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Restoration of traditional Mayan food and medicinal forest in Belize.

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by David G. Campbell Illustrations by Molly Bang

I WRITE THESE WORDS WHILE SITTING on the right bank of the Mopan River in far western Belize, beneath a tilted cot tree that droops over the water as if it were sketched by a Chinese master - just a splash of green and stroke of new light - and where scissor-tailed flycatchers turn in the roiled air above the rapids, feeding on caddis flies. It is a wonderful place to sit in the shade and write on a late June afternoon, when the heat is deadening, rolling over the land in refracting billows that make the horizon seem crawly and the air over the river skim-milky with humidity, when the wind noses its way through the valley and the leaflets of the puk-te tree shuffle in it.

I have spent countless lovely days here, observing uncountable small wonders - foliation, competition, predation, pollination, nectar-sucking, raiding, burrowing, and stinging. These events saturate all of one's senses. Listen: the breeze fast-tapping a myriad of tapered cohune palm leaflets onto themselves. Look: the slanting afternoon light percolating through the pale green leaves of the cot tree that shades me so generously. Feel: the heated land breathing moisture into the air. Listen again: the low grumble of thunder... all is waiting, anticipating the deluge, aching for relief. Now a prehensile breeze, descending from the white and gray storms that gather over the Maya Mountains, reaches this retreat, presaging an afternoon storm. Above, the cry of the ubiquitous kingbird and the lonely tobacco dove, the near-silent pattering of the stingless bees among the tamai flowers, the hard buzz of a fly.

To an untrained eye, this place may look just like any other patch of subtropical forest. But don't be deceived: this place is a garden, named Masewal, and it is singular in all the world. As far as I know, it has more species of trees, shrubs, bushes, herbs, and grasses than any domestic garden on Earth: 318 species of flowering plants, 250 of which are native to Belize. That's about 15 percent of the indigenous floristic diversity of the whole country, more species of native plants than live in the forest that surrounds it. Every plant is here for a purpose, used as medicine, food, thatch, fiber, because it attracts butterflies, birds, and mammals, or just because of its beauty. Masewal is a welcoming place, a fifteen-acre giving-forest where children play, use it as a classroom, learn how to observe, and to revere.

Masewal means "the people" in Nahuatl, and it is a declaration, after years of colonialism and exploitation by foreigners, that this land once again belongs to the native people, to the Maya. It is located on the western edge of Bullet Tree Falls, a modest riverside village of about seventy Yucatec Maya families, only a kilometer or so from the Guatemalan border. Thirty-one years ago, Don Heriberto Cocom, a Yucatec Maya bushmaster (or herbalist) created this place. Now seventy, Don Berto has become the patriarch of Bullet Tree Falls and the keeper of his people's traditions as they are embodied in his forest garden, where he nurtures his plants, prays to them, and reveres them. Don Berto is also a guardian of the Yucatec Mayan language that co-evolved with this forest. The fragile relationship between the two - language and biodiversity - is one of mutual salvation.

I FIRST MET DON BERTO IN THE SUMMER of 1994, when Don Polo Romero, Karen Lowell (a chemist), four of my Grinnell College students, and I were in western Belize conducting ecological surveys of the Maya forest. Naming the parts of a forest is the essential first step in any analysis of its biological diversity. Although I had spent years working in tropical forests all over the world, the lowland forests of Belize were a new biota to me, and I found it challenging to identify some of the species of trees in our study sites. It was Don Polo's job to help me. For decades he had lived in the forest, where he learned to identify most of the plants, working as a bushmaster and chicle-tapper. Without his knowledge, our research would never have succeeded. And yet between just the two of us, Don Polo and I couldn't possibly have identified all of the species we encountered; from those we didn't know, we collected specimens of leaves, flowers, or fruits.

"Let's take them to Berto," Don Polo said. "He knows more names for plants than any person I know. He understands the forest."

So just after dawn one morning we walked down the jungle road to Masewal, specimens in hand, seeking Don Berto. We found him sitting under his champa (thatched shelter), grinding allspice seeds with a stone mortar and pestle, singing quietly to himself as the rain tapped gently on the roof of woven cohune leaves. Everything about Don Berto bespoke humility and modesty: he was short, stick-thin, bespectacled, and he wore a bristly gray moustache, wrinkled shirt, grass-stained baggy pants, sandals, and a green baseball cap.

"I heard that you were in town," he said, smiling. "Let's see what you have got."

He took the first specimen and carefully examined it as if it were a portrait of a beloved grandchild. "Oh, well, yes . . . this is a cot tree. I recall, a few years ago, that I planted one just over there" - he gestured, then began leading us to a shady trail in the forest - "Follow me, I will teach you how to know it." All morning we walked under the cool canopy of Masewal, matching our specimens with their living counterparts. Don Berto taught us names in Yucatec Mayan for all but one of our unknown plants, patiently explaining things in the distinctive and lyrical English dialect of western Belize - a Mestizo language that bears the traces of both Mayan and Spanish syntax.

An agouti, unconcerned by our presence, nonchalantly crossed the path. "You see," said Don Berto, pointing to the rodent, "from when I started to work on the land, I planted fruit trees that would attract birds and four-legged animals so that they may feed. I now have many birds: brown jay, kiskadee, wild chicken, and also a few toucans that fly in from the Guatemalan side. Well, I am still planting and, you know, the trees are flowering and bearing a lot of fruits . . . a lot of food for the animals." Don Berto gestured down the trail ahead: "For instance, those taskab trees, piche trees, these that they call zacpan, and also these that they call shna'-corts. Yes, succotz, and also the uyamche, manax, the ton-chi, and aguacate. They all bear a lot of good fruit.

"And I have the armadillo and the deer coming. Well, last year I had a tapir here for about a month. He used to walk on this trail where we are now. Also I had a spider monkey. Yes, he was there for about a month - August, or so - and he came and eat the ripened fruits of the craboo to get fat."

Don Berto paused to make a small clearing around a sapling. "This is a chicle tree," he said. "The seed, we mash it and we boil it and we drink it. That is for cough. But we also boil it when we hear that there is a hurricane coming. That is for making the wind follow another route."

He paused again to pull a liana off of a small tree. "This is a zubul tree, what the Maya once used for washing. No more, I guess; we buy our soap now. The husk, when it is fresh, you just mash it, and then you soak it in water. Then you add a little bit of ashes. It makes soapy water. The next day you can use the water for washing your clothes."

Don Berto pointed out an earthen tube protruding from between the buttresses of an amate tree, swarming with tiny gold and black bees. "This is a Maya honeybee hive. They are not bad like the African bees. No, they don't sting. That's why I passed the trail here close to them. When I got his land in 1972, I found them here, and I protected them from not getting burned by sweeping away the sticks and leaves . . . and they are still here."

TODAY DON BERTO AND I ARE FRIENDS, but the roots of our relationship grew slowly. This is understandable. For centuries foreigners have come to this forest to take things: archaeological treasures, mahogany, logwood, chicle, a myriad of local remedies. They came as colonial bureaucrats, as missionaries, or as landlords who ensnared the Maya as cheap laborers in peonage schemes. But over the years Don Berto and I grew to recognize in each other a common bond, a vocation that is elemental to all cultures: we were both teachers. For fourteen years now, I have brought Grinnell College students to learn from Don Berto. They have come from all over the world: the UK, Japan, Barbados, Burma, Guatemala, the Bahamas, Mexico, the U.S., and, of course, Belize. For sure, my students (including the Belizeans, who were city kids with little exposure to the biological diversity of their homeland) and I were neophytes in a strange land, but we were respectful and eager to learn. What maestro could resist that?

