A herd of goats makes its way through a stubbly, dry grassland to a hilly grove. As they get closer, the air becomes noticeably cooler, the vegetation denser, the grass greener. A couple of buffalo wallow in a shallow pool of water, and beyond, a forest path leads to a giant old ficus. From the tree’s roots, a little stream emerges, its peaceful gurgling punctuated with the p...

When he walked out of prison after 28 years, the first thing Allen Burnett did was drive to the ocean. “I just stood there for a minute,” he recalls. “I wanted to feel the air.”

For most of his life, Burnett never expected that moment to come.

He entered California’s prison system as a teenager in the early 1990s after participating in a fatal carjacking. Senten...

This story was originally published by Civil Eats.

Every Wednesday morning, a refrigerated solar-powered truck arrives at the Mt. Hope Community Garden in Southeast San Diego. The driver hops out...

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The Butterfly Grove at Pismo Beach used to sound alive before you even saw it. The first time I visited on a winter morning over a decade ago, I stood beneath the towering eucalyptus and heard a faint rustle, like distant rain, as thousands of monarch butterflies shifted their wi...