How slime mould can save the world

In 2018, I founded RAIN, an organisation supporting Indigenous tribes, formerly enslaved populations and other marginalised communities in Brazil to regenerate their traditional lands and work towards food security and community autonomy.

My colleagues at RAIN and I take nature’s networks as our inspiration and model for doing this work. They include ant colonies, mycelia and my favourite - the humble slime mould.

Despite being single-celled protists with neither brains nor nervous systems, the intelligence of slime moulds is astonishing. They map their environment and redistribute resources in ways that outperform our most advanced mathematical models. They perceive rhythms in time and alter their behaviour in response to events before they happen. They learn skills that help them thrive, and they teach what they have learned to other slime moulds.

RAIN is a network where people with ideas can make things happen between Brazil and the outside world, including those in countries which benefited from its resources during the colonial period and want to address that debt. We help manage the complex dynamics of working between vastly different cultures in a scarred post-colonial landscape, and we produce media and stories to change how people in the “developed world” interface with the cultures and ecologies of Brazil.

If you would like to know more, or if you have ideas to share, check us out here.