A Desert in the Rain

The All You Need institute is restoring a rare landscape while reimagining how we live with the land—and each other

by

Outdoor Adventures

The All You Need Institute (AYNI) began with a question. “What are all the things we need to thrive as humans, and how can we provide for those needs in ways that restore ecosystems and build community?

Husband and wife Jordan Bantuelle and Kezia Vida Kamenetz shared a vision of a living laboratory for conscious stewardship where individuals, families, and communities could gather, reconnect with nature, learn and share ecological living skills, and experiment with alternative living approaches. 

The 111 undeveloped acres they purchased in Lumberton, Mississippi to launch that dream in 2018 are now a burgeoning eco-village of retreat and event venues, cabins and campsites for rent, and a curriculum of nature-based classes for adults and kids. Onsite are a handful of full-time residents, including Bantuelle and Kamenetz, as well as a rotation of overnight and weekend visitors. 

Folks find their way to AYNI for any number of reasons. Some want to arm themselves with knowledge to restore their own piece of Earth. Some want to unplug from the noise and light pollution of the city for a time. Others want to reconnect with loved ones. Still others crave time alone in the unspoiled wilderness, where they might simply exhale, find focus, and follow their instincts. 

In 2024, Bantuelle and Kamenetz created a second, sister organization, the Burrow Nature Center, a 501(c)(3) designed to focus in on conservation efforts and educational offerings alongside AYNI’s endeavors in community development.

Before buying their acreage, the couple spent weekends camping in natural environments throughout the Gulf States in every kind of ecosystem the region had to offer. So, it only took moments after stepping onto the property that would become the future All You Need Institute for them to realize it was special.

“Our goal is to provide hands-on training to make it appealing and economically viable for small landowners to manage their land in ways that are ecologically sound. If we can teach others to do prescribed burns on a small scale, they won’t have to bring in heavy equipment and tear up the land.” —Jordan Bantuelle 

“We’re on an unusual sandhill landscape,” Bantuelle said. “It’s often called ‘a desert in the rain’ because even though it rains a lot here, the soil doesn’t retain nutrients. We’re basically covered with very deep, very soft sand which isn’t [ideal for]many species. But fossorial species who spend much of their lives underground thrive here.” 

The property is home, for instance, to a natural lichen scrubland, with dozens of species, and in places it looks like something from a Tim Burton movie, with eerie, silver-green fuzz covering everything from the ground to the skeletal trunks of trees. 

“Lichen . . . thrives in difficult environments where nothing else can live,” Bantuelle said. “But it’s also a pioneer species that prepares these difficult environments for later species.”

Growing across the landscape is rare sandhill milkweed, pineland milkweed, turkey oak, and carnivorous pitcher plants. One of the largest tortoise populations west of the Tombigbee River can be found here, as well as the threatened black pine snake: it’s been documented on the AYNI property more than anywhere else in the state of Mississippi. Because trees grow so slowly in the sandy soil, the pines are preternaturally thin with extremely dense, insect-resistant wood, which Bantuelle cuts and mills himself for on-site construction projects.

Walk the grounds, and before long, you’ll likely come across gopher tortoise burrows—sometimes as deep as forty feet. “The tortoises are a keystone species because, once their burrow is established, they welcome in other species,” explained Bantuelle. Up to 350 different species can be found sheltering in tortoise burrows. At AYNI, one of those species is the diamond-back rattlesnake, which is considered a species of concern, with approximately 3% of its historic population remaining. 

To protect the delicate balance of the ecosystem dependent on the underground burrows, the AYNI team eschews large equipment which could collapse them. Instead, they meticulously undertakes their conservation efforts by hand in the fashion of the Choctaw peoples who originally inhabited this land.  

In the eight years since they’ve been carefully stewarding the property, Bantuelle and Kamenetz have already observed an increase in biodiversity. “But we want to offer even more threatened animals a place to thrive,” Bantuelle said. Because the property is surrounded by De Soto National Forest and hundreds of acres of undeveloped private land, he hopes to someday work with the state to create a wildlife corridor through the area to protect the tortoises and other rare and endangered species.

