How One Woman Removed 100,000 Landmines and Replaced Them With Farmland

When I walked my first minefield in January 2000 and saw the devastation of children who looked at my hand and said, Mrs. Kuhn, is it true that the children in America can hike the mountains and run the beaches without fear of landmines? They said, it must be heaven. Our Bay Area Innovator today is Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace, humanitarian leader, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. For over two decades, she's turned minefields into vineyards and orchards across some of the world's most war-torn regions. From Afghanistan and Vietnam to Ukraine, her mission is peace through agriculture. In this episode, Heidi shares how her journey led to the removal of over 100,000 landmines worldwide, what it's like negotiating with global leaders, including the Taliban, and why planting a tree might just be the most powerful act of peace we have. This is Bay Area Innovators, and I'm your host, Steve Espas. Heidi, welcome to our program. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate you being here. So you won the 2023 World Food Prize, and you're the current Nobel Peace Prize nominee. It's going to be later this year in Oslo, it's going to be awarded. And this is for your work for peace and for removing landmines in specific. Can you tell us how did you get started on this amazing endeavor that's got to where it is today? Well, Roots of Peace began on September 21, 1997, in the living room of our family home. And from my heart, from my soul, came a toast, may the world go from mines to vines, from killing fields to vineyards, from swords to plowshares, from blood into wine. And there were 100 people gathered in my home, and the reason was Princess Diana had just died three weeks before, and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco had asked me to host the reception for people doing something about landmines. And none of us had really heard what landmines had done to innocent civilians and children until Princess Diana, in the final year of her life, in January 1997, she very bravely walked through the minefields of Angola. And eight months later, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where three weeks prior to her tragic death, she took her last footsteps in a minefield. And I learned as a mother of four children that we live in a world today with an estimated 110 million landmines silently poised in 60 countries. And in Ukraine today, over 30% of the land is mined. And that toast that came from my heart, may the world go from mines to vines, went out of the living room of our home into the greater world. And today, we as Roots of Peace can proudly say that we've facilitated the removal of hundreds of thousands of landmines, UXOs, and cluster munitions, but more importantly, planted eight million fruit trees on former war-torn lands. So from mines to vines, from landmines to orchards, to seeds of life that we as humans were given to grow. We as humans have been given this beautiful earth to shepherd, to be stewards of the earth. And I think a good steward removes these seeds of hatred buried beneath the soil, long after the guns of war have silenced. And when these mines are removed, the land is no longer held hostage, but it has access to farmers and animals and cows that produce the milk for the families. So what has become from one mother's dream has become a business model for peace. Demine, replant, and rebuild. For every landmine removed, every fruit tree planted feeds future generations. And every tree planted sequesters the carbon that's going to fight climate change. So this is a very pragmatic business model. It's worked all over the world, from Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Vietnam. And again, in a world where these landmines are increasingly being put into the ground, we as humans, I think, need to be very conscious. Today, we have 8 billion people on our planet in 2025. By the time 2050 comes, we will have 10 billion. So if we keep practicing a culture of war and planting seeds of hatred, not only in our soil, but in our soul, the solution is removal. And when we remove the landmines, not only in the soil, but from our hearts and from our minds, we can't leave it void. We need to fill it with something that we don't talk about enough in the world, and that's called love. For when we have positive thoughts, good hearts, and return to the earth, the earth forgives us from the seeds of hatred that we put in. And I have seen with my own eyes, tasted the beautiful nectar of the fresh grapes growing from former minefields in Afghanistan. And that is the roots of peace. It's a genesis from the heart of a mother. Now, as much as is going on in the world, somehow we don't think of landmines as much as probably we should. There's wars, there's, you know, terrorist attacks and all this, but it sounds like there's a lot more danger with the landmines than most people actually think about, right? No, that's so true. And case in point is this year, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. And when I was a student at UC Berkeley in the 1970s, I graduated in political economics of industrial societies. But I think those of my generation, the Vietnam War defined our generation. And peace and love, I think, once again, are more important now than they ever have been. In Vietnam today, in Quang Tri Province, the former DMZ, 80 percent of the land still is contaminated by landmines. And