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Infromation on how to care for an indigenous plant potted during your excursion.

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Great gardening tips section and lots of useful articles.

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Horticulturist David John Jenkins shares his special connection to the Long Island Indigenous collection at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

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Reconciliation Week Q&A with David, Horticulturist

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The conservation zone at the Cranbourne Gardens

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The conservation zone at the Cranbourne Gardens

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Discover how to attract native creatures to your home garden

Meet Tricia Stewart and find out about:

The importance of conservation zones

The value of adding native plants to your garden

How to attract native birds and insects to your garden

Threats to bushland plants and animals

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Habitat in your home garden - Eucalypts for your home garden

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Habitat in your home garden - Eucalypts for your home garden

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6ItOszbOE

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Habitat in your home garden - Eucalypts for your home garden

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This book looks at the sustainable agricultural practices of First Nations Peoples of Australia.

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WINNER, 2020 CHILDREN'S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS, EVE POWNALL AWARD FOR INFORMATION BOOKS SHORTLISTED, 2020 AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS, BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN (AGES 7-12) SHORTLISTED, 2020 NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS, PATRICIA WRIGHTSON PRIZE FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE SHORTLISTED, 2020 ADELAIDE FESTIVAL AWARDS FOR LITERATURE SHORTLISTED, 2020 INDIE BOOK AWARDS, CHILDREN'S
Bruce Pascoe has collected a swathe of literary awards for Dark Emu and now he has brought together the research and compelling first person accounts in a book for younger readers. Using the accounts of early European explorers, colonists and farmers, Bruce Pascoe compellingly argues for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. He allows the reader to see Australia as it was before Europeans arrived - a land of cultivated farming areas, productive fisheries, permanent homes, and an understanding of the environment and its natural resources that supported thriving villages across the continent. Young Dark Emu - A Truer History asks young readers to consider a different version of Australia's history pre-European colonisation.

Praise for Young Dark Emu

"...this book should be required reading for all - it is a gift of knowledge we should all be grateful for."
- Australian Geographic Explorers

"This elegant, accessible and beguilingly informative book should be required reading."
- Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

"Stunningly presented in striking shades of ochre, orange, black and white, this seminal book invites young readers to contemplate a different picture of Aboriginal culture and the concept of terra nullius."
- Dr Stephanie Owen Reeder, The Canberra Times

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WINNER, 2020 AUSTRALIAN BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION KIDS' READING GUIDE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER, 2020 CHILDREN'S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS, EVE POWNALL AWARD FOR INFORMATION BOOKS SHORTLISTED, 2020 AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS, BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN (AGES 7-12) SHORTLISTED, 2020 NSW PREMIER'S

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This webpage has a number of short videos and information about regenerative farming practices in Australia.

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On a still autumn morning in 2016, Charles Massy walked up a hill above his farm to sit beside a favourite old snow gum.

High up on the Monaro plateau that runs off the flank of Mount Kosciuszko he could see his homestead and the native brown grasses on his farm dusted with frost.

There were swamp wallabies, frogs, previously unrecorded woodland birds.

"As a kid there we had no swamp wallabies or wallaroos," he said.

It was a sign that the land was slowly returning to health after he had stopped using chemicals in 2000.

Recently he had visited a friend who had regenerated his creek.

"And the day I was there we heard a reed warbler calling in his small patch of reeds. It had just started to grow and it was probably the first time in 150 years that a reed warbler had come back to that denuded valley."

The bird would become a talisman and metaphor for the monumental book he was finishing, Call Of The Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture A New Earth.

It was a book that had taken eight years of rising at 4:00am to write before a day of working on the farm.

A life's work that came from hundreds of conversations with farmers, years of PhD research, a profound love of nature, deep respect for Indigenous land management and recognition of his own mistakes on his farm that nearly brought him and the land undone.

Part memoir and part call to arms, the book has become a bestseller since it was published in 2017.

Charles, a quiet fifth generation farmer, has become an unlikely political agitator who turbocharged the regenerative farming movement with his talks and seminars.

"What was once sort of regarded as a fringe insurgent movement is now gathering mainstream power," Mr Massy told Australian Story.

By calling for a revolution in the way we farm, eat and think about food, he has attracted a fair amount of controversy too.

"No one likes to be told they're doing something badly or going against nature or that they might be exacerbating a problem," biodynamic farmer Dr Patrice Newell said.

