of industrial agriculture have systematically dismantled that system. The organic materials that could restore it are being managed as waste. Indigenous communities and women-led organizations have long understood what modern policy has been slow to recognize: land, water, food, and waste are not separate systems. They are one living system — and the knowledge of how to restore it exists.
Earth Day is a moment to act on what we know. Here is the work.
"Food waste is a soil crisis. Soil health is a climate intervention. Living Soils is the campaign."
Today marks the launch of the Living Soils campaign, and the release of our draft white paper for community feedback. We are not presenting a finished answer. We are opening a conversation — and we need more voices in it.
About us
Who is Turning Tides?
Turning Tides Sustainable Futures Collaborative Society is a BC-based non-profit incorporated in September 2025. We work at the intersection of regenerative agriculture, composting infrastructure, zero waste systems, and climate policy — in active partnership with Indigenous communities, women-led organizations, youth groups, and local partners across sectors.
The knowledge that guides us is not only scientific. It is place-based, intergenerational, and held by the communities closest to the land. Indigenous knowledge systems and women's leadership are not supplementary perspectives in our work — they are co-generative foundations for the frameworks we build.
Our mandate is to convene, prototype, document, and scale regenerative approaches. We build partnerships. We support pilots. We translate science into practical action. We work locally and connect that work to global platforms.
Our work spans
Regenerative Agriculture
Supporting the transition to living-soil, biologically-active farming systems — grounded in decades of field science and in the practices Indigenous communities have sustained across generations.
Composting as Infrastructure
Reframing organic waste management as biological infrastructure — essential to food resilience, climate adaptation, and the restoration of living soil systems.
Zero Waste Systems
Working with global partners to advance circular economy approaches that return organic materials to the soil where they belong — completing the natural biocycle rather than interrupting it.
Climate & Community
Connecting local action to global platforms — from BC farms and Indigenous land stewardships to international forums — so community experience shapes policy.
The campaign
Living Soils: what it is
and where it's going
Living Soils is not a concept. It is a campaign — built on regenerative farming science, grounded in the knowledge Indigenous communities and women-led organizations have practiced and preserved across generations, and anchored in the principle that compost is not waste management: it is biological infrastructure.
The science is established. Healthy, living soil sequesters carbon, reduces chemical inputs, restores water cycles, and builds food resilience. The Rodale Institute has been documenting it since the 1980s. Practitioners like Gabe Brown have been demonstrating it on working land. Indigenous communities have been practicing it for generations. What's been missing is a coordinated campaign that connects this science to policy, to producers, and to communities — with COP31 in view.
The Zero Waste Forum in Istanbul is our next major milestone — the venue where we intend to launch the full, refined white paper and seek visibility among the global zero waste and climate community. We hope that leaders in that space — including COP31 Climate Champion Samed Ağırbaş and the Zero Waste Foundation — will take up this cause. The science is strong enough to deserve that platform. COP31 in Antalya in November is the destination.
Your turn
Help us get this right.
We want to hear from farmers, composters, scientists, municipal planners, Indigenous land stewards, women-led organizations, and anyone who cares about soil, food, and climate. Especially from those working in places and contexts the framework has not yet reached.
Three questions to guide your response:
What resonates with you most — and why?
What's missing, underdeveloped, or wrong?
Who else should be part of this conversation?
Send your thoughts directly. No forms. No algorithms. Real email, read by real people.
✉ info@turningtides.todayWe will acknowledge every response and share a summary of what we heard as the white paper is refined.
A note for Earth Day
Everything that lives
returns to the soil.
That is not a metaphor. It is the oldest system on Earth — the natural biocycle that moves organic matter back into living soil, sustaining food systems, absorbing carbon, and restoring ecosystems. Indigenous communities have understood and practiced this for generations. Modern soil science has spent decades confirming it.
We have spent the industrial era treating this cycle as a waste management problem. We built systems to manage it, regulate it, and remove it from sight. The Living Soils campaign is a proposal to do something different: to recognize this cycle as infrastructure, and to invest in it accordingly — with the rigour of science, the scale of policy, and the depth of knowledge that has always been here.
On this Earth Day, we are not asking you to celebrate. We are asking you to engage. Read the white paper. Send us your thoughts. Tell a farmer, a composter, a city councillor, a colleague.
The soil is ready. The work starts now.