Kate Tirion
Co-Founder of Borderlands Restoration Network
Patagonia, AZ
November 8, 2025
In Patagonia, Arizona, we sat in a tiered stone amphitheater at the center of the Borderlands Restoration Network’s Earth Care Center to meet with Kate Tirion, one of the non-profit’s co-founders. Over the course of the morning, Kate graciously shared about her life and permaculture work, and she even gave us a tour of her beautiful, handcrafted home. Originally from Wales, Kate grew up on a small farm which instilled in her the importance of regionalized food systems. Additionally, she credits reading the book “Diet for a New America” while struggling with an illness in her 30s as her lightbulb moment for her passion for regenerative agriculture. She went to the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) to study Ecological Horticulture at the Center for AgroEcology & Sustainable Food Systems. After completing the apprenticeship, she continued working on UCSC’s farm and eventually became an instructor to new students. After leaving California, Kate ended up in Patagonia, where she has worked with more than 4,000 young people in developing the Earth Care Center. The projects there follow the concept that everything is connected, and use regenerative systems, such as with a composting toilet and water catchment system. In fact, the amphitheater we were sitting in was infrastructure to capture water in itself. Here, Kate imparted on us one of the many nuggets of wisdom that we learned from her over the course of the day, saying that “waste is a resource” and there is “no such thing as ‘away’”, when talking about discarding trash and things deemed as unusable. In addition to these projects, Kate first spent 7 months walking the property to observe the soil, the sun’s arc across the land, and water drainage patterns to decide where to put the road, following her principle of “long, thoughtful observation in lieu of mindless labor”. Kate was an incredibly inspiring speaker for us and we’re grateful that our very own Lucy Brown could make the connection that allowed us to meet with her. One of her many lessons that lingered with our group was about diversifying our microbiomes: “less processed food, more french kissing”.
by Liza Lebo