In a sense, everybody is a newcomer here. Don Berto and his neighbors arrived from Guatemala and southern Mexico only four generations ago, fleeing involuntary conscription into petty wars. The immigrants found the Mopan River valley to be a natural larder: a forest where about 80 to 90 percent of the tree, shrub, and herb species had some utility to humans, as food, cloth, medicine, thatching, or construction material. Many of these species were ones they had known in Guatemala and Mexico, and they were like old friends, growing in a vast forest that seemed to have been planted for them. But by whom? For four hundred years this valley had been largely unoccupied, its original inhabitants annihilated by Western diseases, genocide, and slavery.

Don Berto's father, Susano, was a Maya "snake doctor" trained in the use of forest plants as cures for snake bites, skills that he learned from his immigrant grandfather. Don Susano was also a believer in the spiritual properties of plants and of the embodiment of the Maya gods in those plants, a reverence he taught his son. To Don Susano, the Mopan River valley was a place where the gods had stocked the forest explicitly to serve his people, and where, therefore, the healers were obliged to say a prayer, always in Mayan, to a plant before cutting it. In turn, the cures for ailments were whispered by the gods to the bushmasters, also in Mayan, on the wind.

"So, while we were in the jungles," Don Berto once told me as we shared coffee and a taskab fruit in his champa, "I used to hear how my father was questioning the herbs: for what it does cure, and how many doses you used? So, whenever somebody was bitten by snake, my father went and cured this person, and I would go along with him and watch." While in the forest, Don Susano also taught his son how to succor individual plants that he wanted to encourage. There were several ways to do this: making a depression in the soil to collect rainwater, opening a light gap, clipping off vines, constructing stone barriers and clearing breaks to ward off seasonal fires, chopping down invasive and poisonous species. Every evening, Don Susano returned with a few striplings of beneficial species to sow in the sheltering woods behind his house. This is how young Berto learned how to transform the forest into a garden, and the garden into a forest.

In the academic world, such practices were first described in the 1960s by the ecologist Arturo Gomez-Pompa, who worked with the Maya in arid northern Yucatán. He argued that the forest had been manipulated and tweaked by the Maya, using the same techniques that Don Susano taught his son, until only the most useful species survived. In the 1990s, archaeologist Anabel Ford proposed that domestic forested gardens, known as pet kots, may have been the direct antecedents of the Maya Forest, that after innumerable burning seasons and the cyclical abandonment and re-establishment of gardens, the entire landscape of the Yucatan had become, in Ford's poetic invocation, a "feral forest." The Yucatec Maya had a word for this, too: kannan k'aax, translated as a "well-cared-for forest," implying that it was a human creation and embodied a deep historical relationship between the Maya and their biota. It is no surprise, therefore, that the shaggy, forested boundary between a pet kot and the kannan k'aax is not distinct; each is derived from the other.

During the past four summers, Don Polo, Karen, my students, and I have tested this hypothesis by conducting exhaustive botanical inventories of domestic forested gardens - created by Yucatec, Mopan, and Kekchi Maya - all over Belize. So far we've amassed an astonishing total of 672 species of flowering plants in only 30 gardens, in all totaling less than 30 hectares. They rank among the most diverse domestic gardens on Earth, by any measure deserving to be designated as conservation "hotspots." Most of the species in the Maya forest are represented in at least one of those gardens, validating Ford's hypothesis. The garden plants were used by the Maya for a variety of purposes, but the majority were used as medicines. Yet as exciting (and controversial) as is the search for new medicines in the botanical pharmacopoeia of Earth's tropical forests, our purpose hasn't been to test the validity of the Maya cures, a task that would take teams of chemists decades to accomplish. Instead, we have studied the reverence of the Maya for the diversity of their forest, and therefore their inspiration to be its curators.

THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE COLONIAL administration of British Honduras, as Belize was known before 1981, was English. In a colony where the people spoke three dialects of Mayan (Yucatec, Mopan, and Kekchi), as well as Spanish, Creole, Garifuna, even some Hindi and Arabic, English was not just the language of conquest, but of unification.

"Only Father and Mother, Grandfather and Grandmother, they used to speak in Mayan," Don Berto explained, "but when we children went to school - there were only about forty of us - it was strictly prohibited to speak Mayan. We were permitted only to speak English, and we were punished if we spoke Mayan.

"That is why," Don Berto continued modestly, "maybe, I can speak a little bit of English."

Regardless, while collecting plants in the forest, father and son spoke only in Mayan. There was a practical reason for this: there were almost as many indigenous Mayan nouns for plants as there were species in the forest, far more than in English or Spanish; those were, after all, European languages that evolved in other biotas. Moreover, Don Berto's father, Don Susano, wasn't sure whether the gods could understand prayers spoken in a foreign language. The clandestine retention of indigenous names and the invocation of Maya prayers, in the shelter of the beneficent forest, were the principal reasons that the Yucatec Mayan language survived in western Belize.

Before I started working in Belize, I spent a decade in another vast forested region: the Amazon River valley. Like the Mopan River valley a century ago, much of Amazonia is an empty place of holocaust, where entire pre-Columbian nations have disappeared. But unlike Belize, the mores and languages of those nations have vanished as well. In a place where there are no names for the abounding species, there can be no inventories, let alone prayers. This aphasia, I believe, explains the terracide that occurs every burning season in Amazonia. It is impossible for humans to love a biota that is not defined in words, and it is easy to witlessly give away a species for which there is no name, a species we never knew existed - or have forgotten.

WHEN DON BERTO WAS TEN YEARS OLD, a wanderer came to the village: Don Eligio Panti, a middle-aged Guatemalan Maya from San Andres, Petén. For the people of Bullet Tree Falls, it was as if Don Eligio were a visitor from the past. He spoke two dialects of Mayan - Yucatec and Mopan - and could name most of the plants of the forest. Like Don Susano, he was a bushmaster who could cure snake bites, but he also knew how to treat a much wider variety of other ills, both physical and mental, using the plants of the forest. Don Eligio lived with the Cocoms for five years as an honored guest, and in repayment for their generosity, he made young Berto his apprentice.

"I would go to the bush and then collect some herbs," Don Berto said as we walked through his forest garden one rainy morning last January, "tie them one by one into bundles, and then I went to see Don Eligio, and I would ask him what were their names? What they were good for? As time went on, I saw that it was important for a person to learn the correct Mayan names, and the Spanish names and the English names, too, of the herbs. Otherwise, how could I learn how to use them? How could I pray to them? And how could I teach their names to others?

"But when I left school I didn't know how to read and write Mayan," he explained. "So I paid a friend who was going to Mexico to bring back books written in Spanish and Mayan, including a dictionary for both languages." In this way Don Berto learned to read and write the forbidden language.

Besides denying the Maya youths the words to name the parts of their forest, and therefore the tools to curate it, the British authorities made it a crime to plant gardens of trees. In effect, they outlawed being Maya. The reason was narrowly legal. During colonial times most of the forests in western British Honduras were Crown lands leased to expatriate landowners in London or Belize City, concessions that were granted for the purpose of generating foreign exchange through the extraction of chicle and mahogany. The Maya were given small homesteads on which to live, in exchange for rent and labor.

