Our Staff

  • The Executive Director of the Center for Rural Livelihoods, and he is dedicated to building an equitable economy rooted in ecological regeneration. He holds an M.S. in Environmental Economics and Policy from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in American history with a focus on social movements from New York University. He has over two decades of experience developing educational programming in diverse settings. Dr. Fattal is a co-author of the memoir A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Detained in Iran, which chronicles his twenty-six months of wrongful detention, including his experience with solitary confinement. 


    His work is further informed by being a descendant of the settler colonial displacement of Iraqi Jewry to Israel and as a descendent of exiles from the counter-revolutionary pogroms in Eastern Europe. Josh first came to CRL, then Aprovecho, in 2005 to learn organic agriculture, ecological forestry, and appropriate technologies and he then served for a few years as the education director. He has a deep commitment to ongoing exploration of the study of history to evolving patterns of community collaboration, land-based ecological living, and practices of social change.

  • The Forester and Agroforestry Program Director at the Center for Rural Livelihoods. He is also the owner of Resilience Permaculture Design, a whole systems farm and forest planning and implementation group. Abel holds a degree in Land Stewardship for Sustainable Communities from Humboldt State University and a MS in Agroforestry from the University of Missouri. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Komemma Cultural Protection Association, Agroforestry Northwest, and is an Associate Director of the Upper Willamette Soil and Water Conservation District.

  • A Residential Fellow and the Youth Education Coordinator at the Center for Rural Livelihoods. He supports educational programming, coordinates volunteer activities, engages in meandering philosophical conversations, and oversees the implementation of grazing projects on campus. Through CRL’s residential fellowship program, Drew has been incubating Calico Creek Grazing Collective, a prescribed grazing operation focused on restoring native habitats, reducing wildfire risk, and improving pasture conditions in the Coast Fork watershed.

    Before joining CRL, Drew’s career spanned roles on various organic farms, managing Chicago Public Schools’ farm-to-school and school garden programs, and teaching both undergraduate and graduate students at Northeastern Illinois University. He also campaigned for Greenpeace USA, advancing his commitment to sustainability and environmental justice.

    Drew earned a Master’s degree in Social Science Research from the University of Chicago, where his studies focused on food systems. During his time as an adjunct instructor at NEIU, Drew designed and taught courses such as “Food and the City,” exploring urban agriculture in Chicago, and “Food and Sustainability,” which examined the impacts of food system designs on human health, ecosystems, economics, and technologies.

Our Board

  • The author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015), and "“People as Purposeful and Conscientious Resource Stewards: Human Agency in a World Gone Wild” in Rethinking Wilderness and the Wild: Conflict, Conservation, and Co-Existence (Routledge, 2020).

    Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and restoration planning through her company Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC. She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, and a MSc degree in Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security from the National University of Ireland. She lives with her husband, two children, and an array of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and animals on her southern Willamette Valley smallholding, Viriditas Farm. She is an instructor and administrator in the Oregon State University Permaculture program.

  • Brings over twenty years of conservation success as a strategic advocate, executive director, coalition builder and environmental policy expert. Amy currently serves as the Environmental Policy Director for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community where she provides strategic policy advice to the Tribe’s elected Senate, and leads intergovernmental affairs for a variety of local, state, federal, tribal and international natural resources matters. A former practicing environmental and land use attorney in Kansas, Missouri and Washington, she moved to San Juan Island in 2005 to become an environmental staff attorney in Friday Harbor where she championed a new vessel regulation to protect the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. As a land trust executive director in south-central Colorado, she permanently protected over eleven hundred acres of mountain valley and senior water rights. As executive director of a California coastal advocacy organization, Amy led the national campaign that secured permanent protection of the West Coast’s only marine wilderness area, Drakes Estero in Point Reyes National Seashore. In addition to serving on the CRL board since 2022, she is an appointed member of the San Juan County Conservation Land Bank. Amy moved back to San Juan Island at the beginning of the pandemic, and she is grateful to hike and trail run, eat local organic foods, and enjoy the wonders of the Salish Sea with her husband Fred.

  • An educator, activist, and media producer currently living in Somerville, MA where he is a visiting scholar at Tufts University. He has worked with grassroots media organizations such as Papertiger TV, Big Noise Films and produced news and documentaries for Democracy Now!, Aljazeera, Press TV and MTV.

  • The Executive Director of the Center for Rural Livelihoods, and he is dedicated to building an equitable economy rooted in ecological regeneration. He holds an M.S. in Environmental Economics and Policy from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in American history with a focus on social movements from New York University. He has over two decades of experience developing educational programming in diverse settings. Dr. Fattal is a co-author of the memoir A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Detained in Iran, which chronicles his twenty-six months of wrongful detention, including his experience with solitary confinement. 


    His work is further informed by being a descendant of the settler colonial displacement of Iraqi Jewry to Israel and as a descendent of exiles from the counter-revolutionary pogroms in Eastern Europe. Josh first came to CRL, then Aprovecho, in 2005 to learn organic agriculture, ecological forestry, and appropriate technologies and he then served for a few years as the education director. He has a deep commitment to ongoing exploration of the study of history to evolving patterns of community collaboration, land-based ecological living, and practices of social change.