He writes provocatively about: "How modern industrial agriculture ... is not just poisoning us but is also, confoundingly, making us obese while starving us at the same time with food that is bereft of nutrients."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

A huge dust storm engulfs Nyngan, NSW, in January 2020.

'There is a healthy alternative'

Mr Massy admits he's made powerful enemies of chemical companies that dispute the possible link he draws between using glyphosate on crops and the rise of cancers and auto-immune diseases.

Some of his fellow farmers also take exception to his criticisms of conventional farming methods.

"It has caused a bit of a chasm from time to time in our farming community because ... we don't think it's fair to be branding people bad farmers if they don't do regenerative agriculture and good farmers if they do it," National Farmers' Federation president Fiona Simson said.

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While she said there are some "good principles" in the book: "It just probably goes that next step further to being the way of the truth and life, somebody who's drunk the cordial."

Mr Massy's daughter Tanya, a farmer and herself a regenerative agriculture researcher, was witness to the criticism.

"I think there's kickback from different scientists and parts of the industry because there's a huge amount of financial interest in maintaining the status quo," she said.

"And regenerative agriculture poses a real threat to that economic system in that mode of production."

The Massy family is passionate about regenerative farming.(Australian Story: Greg Nelson)

"I'm not saying this is the only path," Mr Massy said.

"But what I'm trying to present is that there is a healthy alternative.

"The evidence is mounting that regenerative agriculture is one of the great stories of hope."

A natural pest control

Charles Massy's property near Cooma in NSW has been in drought since 2017. But unlike surrounding properties which are bare dust bowls of dead trees, Severn Park is covered in native grass, albeit brown.

Maintaining groundcover by destocking and moving stock regularly is key to regenerative agriculture. Massy says his grass protects the soil, improves its health, the plants trap water and are home to insects for natural pest control.

But it's only in the past 20 years that Severn Park has been farmed this way.

The property has been in the Massy family since 1928. Massy was an only child whose mother died when he was four. He found solace in running barefoot and free, his companions dogs, poddy lambs, and native wildlife.

"I guess that started to get me in love with the bush."

He was always open to new ideas.

Wondering how dust storms work?

Dust storms are regular occurrences for people living in the centre of Australia, but drought and cold fronts further north than usual mean they're happening more - here's why.

Read more

When he was at university doing a biology degree in the 70s, his father had a heart attack and at 22 he came home to manage the farm.

He sought the best advice, copied the practices of the district's most successful farmers and developed a innovative merino sheep stud that was profiled on the ABC's Countrywide program.

His wool was being bought by the "top guys" in Italy for fabric. But he realises now he was overgrazing and killing his best pastures.

"I look back as starting off with shocking mismanagement because I didn't know better. I love my land. And yet I was harming it," he said.

"I caused immense damage to this country, perhaps at least a few thousand years' worth."

During the droughts of the 80s and 90s he sank into debt buying in food for his sheep. In the "shocking year" of 1982 the entire farm was like a dust bowl. There were grasshopper plagues.

Exhausted and depressed, with debts that would take decades to repay, he came close to "breaking" and nearly sold the farm.

"My mental health was atrocious. I know I was depressed for a year or more because I was in this trap."

It was the shock, he says, that "cracks the mind open" and the catalyst for many farmers to explore regenerative practises.

The ancient practice that could save Australia from more bushfires

Victor Steffensen became the face of Indigenous land management during the catastrophic bushfires. As he travels across the country teaching cultural burning, he says he owes his skills to two wise elders.

Read more

He knew that to survive he would have to change. He sold only half the farm and began studying regenerative agriculture, a system of farming which doesn't push the land beyond what it is naturally capable of sustaining without chemical inputs, a system that values a complex and healthy soil.

As he watched his land recover, he went back to university in his 50s to do a PhD in human ecology. As part of his thesis, he interviewed 80 of the top regenerative farmers, hearing stories of remarkable turnarounds in landscapes, birdsong and lives.

Massy travelled to the Western Australian wheatbelt region three hours north of Perth to meet Ian and Di Haggerty.

Instead of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, the couple have adapted their big machines to spray a combination of worm juice and compost extract to coat the seeds, enrich the soil and boost the plants' immune system.

"We can take on land that's fairly run down and start to turn it around. We're having a big impact on salinity. We have country where it had bare salt scalds and we've got perennial plants growing on those now."

The Haggertys' chemical-free grain is in high demand.

Mr Massy also talked to Boorowa sheep and cattle farmer David Marsh. Like Mr Massy, drought in the 80s had left Mr Marsh ashamed that his farm looked like a desert.