But they were not allowed to improve the land. The planting of trees meant permanence and could be construed as a declaration of entitlement to the property. Every year, when the rent collector knocked on the door, he was accompanied by a thug who chopped down any new fruit trees that had been planted in the backyard or along the riverside.

Self-governance was instituted in British Honduras in 1964, seventeen years before the country won its independence. During this time, small landholders were given the right to acquire title to their homesteads. By then land reform had become politically expedient, and in any event, the market for chicle had collapsed and the wild mahogany trees had been nearly eradicated. But the way of the forest garden had been lost, too, teased out of the fabric of language by schoolteachers and made criminal by the land barons.

"When I got this land," Don Berto said, "there was a lot of birds, curacao, guan, also the tapirs, the jaguar, deer, a lot of animals, winged and four-legged, too. It was a rich place at that time. And then I decided to cut everything, and burn. I burned everything. It became to be nothing."

He paused, obviously troubled by this confession. "Eh, well . . . it was the tradition. We had the necessity to burn the land in order to get food. You know, to grow corn, other kinds of plant, like vegetables and so. But when I saw that I didn't have the materials for my shade, I said, 'I have to let the jungle grow back again.'"

So Don Berto began to construct his forest garden on the denuded land. He built it in the same way that a forest would regenerate itself: tier by tier, each year getting a little closer to the sun. First, he brought saplings from the nearby forest, and later, when these grew tall and began to provide a modicum of shade, he brought in the understory shrubs, herbs, and epiphytes. Within two years he was able to stop farming and make a living by selling medicines extracted from his garden.

"I said 'Well, what will I do now? How can I distribute my knowledge, as Don Eligio once taught me?'" Don Berto recalled. "I began to search in my mind what was the best thing to do, but nothing real was coming until I said, 'Well, I'm thinking of making a trail. That will solve the problem, because people will come. They will come one by one, and that one will spread the word, and then the next one will come.'"

It was down this meandering trail that Don Berto guided Don Polo and me many years later. Today a representative of each plant is labeled in yellow paint on a wooden plaque, in four languages. A typical example: succotz (Mayan), urraco (Spanish), monkey apple (Creole), Licania platypus (Latin). But the translation of a Mayan name to Western nomenclature is not always one-to-one. Much of the Mayan taxonomy has to do with a plant's uses, and not its floral anatomy as in the Linnean system. For example, bils ( cordoncillos in Spanish) are shrubs and trees in two genera, Piper and Koanophyllon, belonging to two distinct families, Piperaceae and Asteraceae, respectively. What do they have in common? Extracts of both are used as soothing baths. And it gets more interesting: the Maya often refer to a plant as being "male" or "female," but that assignment has no relationship to its true gender (i.e., whether it has stamens or stigmas or both), but instead to its curative properties.

Masewal has become a classroom where men, women, and children from the two local elementary schools, secondary schools, and the University of Belize learn the tradition of forest gardening. The garden provides Don Berto's neighbors - Maya, Creole, and Mestizo - with native seeds and seedlings, and the strip of burned milpas along the riverbank has become forested once more. "Look around." Don Berto gesticulated in every direction. "Teofilo Melendez, Guadaloupe Landero, Lucas Medina, Arnoldo Relendez, Marcelo Medina, Pascual Pot, Julia Bol have all started forest gardens along the river. They learned to do this from me," he said proudly.

Last year, the Belizean government began providing salaries for primary schools to hire Mayan-speaking teachers, but there were so few local speakers in Bullet Tree Falls that they had to be recruited in Mexico. This year, Don Berto's daughter, Yolanda, and his nephew, Alfredo Pinero, have started to apply that language to identify the parts of the forest.

Don Berto anticipated my next question: "Well, yes, they will. They will learn the prayers, too. Yes, as long as they are interested, I will teach them."

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by David G. Campbell Illustrations by Molly Bang I WRITE THESE WORDS WHILE SITTING on the right bank of the Mopan River in far western Belize, beneath a tilted cot tree that droops over the water as if it were sketched by a Chinese master - just a splash of green and stroke of new light - and where scissor-tailed flycatchers turn in the roiled air above the rapids, feeding on caddis flies.

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Regenerative grazing

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Cattle confined by movable electrified fencing graze on part of a pasture at Adam Isaacs' ranch in Canadian, Texas. Credit... Brett Deering for The New York Times

Regenerative grazing can store more carbon in soils in the form of roots and other plant tissues. But how much can it really help the fight against climate change?

Cattle confined by movable electrified fencing graze on part of a pasture at Adam Isaacs' ranch in Canadian, Texas. Credit... Brett Deering for The New York Times

CANADIAN, Texas - Adam Isaacs stood surrounded by cattle in an old pasture that had been overgrazed for years. Now it was a jumble of weeds.

"Most people would want to get out here and start spraying it" with herbicides, he said. "My family used to do that. It doesn't work."

Instead, Mr. Isaacs, a fourth-generation rancher on this rolling land in the northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle, will put his animals to work on the pasture, using portable electrified fencing to confine them to a small area so that they can't help but trample some of the weeds as they graze.

"We let cattle stomp a lot of the stuff down," he said. That adds organic matter to the soil and exposes it to oxygen, which will help grasses and other more desirable plants take over. Eventually, through continued careful management of grazing, the pasture will be healthy again.

"These cows are my land management tool," Mr. Isaacs said. "It's a lot easier to work with nature than against it."

His goal is to turn these 5,000 acres into something closer to the lush mixed-grass prairie that thrived throughout this part of the Southern Great Plains for millenniums and served as grazing lands for millions of bison.

Mr. Isaacs, 27, runs a cow-calf operation, with several hundred cows and a dozen or so bulls that produce calves that he sells to the beef industry after they are weaned. Improving his land will benefit his business, through better grazing for his animals, less soil and nutrient loss through erosion, and improved retention of water in a region where rainfall averages only about 18 inches a year.

But the healthier ranchland can also aid the planet by sequestering more carbon, in the form of roots and other plant tissues that used carbon dioxide from the air in their growth. Storing this organic matter in the soil will keep the carbon from re-entering the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane, two major contributors to global warming.

With the Biden administration proposing to pay farmers to store carbon, soil sequestration has gained favor as a tool to fight climate change. Done on a large enough scale, proponents say, it can play a significant role in limiting global warming.

But many scientists say that claim is overblown, that soils cannot store nearly enough carbon, over a long enough time, to have a large effect. And measuring carbon in soil is problematic, they say.

The soil-improving practices that ranchers like Mr. Isaacs follow are referred to as regenerative grazing, part of a broader movement known as regenerative agriculture.

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There are no clear-cut definitions of the terms, but regenerative farming techniques include minimal or no tilling of soil, rotating crops, planting crops to cover and benefit the soil after the main crop is harvested, and greater use of compost rather than chemical fertilizers.

Regenerative grazing means closely managing where and for how long animals forage, unlike a more conventional approach in which animals are left to graze the same pasture more or less continuously. Ranchers also rely more on their animals' manure to help keep their pastures healthy.

These practices are spreading among farmers and ranchers in the United States, spurred by environmental concerns about what industrialized farming and meat production have done to the land and about agriculture's contribution to global warming. In the United States, agriculture accounts for about 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Agribusiness companies and large food producers are launching initiatives to encourage regenerative practices, part of efforts to appeal to consumers concerned about climate change and sustainability.

And the Biden administration, in its initial moves to combat climate change, has cited agriculture as a "linchpin" of its strategy. One idea is to allocate $1 billion to pay farmers $20 for each ton of carbon they trap in the soil.

