KATHARINE ZYWERT
Welcome!
About me:
I am a writer, researcher, and planetary health gardener. My work aims to regenerate our ecosystems, build more resilient communities, and strengthen our relationships with nature. I am the author of Sustainable Communities for a Healthy Planet (2024) and lead editor of Health in the Anthropocene: Living Well on a Finite Planet (2020). I have a PhD in Social and Ecological Sustainability from the University of Waterloo, where my research focused on community-based approaches to planetary health and the transition to a sustainable health system, with an emphasis on gardening for health and wellbeing. I also hold a Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation (University of Waterloo) and a Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology (University of Oxford). I have worked in research administration, social-purpose consulting, and community capacity building, and am currently under contract writing a nonfiction book about gardening for personal and ecological wellbeing.
WRITING
I write nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly books about cultivating human and planetary health in a time of escalating, interconnected crises. My work disrupts conventional ideas about health, weaving together hopeful narratives and emerging possibilities for planetary healing.
Learn more →
RESEARCH
My research focuses on community based, relational approaches to planetary health. It is grounded in the lived experiences of health practitioners, social innovators, and communities. As a researcher, I bring together diverse perspectives on how to heal our social, ecological, and economic systems.
Learn more →
EXPERIENCE & EXPERTISE
My experience and skills span strategy development and implementation, project management, inclusive and participatory engagement, writing, facilitation, teaching, and research administration.
Learn more →
Growing gardens for planetary health
Gardening is one of the most direct actions we can take to improve our own wellbeing and the health of the planet. As climate change and other ecological crises unfold around us, gardening offers a way to regenerate local ecosystems and rebuild our relationship with nature. At my home in Waterloo, Ontario, I grow a garden designed to improve human and planetary health, with an apothecary garden, a small food forest, and sun and vegetable patches. My family and I also steward Virginia’s garden, a perennial succession planted garden on the Bruce Peninsula, founded by my grandmother in the early 1990s. I am writing a nonfiction book on gardening as a tool for ecological connectivity, personal wellbeing, and planetary healing, and am actively building connections with folks working in this space. If that’s you, please reach out!
New projects
Check out my connect page for more info on new project inquiries and how to get in touch.
“As we career towards an increasingly insecure future, this book [Sustainable Communities for a Healthy Planet] provides a blueprint for a better, more caring world. It not only asks us to pause, look back at where we came from and use this knowledge to lead us forward into a better tomorrow, but also shows us what that future can look like. A fantastic tonic for our current condition.”
Jennifer Cole
Senior Lecturer of Global and Planetary Health, Royal Holloway University of London
“Health in the Anthropocene contributes consideration and critique of current practice and thinking to facilitate behaviour change towards living well with equity and within the limits of the planet. A thought-provoking read, it represents a major contribution to moving problem-recognition to solution-finding, and a milestone in this literature.”
Ro McFarlane
Public health academic, University of Canberra