since the war ended on April 30th, 1975, over 100,000 innocent footsteps of children, of farmers, and yes, the local cow that provides the milk, that feeds the family, have been maimed or killed by the explosive remnants of war left behind. So I am deeply committed to finishing the job that Roots of Peace started in Vietnam over 15 years ago. We've worked with the proud deminers, the Vietnamese women who put their lives on the forefront. You know, you ask them why they do these dangerous jobs, and they say, Mrs. Kuhn, we're mothers. Our children kick soccer balls out of the field. We tell them not to get the ball, but it's the only ball in the village. And when nobody's looking, what will a child do? Retrieve the ball. So we're making our land safe for our children. And again, so that farmers have the access. And in Vietnam, we've trained hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese farmers to grow black pepper on the former battlefields. And next month, we are getting ready to plant the vanilla beans. So the land is hot with black pepper. We are making it sweet with the beautiful vanilla beans. And that, to me, is peace on earth, peace through agriculture. It is time, I think, as humanity across borders, that we turn guns into shovels and take those words of the Isaiah prophecy, which is agreed upon by Christian Jews and Muslims alike. It's etched in stone at the wall at the United Nations across the street from world headquarters. And those words read, may they beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Words to live by today. Absolutely. So there's still landmines in Vietnam over 50 years after the war ended. And I think it takes about eight pounds, right, for a landmine to detonate. Yes. And that's the average weight of a newborn child. You know, I'm a mother of four, and today a grandmother of seven. And I've been doing this for 28 years. And, you know, when you travel to a minefield, they ask you your blood type, and you walk out into a minefield, and you cannot trust the earth beneath your feet. The flowers that bloom, the children who repatriate back to war-torn lands. A tragic story in Bosnia-Herzegovina, when the children repatriated back to the village, they ran through the fields of their home and picked bouquets of flowers for their mother. Three small children, and one, you heard a boom. And what do two other children do? They run to help their best friend. Boom, boom. And the whole village gathered and held the parents back as those deminers went slowly, slowly, to carve a safe path to retrieve and save those children. And stories are just so hard to tell, but, you know, they died slowly, calling for their parents. So, you see stories like this, you walk through minefields, and to come back to, you know, a beautiful San Francisco Bay area and explain to your friends in Silicon Valley and Napa Valley why we need to care. It is the earth that we share. It is beyond the borders. It is the roots of peace that need to be planted on this earth right now, healing both soil and soul. Should be less worried about getting the iPhone 16 versus 15 when these things happen. And you mentioned a soccer ball. A soccer ball is not going to detonate the landmine because it's lighter, but the kid who runs after it. Can you tell us a little bit the process of how the deminers, they go through, what they actually do, and how dangerous is it for them to do this? This Bay Area Innovators episode is sponsored by Peter Cassara Clothiers, an Italian menswear store that brings timeless European style with a modern edge to Sunnyvale and the Bay Area for over 50 years. From top Italian suits and shoes, the exclusive Tami Bahama line, they've got your look covered. Check out their website at petercassaraclothiers.com to find out more. And now back to our interview. It's very dangerous. And again, when you talk to the primarily the women that I've demined with in Angola, in Afghanistan, in Vietnam, they're doing this as mothers to protect the land for their children and to provide safe grounds for their husbands and farmers to plant. So it's a very arduous labor intensive process. They have to go inch by inch with a device that looks like a hockey puck. It's like a metal detector. Metal detector. Exactly. In pure silence. It's absolute concentration. And if you imagine, say, for instance, this room was mined, you'd have to ask the question, how many landmines would it take to prevent somebody from farming their field? Some people say zero. The answer is zero, because it's the fear of the landmines that would prevent people from accessing their fields. So in large areas that are agricultural, there's remote controlled flail tractors that can comb the land. It'll detonate at the front end. But if you look outside it to the beautiful Silicon Valley from where we're speaking, the land and the terrain is often that you have to go inch by inch. And you know, the time and energy that it takes cost about three dollars to put in a landmine and about a thousand dollars to take out because the time and the labor intensive concentration that it takes to comb the earth and then go back and quality assure it to assure that the land is safe, not only for children to walk, but for farmers to farm their fields. So a tractor device, I assume remote, could do it if it's fairly flat. We're a large, say, agricultural area in San Joaquin Valley where you have wheat fields and things like that. And it's expensive. It's very expensive. But it's the ground zero for