Proponents of regenerative agriculture have sometimes made extravagant claims about its potential as a tool to fight global warming. Among them is Allan Savory, a farmer originally from Zimbabwe and a leader in the movement, who in an often-cited 2013 TED Talk said that it could "reverse" climate change.

Some research has suggested that widespread implementation of regenerative practices worldwide could have a significant effect, storing as much as 8 billion metric tons of carbon per year over the long term, or nearly as much as current annual emissions from burning of fossil fuels.

While there is broad agreement that regenerative techniques can improve soil health and bring other benefits, some analyses have found that the potential carbon-sequestration numbers are vastly overstated. Among the criticisms, researchers point out that short-term studies may show strong increases in soil carbon, but that these gains decline over time.

"It's really great to see the private sector and the U.S. government getting serious about reducing agricultural emissions," said Richard Waite, a senior researcher at the World Resources Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington. But for carbon sequestration in soils, the institute's analysis suggests that "mitigation opportunities are on the smaller side."

Focusing on carbon sequestration through soil also risks drawing attention from other important ways to reduce agriculture's carbon footprint, Mr. Waite said, including improving productivity, reducing deforestation and shifting food consumption to more climate-friendly diets.

Jason Rowntree, a researcher at Michigan State University who was a scientific adviser for five years for an institute founded by Mr. Savory, said that while regenerative grazing "creates a cascade of good things," his and others' research has shown the amount of carbon sequestered can vary greatly by region, affected in large part by the amount of rainfall and soil nitrogen available.

"Based on the amounts of these where you are, the ability to build carbon can change dramatically," he said. "It needs to be considered in a localized context."

What's more, Dr. Rowntree said, using carbon in the soil as the basis for judging how well agriculture is contributing to the fight against climate change could be problematic because it is difficult to measure. As a metric, he said, "carbon is probably the worst one we could find."

Tim LaSalle, a former executive director of Mr. Savory's institute who later co-founded a sustainable agriculture program at California State University, Chico, said that he views the movement as "a change in looking at soil and its potential."

"And that's where science is lacking," he said, arguing that most research focuses on one or two factors without considering the entire, and complex, plant-soil system.

Dr. LaSalle and colleagues are collecting data from research that shows the benefits of regenerative practices, including field trials using compost inoculated with fungi and other microbes that reduces or eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers.

"We've got to get the data out there to shift people's understanding of what goes on," he said.

Mr. Isaacs, who studied ranch management at Texas Tech University and worked for two years for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, does some measurement and analysis to gauge how well his efforts are working.

"We do a lot of surveys," he said, taking photos and samples to determine microbial activity in the soil, how well plants are growing and how the mix of species is changing. "That way you can see trends," he said. "When you're out here everyday, it's hard to see what you're doing."

He is certain that he is building more carbon in the soil, and thus benefiting the climate to some extent. But from a drive around his ranch, it is clear that a big source of pride is the visible improvements he is seeing in the land.

Stopping in one pasture on the way back to the ranch house he shares with his wife, Aubrie, he pointed to a gentle slope with a mix of vegetation.

As with other pastures at the ranch, Mr. Isaacs has used his electrified fencing to put his cattle to graze on small plots here for short periods of time - 200 head, perhaps, eating and stomping around in a space no larger than a suburban homeowner's backyard for as little as half an hour. Moving the fencing down the pasture to new plots allows the grazed land time to recover.

"That's what the bison did," he said. "They'd come in a million at a time, stomp it all down and move on to fresh pasture. And they wouldn't come back until it was time to graze again."

The work requires planning and frequent moving of cattle. But Mr. Isaacs is aided by technology - he uses a small drone to help herd the animals, and is investing in devices that will lift fence gates on command from an app on his phone.

The cattle make one pass around much of the ranch in winter, to prepare the land for spring growth. More passes follow in spring or summer, the number depending on largely on rainfall.

"In spring, the forage grows really fast, so we're rotating cows around the ranch really fast," Mr. Isaacs said. "As summer progresses and it gets hotter and the growth slows down, we slow the cows down."

Mr. Isaacs pointed to several tallgrass species growing amid shorter ones on the slope. The intensive grazing and recovery has helped these tallgrasses come back, he said, and the cattle devour them. "In the growing season, this is as good as it gets," he said.

"As I do better for the soil, it just becomes progressively better and better and you grow more grass," Mr. Isaacs said. "And as you grow more grass, you get better soils."

"It's never ending."

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A Different Kind of Land Management: Let the Cows Stomp

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Regenerative grazing can store more carbon in soils in the form of roots and other plant tissues. But how much can it really help the fight against climate change? Cattle confined by movable electrified fencing graze on part of a pasture at Adam Isaacs' ranch in Canadian, Texas. Credit...

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What does an Ecological Civilisation look like?

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What does an Ecological Civilisation look like?

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Jeremy Lent

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As a new, saner administration sets up shop in Washington, D.C., there are plenty of policy initiatives this country desperately needs. Beyond a national plan for the COVID-19 pandemic, progressives will strive to focus the administration's attention on challenges like fixing the broken health care system, grappling with systemic racial inequities, and a just transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

These are all critically important issues. But here's the rub: Even if the Democratic administration were resoundingly successful on all fronts, its initiatives would still be utterly insufficient to resolve the existential threat of climate breakdown and the devastation of our planet's life-support systems. That's because the multiple problems confronting us right now are symptoms of an even more profound problem: The underlying structure of a global economic and political system that is driving civilization toward a precipice.

Take a moment to peer beyond the day-to-day crises capturing our attention, and you quickly realize that the magnitude of the looming catastrophe makes our current political struggles, by comparison, look like arguing how to stack deck chairs on the Titanic.

The climate emergency we're facing is far worse than most people realize. While it was clearly an essential step for the United States to rejoin the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, the collective pledges on greenhouse gas emissions from that agreement are woefully insufficient. They would lead to a dangerous temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius this century-and many nations are failing to make even these targets. We are rapidly approaching-if we haven't already passed-climate tipping points with reinforcing feedback loops that would lead to an unrecognizable and terrifying world.

Even if the climate crisis were somehow brought under control, our current growth-oriented economic juggernaut will bring us face-to-face with a slew of further existential threats in future decades. As long as government policies emphasize growth in gross domestic product and transnational corporations relentlessly pursue shareholder returns, we will continue accelerating toward global catastrophe.

We're rapidly decimating the Earth's forests, animals, insects, fish, fresh water-even the topsoil we need to grow our crops. We've already transgressed four of the nine planetary boundaries that define humanity's safe operating space, and yet global GDP is expected to triple by 2060, with potentially calamitous consequences. In 2017, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries issued an ominous warning to humanity that time is running out: "Soon it will be too late," they wrote, "to shift course away from our failing trajectory."

We need to forge a new era for humanity-one that is defined, at its deepest level, by a transformation in the way we make sense of the world, and a concomitant revolution in our values, goals, and collective behavior. In short, we need to change the basis of our global civilization. We must move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to one that is life-affirming: an ecological civilization.

A Life-Affirming Civilization

Without human disruption, ecosystems can thrive in rich abundance for millions of years, remaining resilient in the face of adversity. Clearly, there is much to learn from nature's wisdom about how to organize ourselves. Can we do so before it's too late?

This is the fundamental idea underlying an ecological civilization: using nature's own design principles to reimagine the basis of our civilization. Changing our civilization's operating system to one that naturally leads to life-affirming policies and practices rather than rampant extraction and devastation.

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An ecological civilization is both a new and ancient idea. While the notion of structuring human society on an ecological basis might seem radical, Indigenous peoples around the world have organized themselves from time immemorial on life-affirming principles. When Lakota communities, on the land that is now the U.S., invoke Mitakuye Oyasin ("We are all related") in ceremony, they are referring not just to themselves but to all sentient beings. Buddhist, Taoist, and other philosophical and religious traditions have based much of their spiritual wisdom on the recognition of the deep interconnectedness of all things. And in modern times, a common thread linking progressive movements around the world is the commitment to a society that works for the flourishing of life, rather than against it.

6 Rules for Humans Rejoining the Natural World

A system's health depends on differentiation and integration. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as affirmation of different groups-self-defined by ethnicity, gender, or any other delineation. Such as:* Community self-determination
* Indigenous rights
* Restorative justice
* Social equity for LGBTQ communities

Deciphering Nature's Design Principles

There is a secret formula hidden deep in nature's intelligence, which catalyzed each of life's great evolutionary leaps over billions of years and forms the basis of all ecosystems. It's captured in the simple but profound concept of mutually beneficial symbiosis: a relationship between two parties to which each contributes something the other lacks, and both gain as a result. With such symbiosis, there is no zero-sum game: The contributions of each party create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Whenever you go for a walk in the woods, eat a meal, or take a dip in the ocean, you're experiencing the miracle of nature's symbiosis. Plants transform sunlight into chemical energy that provides food for other creatures, whose waste then fertilizes the soil the plants rely on. Underground fungal networks contribute essential chemicals to trees in return for nutrients they can't make for themselves. Pollinators fertilize plants, which produce fruit and seeds that nourish animals as they carry them to new locations. In your own gut, trillions of bacteria receive nutrition from the food you enjoy, while reciprocating by producing enzymes you need for digestion.

In human society, symbiosis translates into foundational principles of fairness and justice, ensuring that the efforts and skills people contribute to society are rewarded equitably. In an ecological civilization, relationships between workers and employers, producers and consumers, humans and animals, would thus be based on each party gaining in value rather than one group exploiting the other.

Because of symbiosis, ecosystems can sustain themselves almost indefinitely. Energy from the sun flows seamlessly to all the constituent parts. The waste of one organism becomes the sustenance of another. Nature produces a continuous flow where nothing is squandered. Likewise, an ecological civilization, in contrast to our current society built on extracting resources and accumulating waste, would comprise a circular economy with efficient reuse of waste products embedded into processes from the outset.

Nature uses a fractal design with similar patterns repeating themselves at different scales. Fractals are everywhere in nature-you see them in the patterns of tree branches, coastlines, cloud formations, and the bronchial system in our lungs. Ecologies are themselves fractal, with the deep principles of self-organized behavior that perpetuate life shared by microscopic cells, organisms, species, ecosystems, and the entire living Earth. This form of organization is known as a holarchy, where each element-from cells on up-is a coherent entity in its own right, while also an integral component of something larger. In a holarchy, the health of the system as a whole requires the flourishing of each part. Each living system is interdependent on the vitality of all the other systems.

Every part of a system is in a harmonious relationship with the entire system. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as competition and cooperation in balance and an equitable distribution of wealth and power. Such as:
* Global wealth tax
* Multibillionaires proscribed
* Abolition of offshore tax havens
* Legal support for co-ops and the commons

Based on this crucial precept, an ecological civilization would be designed on the core principle of fractal flourishing: the well-being of each person is fractally related to the health of the larger world. Individual health relies on societal health, which relies in turn on the health of the ecosystem in which it's embedded. Accordingly, from the ground up, it would foster individual dignity, providing the conditions for everyone to live in safety and self-determination, with universal access to adequate housing, competent health care, and quality education.

In the fractal design of an ecosystem, health arises not through homogeneity, but through each organism contributing to the whole by fulfilling its own unique potential. Correspondingly, an ecological civilization would celebrate diversity, recognizing that its overall health depended on different groups-self-defined by ethnicity, gender, or any other delineation-developing their own unique gifts to the greatest extent possible.

In a natural ecology, the type of exponential growth that characterizes our global economy could only occur if other variables were out of balance, and would inevitably lead to the catastrophic collapse of that population. The principle of balance would accordingly be crucial to an ecological civilization. Competition would be balanced by collaboration; disparities in income and wealth would remain within much narrower bands, and would fairly reflect the contributions people make to society. And crucially, growth would become just one part of a natural life cycle, slowing down once it reaches its healthy limits-leading to a steady-state, self-sustaining economy designed for well-being rather than consumption.

Above all, an ecological civilization would be based on the all-encompassing symbiosis between human society and the natural world. Human activity would be organized, not merely to avoid harm to the living Earth, but to actively regenerate and sustain its health.

An Ecological Civilization in Practice

The overriding objective of an ecological civilization would be to create the conditions for all humans to flourish as part of a thriving, living Earth. Currently, the success of political leaders is assessed largely by how much they increase their nation's GDP, which merely measures the rate at which society transforms nature and human activities into the monetary economy, regardless of the ensuing quality of life. A life-affirming society would, instead, emphasize growth in well-being, using measures like the Genuine Progress Indicator, which factors in qualitative components such as volunteer and household work, pollution, and crime.

For more than a century, most economic thinkers have recognized only two domains of economic activity: markets and government. The great political divide between capitalism and communism was structured accordingly, and even today the debate continues along similar lines. An ecological civilization would incorporate government spending and markets, but-as laid out by visionary economist Kate Raworth-would add two critical realms to this framework: households and the commons.

The small reflects the large, and the health of the whole system requires the flourishing of each part. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as individual dignity and self-determination. Such as:
* Universal Basic Income
* Universal access to housing, health care, education
* Cities redesigned for walking
* Community interaction
* Education for life-fulfillment
* Cosmopolitanism

In particular, the commons would become a crucial part of economic activity. Historically, the commons referred to shared land that peasants accessed to graze livestock or grow crops. But more broadly, the commons refers to any source of sustenance and well-being that has not yet been appropriated by the state or private ownership: the air, water, sunshine, as well as human creations like language, cultural traditions, and scientific knowledge. It is virtually ignored in most economic discussion because, like household work, it doesn't fit into the classic model of the economy. But the global commons belongs to all of us, and in an ecological civilization, it would once again take its rightful place as a major provider of human welfare.

The overwhelming proportion of wealth available to modern humans is the result of the cumulative ingenuity and industriousness of prior generations going back to earliest times. However, as a consequence of centuries of genocide and slavery, systemic racism, extractive capitalism, and exploitation by the Global North, that wealth is highly unevenly distributed. Once we realize the vast benefits of the commons bequeathed to us by our ancestors-along with the egregiously uneven wealth distribution-it transforms our conception of wealth and value. Contrary to the widespread view that an entrepreneur who becomes a billionaire deserves his wealth, the reality is that whatever value he created is a pittance compared to the immense bank of prior knowledge and social practices-the commonwealth-that he took from. An ecological civilization, recognizing this, would fairly reward entrepreneurial activity, but severely curtail the right of anyone to accumulate multiple billions of dollars in wealth, no matter what their accomplishments.

Conversely, it is the moral birthright of every human to share in the vast commonwealth bestowed on us. This could effectively be achieved through a program of unconditional monthly cash disbursements to every person on the planet, creating a foundation for the dignity and security required for society's fractal flourishing. It would also begin to address the moral imperative to remedy the extreme exploitation and injustices visited upon Indigenous and Black communities worldwide-historically and to this day.

Research has shown repeatedly that such programs-known as Universal Basic Income-are remarkably effective in improving quality of life in communities around the world, in both the Global North and South. Programs consistently report reduction in crime, child mortality, malnutrition, truancy, teenage pregnancy, and alcohol consumption, along with increases in health, gender equality, school performance-and even entrepreneurial activity. Work is not something people try to avoid; on the contrary, purposive work is an integral part of human flourishing. Liberated by UBI from the daily necessity to sell their labor for survival, people would reinvest their time in crucial sectors of the economy-in households and commons-that naturally lead to life-affirming activity.

The transnational corporations that currently dominate every aspect of global society would be fundamentally reorganized, and made accountable to the communities they purportedly serve. Corporations above a certain size would only be permitted to operate with charters that required them to optimize social and environmental well-being along with shareholder returns. Currently, these triple bottom line charters are voluntary, and very few large corporations adopt them. If, however, they were compulsory-and strictly enforced by citizen panels comprising representatives of the communities and ecosystems covered in the company's scope of operations-it would immediately transform the intrinsic character of corporations, causing them to work for the benefit of humanity and the living Earth rather than for their demise.

In place of vast homogenized monocrops of industrial agriculture, food would be grown using principles of regenerative agriculture, leading to greater crop biodiversity, improved water and carbon efficiency, and the virtual elimination of synthetic fertilizer. Manufacturing would be structured around circular material flows, and locally owned cooperatives would become the default organizational structure. Technological innovation would still be encouraged, but would be prized for its effectiveness in enhancing symbiosis between people and with living systems, rather than minting billionaires.

Regenerative and sustainable flourishing into the long-term future. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as economic growth halting once it reaches healthy limits. Such as:
* Steady-state economies
* A triple bottom line for corporations

Cities would be redesigned on ecological principles, with community gardens on every available piece of land, essential services within a 20-minute walk, and cars banned from city centers. The local community would be the basic building block of society, with face-to-face interaction regaining ascendance as a crucial part of human flourishing. Education would be re-envisioned, its goal transformed from preparing students for the corporate marketplace to cultivating in students the discernment and emotional maturity required to fulfill their life's purpose as valued members of society.

Local community life would be enriched by the global reach of the internet. Online networks with scale, such as Facebook, would be turned over to the commons, so that rather than manipulating users to maximize advertising dollars, the internet could become a vehicle for humanity to develop a planetary consciousness. Cosmopolitanism-an ancient Greek concept meaning "being a citizen of the world"-would be the defining characteristic of a global identity. It would celebrate diversity between cultures while recognizing the deep interdependence that binds all people into a single moral community with a shared destiny.

Governance would be transformed with local, regional, and global decisions made at the levels where their effects are felt most (known as subsidiarity). While much decision-making would devolve to lower levels, a stronger global governance would enforce rules on planetwide challenges such as the climate emergency and the sixth great extinction. A Rights of Nature declaration, recognizing the inalienable rights of ecosystems and natural entities to persist and thrive, would put the natural world on the same legal standing as humanity, with personhood given to ecosystems and high-functioning mammals, and the crime of ecocide-the destruction of ecosystems-prosecuted by a court with global jurisdiction.

Daring to Make It Possible

It doesn't take more than a glance at the daily headlines to realize how far we are from this vision of a society that fosters fractal flourishing. Yet, just like the underground fungal network that nourishes trees in a forest, innumerable pioneering organizations around the world are already laying the groundwork for virtually all the components of a life-affirming civilization.

In the United States, the visionary Climate Justice Alliance has laid out guidelines for a just transition from an extractive to a regenerative economy that incorporates deep democracy with ecological and societal well-being. A network of more than 70 grassroots and frontline movements, the Alliance works collectively for a just transition toward food sovereignty, energy democracy, and ecological regeneration.

Issues at the lowest level affect health at the top. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as grassroots self-autonomy and deep democracy:
* Decision-making at the lowest possible levels
* Horizontalism
* Cooperatives

In Bolivia and Ecuador, traditional ecological principles of buen vivir and sumak kawsay ("good living") are written into the constitutions. While mechanisms for enforcement still need considerable strengthening, these principles establish a powerful alternative to extractive practices, offering a legal and ethical platform for legislation based on harmony-both with nature, and between humans.

In Europe, large-scale thriving cooperatives, such as the Mondragón Cooperative in Spain, demonstrate that it's possible for companies to prosper without utilizing a shareholder-based profit model. With roughly a hundred businesses and 80,000 worker-owners producing a wide range of industrial and consumer goods, Mondragón proves that it's possible to succeed while maintaining a people-focused, shared community of life-affirming values.

A new ecological worldview is spreading globally throughout cultural and religious institutions, establishing common ground with the heritage of traditional Indigenous knowledge. The core principles of an ecological civilization have already been laid out in the Earth Charter-an ethical framework launched in The Hague in 2000 and endorsed by more than 50,000 organizations and individuals worldwide. In 2015, Pope Francis shook the Catholic establishment by issuing his encyclical, Laudato Si', a masterpiece of ecological philosophy that demonstrates the deep interconnectedness of all life, and calls for a rejection of the individualist, neoliberal ethic.

Economists, scientists, and policymakers, recognizing the moral bankruptcy of the current economic model, are pooling resources to offer alternative frameworks. The Wellbeing Economy Alliance is an international collaboration of changemakers working to transform our economic system to one that promotes human and ecological well-being. The Global Commons Alliance is similarly developing an international platform for regenerating the Earth's natural systems. Organizations such as the Next System Project and the Global Citizens Initiative are laying down parameters for the political, economic, and social organization of an ecological civilization, and the P2P Foundation is building a commons-based infrastructure for societal change. Around the world, an international movement of transition towns is transforming communities from the grassroots up by nurturing a caring culture, reimagining ways to meet local needs, and crowdsourcing solutions.

Most importantly, a people's movement for life-affirming change is spreading globally. Led by young climate activists like Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate, Mari Copeny, Xiye Bastida, Isra Hirsi, and others, millions of schoolchildren worldwide are rousing their parents' generation from its slumber. A month after Extinction Rebellion demonstrators closed down Central London in 2019, the U.K. Parliament announced a "climate emergency," which has now been declared by nearly 2,000 local and national jurisdictions worldwide, representing more than 12% of the global population. Meanwhile, the Stop Ecocide campaign to establish ecocide as a crime prosecutable under international law is making important strides, gaining serious consideration at the parliamentary level in France and Sweden, with a panel of legal experts convened to draft its definition.

Relationships that work for mutual benefit. When this principle of natural ecology is applied to human society, we see it as fairness and justice, regenerative economies, and circular energy flows. Such as:
* Measuring well-being instead of GDP
* Regenerative agriculture
* Permaculture principles
* Circular economies and manufacturing processes
* Rights of Nature and personhood for nonhumans

When we consider the immensity of the transformation needed, the odds of achieving an ecological civilization might seem daunting-but it's far from impossible. As our current civilization begins to unravel on account of its internal failings, the strands that kept it tightly wound also get loosened. Every year that we head closer to catastrophe-as greater climate-related disasters rear up, as the outrages of racial and economic injustice become even more egregious, and as life for most people becomes increasingly intolerable-the old narrative loses its hold on the collective consciousness. Waves of young people are looking for a new worldview-one that makes sense of the current unraveling, one that offers them a future they can believe in.