"We constantly stumbled into droughts and spent a lot of money trying to keep stock alive that we probably shouldn't have been running at all," he said.

Mr Marsh began to destock in dry years to protect his groundcover, practise "holistic grazing" of moving stock more frequently and planted thousands of trees.

"There was only one hectare of native grass on our farm in 1999 and now we've got native grasses coming up in all our paddocks. Our farm was three per cent tree cover in 1970. Now it's 20 per cent tree cover."

"One of the big ideas I discovered going back to uni was this concept which I came to, that our natural complex systems will self-organise themselves back to health. I think it is as big as evolution," Mr Massy told The Guardian in 2017.

Regenerative farming a 'story of hope'

By 2000, Mr Massy himself had become fully regenerative and has now planted 60,000 trees.

"So we're getting wonderful results in pest control from insects and birds and all that sort of thing. We don't get any wingless grasshoppers anymore. Every plant has a spider on it which is eating the grasshoppers or the eggs."

Mr Massy's wife Fiona saw the changes in him too.

"Charlie became more relaxed about farming. It was very encouraging to start to see the results."

For Mr Massy, not fighting debt and watching the land regenerate made him eager to spread the word.

He has barnstormed the country, advocating for change.

As well as critics, Mr Massy has attracted a powerful ally in West Australian Minister for Food and Agriculture Alannah MacTiernan, who read Mr Massy's book and thought it "incredible".

"We have to look at where our markets are headed," she said.

"Our consumers are deeply concerned about climate change, they're deeply concerned about chemical residues.

"I think in 10 years' time, a lot of this stuff will be pretty mainstream."

National Farmers Federation President Fiona Simson said if all farmers chose to go regenerative at the moment, product would be a lot more expensive for consumers.

"Farmers would not be able to grow the sort of produce and the amount of produce they grow now. And many farmers would go out of business in the short term because the sorts of changes that regenerative agriculture talks about are quite expensive on some farming systems to implement."

But Mr Massy argued that regenerative cropping saves cost on expensive chemicals and fertilisers.

"Up to 90 per cent of your costs are stripped down straight away. That has a huge impact on the bottom line," he said.

In the face of climate change, salinity and a drying continent, Massy said his message is ultimately positive.

"Regenerative agriculture has some of the best solutions to solving a lot of our planetary ills."
Watch Australian Story's Breaking New Ground on iview and Youtube.

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How Charlie Massy turned his ravaged property into an oasis - and how other farmers can do it too

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On a still autumn morning in 2016, Charles Massy walked up a hill above his farm to sit beside a favourite old snow gum. High up on the Monaro plateau that runs off the flank of Mount Kosciuszko he could see his homestead and the native brown grasses on his farm dusted with frost.

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This is a 30 min episode of Australian story about regenerative farmimg.
It looks at the benefits to:
* the health of the soil,
* increased food production and
* the welbeing of the farmers using this practice.

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Regenerative farming: A 'natural way' to help counteract drought | Charlie Massy | Australian Story

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Can you identify signs of sustainable gardening in your home or school yard?

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What happens to water and different surfaces and why? How can you improve the water holding capacity of dry soils?

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Propagate a plant from a cutting.

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Sustainability in urban Melbourne with Kat

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Sustainability in urban Melbourne with Kat

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Inspiring Woman Growing a Huge Amount of Food in Her City Permaculture Garden

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Costa Georgiadis

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Now the next section of The Verge I want to transform is the top section and I want to plant it out with lots of natives, so I've come along to my local council nursery to see what I can find.

Council and shire nurseries are great places to find local plant species and plenty of bargains. There's lots of goldmines like these scattered around the country.

Nick is it? I was told to come and see you. How are you?

NICK RENNEBERG: How are you?

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Very well. Now, I've got a verge project that I'm working on and I want to create a section that's pretty much a native garden. It's elevated, exposed. I need some screening from the road and I want to create some habitat. What do you think?

NICK RENNEBERG: Look I reckon we've got the plants here that you need. I'd include some indigenous plants with some of those native plants that you would use to screen and create habitat. Spiky plants in particular and really dense planting is what you need.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Now what's the difference between native and indigenous?

NICK RENNEBERG: Well a native plant is, what we say here anyway, is a plant, anywhere from Australia whereas an indigenous plant is a plant made from seed or cuttings collected from the local area, so that means that the plant contains the local genes.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Now I've seen some unreal photos of my area where the dunes just ran down into lagoons and billabongs.

