Sustainability has long served as a guiding framework within the outdoor education sector, shaping how institutions design programs, engage with communities, and articulate their environmental and social impact. Today, many schools are increasingly blending sustainability with regenerative practices, moving toward the active restoration of ecological and social systems. Regeneration, as an aspect of peak sustainability, builds on the principles of encouraging deeper, more intentional engagement with place and people. In practice, when programs are rooted in long-term presence, slower rhythms, and genuine relationships, they have the potential to become not only sustainable, but regenerative in impact.

Examining how long-term presence and a profound connection to an ecosystem are crucial for achieving sustainable, regenerative outcomes in conservation—and in associated outdoor experiential education programming—formed the foundation of the recent webinar, Slowing Down: The Importance of Place, Depth, and Longevity in Community Partnerships for Regenerative Change. Led by Orenda Learning and supported by Little Planet, Teaspoons of Change, and the Juara Turtle Project, the session focused on the value of long-standing, reciprocal community partnerships through the lens of conservation work on Tioman Island, Malaysia. At its core, the webinar ventured to explore how it is possible for organisations to achieve regenerative outcomes by building long-standing, reciprocal community partnerships grounded in best practices. Many schools embed sustainability and the SDGs into their programming, with a focus on ensuring these efforts remain authentic, place-based, and aligned with meaningful service-learning and community engagement.Bringing together educators, conservation practitioners, and community leaders, the conversation explored how outdoor experiential education can support sustainability and regenerative outcomes through the radical act of slowing down.

Sustainability focuses on minimizing harm and preserving existing systems. Regeneration emphasizes renewal, restoration, and the active improvement of ecological and social systems. One way to think about this distinction is that sustainability asks how long something can last, while regeneration looks to how nature works; it is adaptive, evolving, and responsive. In natural systems, there is no true waste, only transformation; no fixed winners or losers, only ongoing adjustment and growth. From this perspective, regeneration is about curiosity and about asking how systems can flourish, and how good something can truly become. It is inherently future-oriented, relational, and deeply contextual. Crucially, it also operates on a fundamentally different timescale.

The timeline of regeneration does not align with academic semesters, short-term service trips, or project-based metrics. It unfolds slowly, through trust-building, reciprocity, and long-term engagement. And this idea surfaced repeatedly throughout the webinar discussions. Regeneration takes time. Don’t believe us, just ask a turtle.

Moving Beyond Tokenism Toward Reciprocal Partnership Models

Throughout the hour-long discussion attended by education experts from around the globe, conversations and statements kept coming back to the need to critically examine the prevalence of short-term, transactional engagement within outdoor education. While often framed as impactful learning experiences, these models can risk becoming tokenistic, often prioritizing student experience over meaningful, sustained contribution.

For webinar host Alice Whitehead, Founder and CEO of Orenda Learning and co-creator of the Be the Change program, this represents a significant pedagogical and ethical challenge and throughout the hour-long discussion she emphasized the importance of intentional program design and critical reflection.

“Without learning programs and thought-out planning, experiences can be tokenistic and not address the roots of inequality,” she explains. “Community partnerships, when not done right, can take more than they give. And they can reflect a misalignment between what outsiders think a community needs and what it actually needs.”

Her perspective aligns with broader discourse in global citizenship education and decolonizing pedagogy, which call for a shift away from extractive models of engagement. Instead, Alice advocates for a framework grounded in reciprocity, one that prioritizes mutual benefit, shared learning, and sustained dialogue.

“Supporting students to build reciprocal relationships means focusing on conversation,” she adds. “Working alongside communities requires continued dialogue, and teachers and schools need to be part of that dialogue too.”

As discussed in the webinar, this approach requires a rethinking of program structures. It involves embedding pre-departure preparation, in-field facilitation, and post-experience reflection into a cohesive learning journey. It also necessitates a willingness to slow down and recognize that meaningful engagement cannot be compressed into a single week or isolated experience.

