About Us

Agroforestry Regeneration Communities (ARC) was formed in 2021 to expand regenerative food forests to address food shortages, droughts and other environmental challenges.

Started as a project between John Roulac, the founder of Nutiva, co-founder of Great Plains Regeneration and executive producer of Kiss the Ground movie and Hannah Apricot Eckberg, the co-founder of Abundant Earth Foundation. ARC collaborates with well established permaculture and agroforestry practitioners across East Africa and Guatemala to provide extra support and networking to help build on their early success. ARC projects have also received financial support from One Tree Planted.

Our projects focus on ecosystem restoration and economic development while providing nutrient-rich food to communities. These methods skip expensive and harmful fertilizer chemicals, but instead mimic natural systems to create abundance.

Our Theory of Change is based on the concept of training community and village members, particularly women, to then teach others how to grow food and wood resources without the need of chemicals. Philanthropic donations are jumpstarting the programs with the intention that it becomes self-sustaining economically as well as environmentally. We are also receiving funds from tree planting organizations which is helping accelerate and reach thousands of family farmers.

While our initial focus is growing regenerative food forests in Guatemala and East Africa, Agroforestry is growing in popularity around the world. ARC’s strategy is to focus on supporting a few small countries where impact can be very powerful, and show by example the multifaceted benefits of agroforestry that can be replicated in communities and countries anywhere. Regeneration, resilience, climate adaptation, empowerment of women, and indigenous wisdom are at the core of our programs in order to support diverse and thriving communities.

Like the biblical ark, our community-based project builds life-boats of food and shelter, while drawing down carbon and improving water cycles. We do this via support for training and providing trees and planting materials to community members in order to establish their own agroforestry based system of food production. We invite allies, funders, philanthropists, and practitioners to help ARC regenerate our world.

Agroforestry practitioners are welcome to join our public Facebook group.

Abelardo Pop

Contour Lines Technician

Abelardo was the first technician for Contour Lines. He has worked in over 30 communities. Before Contour Lines he had experience as an extensionist for several years throughout the region.

Hannah Apricot Eckberg

Raised on a coastal ranch in California, Hannah has been a life-long environmental activist. She learned about permaculture when she was a teenager, and has worked to share this system of solutions with others around the world since then. She was co-founder of the North American version of Permaculture Magazine, and currently helps raise money and support for regenerative projects around the world through the organization she co-founded, Abundant Earth Foundation.

John Roulac

As founder of Nutiva, John has sourced and formulated $1B in retail sales of organic superfoods. John is a serial entrepreneur, investor, writer, philanthropist, and executive producer of the Netflix blockbuster regenerative agriculture film Kiss the Ground. John has founded six non-profit organizations, including Great Plains Regeneration, Agroforestry Regeneration Communities (ARC), and Forests Forever.

Luwayo Biswick

Founding Director Permaculture Paradise Institute & Expert on Agroecology, Mchinji, Malawi

Luwayo Biswick has 15 years of experience as Agro-Ecology and Permaculture Facilitator, Consultant and Designer. Accredited international Holistic Land Management Professional Educator by the Savory Institute in Mchinji, Malawi. He is also founder of the New life Permaculture Youth organization which deals with recycling and waste management, works with local and international organizations, schools, and colleges, hospitals, local villages, communities, churches and individuals on Permaculture, Agroecology and sustainable land use designs for improved food production, holistic health food nutrition and lifestyles, infrastructures and integrated land management, poverty reduction, climate change mitigation and rehabilitation of degraded chaotic landscapes. Co-author of 13 Permaculture and Agroecology step by step manuals and author of Permaculture Design manual.

Nelson Cuz

Contour Lines Technician, River Sector

Nelson is the president of his community, La Angostura. He is also the current head of the fisherman’s union (association of villages on the river) and works with Mesa Manglar that does mangrove restoration.

Nictê Milhose Dixon

Nictê Milhose half Brazilian, half Guatemalan. Artis, designer and creator of jewelry, architecture and value added products. She is the architect, designer, as well as jefa (boss) of the value adding initiative of Contour Lines.

Patrick Paul Kidega

Patrick Paul Kidega was born and raised in Kitgum, Northern Uganda. He is the coordinator of the Kitgum Municipality Deaf and Interpreters association, which works with deaf people. Currently he is the East African project manager for Refarmers, a nonprofit organization that does regenerative agriculture using permaculture principles to improve the environment. Patrick is passionate about the community and all his activities are community centered. He derives solutions from community needs, which has worked effectively. He’s also the people's representative at Kitgum municipal council and holds the docket of Education, Health and Community services.

Roland Van Reenen

As a kid Roland van Reenen was a passionate forest lover, something he shared with his other passions for cultures of the Caribbean Islands and Africa. He was the manager of the very first organic supermarket in the Netherlands, a role he combined with studying holistic health systems in general and Ayurveda in particular. In 2015 he moved to the Caribbean island of Curaçao where he found his passion for food-forestry that resulted in a role directly under the Minister of Healthcare, Environment and Nature, creating educational permaculture based food forests. For the same ministry, he organized an intensive course in syntropic agroforestry, and was officially appointed as a coach for a Regenerative Organic Agriculture Program conducted by the Maharishi University in Iowa and hydroponics courses conducted by the University of the West Indies of Trinidad. Currently he is active in Eastern Africa where he trained about 400 people in syntropic agroforestry in Kenya and Uganda for Agroforestry Regeneration Communities (ARC).

Sean Dixon-Sullivan

Sean likes to chop and drop trees, plant them too, and conserve soil. Since 2015, he has volunteered on 35 farms worldwide, the final being in Guatemala where he stayed and founded Contour Lines, a nonprofit that incentivizes rural communities to implement soil conservation practices on their lands, now working with over 50 villages and 700 agroforestry sites, all to advance his aforementioned affinity for trees. Sean’s team of both local technicians and international supporters provide the trees, training and tools to communities interested in restoring their lands with regenerative agroforestry.

Stella Nyambura Mbau

Through her Postdoctoral research in sustainable development, Stella is studying climate awareness gaps in rural sub-Sahara which are linked to high levels of vulnerability. She’s the founder of LOABOWA where she’s exploring climate resilience in rural sub-Sahara Africa through food-water-energy microgrids. Stella is featured in a book by the award-winning journalist Anne Karpf “How women can save the planet” and in a Sky News Daily podcast series about women inspiring action in the world called "shattering the glass ceiling".

Tommy Leonard

Cofounder of Contour Lines, Thomas is passionate about empowering people to utilize regenerative agriculture and reforestation to create a more sustainable future. For over a decade Thomas has been committed to developing community gardens, farms, and forests. Currently Thomas serves as Farm Operations Manager stewarding 350-acres of medicinal herb production for Gaia Herbs in Brevard, NC, USA.

Victor Chocoj

Contour Lines Technician, Oceans Sector

Victor is from Naranjal Village. He is the first person that Sean (Founder) ever saw implementing contour lines.

Stay in the Know

ARC offers free webinars, hands-on education opportunities, and networking.
Please join our growing community by signing up for our newsletter.

Have a question or want to be more involved? Contact us here.
Help keep this work growing by donating today.

Stay in the Know

ARC offers free webinars, hands-on education opportunities, and networking. Please join our growing community by signing up for our newsletter.

Have a question or want to be more involved? Contact us here.
Help keep this work growing by donating today.