NICK RENNEBERG: That's right. There was a lot of heathland vegetation, but then in the dramatic changes, like these depressions and things, there was freshwater wetlands surrounded by casuarinas and melaleucas. There was quite a diversity of vegetation in this area.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: So Nick, why is it important to plant local natives in your garden?

NICK RENNEBERG: It's important to plant local natives because they're used to the climatic conditions and the soils and the flora and fauna in your local area.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Yep. And what sort of species would you recommend?

NICK RENNEBERG: There's one here I'd recommend. This is a Hakea teretifoli. It's got particularly sharp foliage.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Oh yeah. That's...oooh. That is spiky.

NICK RENNEBERG: The benefit of that is that it'll provide protection for birds in your local area from cats and dogs and things that might be around that would attack them. If you planted these en masse, you might find that you get quite a number of birds nesting in the area.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Wow. Ok. What else can you recommend.

NICK RENNEBERG: There's a few down here I wanted to show you Costa.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Ok.

NICK RENNEBERG: This is a local Tea-Tree here that definitely would have been down in that lagoon around your place. For sure.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Oh yeah. Now what's it called?

NICK RENNEBERG: This one's Leptospermum rotundifolium. Gets to about 3 metres, so it's ideal for the garden and it has a really big, attractive flower - amazing flower.

So Costa, have you thought about Dianella?

COSTA GEORGIADIS: I have actually. I've used the grey one before, but I haven't seen this lime green version.

NICK RENNEBERG: This one here is Dianella congesta and it's from the local area. We get the seed from High Dunes, beaches and Headlands. Very hardy plant and it will take your verge easy.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: I'm thinking of using it along the border, between the gutter and the garden. How high is it going to grow?

NICK RENNEBERG: Well that's the ideal place to use Dianella. Gets to about 30 - 40 centimetres high. It'll have a flower spike during spring and summer and it'll have a purple and yellow flower, followed up by a purple berry.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Ok. And this, of course, the good old Warrigal Greens.

NICK RENNEBERG: Yeah Warrigal Greens.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Tetragonia tetragonioides.

NICK RENNEBERG: That's right. We get this one from cuttings from behind beaches. That's where often we find it grows. It'll grow around the place, in other places as well - especially exposed sites. This one will do really well on your verge because, next to the Dianella, it's quite low, but it will take the exposure well and you'll often find it'll come up by seed, throughout your nature patch.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Oh ok. And of course, we can eat it.

NICK RENNEBERG: That's right. Yeah. You've got to treat it - you've got to blanche it. Doesn't taste too bad actually. One of the better ones.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: So it's really...it's just a version of native spinach?

NICK RENNEBERG: That's right.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: Now it's time for my favourite part - wandering around and collecting exactly what I need.

One thing I've always enjoyed about visiting the nursery is that I get to select each and every plant because they're different. They've got their own personality. Their shape, the form, the colour, the size - they very and that's the part that I love.

This is looking like a load. Nick, thanks for all your help.

NICK RENNEBERG: No worries Costa. Thanks for coming down. Good luck with the planting.

COSTA GEORGIADIS: See ya.

Local native plants are everywhere and those near you are best suited to the environment around your place. I can't wait to get this lot in the ground.

Now Josh has got a few tricks up his sleeve when it comes to keeping your ponds clean and his handy helpers are of the horticultural kind.

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Costa Georgiadis COSTA GEORGIADIS: Now the next section of The Verge I want to transform is the top section and I want to plant it out with lots of natives, so I've come along to my local council nursery to see what I can find.

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Jerry Coleby-Williams

JERRY COLEBY-WILLIAMS: I love being in my productive garden, but I'm not the only one at work. There's a quiet army helping me to get the best out of my food plants. They're the pollinators - the birds, bats, butterflies, blow flies and of course, bees. They're attracted by flowers and together with the wind, they spread pollen which in turn, produces my fruit and vegetables.

Right now, my front garden is buzzing with activity. It's full of pollinators because I've planted a variety of flowers to bring them here. And one of my favourites is this tufted succulent Bulbine frutescens. Right now, the flowers are being worked by our native stingless bees and these are brilliant in the garden. They pollinate any plant in the cabbage family and they produce honey.

