About

There are many great challenges in our world and in our lifetimes and it’s easy to feel despair, anxiety, and overwhelm about the future. However, despair often blinds us to how badly we as humans are needed in the landscape. Therefore, I believe we need to lean into what is possible, imagine a world we want to see, and then act into that vision. We need to develop resilience as individuals and communities to step into our role as ecosystem restorers who actively are participating in a world we want to see. 

That's why I'm starting an online community to connect people who are passionate about ecosystem restoration and growing resilience right where they are. So we support each other in imagining (and then acting towards creating) our best possible future on this planet. We can only get there if first we are able to imagine it. 

We need dreamers, visionaries, and hard-working and inspired individuals to create the world we want to see. And I believe that change starts right where you are. Perhaps even in your own backyard or community. 

Let's get to work! And let’s have fun while we do it!

About The Sparrow Underground

My name is Allison Houghton, and I've spent the last few years immersing myself in the incredible work of people around the world who are working to regenerate earth's landscapes around the globe. I've worked as a farmer, a writer, a teacher, an engineer, a mother, an ecologist, and as a bug and plant enthusiast. I've been inspired, captivated and moved to tears by the many people around the globe who are making deserts bloom again, coaxing rivers back to life, bringing back ancient forests, and seeing fish and birds species and nearly extinct species return. I informally started to refer to the people doing this work as "Sparrows" for the birds you might hardly notice in a landscape, but are everywhere. Some of them are single individuals. Some are working together as entire communities. 

And Sparrows are everywhere. Once you know what to look for, you start seeing signs of them everywhere all around us. They are likely in your neighborhood or next door to where you live. They might be the kids that pick up trash in the neighborhood each week. Or it could be the person sitting next to you on a bus who is actually the man who mobilized a massive community-based clean-up that lead to sea turtles returning for the first time to that beach in Mumbai in over 20 years. Or the woman next door who is single-handedly is responsible for planting every tree on the block where you live. Or the man who planted an entire forest one tree at a time. The entire community of men and women who reforested the Loess Plateau in China. They are everywhere.

Yet I don't often hear their stories in the news or being talked about on the street. 

So, I think it's time. 

I think it's time to realize we aren't alone, but one of many. To realize the unbelievable amount of work being done quietly yet persistently all around us. An entire flock. In every ecosystem. In every part of the globe. And there is so much good work that must be done. 

Sparrows are inspiring. They sing their hearts out to a rising sun. They have fun. They are passionate. They work in all types of landscapes around the world, and I want to invite you to join in. Find your role. Find community. Become a Sparrow.