User:Leaf of Life/sandbox

Gabriel Howearth
Gabriel Howearth (born 1972, in California, USA) was a botanist and co-founder of Seeds of Change. He is considered a pioneer in the modern organic farming movement. He is best known for his work saving endangered heirloom seeds and plants, collected from Mayan, Quecha, Hopi and Pueblo ’s farmers. Howearth installed several organic gardens in the United States and Buena Fortuna botanical garden with over 3000 plant species on 10 aces in Baja California Sur.

Early life and career
Howearth grew up in Southern California, his grandmother was Tarahumara. During Howearth's childhood, his father took him to underprivileged neighborhoods to help start gardens for low-income families. Later he went on to study with Alan Chadwick who directed him to learn from Indigenous farmers.

Deciding to connect with his ancestral roots, Howearth went to live with Tarahumara farmers, where he learned about the importance of corn in indigenous cultures, about their sacred planting rituals and discovering that many varieties do not need irrigation and that the corn crops can absorb nitrogen during electrical storms.

Howearth continued to traveled to other parts of Mexico and Ecuador, learning from native farmers. They shared with him their traditional heirloom seeds, some of these seeds were unearthed from inside clay pots, adobe buildings and stored inside gourds. The Maya showed Howearth how they use radionics and astronomy-astrology with seed planting, The Maya also taught Howeath about which planets affect certain insects.

Gregory Cajete met Howearth in San Juan Pueblo to film his biodiversity garden when Howearth was still a young hippie. San Juan Pueblo had hired Howearth to plant the endangered heirloom seeds that he collected from indigenous farmers from all over the Americas. Howearth had planted dozens of varieties of tomatoes and ancient grains including San Juan Pueblo native red corn seeds that had not been planted for over 40 years.

Ken Ausubel visited Howearths biodiversity garden who was so impressed by the diversity of seeds available that together they decided to start an organic seed company in 1989 called Seeds of Change. Howearth continued gardening for the company creating a 120-acre living laboratory called Seeds of Change Research Farm in Gila, NM where he was growing nearly 700 rare varieties of native seeds that were low maintenance, drought resistant, with high nutritional value. By 1996 the farm downsized and moved closer to Seeds of Change headquarters in Sante Fe.

Howearth went on to start a new botanical garden project called Buena Fortuna with his wife Kitzia Kokopelmana and their two sons in 1997, on 10 acres of land in La Ribera, Baja California Sur. The garden is located in a costal desert, within a pristine organic zone, with access to abundant well water, making it possible to grow plants from the tropics and dry-tropical regions from across the world. Over the decades the couple planted 3700 different plant species, many of them endangered, from India, Madagascar, Chile, Peru, South East Asia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Among the organic movement scene, Howearth was considered a master gardener and one of the founders and promoters of the permaculture movement in America. He was often invited to teach and consult on various projects.

Final years and death
In 2009 Howearth was completed paralyzed, in a coma for a year from contracting spinal meningitis by accidentally swimming in sewage polluted oceans off the coast of Mexico. After his recovery, his speech, walking and the use of one hand were severely affected. Even after years rehabilitating he never fully recovered. Despite these physical challenges he still continued to travel, teach and consult, never loosing his passion and dedication to sharing his knowledge about biodiversity.

In 2021 Howearth was teaching in Nayarit, whilst driving across a river with his friends Patricia Contreras y Katia Chamberlinon on the night 6th August 2021, the car was swept away by the strong current of the river, with Howearth inside, the two passengers managed to escape to the banks of the river. Although authorities searched for Howard in Banderas Bay, he was never found.