This is Tradescantia (pallida)'Purple Heart,' and it's growing amongst a cycad. Honey bees like the flowers and they'll comb the pollen and make honey. But if you plant these, native blue-banded bees love them and they're buzz pollinators. They use vibrations from their wings to release the pollen and that means any plant that you grow in the tomato family - chilli, eggplant, capsicum and tomato - everyone will set fruit. Blue-banded bees are a great asset in the food garden.

While my front garden is alive with the sound of busy pollinators, my back garden just doesn't have the same buzz, so I'm going to do something about it.

This boomerang shaped bed is in a relative sheltered part of the garden and that means it's ideal for a planting dedicated to attracting pollinators. So even when I'm starting with new season crops and not a lot is happening, there'll always be something flowering to tempt pollinators to visit.

I prepared the bed by digging it over and I've added some mushroom compost. I'm spacing the plants out now. I find this is really handy. If you're not sure exactly how well the plants will fit. This is Grannies Bonnet ( Angelonia sp.) and it's a favourite with native stingless bees. This is a Zinnia and if there's any honey bees in the area, they'll find its flowers.

This little thing is Melampodium(sp.) and I've never grown it before. It comes from Central America and because it's in the daisy family, it should attract pollinators. We'll just have to see.

Coleus ( Solenostemonsp.) are commonly planted for their decorative foliage and while they're pretty, it's their flowers that are the most important thing. They're real magnets for pollinators and the same applies to Salvias. There's not a single Salvia that won't bring a pollinator into your garden. And Antirrhinums- they're a favourite with the blue-banded bees.

You could plant mixed lettuce to eat them, but in this bed, they're going to attract lots and lots of pollinators. They're powerful plants.

Last year when I planted Bacopa ( Sutera cordata- a little groundcover that never stops flowering, I actually had to fight off the honey bees in order to put it into the ground. And lastly, bedding Begonias. These are treated as annuals but with care, they'll last for 3 years. And the reason I love these is that even in the middle of winter, in a frost-free area, they'll attract blue-banded bees into the garden.

This is sure to attract pollinating insects and my reward will be a more productive vegie garden with better harvests.

STEPHEN RYAN: Well that's it for this week, but if you'd like to know more about growing perennial vegies around the garden, there's an article in the June issue of the Gardening Australia Magazine. And join us again next week for more great gardening advice.

Next week, Josh visits an amazing house and garden in Perth that the owner has dubbed 'The Garage Mahal.'

And Jane faces one of gardening's most difficult challenges as she gets planting under trees.

There's a lot going on, so in the meantime happy gardening and we'll see you next week.

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Jerry Coleby-Williams JERRY COLEBY-WILLIAMS: I love being in my productive garden, but I'm not the only one at work. There's a quiet army helping me to get the best out of my food plants. They're the pollinators - the birds, bats, butterflies, blow flies and of course, bees.

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In this kit you will find:

a presentation about how we can garden in a more sustainable way

three optional challenges to complete

a range of relevant resources including websites, videos and books

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This page includes a 4 min video that explains the importance of healthy soil and composting.

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The protection and cultivation of healthy soil is critical to the Earth's biosphere, clean water supply, and global food availability, yet it is frequently overlooked and misunderstood. In addition to supporting plant life, providing habitat for local species, promoting biodiversity, capturing water into underground aquifers, and improving water quality in the watershed; healthy soils can actually be a powerful solution when it comes to preventing exacerbated climate change by encouraging carbon sequestration and storage.

Healthy soil is the foundation of Surfrider Foundation's Ocean Friendly Gardens program, which takes a watershed approach to protecting clean water at the beach and in local waterways. Watch this short video to learn how building healthy soil is also a tool we can all use to help reduce the impacts of climate change in our own yards.

Atmospheric Carbon and Climate Change
The planet has experienced rapid increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon, measured at ~315 parts per million (ppm) in 1960, it now reaches over 406 ppm ( even up to 412 pending the day) in 2018. This increase in atmospheric carbon is directly correlated to the increase in global average temperature, and is the cause for this temperature anomaly and changing climate.

Image 1. Global Temperature and Carbon Dioxide levels since 1880. Image by Climate Central.

The Carbon Cycle
Carbon is a natural, vital part of the Earth's system. About 200 billion metric tons of carbon move throughout the planet in what is known as the "carbon cycle", with reserves in the atmosphere, plants and animals (called the biosphere), soil, ocean, and deep geologic reservoirs (like underground oil and gas reserves, also called hydrocarbons). In its natural, balanced cycle, carbon is not only benign but essential to life on earth.

