Arbor·pedia
Knowledge for the practices, species, and people who restore land.
Five paths through the encyclopedia
- № 01
Growing
Companion planting, soil building, permaculture, food forests
48 entries - № 02
Crops
Vegetables, grains, herbs — how to grow, harvest, and keep each one
37 entries - № 03
Water
Rainwater harvesting, greywater, irrigation, watershed restoration
39 entries - № 04
Restoration
Reforestation, land rehabilitation, rewilding, erosion control
48 entries - № 05
Trees
Trees and shrubs — identification, uses, and where each one belongs
126 entries - № 06
Wildlife
Animals, fungi, and soil life — pests, predators, pollinators, decomposers
34 entries - № 07
Ecology
The principles underneath — diversity, edges, indicators, populations
09 entries - № 08
Heroes
Lives dedicated to soil, water, forest, and the people who depend on them.
28 profiles
Follow a thread through the encyclopedia
Curated paths that braid entries from several disciplines into one coherent route. A way to read the encyclopedia, not just browse it.
- Thread № 0111 entries
From bare ground to forest
The full arc — looking at land, reading what it needs, and walking it back to forest.
Follow the path - Thread № 0211 entries
Water from sky to soil
Catching rain on a roof, slowing it across a slope, banking it underground.
Follow the path - Thread № 0311 entries
Building soil from nothing
How to grow a living loam where there isn't one yet.
Follow the path
From the catalogue
№ 306The Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, and Squash
Three plants, one mound. Corn for height, beans for nitrogen, squash for cover. A thousand years of Haudenosaunee farming distilled into a guild that still works.
№ 100Designing a Food Forest
How to stack seven layers of edible woodland that feeds you for decades while slowly shedding the chores of an annual garden.
№ 174The Miyawaki Method: Dense Native Forests in Decades
How Akira Miyawaki's technique of dense native planting creates self-sustaining forests 10x faster than conventional methods.
№ 177Moringa Oleifera: The Miracle Tree
Everything you need to know about growing and using Moringa oleifera, the fast tropical tree with edible leaves and seed-based water purification.
№ 237Reforestation Techniques for Degraded Lands
Practical field guide to restoring forest on degraded land, from soil tests to species mix to the first five years of tending.
№ 232Rainwater Harvesting Basics
Catch the rain off your roof, hold it in a tank, and water your garden through the dry months. Here's how.
Lives that bent toward the land
Aldo Leopold
United States · 1887–1948
American forester who spent his career unlearning predator control and wrote the essay that gave conservation its moral foundation.
№ 04
Allan Savory
Zimbabwe · 1935–present
Zimbabwean ecologist who argued that grasslands need herds rather than rest, and became both an influential teacher and a contested figure.
№ 05
Bill Mollison
Australia · 1928–2016
Tasmanian bushman, scientist and teacher who turned a critique of industrial agriculture into a design system taught in over 140 countries.
№ 07
David Holmgren
Australia · 1955–present
The student who co-wrote Permaculture One at 23 and later distilled the system into twelve design principles used worldwide.
№ 09
Ernst Götsch
Brazil · 1948–present
Swiss farmer who bought 480 hectares of dead land in Bahia and turned it into forest that produces cocoa, bringing back springs that had dried decades earlier.
№ 17
Peter Wohlleben
Germany · 1964–present
German forester who abandoned industrial forestry for continuous cover management and then made forest ecology a global bestseller.