peace. And what Roots of Peace comes in afterwards is the positive. We come into countries like Afghanistan where we've worked consecutively since 2002. Roots of Peace continues our work there in a country that not only is 80 percent dependent upon agriculture for jobs, but 80 percent of the land is still mined. So the fighting continues when families pick up children who are limp and either lost a limb or a leg or a life. The hatred continues on. So by clearing the land, providing jobs, the economics of peace for farmers, they're able to feed their families, to provide exports to new markets. In Afghanistan, for instance, where we've worked since 2002, we've taken agricultural exports from 2014 from 250 million to 1.4 billion dollars by providing the exports of these beautiful fresh fruits to India, Pakistan, UAE. Again, Afghanistan was once known as the Garden of Central Asia. They have beautiful pomegranates and melons in Kandahar, beautiful apricots and almonds and apples in Ghazni Wardak and Logar. And north of Kabul in the Shomali Plains, 70 varietals of fresh grapes. So the vision of turning mines to vines, of course, the grapevine represents the seeds we have in common as opposed to those which separate us. And just as a fine bottle of wine is made in Croatia, the beautiful grapes are never fermented with due respect to the Muslim population who doesn't drink alcohol. But the fresh grapes and the beautiful shindoukani raisins, they're just high value crops that can be exported and the money goes back to the local communities. They're able to educate their children and again, the culture of war that was broken is healed through a business model for peace. And that is so proudly Roots of Peace. Demine, replant, rebuild communities and with regenerative agriculture. Please tell us what continues your motivation to do this. You tell us how you got started, but what motivates you every day to continue your work? I think to whom as much has been given, much is required. And when I walked my first minefield in January 2000 and saw the devastation of children who looked at my hand and said, Mrs. Kuhn, is it true that the children in America can hike the mountains and run the beaches without fear of landmines? They said it must be heaven. And I looked at them and just my tears in my eyes, you know, were so deep because I think of the children sometimes here in America who are bored at summer. Where do I go when we're bored? And I think that sense of appreciation of what we've been given and what is required to reach out beyond our borders. And, you know, this is a global problem. It's not about who put in the landmines in the Vietnam War or who put them in in Azerbaijan or Afghanistan. We just, no judgment, take them out. And I think we can really heal this beautiful earth. It's ground zero. But the planting of peace, the planting of the eight million fruit trees, for instance, in Afghanistan, it's sometimes frustrating today to know that, you know, many entities have gone away that provide funding. But those eight million fruit trees planted will come back year after year. That is sustainable peace through agriculture. It's not a band-aid of fruits and, you know, supplies being flown into Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is out into the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. And that just gives me such peace at night to imagine those farmers in those fields that have been demined, having the dignity to plant peace through agriculture. And it keeps me going back. And when you see these little children that you hold in your arms, a little boy, for instance, in Quang Tri Province, age 17, Won Van Tran, picked up what he thought was a rock to fix his bicycle. And I visited him in the hospital because it was a cluster munition left back. It blew off his arm and much of his face. And through mumbled words, he thanked me for being at his bedside. And the very forgiving Vietnamese mother was over my shoulder holding my arm. And, you know, to see these families, these people, humans who are suffering post-conflict, it keeps me going back because I know I can help one more person, one more landmine out, one more grapevine planted. It keeps me going back. I think you're touching on something so important. If this not only has the effect of helping specifically those people and helping the land, but if your ideology, your thoughts rubs off, and people realize how doing good makes them feel good and makes them feel satisfied and makes them fulfilled. Imagine if this spreads to the whole world. Can you imagine a pandemic for peace? Like you say? Everyone is going to want to do it, right? Something positive, something we can see the light. And it's frustrating sometimes. It is for many of us right now. So many wars going on in the world. I think we, through this interview, have to be the light. We have to show that the power of love versus the power of darkness, it prevails in all faiths, colors, and creeds. Absolutely. Now, please tell us, you got the Mahatma Gandhi Award and the Mother Teresa Award. This sounds amazing. It's a great honor. Please give us a little bit of information. Oh, it was just one of the deepest honors that I could have been bestowed upon for the work that we're doing. It's about the work. It's not about me. But having been the recipient of that, I was invited to the grave site of Mahatma Gandhi on the occasion of his 150th birthday. It was October 2, 2019. And he took me to Rajghat, which is outside of Delhi. And