Image 2. The global carbon cycle with estimated carbon fluxes. Graphic by World Economic Forum.

The issue is that humans have put the carbon cycle out of balance, taking roughly 10 billion metric tons of carbon out of geologic reserves by drilling and burning fossil fuels (which would otherwise be in permanent reservoirs) and releasing it back into our atmosphere. This addition of carbon into the atmosphere is surpassing the planet's natural ability to remove carbon by photosynthesis, resulting in increased concentration of atmospheric carbon, which is amplifying the greenhouse effect and causing climate change.

Plants & Soil Carbon Sequestration
Plants provide a natural method of removing carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and then storing or "fixing" much of that carbon in their tissue, roots and soil. This process is known as carbon sequestration. Over time, when the plant dies or gets consumed by animals and returned to the soil as litter, it helps create soil organic matter (SOM), also known as compost, which is extremely nutrient rich and loaded with fixed carbon. Healthy soils mean stronger carbon reservoirs and healthier plants, which will continue to take carbon out of the atmosphere, build SOM, and promote growth of new plants, providing a feedback loop that could help bring the system back into balance.

Approximately 75% of the terrestrial carbon is actually in the soil, and in its healthy state can store up to 11 gigatons of CO2 every year. However, when we lose healthy soils by developing over natural areas, or by conducting conventional agricultural practices like clearcutting, tilling, and over-grazing; we reduce the ability to use this reserve as a natural storage of carbon. We also release the carbon that's previously been captured back into the atmosphere. Traditional landscaping also reduces and even destroys the soil's ability to absorb carbon in many of our residential areas, by killing necessary soil biology with chemical fertilizers and pesticides applied to maintain mono-culture turf lawns.

Learn about the carbon cycle and soil carbon from Kiss the Ground:

Granted, the process of carbon sequestration and respiration is much more complicated than it sounds, and requires additional research to truly optimize and measure the impact of this carbon reservoir. For instance, depending on the level of soil decomposition, biological colonization, and rate of plant respiration, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide can get released from soil. These releases can be minimal (still providing a net benefit of carbon/greenhouse gas sequestration), complete (resulting in no benefit) or, hypothesized by some, massive; releasing more greenhouse gases than was originally captured due to increased decomposition by more active and energized soil microbes (acting a source). Meanwhile, some anoxic soil bacteria can actually consume nitrous oxide, acting as an important sink for this potent greenhouse gas. Even with these complexities, net sequestration of both nitrous oxide and carbon can be possible through careful management:

"The[se] findings...may undermine some assumptions of plant-soil systems as potential sinks for atmospheric CO2, but all is not lost. Through manipulations of soil nitrogen, organic matter quality, and field management, the balance of soil decomposition patterns can be tipped in a more positive direction." - Excerpt from Kowalchuk, 2012.

Note that to prevent the severe impacts from exacerbated climate change, we can't just rely on healthy soils to offset our impact. We need to stop adding additional carbon into the atmosphere as soon as possible, but to help alleviate the damage we've already done to our planet, and to sequester some of the carbon that we've already added to the atmosphere, we need to cultivate and protect healthy soils.

Additional Resources

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The protection and cultivation of healthy soil is critical to the Earth's biosphere, clean water supply, and global food availability, yet it is frequently overlooked and misunderstood.

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Soil solutions to climate change and farming practices.

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Soil solutions to climate change and farming practices.

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Two soil specialists including one from Australia talk about the importance of using light farming to put carbon back into the soil where it belongs and improve our farming practice. 7min.

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Put carbon where it belongs… back in the soil

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This program links to the Sustainability cross-curriculum priority across interrelationship of systems, worldviews, responsible design and futures thinking.

Health & Physical Education

Levels 7 to 10

Participate in physical activities that utilise community spaces, outdoor environments and aquatic settings safely, and evaluate strategies to support the increased use of these spaces VC2HP8M06 / VC2HP10M06

Design & Technologies

Levels 7 - 10

Analyse how food and fibre are produced in managed environments and how these can become ethical VC2TDE8C02

The impacts of innovation, enterprise and emerging technologies on designed solutions for ethical considerations including sustainable living VC2TDE10S02

Analyse and make judgements on the ethical and secure production and marketing of food and fibre enterprises VC2TDE10C02

Develop design criteria including sustainability to evaluate design ideas, processes and solutions VC2TDE10D04

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Sustainable Gardening Vocabulary - Secondary

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What's the deal with worm farming? with Costa Georgiadis