Rebecca Burgess, M.ed, is the executive director of Fibershed,
chair of the board for Carbon Cycle Institute, and the author of
Harvesting Color. She is a vocationally trained weaver and natural
dyer. She has over a decade of experience writing and implementing
hands-on curricula that focus on the intersection of restoration
ecology and fiber systems. Burgess has built an extensive network
of farmers and artisans in the Northern California Fibershed to
pilot an innovative fiber systems model at the community scale. Her
project has become internationally recognized with over 53
Fibershed communities now in existence.
Courtney White is a former archaeologist and Sierra Club activist
who dropped out of the “conflict industry” to cofound the Quivira
Coalition, a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to
building a radical center among ranchers, conservationists, and
public land managers around practices that improve resilience in
Western working landscapes. In 2005, Wendell Berry included
Courtney’s essay “The Working Wilderness” in his collection titled
The Way of Ignorance. He is the author of Revolution on the Range;
Grass, Soil, Hope; The Age of Consequences; and Two Percent
Solutions for the Planet; and coauthor of Fibershed with Rebecca
Burgess. He is also the author of The Sun, a mystery novel set on a
working cattle ranch in northern New Mexico. He lives in Santa Fe.
“Collectively, we’ve been slowly waking up to the urgent need to
farm our food in ways that restore and regenerate soils and whole
landscapes; create connections between people, land, animals, and
seasons; and rebuild local economies. Fibershed turns our attention
to a parallel, equally urgent frontier: our clothes. We need this
book, and we need it now.”—Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of
Defending Beef
“Fibershed is a must-read for all clothing brands, whether years
into their sustainability journey or just at the beginning. Burgess
encourages us to think deeply and holistically about the impacts of
fashion, reconsider our industry’s model of overconsumption, and to
approach flashy biotech solutions with a critical eye. Fibershed
proves that fashion can be a force for good, empowering farmers and
makers while supporting local communities with Climate Beneficial
textile supply chains.”—Megan Meiklejohn, Sustainable Materials and
Transparency Manager, Eileen Fisher
“Fibershed is a deeply informed exploration of the political
ecology of clothing and an urgent invitation to a new way of being
in the world; one that respects the soil, the cycles of the year,
and life itself. In this visionary manifesto of hope, Rebecca
Burgess chronicles a personal journey with profound global
implications: Human economies need not result in the degradation of
either human culture nor the environment, but might, if done well,
lead to the enrichment of both.”—Jeffrey Creque, PhD, Director of
Rangeland and Agroecosystem Management, Carbon Cycle Institute
“This is an important book. It is bold, practical, optimistic––a
vision of how things must be.”—Kate Fletcher, professor, Centre for
Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts, London, UK
“Rebecca has made an incredible contribution to the slow fashion
movement through her organizing and advocacy work with the
Fibershed organization. I’m thrilled to know that this work is now
available to a broader audience through this thoughtful book. May
we all learn from her wisdom, research, and knowledge as we create
even deeper connections between farms, fiber art, and
fashion.”—Katrina Rodabaugh, author of Mending Matters
“We clothe ourselves using fibers from cotton, trees, animals, and
oil. The sins of oil-based fibers are well known, but lesser known
are those of plant- and animal-based fiber production—themselves
major contributors to global desertification and climate change. If
we want to offer hope to future generations, we will have to root
not only the food we eat, but the clothing we wear in a new,
regenerative agriculture that manages livestock using the holistic
planned grazing process. Fortunately, movement in this direction is
underway. Rebecca Burgess’s well-researched book stokes a fire that
has already been lit by many organizations collaborating and
networking around the globe, and connects the dots between our
clothing and our life-supporting environment. I would encourage
everyone who wears clothes and has any concern for future
generations to read this highly educational book.”—Allan Savory,
president and cofounder, Savory Institute
“Rebecca Burgess is the Alice Waters of the slow fiber movement.
Within the pages of Fibershed, she proves that carefully clothing
oneself is a revolutionary act. While many wait for distant
corporations and governments to curb toxic, unethical, and
extractive industrial practices, Burgess demonstrates that the
revolution is at hand in our own backyards. Fibershed is required
reading for any clothing company that claims environmental and
ethical responsibility.”—Dan Malloy, surfing ambassador, Patagonia;
cofounder, Poco Farm, Ojai, CA
“Fibershed is a story of vision, persistence, and kindness. With
patience and grace, Rebecca has restored a sense of gratitude for
the overlooked grasses and herbaceous plants that were once our
second skin. From the living world around her, she has stitched
together the broken strands of textile arts, creating an economy of
place where makers are artists and clothing is revered.”—Paul
Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest; editor of Drawdown
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