Jonathan Caddy is awarded Integral City Meshworker of the Year 2025 in recognition of a lifetime of meshworking intelligence expressed through land stewardship, education, community governance, and ecological restoration.
Born in the original Findhorn caravan to two of the Ecovillage’s founders, Jonathan has spent over six decades weaving together inner guidance, ecological science, volunteer energy, formal institutions, and long-term stewardship structures in service of land, people, and future generations.
As long-standing Chair of the Findhorn Hinterland Trust, Jonathan guided the conservation and restoration of around 50 hectares of nationally significant dune, woodland, and coastal habitats, mobilising volunteer networks while also working effectively with statutory agencies, funders, scientists, and government bodies. This work culminated in Findhorn Hinterland receiving Scotland’s Nature30 designation in 2025, recognising over twenty years of sustained, community-rooted ecological stewardship.
Jonathan exemplifies meshworking intelligence by bridging self-organising community life with formal governance systems—demonstrating how small places, well-tended, can influence bioregions and contribute meaningfully to planetary goals.
Born into Emergence: A Life Shaped by Land and Listening
Jonathan Caddy’s meshworking journey begins before the word existed. From 1962 his Findhorn birthplace created the conditions for growing up inside a living experiment that combined spiritual enquiry, ecological sensitivity, material frugality, and deep trust in inner guidance. With little indoor space and abundant freedom outdoors, his early education unfolded in dunes, tidal flats, bird hides, and improvised dens—an apprenticeship in ecological observation and relationship with place.
From Ecological Science to Lived Practice
Jonathan formalised this grounding through a degree in Ecological Science at the University of Edinburgh, then extended it through a richly varied career including island stewardship on Erraid, woodland management, native plant nurseries in Canada, sustainable fuel enterprises, specialist timber production, farming, and three decades of teaching across diverse educational contexts.
Meshworking the Hinterland: From Wild Edges to Civic Trust
Jonathan’s most visible expression of meshworking intelligence is his two-decade leadership with the Findhorn Hinterland Trust. Under his chairing, the Trust restored degraded woodland and dune systems, created Moray’s first Green Burial Ground with a 100-year stewardship commitment, developed Local Biodiversity Action Plans, and pioneered large-scale dune restoration grounded in best-practice ecological science.
Nature30: Local Action, National Signal
In 2025, Findhorn Hinterland was formally recognised as one of Scotland’s first Nature30 sites. This recognition emerged from decades of patient, place-based stewardship and demonstrated how community-led ecological care can shape national biodiversity policy.
Ecovillage, Bioregion, Nation
Jonathan’s influence radiates across scales—from grounding Findhorn’s spiritual heritage in ecological responsibility, to strengthening biodiversity and resilience across Moray, and contributing demonstrator models for Scotland’s Nature30 commitments.
Why Jonathan Caddy Is a Meshworker of the Year
Jonathan Caddy embodies meshworking intelligence by aligning inner values, scientific knowledge, and practical action; integrating self-organising community energy with formal governance; and investing decades of care for land and people. His life’s work reminds us that regeneration is cumulative, relational, and rooted in place.
“If all backyards were cared for in such a way, the world would be a different and better place.” — Jonathan Caddy
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AWARD
A natural Meshworker, who weaves the lessons of Nature into the power of community, Jonathan can catalyse patterns that are as lively as the ceilidhs he dances and enable evolutionary development from a myriad of self-organising systems (both human and non-human) that dynamically sail through his life.
We are proud to award the
Integral City Meshworker of the Year 2025 to
Jonathan Caddy.
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