I went to his burial ground. And the award was bestowed to me there by the Gandhi global family. It's called the Seva Award, which is their award for peace. And a few years later, in November 2023, the Harmony Foundation flew me to Mumbai and presented me with the Mother Teresa Award for social justice. And when the nuns in Calcutta, the Mother Teresa nuns had heard about it through Rotary, Shekhar Mehta, who gave me this beautiful scarf, flew me to Calcutta. And I went to the graveside also of Mother Teresa. And with the beautiful nuns gathered around, I put the award on her grave. And they prayed around me for roots of peace, and that this vision of turning mines to vines may grow and ripple across the world and be a source of genuine healing of humankind. You know, humankind, not humanity, but it's the human ties that bind us. And I think this is really a unique time in human history where we need to be so grounded in our work for peace. And I think looking at the earth, the beautiful earth that feeds us, you know, again, as we said, there's 8 billion people in the world today. There'll be 10 billion in 25 years. And getting down to the business of peace through agriculture and feeding future generations, I believe is our moral responsibility while our footsteps are on the face of this earth. What did it feel like when you were there receiving the award in that, you know, the Mahatma Gandhi Award in that special environment? It just was a feeling of a blessing. You know, it doesn't matter if we're Christian, Jews, Muslims, just people with good hearts. We're in the zone. The athletes say they're in the zone. It really, really, really was. And I think I was the only American that was there. Modi was there, and it was all the Indian government. But I was very honored. I was the only American there in that beautiful sunrise ceremony. So it's something I'll never forget. And what his courageous footsteps certainly had done. And, you know, peace isn't easy, and being a leader for peace certainly has its tremendous obstacles. But I think it's through faith, not fear, that we hold hands in the dark. And we wake up each morning with a renewed commitment to plant the roots of peace on earth. That is just what's etched in my heart. Please tell us about your negotiating moments. And I understand you had even dinner with the Taliban one time. What was it about? What were you trying to negotiate to allow you to? Yeah, well, any country where Roots of Peace works, of course, has to have the permission of the government. And that is the case, of course, in Afghanistan, where we began in 2002, with our Mines to Vines program, which, again, has rippled throughout the entire country. We introduced the trellis grape vines that lift the grapes off the ground. So it avoids phylloxera, and you prune the vine, it doubles the yield. So that has taken off throughout, you know, the entire country, as again, a business model for peace. But, you know, we've had many challenges. We had a Taliban attack in March 28, 2014. And it was a defining moment, whether, you know, it had just gotten too tough, or you stand back and you try again. And I just, again, thought of those children who deserve to be fed, which inspired us to continue our efforts. Well, there was another obstacle the world witnessed in August 2021. And that's when, you know, the regime changed, the Taliban took over, we saw the horrors that I was helping to navigate with our staff, getting them out of the airport when people were falling off airplanes. You know, it was a terribly challenging time for Roots of Peace with hundreds of employees. So we had to fly into Istanbul, Turkey, in order to manage the SIV programs, the immigrant, you know, efforts that we had to do with the paperwork, and just coordinating it was, you know, it wasn't a war room, it was a peace room that my husband and I had to go to. And we received a call when we arrived at the hotel in Istanbul, the Bosphorus Sea, and it was the senior members of the Taliban wanting to meet with us. And I was on the third floor with my husband, again, a choice of whether you're going to jump into the Bosphorus Sea and try to avoid a meeting or you dress appropriately and your hijab and go downstairs. And when the elevator door opened three stories down with my arm, we didn't know what the outcome would be. A woman-led CEO of an American NGO, you just didn't know in August 2021. But we proceeded to the dinner table. We had dinner with the Taliban at their request. And they said across the table, halfway through, Mrs. Kuhn, we don't look at you as a woman. We look at you as a mother who's feeding our children. You have full permission to work in our country. And I think if that is to be a compliment, it's a compliment. The fact that we have to work, we may not understand the governments, we may not agree with them on certain principles, but for me, it's about feeding the children. And to look at me as a mother feeding the children and the continuation of being able to plant 1.5 million additional trees, we don't get caught in the political landmines of any country. We go to higher ground for peace through agriculture. So very, very proud of our team on the ground and hope to engage international investment. Furthermore, with the EU and the Japanese and other governments who are very interested in supporting the agricultural efforts of Roots of Peace. So we need to find alternative funding, but we are in the midst of doing so. It's always more meaningful, isn't