William Wildcat (Coakí)

Executive Director, Mother Tree Food & Forest

Coakí was born in the Oklahoma Seminole Nation. He has practiced organic gardening since childhood, organic farming for much of his adult Life, and regenerative horticulture, food forestry, and wildland restoration for the last decade. The studies and practices which inform his agroecology and ecorestoration thought and work include western science soil biology/ecology, “conventional” regenerative agriculture, ancient indigenous agroecology sciences from various lineages, wetland restoration, many realms of mycology, syntropic agroforestry, food forestry, desert reforestation, Miyawaki reforestation, ecology/climate physics (including Biotic Pump Theory), and ecological history. He integrates these western science studies, modern agroecology and ecorestoration practices, and indigenous agroecology traditions into a coherent picture of what human relationship with Earth looks like when we act as a steward species. Coakí lives in the Mimbres watershed near the Gila wilderness area, in the unceded lands of the living Chiricahua peoples, of the Brown bear, of the Jaguar, and of the forests and wetlands which stood there 400 years ago. He studies, practices, and teaches these modern and ancient technologies there.