I conducted a zoom interview with Laura Lengnick, the founder of Cultivating Resilience LLC based out of Asheville. She has over 30 years of experience in policy making, college education, community activism, and sustainable farming. We talked about the work Cultivating Resilience does, the threats facing the mountain region of North Carolina, and some interesting projects that are increasing the climate resilience of the region.

 

She discussed how she was inspired to work in soil sciences and sustainable farming in college then inspired to found Cultivating Resilience to help many different organizations with resilience thinking after her long career working with government and academic organizations. She thinks increasing temperatures especially in the winter and summer nights, increasing high rainfall events causing flooding and mudslides, as well as drought conditions in between large rain falls are the biggest threats facing the region. We also discussed two innovative projects increasing the climate resilience of the state- a regenerative agriculture carbon offset project in the southern Appalachian and carbon farm planning with the North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation.