To the Editor: Vermonters care deeply about the land.
We care about clean water, healthy soil, and food we can trust. We care about the forests, the farms, and the communities that make this state what it is. On that, there is broad agreement.
Where we are increasingly divided is not on the goal — but on the method.
Much of today’s environmental effort relies on legislation: restrictions, mandates, and regulatory controls over how people live, build, grow, and consume. While often well-intentioned, this approach is meeting growing resistance. Many Vermonters feel overregulated, constrained, or financially burdened, and that tension is beginning to undermine unity around environmental goals.
At the same time, there is a quiet but powerful truth emerging: people are not the problem.
In fact, people are the solution.
Across Vermont, individuals and communities are actively seeking ways to live more in harmony with the land — to grow clean food, reduce toxins, and restore natural systems. The desire is there. The will is there.
What is often missing is a business structure that makes those choices easier, more connected, and economically rewarding, where resource sharing is a multigenerational objective.
What if, instead of relying primarily on mandates, we focused on rewarding and empowering regenerative economic action? What if we made it easy, fun and inclusive for Vermonters to engage in environmental restoration?
Vermont has long been a leader in local food, land stewardship, and community-scale innovation. We are well positioned to lead again — this time by aligning our economic activity with regeneration of our environmental values.
A new model is emerging through EdensBay, a Vermont-seeded marketplace and membership framework designed to support regenerative products, services, and practices. Its aim is simple: to help people invest in one another and participate in rebuilding local ecosystems and economies — together.
This is not about abandoning policy. It is about complementing it with something equally powerful: participation. Because in the end, people are far more likely to engage when they are invited, supported, and rewarded — rather than restricted.
If we want lasting change, we must build with the people, not against them.
Vermonters are ready.
The question is whether you are willing to meet that readiness with a model that trusts it.
Emily Peyton
Putney, April 20