it, when the support comes from an unexpected place such as the Taliban. It's always more meaningful. It was a lovely, lovely dinner, and I'm very grateful to their country for allowing our Roots of Peace employees to work there. You're a fifth-generation Marin County resident or native from here. Tell us, where is your family coming from and how did it go, you know, these five generations? Well, we all, in America, come from somewhere, and I'm very, very proud. My ancestors came from John McNair was born in 1701 in old Kilpatrick, Dunbarton, Scotland, and in the 1720s he came to Wiscasset, Maine, and through generations helped settle the eastern seaboard of what was yet to become the United States. I'm the daughter of the American Revolution, meaning I'm 12th-generation American, and very, very proud of those roots. In the 1830s, my great-great-grandfather was born, John Augustus McNair, and in the 1850s he heard there was gold in the hills of California. So as a young man, he set sail for the west. He did. He missed the boat, had to take the shortcut through the isthmus of Panama, through raging waters and malaria-infested jungles, but when he got to San Francisco, he was informed that his boat had sunk. So, with very little financial resources or earthly belongings, he used his entrepreneurial skills, and he went to Sonoma. He started the steamer Gold and brought the eggs, milk, and butter to feed a growing economy in San Francisco in the 1850s. He was a hard worker. He started a bank. There were no banks here. He started Bank of Sonoma. He started real estate, and within a decade, he became one of the first millionaires in California. But what was always taught to me, it's not the money that's around you, it's the moral currency of the heart. And he had just a great legacy that he passed on through generations. You respect the land, and you respect the people, and that was really rippled down through generations to me by the time I was born. I think those principles of respect for the land. So, he purchased a 2,500-acre ranch in 1868, and today it's called San Rafael. I am very privileged to live on that family homestead, and my grandmother entrusted her home to me to do something for peace. So, I think back to my and hope that she would be proud of that prophetic toast that began in her living room, May the world go from mines to vines. It went out of the front door into the Napa Valley. I approached Napa Valley vintners Robert Mondavi, Mienko Gergich, Diane Disney Miller, Shirley and Paul Dean, and these very generous, generous vintners gave me the initial funds to turn my vision into reality and go to Croatia. The first month of the new millennium, my dear husband, I've been a cancer survivor myself. It just was an epiphany to me that cancer is a landmine. None of us know when we're going to step on it. We have breast cancer, cervical cancer, brain cancer, and I had cervical cancer. And with a one, three, and five-year-old in my arms going under surgery, under the knife, my prayer was, dear God, grant me the gift of life and I will do something special with it. And years later, eight years later, I ended up with cervical cancer, giving birth to a child. And my gynecologist had tears when he told me I was pregnant. He said, this just doesn't happen. And I, not only happened, I named him Christian because he was my little gift from God. And holding that little child in my arms, that's when I was watching Diana walk through the fields, my fourth child, with, and I just hit me, cancer is a landmine, and landmines are a cancer to the earth. And the solution is removal. It was just so clear to me. It was an epiphany of sorts, and it was an answer to my prayer, dear God, grant me the gift of life. I have more than doubled my life from 30 and can proudly say I'm 67 years young. I'm proud of every single year that I'm given to walk this earth and make it better for future generations of children to walk. That's a fantastic story. I want to go back to your previous career. You were in media, like we are right now. And I think there's no coincidence that you were involved with the Exxon Valdez bill. We just talk about respecting the land and the ocean that your grandfather was talking about. Tell us about your experience with the Exxon Valdez bill. It's funny you say that, because my grandmother McNair always taught me simple words of wisdom. Coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous, that there are no accidents. And how did I get to Alaska? My husband and I met at UC Berkeley in the 1970s, and he was working for IBM. IBM means I've been moved. I was sent to Juneau, Alaska with a one, three, and five-year-old, and I decided to get experience in a remote market. I was weather anchor on the 6 o'clock news, and then the Exxon Valdez hit the lyre. And I am an artist, and I had drawn this beautiful Alaska news link. I had gone to Governor Steve Cooper's office, governor of Alaska, and had a business license. So when the Exxon Valdez hit the lyre, I was the only reporter in Alaska with an international company was able to follow up on that story. Those 11 million gallons of oil that permeated the pure waters of Prince William Sound, and I was able to get that story sold to ABC, NBC, Nippon Television, Sky News, and CNN. So with my vast experience in television, I saw another opportunity in Alaska, and that was the melting of the ice curtain between U.S.