From Soil to Society: Celebrating the Essential Connections Between All Living Things
       
  ADVISORY BOARD
       
Dana Burch          
  Dana left a job selling investments on Wall Street to build a microfinance organization that creates specialized relationships between the powerful and the poor. He obtained his Master of Divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He launched a non-profit to help combat poverty that accompanies the for-profit investment world. He brings years of direct service that ranges from global corporations to grassroots communities to his own family. He is a part time resident of Nova Scotia.
   
Veryan Haysom, B.A. (Natal), LL.B.(Dalhousie)
  Veryan came to Canada from South Africa in 1968 and has practiced law in the Northwest Territories, Labrador and Nova Scotia. He helped the Innu and Inuit peoples of Labrador establish a community legal resource centre, and worked for the Labrador Inuit on their land claims. He and his family relocated to St. John's, NL, in 1996 so he could participate in the land rights and self-government negotiations on a full-time basis. They returned to Mahone Bay in 2003. Veryan was the 2008 winner of the Atlantic Writing Competition for Poetry.
   
Robert Massoud  
  Robert Massoud is a business communication consultant based in Toronto. He received the 2004/05 YMCA Peace Medallion for Toronto for founding a NGO called "Zatoun" to bring fairly traded olive oil from Occupied Palestine to North America to promote greater understanding of realities surrounding Israel / Palestine. He founded a worldwide project, "Trees for Life Palestine" which has planted over 52,000 olive trees in the last 4 years. Zatoun was a finalist for the 2007 "Leonardo daVinci Award for Creativity & Innovation" in the community category.
James White
  James White lives in West Dublin on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in retirement from teaching in economics and environmentally related areas at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto. His love of hiking, climbing and wilderness has led him to experience landscapes in all corners of Canada. From interests in the areas of welfare economics and economic development early in his career, his attention has focused increasingly upon the need for redirection of the economy to function within environmental limits, to support community and a sustainable future. Such a redirection requires education that is holistic and experiential and James White has been a strong practical supporter of Waldorf Schools. Participation in various environmental and educational endeavours has continued since retirement and has included a study for Parks Canada in interpretive services and natural heritage presentation. He is currently an ENGO representative on Environment Canada’s Work Group for the National Pollution Release Inventory. He holds a BA in economics and politics, an MA in economics and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies.
   
Dan Jason
      
  Dan Jason has been promoting organic and sustainable agriculture for over 20 years. He started Salt Spring Seeds in 1986 and sends seeds around the globe (www.saltspringseeds.com). He is President of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary of Canada, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving heritage seeds and initiating community seed banks across the country (www.seedsanctuary.com). He is the author of many gardening manuals and cookbooks about growing and preparing locally grown foods and medicines.
   
Valerie Hearder      
  Textile artist and author of two quilting books, Valerie has taught widely in Canada, the U.S.A., UK, Japan, Germany, Ireland and South Africa. She was nominated for the Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence, and received the Dorothy McMurdie Award for significant contribution to Canadian quilting conferred by the Canadian Quilters Association. Her extensive international exhibition record includes several major shows in Japan including Thirty Distinguished Quilt Artists of the World, Tokyo Dome.
   
Paula Sager      
  Paula Sager is founder and director of Three Stone Studio, her home-base for teaching, writing, and collaborations. Paula has a BA degree in dance from Bennington College, is a certified Alexander Technique teacher, and has practiced Authentic Movement for close to 20 years. She is a graduate of the Barfield School, where she presented her masters degree thesis, Witness Consciousness and the Development of the Individual. In 1993, she co-founded and served, until 2006, as editor and writer for A Moving Journal, a publication devoted to Authentic Movement. Her teaching and research focus on how movement and kinesthetic awareness support cognition, creativity, and presence. Her interest in the applications of movement-based and transformative learning, led to co-founding The Mariposa Center, a non-profit education and social justice initiative.
   
Av Singh
  Av serves as the Organic & Rural Infrastructure Specialist with AgraPoint in Nova Scotia, working predominantly with organic and small-scale farmers on issues of production, processing, and marketing of agricultural goods with special interest on the local economy and rural sustainability. Av’s graduate and post-doctoral work focused on pasture-based livestock production, providing the foundation for his continued work on extending holistic, system-based solutions for farm management with emphasis on soil health. Av has authored over 130 peer-reviewed papers, chapters, and extension articles (a frequent contributor to The Canadian Organic Grower). He has an appointment as a research associate with the Rural Research Centre at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College and is an adjunct professor at the University of Manitoba. Av is a founding member of the Organic Council of Nova Scotia and sits on the Crops and Livestock Committee in the review of permitted substances for the National Standards of Organic Agriculture.
   
Harold Crooks
 

Harold Crooks has written since he could hold a crayon, understanding even then that the pen is mightier than the sword. His mediums include documentary film, screenplays, television, non-fiction journalism and wonderful letters. Harold is the recipient of a Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival; a Leo Award for Best Screenwriter [Documentary],a National Documentary Film Award [Best Writing Category] at 1996 Hot Docs; a Genie Award of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and TV; and a Fund for Investigative Journalism travel grant [Washington, DC].
His writing and producer credits include Bhopal: The Search For Justice, The World is Watching, The World Stopped Watching, two documentaries set in Nicaragua that explore mass media, Genie winner The Champagne Safari, a biography of Nazi industrial collaborator Charles Bedaux; Black Coffee, a three part series about the social, cultural and political history of coffee; Karsh Is History, and Anthrax War, a feature length film about the perils of bio-weapons and most recently he is acting as co-director and writer of A Short History of Progress based on the best-selling book by Ronald Wright. Crooks also co-wrote with director Mark Achbar the narration for the world box office hit The Corporation.

His book Giants of Garbage: The Rise of the Global Waste Industry and the Politics of Pollution was praised by critics and readers alike.