Historically, this area was part of Southeast Mississippi’s vast longleaf pine savannah, and a major part of Bantuelle and Kamenetz’s conservation work is oriented toward re-establishing this ecosystem. “To do that, we’re cutting down a lot of trees, which might sound counterintuitive for conservation work,” Bantuelle said. “But we need to thin out the woods, so the light can hit the forest floor. We’re doing prescribed burns on a two-year rotation, hoping the fire will activate the native bunching grasses and wildflowers still in the seedbank.” Those native plants are the ideal food for the gopher tortoises, and the grasses are vital for ground-nesting birds.

It’s a delicate dance, but as Bantuelle and his volunteers do their part, the native grasses and wildflowers respond. The day we visited, he walked us through an area that had recently been burned. The ground was black with no sign of life, but the next morning, the number of grass blades—some of them three or four inches tall—that had emerged overnight was astonishing. 

The team is also replanting the forest; the longleaf pines that historically grew here had deep root systems able to withstand hurricanes and a sparse crown, which allowed wind to flow and sunlight to seep through. “Longleaf pushes out more sap too, which we’re hoping will attract red-cockaded woodpecker, a threatened species,” said Bantuelle. He would also like to eventually introduce goats, then Pineywoods cattle, to partner with him in thinning out the brush hindering the growth of indigenous flora. 

The conservation work on their own property is only the beginning of Bantuelle and Kamenetz’s ultimate vision. As they study, experiment, and learn, they’re training others to engage in this kind of stewardship as well through the programs at the Burrow Nature Center. “Our goal is to provide hands-on training to make it appealing and economically viable for small landowners to manage their land in ways that are ecologically sound,” Bantuelle said. “If we can teach others to do prescribed burns on a small scale, they won’t have to bring in heavy equipment and tear up the land.”

They’re starting from the ground-up, with the youth. The Nature Center’s Forest School offers child-led, nature-based learning programs for young people on certain Saturdays of the month. “Often when a parent fills out the forms to register their child, they’ll include the fact that their child is on the autism spectrum or has ADHD,” Bantuelle said. “But in this program, you’d never know it. Nature is simultaneously calming and stimulating. In any given area there’s an unlimited possibility of things you can see, explore, discover, work with, create, and learn about. Yet, it’s calming at the same time. One thing we never hear at The Forest School is, ‘I’m bored.’ The kids are engaged at all times as we follow their lead and let them tell us what they’d like to learn more about.” 

“We believe that living in a more reciprocal and regenerative relationship with each other and the land should be accessible to anyone who genuinely desires it.” — Kezia Vida Kamenetz

At The Forest School, children learn practical outdoor and survival skills alongside natural sciences and engineering concepts, while additional programming through The Burrow Nature Center serves adults interested in learning about land stewardship, sustainable living practices, habitat restoration, natural construction, permaculture gardening, foraging, mushroom cultivation, and more. The kids have a designated open-air classroom, two elevated observation decks, a “mud kitchen”, and several play areas all surrounded by forest. Adults often gather in a 706-square-foot yurt that can comfortably accommodate up to thirty people. 

In previous years for the adult program, natural-construction expert Sage Stoneman conducted a series of workshops where students constructed a community pavilion out of cob they mixed from materials found on the AYNI property. “We wove a basic structure out of the branches of invasive species,” Kamenetz said. “Then we made cob from pine needles, clay, and sand, all gathered onsite. We applied it to the skeleton of the structure, building it up with more and more layers until we had beautiful, smooth walls.” 

The final product was not only a uniquely artistic structure for future gatherings, but a newfound community who had worked together to build it, mixing the cob with their feet, singing, chatting, and laughing as they worked. Bantuelle and Kamenetz hope to make this an ongoing workshop and build other communal structures around the property. Bantuelle recently constructed a micro-cabin from a utility trailer that’s now available for overnight stays, and hopes to conduct workshops where participants can learn to build their own. 

“I think something that makes us unique in the eco-village world is that we started this with so little capital—basically a light pole and a dream—and we’ve been bootstrapping all the way,” Kamenetz said. “We want to break down the myth that this way of living is only accessible if you’re affluent. We believe that living in a more reciprocal and regenerative relationship with each other and the land should be accessible to anyone who genuinely desires it.” 

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