At Gaia U, we are proud to welcome students whose lives already reflect the regenerative futures we work toward—and few embody this more fully than Christopher Nesbitt.
Originally from New York City, Chris made a life-changing move to Belize at just 19 years old. Since 1988, he has farmed in San Pedro Columbia, deep in the Toledo District, cultivating not just crops but a philosophy of land stewardship rooted in biodiversity, community resilience, and long-term food security.
From 1997 to 2004, Chris served as the manager of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, where he visited hundreds of farms. It was here that he recognized something powerful: farmer-to-farmer learning far outperformed conventional top-down teaching models. This realization helped spark a lifetime of innovation in grassroots agricultural education.
In 2004, Chris founded the Maya Mountain Research Farm (MMRF), a registered NGO he co-manages with his wife, Celini Logan-Nesbitt. MMRF is a model of regenerative agroforestry in action, stewarding hundreds of plant species across a richly biodiverse landscape. The farm’s guiding principle—“Food Security through Biodiversity”—has helped it become an internationally recognized leader in sustainable land management. In 2019, MMRF won the Commonwealth Secretary General’s Innovation in Sustainable Development Award, and in 2025, Chris was honored with the Soul of Rurality designation from the InterAmerican Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The farm’s work focuses on multistrata agroforestry, using tropical staple trees and valuable sub-canopy species to restore degraded land, sequester carbon, and support climate change adaptation. Chris is currently developing a carbon farming curriculum and farmer-friendly manual to further empower land stewards across the tropics.
Alongside MMRF, Chris and Celini run Belize Permaculture and Renewable Energy, Ltd., a consulting firm offering photovoltaic installation, agricultural training, and stakeholder-based research. Between 2023 and 2025, the firm led a vanilla cultivation training program for women, a collaborative effort with the Government of Belize and funded by the Government of Taiwan.
Now, Chris is deepening his impact by joining Gaia U to broaden his skill set and knowledge base through our unique action-learning model. He brings with him decades of experience and a heart rooted in resilience and regeneration.
We’re thrilled to support Chris’s next chapter and to learn from the extraordinary work he continues to do—on the ground, in the trees, and through the communities he serves.