-Soviet relations. And so again, I went over to Moscow, and the hour that I arrived, the Berlin Wall had just come down. It was December 1989, and when I went to the meeting with Gennady Gerasimov, who was the first minister of foreign affairs, I was told that all foreign interviews were cancelled because I was from Alaska, and that was mutual ground. Seward's Folly, and Alaska was owned by the Russians for many years, was sold. They gave me the worldwide exclusive and said that Andrei Sakharov had just died. So not only was I able to get the first interview, but I sold it to CBS News. It was lead story on Dan Rather, and I was then brought back in with my husband Gary to the Supreme Soviet and introduced to various reformers. Popov, Mayor Popov of Moscow, of Mayor Sobchak, it was then called Leningrad, and of course Boris Yeltsin, and again was invited back by Sobchak, the mayor. As I was flying in, I was able to see St. Petersburg being put up as they were hammering down Leningrad. I have video of that. It was just amazing, and I'll never forget being escorted into that very important meeting with Mayor Anatoly Sobchak by his deputy assistant, whose name is Vladimir Putin. So it was a time of perestroika, a time of glasnost, an incredible moment in human history where we saw the beauty of the friendship united between the Russian and American people, the kultura, the music, the art, the dance, and you know, being born in 1958 in the 60s, you know, learning to hide under my desk because of Soviet missile threats, to see this burgeoning rebirth of friendship. It was such a beautiful time in history, and I was invited back to Sakhalin, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and covered the first democratic election that they had had after 70 years, and that's when Boris Yeltsin was elected. But just the tears of people for 70 years who'd never been able to vote, and covering that story, it was, these were epic moments, and I believe still those epic moments of human understanding exist today, of celebrating the seeds we have in common as opposed to those which separate us. Our humanity, our appreciation for food, the wine, the arts, the dance, the celebration, and I am launching a new facility on my family home in the San Francisco Bay Area in Marin County, where the UN began, and this fall we will be launching Pegasus Gardens, and we'll be having quarterly Pegasus podcasts much like yours, and telling stories of truth, and you know, no judgment what political party anybody's from, let's have human conversations. And as a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1979 in political economics of industrial societies, I'm so proud that as we launch Pegasus Gardens, we're going to be launching the CUNE Initiative for Post-Conflict Development Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and it will be the first ever Peace Center that they've ever had at Cal, so if I could have talked to my 18-year-old self 50 years ago and said, it's going to be okay, not only will it be okay, but you know, you will grow up with hard work and be able to affect change, and again, the full circle of my life growing up in the 70s with a culture of peace and love, a generation that fought the Vietnam War to walk through those former mine fields that Roots of Peace raised the funds to demine, and again, to taste the juicy nectar of the fruit that is grown on the former war-torn lands gives this mother and grandmother great, great, great hope in the future. Well, I think I could definitely use some coaching from you as far as getting exclusive interviews with those. We can always ask, we can join forces together. I think the more dialogue and discussion for good, the better our future generations will thrive. But I got to tell you a story about how unpredictable the future is, even though you see things going well, how can they go even better? It was 1989, which you brought back memories now, because there was such an amazing time, I grew up in Romania, and there was a revolution there, and then the new government, and communism fell. But in 89, September, October, I was a student at San Jose State University, and my history teacher said that she will never, ever see the two Germanys being reunited. That's how, in a way, negative everyone was thinking, that this can never happen, right? And sure enough, months later, they were united, and the wall came down, and you know, after Reagan's famous words. But if we can only hope for that kind of future, and it can happen, there's no reason why it can happen, because it happened before. It can, and I would love to join efforts with you in that capacity. You know, I have a special gift for you, and I tend to dream big, but this is the white rose, and the beautiful fragrance of the rose, and Roots of Peace launched at the beginning of this year, the White Rose Campaign, with another vision and dream that we may plant white roses all over the world, in Moscow, in Kiev, in Vietnam, you know, in Gaza, in Israel, that all land is holy, and so this is my battle cry for peace. Instead of a sword, I present you a flower, and may white roses bloom on former war-torn lands. Thank you so much. This is beautiful and so significant for the world today. I hope we can create a global campaign, just like they had the Ice Bucket Campaign. If we can make that go viral, why not take a photo at the end of our meeting today, and pose for the rose, hashtag pose for the rose. If we can get people around the world committed to planting peace through agriculture, be it a rose, be it a flower, be it a beautiful grapevine. And