A Benefit for the Forest & Its People

Join us at the beautiful Eden Forest Collective Farm & Educational Center to support Indigenous food sovereignty, helping safeguard the Amazon Rainforest through community-led learning and cultural resilience.

The afternoon and evening include an inspiring panel discussion, project film screening, storytelling, music, a locally sourced farm dinner, and an optional Hapé ceremony.

Program

1:00 PM Arrival
2:00–3:00 PM Agroforestry Presentation with Timoteo Granzotti
3:00–3:30 PM Syntropic Farm Tour of Eden Farm
3:30–4:00 PM Amazonian Food Sovereignty Project Presentation
4:00–4:30 PM Project Video Screening with Archie Macpherson
4:30–5:15 PM Storytelling with Chief Rasu (Yawanawá)
5:15–5:45 PM Fundraising Goals + Ways to Support
6:00 PM Dinner by Chef Scott Macdonald
7:30 PM Music Celebration + Optional Hapé Ceremony with Chief Rasú

Location

Eden Forest Collective is located in Fillmore, California, Eden Forest Collective is an educational nonprofit rooted in a regenerative organic food forestry, on a mission to heal the story of separation through regenerative cultural practices.

Dinner

Chef Scott Macdonald is a Food Network Chopped Champion and Culinary Institute of America graduate with 15+ years of experience in Michelin-starred kitchens. Today, his work centers regenerative agriculture, seasonal cooking, and creating experiences that help people slow down, gather, and reconnect.

Featured Guest

Yawanawá Chief Rasu is the grandson of the great medicine man Xinaya Tata Txanu Natasheini, one of the most respected elders of the Yawanawá people. Chosen and raised by Tata as his successor, Rasu was one of his closest students until Tata’s passing at age 103. He speaks his native language fluently, completed the highest spiritual initiation of his people at only 17 years old, and is now one of the chiefs of Mutum village, leading ceremonies alongside Chief Matsini. Rasu carries his grandfather’s lineage with his powerful voice and prayers, and also a talented multi-instrumentalist musician and composer.

Hosted by: People of the Forest

Ericardo Baldonado & Timoteo Granzotti

Ericardo Baldonado is a Co-Founder of People of the Forest and founder of Warrior's Council, a men’s initiative focused on purpose, health, right-relations, and service. As a spiritual ecologist, his work centers on the understanding that the health of the land is inseparable from the inner, relational, and collective health of people. He studied spiritual sciences in India where daily spiritual practice and communal living shaped his approach towards leadership and stewardship. He has also worked alongside Native American and Indigenous communities, bridging prayer traditions, ancestral wisdom, and ecological practice in service to land and community restoration.

Timoteo Granzotti is a Co-Founder of People of the Forest, and Senior Designer and Instructor at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC). His work bridges a multitude of ecological disciplines, and has taught and consulted on projects throughout California, the USA, The Brazilian Amazon, Costa Rica, Panama, Australia and Kenya. He has worked in various sectors, with an emphasis on BIPOC and Indigenous regenerative land stewardship, food systems, and native biodiversity. Throughout his work, he collaborates with communities to reconnect to place, purpose and story.

People of the Forest is an impact organization centered in Indigenous food sovereignty and reforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. In collaboration with the Yawanawá People of Aldeia Mutum, we strengthen community resilience while regenerating degraded land through agroforestry and regenerative food systems.

The Forest and Its People are One Living System.

For the Forest: A Benefit

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the Amazon