It's a bold idea to transform the very basis of our civilization to one that's life-affirming. But when the alternative is unthinkable, a vision of a flourishing future shines a light of hope that can become a self-fulfilling reality. Dare to imagine it. Dare to make it possible by the actions you take, both individually and collectively-and it might just happen sooner than you expect.

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What Does An Ecological Civilization Look Like?

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As a new, saner administration sets up shop in Washington, D.C., there are plenty of policy initiatives this country desperately needs. Beyond a national plan for the COVID-19 pandemic, progressives will strive to focus the administration's attention on challenges like fixing the broken health care system, grappling with systemic racial inequities, and a just transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

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Good explanatory video

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Suzanne Simard's work.

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Ferris Jabr Photographs by Brendan George Ko

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The Social Life of Forests (Published 2020)

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Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another?

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High density planting practices appear to work better.

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Na década de 1970, o botânico japonês Akira Miyawaki, diante da descoberta de que então somente 0.06% das florestas do país eram nativas, desenvolveu um método de restaurar essas vegetações originais em terras degradadas ou destruídas. O processo, intitulado Método Miyawaki, se dá em quatro passos simples, e através dele o botânico criou 1.700 novas florestas por toda a Ásia, com quase a totalidade se desenvolvendo em ecossistemas permanentes com o passar dos anos. Por isso o método foi aplicado em todo o mundo, e é atualmente utilizado em diversos países europeus - mas qual é o segredo da técnica desenvolvida por Miyawaki?

O primeiro passo é a identificação, ao redor do ponto onde se deseja plantar a nova floresta, das plantas nativas que melhor se adaptam à região. Em seguida, preparar o terreno - através da limpeza do solo, a adição de nutrientes orgânicos, preparação de elementos para ajudar na retenção de água e a criação de uma colina com até 30 graus de inclinação. O terceiro passo é plantar entre 3 a 5 pequenas árvores por metro quadrado e, por fim, aguar e cuidar da plantação, contra pragas e ervas daninhas, pelos três anos seguintes - e o resultado é uma nova floresta em sua região, crescendo em velocidade até dez vezes maior, e com vinte vezes maior biodiversidade.

Por isso o Método Miyawaki vem sendo utilizado para a criação de florestas urbanas na França e na Bélgica, e de pequenas florestas na Holanda, como esforços para ajudar a combater as mudanças climáticas. Na França e na Bélgica o método já plantou 21 mil árvores em 7 mil metros quadrados, e por diversos estudos se concluiu que o uso de vegetações nativas facilita todos os processos, a começar pela polinização e todo o processo pela biodiversidade de um ecossistema. As florestas desenvolvidas pelo Método Miyawaki trazem maior variedade de alimentos, abrigos, insetos, lesmas, anfíbios, borboletas e muito mais.

Nascido em 1928, Akira Miyawaki tornou-se uma sumidade internacional em botânica e reflorestamento, como um especialista na restauração de vegetação natural em terras degradadas. Professor emérito na Universidade Nacional de Yokohama e diretor do Centro Japonês de Estudos Internacionais em Ecologia, Miyawaki recebeu, entre muitos outros, o prêmio Blue Planet Prize, em 2006, por seus esforços extraordinários pela resolução de problemas ambientais.

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Método Miyawaki: pequenas florestas estão sendo plantadas pela Europa para restaurar a biodiversidade

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Na década de 1970, o botânico japonês Akira Miyawaki, diante da descoberta de que então somente 0.06% das florestas do país eram nativas, desenvolveu um método de restaurar essas vegetações originais em terras degradadas ou destruídas. O processo, intitulado Método Miyawaki, se dá em quatro passos simples, e através dele o botânico criou 1.700 novas [...]

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50 years off grid in the Californian redwoods

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50 years off grid in the Californian redwoods

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The story of Charles and Vanna Rae Bello's life and work in the redwood forests

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50 years off-grid: architect-maker paradise amid NorCal redwoods

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Guidelines for a regenerative forest policy

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The 2017 wildfires in Portugal burned some 442 thousand hectares of land and claimed 114 lives according to ICNF statistics. From the ashes of this devastation rose Reflorestar Portugal, a national network for forest and ecosystem regeneration. Reflorestar Portugal focuses on values of resilience, autonomy and creativity. To build trust and a sense of community between its members, and help them work together with an "open heart", it hosts the "Encontro pelas Florestas" gathering every two years. What are the biggest problems that forests are facing in Portugal? In this interview for ARC2020, Susana Guimarães speaks to Antonieta Lopes about empowering local communities to be guardians of the forest, moving from an extractive to a regenerative economy, and letting go of what has proven to be of no use to us. "It's an initiative and citizenship driven by the collective dream of seeing Portuguese forests reborn with human presence and collaboration", says Susana Guimarães, general coordinator of Reflorestar Portugal. The idea is to empower individuals and local communities to act, and to make people aware of their deep relationship with ecosystem regeneration and food production systems.
One of the biggest threats is the depopulation of the country's interior and the lack of long-term strategic investment in rural Portugal. Human populations and communities are fundamental in protecting the forest, but they only stay in the territory if their needs are answered. This leads us to questions that go hand to hand with the protection of the forest, namely the local economy and regional politics.

Another major problem is legislative and structural, such as the framing of private property in our country. A long-term national strategy is urgent, with the commitment of all parliamentary parties, for the imposition of both obligations and direct support to landowners.

We urgently need political will and awareness regarding the recovery of national ecosystems. Instead, we continue to see attacks, such as the attempts to prospect for lithium in rural Portugal. This activity destroys not only fragile ecosystems, fauna and populations, but also pollutes and consumes air and groundwater. These are natural resources and should never be considered as mere economic products.
And how do you see the future of our forests?

These are natural resources and should never be considered as mere economic products.

At this moment, the forest needs a uniform public investment action and must be considered with seriousness and urgency as a national sovereignty subject.
If you were part of government, what would be the first steps you would take?
As a "cherry on the top of the cake" we have a paradigmatic problem: the "lenses" with which we look at the forests. They aren't a monoculture or a product, so they cannot be used or legislated for as such. The businesses that depend on forests should never have a negative impact on them - and on the surrounding populations - without being responsible, to the same extent and dimensions, for their immediate and continuous regeneration.

It is possible to have forest products in a biodiverse forest, but it is necessary that all agents involved (community, politicians and enterprises) change their "lenses" from extraction to regenerative economy.
Regarding the current COVID-19 crisis, how do you think it will affect the future of agriculture and forests?
I foresee the forests going back to what they were for thousands of years because it is the only possible way for sustainable life on the planet. They are the heart of the water cycle and the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They maintain the humidity of the air and soils and they provide shelter, food and a source of energy for humans and terrestrial animals.

But this only happens when we have biodiverse forests, where natural stratification and succession are allowed. Thus, I foresee a change in the paradigm, in the "lenses" with which humans look at forests. Our communities will once again be guardians of the forests, protecting their seeds and plants, planting their own food and creating local economies around this organism that pulsates and sustains life. I believe, therefore, that this path passes through agroforestry, since it allows the presence of human beings in the territory, stimulating the forest itself.

