There is a specific moment that occurs in ecosystem restoration — and it cannot be captured in a book.

 

You read a soil description, and you understand it. You hold the actual soil, feel its resistance, smell it, watch the water move across it rather than into it, and you know it. The knowledge shifts from conceptual to embodied. From that moment on, when you read about compaction, you are not imagining a concept. You are remembering a sensation.

 

The Fundamentals Field Intensive is designed to produce that moment repeatedly, across every dimension of restoration practice, in one of the most instructive and beautiful landscapes on Earth.

 

Tsunul Reserve is a 39-hectare biological reserve twenty minutes south of Mérida, Yucatán. In 2015, it was a dead cattle ranch — compacted red soil, invasive African grasses, no native canopy, no soil biology. Ten years of active restoration later: thousands of native trees, natural recruitment across multiple zones, an ocelot using the property as territory, a grizon, coatis, turkeys, and a private cenote that boas and endangered fish have made their home. The recovery is visible, measurable, and ongoing.

 

You will learn to read this landscape. Over five days — working alongside Paul Morris (MSc, CERP, thirty years of restoration experience) and Sophia Ortiz (agronomy engineer, soil biology specialist) — you will develop the practical skills that make the difference between restoration that works and restoration that fails.

 

What the week covers:

 

Day One

— Reading the Land. The methodology for approaching any new site. The five soil field tests. How water moves through a degraded landscape. What the vegetation community is telling you. The infiltration test, the compaction probe, the earthworm count, and the smell test. You will complete a full site assessment of Tsunul Reserve and understand what you're reading.

 

Day Two

— The Living Soil. Soil biology from the ground up — the soil food web, mycorrhizal networks, the decomposer community. With Sophia: what healthy soil looks and smells and feels like, and the specific indicators that tell you whether the biology is recovering. Field microscopy. Biochar production and application. The amendments that help and the ones that harm.

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Day Three

— Species and Succession. The tropical dry forest species palette — the pioneers, the nurses, the keystone species, the rare species worth protecting. Local provenance: why genetic origin matters and how to maintain it. Seed collection and preparation. Nursery methodology — propagation techniques for the specific species of the Yucatán dry forest. The succession stages of this specific ecosystem, from degraded grassland to mature canopy.

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Day Four

— Planning and Doing. Site-specific restoration planning — how to prioritize intervention zones, how to design a planting scheme that works with natural regeneration, how to sequence invasive management and planting so that each supports the other. Then: actual planting. You will establish plants in the ground on a real restoration site, with real monitoring stakes, real photo points, and real records. The trees you plant will be here in ten years.

 

Day Five

— Monitoring and the Long Game. How to know if it's working. Setting up photo point networks. iNaturalist project design. The vegetation transect methodology. Adaptive management in practice — what to do when the plan meets the land and needs to change. The year-one review framework. And what comes next for you.

 

What you leave with:

The ability to do a basic site assessment independently. A personal restoration project plan, drafted and reviewed during the week. Propagation skills for the species you worked with. A monitoring system set up and ready to run. Connections with the other five people in your cohort, who are working on the same things in different places. And the particular confidence that comes from having done the work on real land, not imagined it on paper.The place itself:The reserve is off-grid — solar power, composting toilets, rainwater collection. Three cabins accommodate up to six participants. Meals prepared from the food garden and local markets. The private cenote is available for swimming during lunch break. The wildlife is real: the camera traps, the bird life at dawn, the iguana that occasionally appears under the tin roof. You will share a week with this specific ecosystem, and it will teach you things the curriculum doesn't cover.

 

Logistics:

Maximum 6 participants. Departing from Mérida. All meals and accommodation at Tsunul Reserve are included. Transport from Mérida arranged. Bring field clothes, sturdy boots, sun protection, and a smartphone if you have one.

 

Price: $1250 USD

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· Priority booking and 15% discount for Root and Canopy tier Patreon supporters

 

Dates: Posted to the Patreon community calendar each season 

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Next training Yucatan, Mexico 2026

Yucatan 2024, Canada 2025 

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