The Pedagogy of Place Through Long-Term Engagement 

Through organic and candid conversations, the webinar also highlighted the transformative potential of long-term, place-based engagement as a cornerstone of regenerative practice.

At Little Planet on Tioman Island, this philosophy is operationalized through sustained partnerships that have developed over decades. Richard Joyner, Director of Little Planet, joined the webinar from Switzerland, contributing his experience from a career of outdoor education worldwide and a practitioner’s perspective on what depth and continuity look like in practice.

“The value of long-term relationships—the depth and familiarity of what you won’t get from a one-off situation—is immeasurable,” he explains. “What you gain from going back to something and working on it year after year cannot be replicated.”

From an educational standpoint, this reflects key principles of experiential and place-based learning theory, where knowledge is constructed through repeated interaction, reflection, and contextual understanding. However, as Richard noted during the webinar, building such relationships is neither immediate nor straightforward.

“Kampung Jurara was a very isolated, protected and proud community,” he reflects. It wasn’t easy for Little Planet to establish themselves as part of the community and there were challenges and hardships. “But when you stick around and work through those challenges, people see that you’re committed to the place and authentic in what you are trying to achieve.”

Over time, it became clear that the consistent presence of organisations like Little Planet was a net positive. By regularly bringing in student groups and creating opportunities to contribute to community initiatives, they demonstrated a commitment to long-term engagement. In other words, rather than concentrating on the experience of the individual or the singular group, which can be fleeting, inconsistent or at worst, contrived—the emphasis shifted toward the value of ongoing reliable partnerships embedded within a protracted engagement committed to real change and regeneration.

“Through a slow burn and long-term commitment, we showed that the village, the culture, and the environment are the nugget, not something to exploit,” he says. This, combined with pre-trip preparation with teachers, students can arrive ready to receive information and receive the benefits of the place. 

This distinction between extraction and investment was a recurring theme throughout the webinar. Regenerative outdoor education, as Richard articulated, is not about consuming a place, but about contributing to it over time.

Embedding Regeneration Through Community-Led Practice

While strategic frameworks are important, the webinar underscored that regeneration is ultimately realized through everyday practices and relationships over time.

Khairil Uteh Yusree, Operations Manager at Little Planet and a long-time Tioman resident, joined the discussion from Malaysia, offering a grounded, community-based perspective.

“We need solid relationships with the community and local schools,” he explains. “Sharing stories and food creates connection. We involve local people in programs and activities. We employ local instructors and train them.”

His contribution to the webinar highlighted the importance of embedding programs within the social fabric of the community, rather than operating at its periphery or as temporary visitors. Initiatives such as weekly outdoor English classes for local kids, youth sports engagement, and collaborative activities are not treated as supplementary, but as integral components of the Little Planet’s work.

“We believe the best way for kids to learn is outdoors,” he adds. “So, we bring local kids here. We play games, we swim, and we use English as a medium for development.”

Perhaps most significantly, Uteh provided a perspective that challenges conventional assumptions about partnership:

“We need the locals, but they don’t need us.”

This statement resonated strongly within the webinar discussion, reframing partnership as something that must be earned through trust, relevance, and respect. It emphasizes the importance of humility and the need to recognize local agency within regenerative models. And that all of the above takes time. 

The Turtle as a Context for Regeneration Over Time

One of the most compelling metaphors discussed during the webinar came from Jordan Gledhill, CEO of the Juara Turtle Project and One Planet Conservation. Joining from Malaysia, Jordan used the life cycle of sea turtles to illustrate the temporal dimension of regeneration.

“Anything to do with turtles is about longevity. They take a long time to reach maturity and that mirrors our partnership with Little Planet,” he says. “We’ve been working together for over twenty years.” That means that hatchlings protected in the early 2000s when Little Planet started operating from Tioman, are today returning to nest on Juara Beach.

“The time it takes a turtle to reach maturity fits nicely with the idea of long-term commitment,” summarized Jordan. 

The metaphor extends beyond conservation outcomes to encompass educational practice. As Jordan noted during the webinar, meaningful engagement requires continuity.

