We Believe in Lasting Impact.
Restoring Forests Through Food Sovereignty
People of the Forest bridges localized solutions through regenerative ecological design and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. We work alongside Indigenous communities to regenerate degraded land, restore food systems, and strengthen the local leadership needed to carry this work forward.
This creates a living cycle of resilience: food sovereignty strengthens communities, healthy communities become active stewards, and active stewardship helps the forest thrive. Project Yawanawa is a living model for this work, with the vision to support other Indigenous communities and bioregions over time.
Our Founders
Timoteo Granzotti
Co-Founder
Timoteo Granzotti is an ecological designer, educator, and consultant specializing in agroforestry, ethnoecology, biocultural governance, Indigenous food systems, ethnobotany, and whole-systems design. As Senior Designer and Instructor for the Resilient Community Design Program at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, his work focuses on regenerative land stewardship, biodiversity, and the relationship between human communities and ecological systems. He has taught and consulted internationally throughout the United States, the Brazilian Amazon, Costa Rica, Panama, Australia, Jamaica, and Kenya.
Timo is co-founder of People of the Forest, supporting Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives in the Amazon, and has worked extensively with BIPOC and Indigenous communities across urban and rural landscapes. In 2014, he served as curriculum developer and co-lead instructor for Pathways to Resilience at Merritt College, an ecological design certification program for formerly incarcerated individuals. He has been a featured speaker at the EcoFarm Conference and TEDx, and is a certified wilderness skills expert, wilderness first responder and type 2 firefighter. Raised between Alaska and Sicily with Ethiopian-Italian heritage, his work is rooted in reconnecting communities to place, culture, and ecological resilience.
Ericardo Baldonado
Co-Founder
Ericardo (Ricky) Baldonado's primary focus is on spiritual ecology, informed by training in permaculture design and the soil food web, and over two decades of experience building intentional communities and working within spiritual sciences. His work centers on the understanding that the health of the land is inseparable from the inner, relational, and collective health of people.
He spent five formative years living and teaching in a yoga ashram in India, where daily spiritual practice, service, and communal living shaped his approach to leadership and stewardship. He has also worked alongside Native American and Indigenous communities, bridging prayer traditions, ancestral wisdom, and ecological practice.
Ricky's work emphasizes that reforestation and regenerative food systems are not isolated technical outcomes, but expressions of unified and healthy communities in right relationship with the Earth.
A Growing Movement.
Our Partners
