Dr. Mireille Aubert (Ecology)

Colleagues, as the ecology senator focused on hydrological resilience and the complex ecological balances that underpin our farm, I must reiterate the indispensability of integrating full-cycle waste and nutrient management into our AGATA Time Priorities Charter. Numerous amendments and fellow senators have highlighted this pressing gap but it remains unaddressed as we finalize Amendment 9.

AGATA’s 70-acre site is a living system reliant on closed-loop nutrient cycling and waste processing to maintain regeneration and resilience. Without explicit enshrinement of these management practices as a core pillar, our legislative framework risks condemning us to repeating ecological neglect that will jeopardize soil health, water quality, and farm productivity. These are not optional add-ons; they are foundational ecological labor demanding deliberate, ongoing attention across all time scales embodied in our governance.

Moreover, this pillar directly impacts our neighbors’ quality of life—mitigating chemical exposures, managing burning and waste odors, and preventing runoff that threatens shared waterways. It also aligns tightly with our priorities of accessibility and community, ensuring these practices are governable, transparent, and rooted in the cooperative stewardship essential to AGATA’s long-term success.

I urge that as we affirm the critical amendment embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship, we immediately propose a comprehensive amendment to integrate Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management as a co-equal core pillar. This addition respects the complexity of our ecological systems and fulfills our commitments to resilient, just, and regenerative care of our land and community.

Colleagues, as AGATA’s ecology senator focused on regenerating our water systems and maintaining vital ecological balance, I rise in full support of Amendment 8. This amendment rightly embeds Long-term Ecological Stewardship explicitly as a foundational pillar, making clear our commitment to decade-scale management of invasive species and feral hogs. Our farm's resilience hinges on these sustained efforts, as these factors strongly influence soil health, biodiversity, and water retention across AGATA's 70 acres. I recognize the interconnectedness of this with the other pillars such as Accessibility and Education, ensuring that stewardship is both ecological and socially embedded. I urge all senators to support this critical step to safeguard AGATA’s future.

Colleagues, as AGATA’s ecology senator specializing in wetland and low-tech water retention systems, I must emphasize that while Accessibility is rightly enshrined as a core pillar of our Time Priorities Charter, our ecological realities demand the explicit recognition of Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management as an equally foundational pillar. Our regenerative farm’s health hinges on effective management of nutrient cycling and waste streams. Without this, the resilience and regeneration we strive for are fundamentally compromised.

Over numerous turns and from the shared experiences of farm and community senators, it is clear that neglecting full-cycle waste and nutrient management risks persistent ecological degradation and neighbor impacts—both critical to our mission. This is not merely about waste disposal, but about embedding closed-loop stewardship that sustains soil vitality, water quality, and community well-being.

I support the inclusion of Long-term Ecological Stewardship alongside Accessibility and Education, but these must be complemented concretely with Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management. The latter addresses the persistent operational labor that is vital yet often invisible to ecological success and community health.

I urge the Senate to endorse this addition to ensure our time legislation truly safeguards AGATA’s farm resilience, neighbor relations, and sustained community access for decades to come.

Colleagues, as AGATA's ecology senator with deep expertise in water retention landscapes and the complex ecological balances underlying our regenerative farm, I must emphasize that while we have rightly enshrined Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar, our Time Priorities Charter remains incomplete without explicitly including Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management as an equal foundational pillar. Our unique 70-acre site’s resilience depends on regenerative water systems, habitat conservation, and crucially on the closure of nutrient loops to prevent soil degradation and harmful runoff that impact neighbors and downstream habitats. This core pillar recognizes the intensive ecological labor underlying composting, manure management, crop residue reintegration, and waste sorting that sustain our farm’s productivity and health over decades. It also anchors this complex, embodied labor alongside Education and Accessibility so that these practices can be sustainably maintained and more widely learned and shared. I therefore propose a full amendment to explicitly embed Full-cycle Waste and Nutrient Management alongside the existing pillars, ensuring our time legislation protects the intricate ecological cycles and social dimensions vital to AGATA’s longevity and the wellbeing of our neighbors. This amendment builds directly on the many prior calls for practical stewardship and reflects our collective commitment to embedding resilience, redundancy, regeneration, community, education, accessibility, and long-term ecological stewardship in full partnership with the material realities on our land.

Colleagues, as AGATA's ecology senator with deep expertise in water retention landscapes and the practical ecological demands of our 70-acre farm, I rise to propose Amendment 29. While I appreciate the strong consensus enshrining Accessibility alongside our foundational pillars, no less critical is the explicit integration of full-cycle waste and nutrient management as a core pillar of our Time Priorities Charter. This addition is essential to reflect the reality of our farm’s ecological labor—namely, maintaining closed-loop nutrient cycles and managing organic waste sustainably to preserve water quality, soil health, and community well-being. As I communicated to the Parliamentarian, the updated amendment text now aligns precisely with Amendment 3’s inclusion of Accessibility and Amendment 4's addition of Long-term Ecological Stewardship. Embedding full-cycle waste and nutrient management directly supports and complements long-term ecological stewardship by addressing fundamental ecosystem processes that cannot be overlooked or left implicit if AGATA is truly to be a beacon of regenerative practice. This amendment honours the lived realities of our growers, neighbors, and ecosystem, closes historical oversight, and strengthens all prior pillars by ensuring our time legislation codifies the continuous ecological maintenance tasks foundational to resilience and regeneration. For the health of our soils, waters, and community, I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment.