Team
Our team holds scientific expertise, farming and land management experience, educational and technical prowess, and skills in collaborative community systems design. Collectively, we have over 60 years of land stewardship experience, and we are combining our passion and professional leadership to innovate and steward climate stewardship on Southern Appalachian lands.
Mari Stuart
Co-founder + CEO
Mari Jyväsjärvi Stuart is an ecological designer, educator, writer, and project manager working at the intersection of regenerative land design, local food systems, and responsible sourcing. She has coordinated the Carbon Harvest initiative since its inception. Mari holds a PhD from Harvard University and has a research and teaching background in the Humanities, but over the last decade re-trained as an ecological landscape designer and carbon farming planner. She is Senior Associate at Terra Genesis International, a regenerative design and development consultancy. Mari has taught regenerative design for SIT Graduate Institute’s Master’s Program in Sustainable Development and is a frequent speaker at gardening and farming conferences. She writes about local food, gardening, and foraging for Edible Asheville Magazine, Mother Earth News, and at www.makegathergrow.com.
Laura Lengnick
Carbon Management and Verification Lead
Laura Lengnick is an award-winning soil scientist who has explored agricultural sustainability for almost 30 years as a researcher, policy-maker, educator, activist, and farmer. Her innovative research in soil health and sustainable cropping systems was nationally-recognized with a USDA Secretary’s Honor Award in 2001. Over the last decade, Laura has led federal, state and regional projects exploring ecosystems-based agricultural climate solutions that cultivate healthy land, people and community. Laura is founder and principal at Cultivating Resilience, LLC, an Asheville, NC-based consulting firm that works with organizations of all kinds to integrate climate solutions and resilience thinking into operations and strategic planning. She is a Visiting Professor in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences at Clemson University and a member of the Planetary Health Lab at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). The second edition of Laura’s award-winning book, Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate (2015), will be published in June 2021. You can learn more about Laura and her work at www.cultivatingresilience.com.
Meredith Leigh
Strategic Partnerships & Communications Lead
Meredith Leigh is an entrepreneur who has managed non-profit organizations, owned a restaurant and butcher shop, a floral design business, and a diversified livestock and vegetable farm. She currently works as a community food systems consultant and a writer focused on the intersections between people, land, and food. Her education and degrees are in Environmental Science, Sustainable Agriculture, and Creative Writing. She is the author of the Ethical Meat Handbook (MFK Fisher Award 2015, IACP winner, 2021) and the book Pure Charcuterie. Her writing has also appeared in publications of The James Beard Foundation, Mother Earth News, Taproot Magazine, and Crop Stories. She is also a culinary educator, traveling extensively to teach cooking and fermentation classes within the context of mutual aid and community empowerment. She is a co-founder of The Fermentation School, an online education platform that features female food systems educators from around the world. She joins Carbon Harvest with a strong passion for its potential to heal culture and add value to land regionally, and to place the wealth generated by carbon offsets into the soil and the hands of communities. www.mereleighfood.com