I would go a step further, I would go to encourage them to do it, to see how they feel after they do it, because it's not just doing it, it's once you do it, how you feel, that's what it's all about. And the reward is so simple from earth, because smell this, this is the beauty of a rose, it gives us a gift from the earth. Too bad the smell cannot go on camera. It's the simplicity, it's the simplicity sometimes of things in life. So in my life, I dream of a landmine-free world. I dream of the 18th Sustainable Development Goal, which would be the eradication of landmines from the face of this earth, because you cannot possibly achieve the other 17 SDGs in a minefield. You can't access water, no poverty, you gotta be kidding, you can't access the land to feed your children. You know, women's education, we have to rethink this as humanity and go back to our humility. This is the 80th year of the United Nations, which began in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were optimists who created the United Nations. After World War II, they came and they gathered under the redwood trees of near woods, seeking the connection of the human foot to nature, the beautiful temples of peace that Franklin Delano Roosevelt envisioned, never wanted another world war ever. And again, rather than convening the original delegates at the Fairmont Hotel or convention center surrounded by cement, he chose the redwood trees of near woods in Marin County. So I'm so proud to be fifth generation Marin and to remind the world of the roots of peace, the name that was inspired by those redwood trees, and the 80th anniversary of the United Nations. I hope to be working with you and telling these great stories of peace and the future from Pegasus Gardens and certainly invite you to UC Berkeley for our launch of the CUNE initiative for post-conflict development studies. Post-conflict begins with the eradication of landmines, again, from the face of this earth. And let's start together. Let's plant peace through agriculture. It works and it's delicious. I am all for it. I want to ask you one more question. Yes. You are eradicating these landmines. You're removing these from the earth and this is a fantastic thing. Do you think that in any way relates to removing the bad elements from people? There's elements in people that are, it's not material, right? It's in their brain. It's something that has this negative thought. Do you think there's a connection between? I think there's a hundred percent connection. I think as we remove the landmines from our soil, we need to remove them from our soul. We need to remove the landmines of negativity from our heads, but we cannot leave it void. We have to replenish it with good thoughts, with love in our hearts. And regardless of the politics in our mind, the faith in our heart, or the color of our hand, you know, a seed when planted today will grow as it has for thousands of years. It's just generational wisdom. And I think we have to go back to the garden. We have to go back to practical solutions for peace. And everybody wins in this situation. You know, this is a business deal. This is a business model for peace. I've worked in Israel and Palestine. In February 2011, a little boy named Daniel Yuval stepped on a landmine. He was only age 10 and somehow heard that there was a mother in the world who cared about eradicating landmines. He called me to his bedside, which I flew. And this little boy asked for a landmine-free world, and I promised him. I promised him, seeing him without a leg and the injury and the suffering of the child. We went back to Israel, and we lobbied at the Knesset. I went back and forth from Jerusalem to Ramallah and met with Benjamin Netanyahu, and then over to Mahmoud Abbas. And each knew I was doing border crossings, and each met with me. Because of the humanitarian effort of Roots of Peace, we raised the funds through very generous vintners in Napa Valley from Spiriterra Winery, half a million dollars. It's a lot of money to raise. But we demined the fields of Bethlehem, four miles from where Jesus Christ was born in a manger, in a Muslim village governed by Israel. So we had three faiths, and eight children had died through those landmines who were left over from 1948. But to be able to run through those fields, when I got back there, they had a beautiful white horse, and ran the horse through this former minefield. And I believe so much that today, that it's not just the holy land today, that we have to demine not only the soil, but the soul. But when we do that, you know, all land is holy. It's not just Israel, Palestine, Gaza. All land is holy. So I do believe it is peace is possible from the ground up, and we must begin by removing the landmines in both soil and soul. Heidi, thank you so much for your time. We thank you for your incredible work, and I hope more people not just realize what you're doing, but get a feel for the beauty and the goodness, and what that creates in one's body and soul, because that's unparalleled, and that's going to make a difference in the world. Any concluding thoughts? May we plant the roots of peace on earth. Thank you so much. It's been such an honor to be with you, and just to be with your distinguished audience, and these are epic times. It's time for epic solutions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode, and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbayatepictimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you, and see you next week.