“The long-term relationships built in Tioman allow deeper connections as returning teachers become comfortable with instructors and the location,” he says. “And students connecting before and after their trip increases the longevity of the experience. For example, United World College has a that connects before they arrive and brings it back into the College following their experience. They meet, fundraise, and contribute from home.” 

Regeneration, in this sense, is not an isolated event but an extended learning arc, one that integrates preparation, participation, and ongoing engagement.

Reframing Global Citizenship Through Regeneration

The webinar also challenged prevailing notions of global citizenship, particularly those tied to access and opportunity.

d’Arcy Lunn, founder of Teaspoons of Change, joined from Sydney, Australia and offered a critical perspective on how global citizenship is often misunderstood.

“The idea of global citizenship can be misconstrued,” he explains. “It’s not about how many countries you’ve been to or how many languages you speak. It’s about how you see yourself fitting into the world.”

From a regenerative standpoint, this reframing is significant. It shifts the focus from external experience to internal orientation; from the consumption of culture to participation within it.

“I don’t like definitions. I prefer explorations,” he adds. “It’s about learning from and with nature. Working the way nature works. Nature is messy sometimes and we have to be comfortable with that.”

As discussed throughout the webinar, this perspective aligns with systems thinking, active citizenship and community participation, all of which emphasize complexity, interdependence, and adaptability.

Trust, Time, and the Future of Outdoor Education

A unifying thread across all webinar contributors was the central importance of trust and the recognition that trust cannot be accelerated.

“Trust takes time,” Richard emphasizes. “And we have to acknowledge the time needed for that.”

For outdoor education providers and schools, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It requires a shift away from short-term program models toward longer-term partnerships that are embedded within curriculum design.

As discussed in the webinar, this includes integrating field experiences into broader learning journeys, specifically connecting pre-departure preparation, in-field engagement, and post-program reflection into a cohesive educational framework.

“The more the experience can be built up and incorporated into the curriculum…the more impact it has,” Richard explains.

Alice reinforces this point: “We ask schools to prioritize this element of the curriculum. Slowing down allows relationships to deepen and evolve.”

The Radical Choice to Slow Down

As the voices throughout this webinar Slowing Down: The Importance of Place, Depth, and Longevity in Community Partnerships for Regenerative Change, made clear, regeneration requires a fundamental re-shuffling of priorities within outdoor experiential education.

In a sector often driven by scale, efficiency, and measurable outputs, choosing to slow down can feel countercultural. Yet this choice does not happen in a vacuum. Schools, and in turn organizations like Little Planet, face ongoing pressure to scale, increase capacity, and accommodate ever larger numbers of students, all while still being expected to deliver authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Many practitioners in experiential education are already acutely aware of the risks associated with large-scale trips and mass-tourism-style programming. It is precisely within this tension that slowing down becomes both more challenging and more essential, enabling deeper, more meaningful forms of engagement for both students and staff.

To return to the same place year after year. To prioritize relationships over transactions. To invest in local leadership and knowledge systems. To measure impact in years rather than days. These are not indicators of reduced ambition, but of a more sophisticated and responsible approach to outdoor experiential education.

Just as it takes time for ecosystems to adapt, it takes time for communities to build trust, and for students to develop a meaningful sense of connection and responsibility. At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that for most students, their connection to a place or organisation will inevitably be limited in duration. This highlights the importance of partnerships with service providers that offer place-based, long-term initiatives with sustained community investment, providing a consistent foundation that extends beyond any single visit. In doing so, they act as a vessel through which schools, and the individual students within them, can contribute to a much larger, ongoing effort, with the confidence that their involvement feeds into work that is cumulative, enduring, and genuinely impactful. Through this kind of sustained, place-based engagement, long-term presence and strong relationships allow initiatives to become regenerative in both intention and impact. Regeneration—and any meaningful shift in the paradigm of outdoor experiential learning—takes time. Just ask the turtles of the Juara Turtle Project.