All measures require a strengthening of the public workforce, financial and educational assistance:

Review forest and agricultural property to allow the design and application of a national and regional strategy;

Restore jobs for forest and river guards;

Ban harrowing soil as annual maintenance - it should only be allowed at the time of the first intervention on land destined for ecosystem regeneration and food production;

Develop a national policy to implement productive soil regeneration directly supporting landowners, farmers and also the local municipalities so that they facilitate access to the necessary materials, machinery and labour;

Ban the burning of organic matter which, in addition to the risk of fire, is an atrocious attack on soil and a loss of energy, promoting the release of CO2 into the atmosphere, instead of returning it where it belongs - to the soils and plants that grow from it;

Suspend "land clearing" concept and policies, redoing the legislative measures to change the practices and paradigm for forest regeneration and maintenance. For example, annual maintenance would become mandatory, with pruning, crushing and deposition in the soil of organic matter to stimulate vegetative growth, as well as the most diverse annual sowing, in each property, supporting native species stimulation, soil cover and food. They would be gradual measures, where obligations would be accompanied by support and training. It is urgent to know how to prune correctly...

Change the government organizational structure, merging the Ministries of Agriculture and Forest because dialogue and intersection between these areas is essential and they should never be separated;

Develop a national strategy of financial and structural support for ecological literacy and dissemination of information to the entire population, with a focus on: native forest and Creole food seed defence and preservation; understanding of water and soil cycles; and seed identification and harvesting;

Develop a national programme of municipal seed nurseries, with civic participation and financial support for their maintenance, so that each region could make abundant vegetative material available for local ecosystem regeneration;

Last but not least, the progressive - urgent - transition from monoculture to polyculture, restricting monoculture in forestry areas, until prohibition. A temporary measure would be to implement mandatory assurances - with retroactive effects for plantations up to X years old - that guarantee land regeneration on monoculture profiles, when cutting them.

I think that all investment in agricultural and forestry areas should be immediately reinforced, expanded, unbureaucratic, made more flexible and facilitated in order to reach more players. Since the 80s, what happened is that the government only complied with European standards to receive financial aid, with no serious strategy in time and space, which causes a huge loss of resources and a discontinuity in the natural regeneration processes.

We also have to be flexible and aware of conceptualizations. An example of where this is lacking is the difference between the concept of Agroforestry that we practice at Reflorestar Portugal, and the Agroforestry that public institutions address and legislate for. This brings serious problems in the field. The promotion of biodiversity and the research of different processes is urgent, so that the common objective - the regeneration of ecosystems - is achieved regardless of the techniques applied. This objective should be what unites us, making us flexible and in constant action.
This interview has been edited for clarity.

The difference between the concept of Agroforestry that we practice at Reflorestar Portugal, and the Agroforestry that public institutions address and legislate for, brings serious problems in the field.

Crises like the one we are facing right now make very clear that with regard to natural resources - soil, forest, air, water - and food, countries must be sovereign, autonomous and invest in their own regeneration, conversion and protection. They also serve to reflect and realize what is essential for life - Water and Air (Forest and Oceans), Soil (food), Shelter and Love - and all these factors lead to healthy ecosystems and also healthy bodies and immune systems.

Our health depends on the health of ecosystems, where water, air, food and shelter come from, allowing us to live in Love and not in permanent stress, fear and scarcity. That said, what are we waiting for? It should be clear where all countries individually - and Europe as a whole - should focus their investment, innovation and aid efforts (educational, direct, legislative, financial, research, etc.).

We must let go of what has proven to be of no use to us. Crises are also opportunities to start over differently and this one is an unparalleled opportunity as it is happening worldwide. May the essence of all this restructuration be the regeneration of Health, Ecosystems and the Human Being.

More on forests and farming

Farm Diversification - Agroforestry and Agritourism in Ireland

Scotland | Organic Farming, Agroforestry Best for Emissions Reductions

The Challenge of Making UK Ruminant Production Sustainable

Letter from a Farm - Diverse Systems & Diverse Skills

Forest Grabbing in Romania is destroying pristine nature and rural livelihoods

Palm oil - A Global Obsession With Consequences

Climate Chaos and Land Use: Act Now or Face Irreversible Losses

Czech Republic | "No Forests, No Water, No Future" - Part I: Bugs in the Ecosystem

Czech Republic | "No Forests, No Water, No Future" - Part II: Moving On from Monocultures

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Reforesting Portugal: Taking Communites From Extraction to Regeneration | Agricultural and Rural Convention Reforesting Portugal: Taking Communites From Extraction to Regeneration

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From the ashes of Portugal's devastating wildfires in 2017 rose Reflorestar Portugal, a national network for forest and ecosystem regeneration. In this interview for ARC2020, Susana Guimarães, coordinator of Reflorestar Portugal, speaks to Antonieta Lopes about empowering local communities to be guardians of the forest, moving from an extractive to a regenerative economy, and letting go of what has proven to be of no use to us.

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2015 documentary about permaculture, featuring Ben Falk, Eric Toensmeier, Dave Jacke, Mark Shepherd, Geoff Lawton & others.

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"Inhabit" is a documentary film project that aims to expand the reach and relatability of permaculture. Permaculture is a design science based on the observation and replication of patterns and relationships found in nature; it is an approach to designing sustainable systems of agriculture, community, economics, politics, and more.

We will travel in a solar and veggie-oil-powered bus documenting the people and projects currently giving voice to permaculture in the Northeast. We will look at permaculture practices in rural, suburban, and urban environments to break away from the conception of it being purely agricultural, and we will explore the breadth of its application to current local and global challenges - from issues of food, water, and medicine, to governance, economy, and culture.

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"Inhabit" is a documentary film project that aims to expand the reach and relatability of permaculture. Permaculture is a design science based on the observation and replication of patterns and relationships found in nature; it is an approach to designing sustainable systems of agriculture, community, economics, politics, and more.

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Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct, on changing civili
sational paradigms

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Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world

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Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world

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Proposal to emphasise hydrology over carbon capture when considering forests

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Highlights

*

We review the advantages of forests highlighted in the literature on forest, water and energy cycle interactions.

*

Forest, water and energy cycle interactions provide the foundation for achieving forest-based adaptation and mitigation goals.

*

Forests can be used, in particular, to mitigate problems related to water scarcity and global warming.

*

In addition to up- and downstream relationships, policy frameworks need to consider the transboundary nature of up- and downwind forest, water and energy cycle interactions.

*

Alongside the local level, regional and continental policy-making frameworks are necessary for adequate consideration of transboundary forest, water and energy cycle interactions.

Abstract

Forest-driven water and energy cycles are poorly integrated into regional, national, continental and global decision-making on climate change adaptation, mitigation, land use and water management. This constrains humanity's ability to protect our planet's climate and life-sustaining functions. The substantial body of research we review reveals that forest, water and energy interactions provide the foundations for carbon storage, for cooling terrestrial surfaces and for distributing water resources. Forests and trees must be recognized as prime regulators within the water, energy and carbon cycles. If these functions are ignored, planners will be unable to assess, adapt to or mitigate the impacts of changing land cover and climate. Our call to action targets a reversal of paradigms, from a carbon-centric model to one that treats the hydrologic and climate-cooling effects of trees and forests as the first order of priority. For reasons of sustainability, carbon storage must remain a secondary, though valuable, by-product. The effects of tree cover on climate at local, regional and continental scales offer benefits that demand wider recognition. The forest- and tree-centered research insights we review and analyze provide a knowledge-base for improving plans, policies and actions. Our understanding of how trees and forests influence water, energy and carbon cycles has important implications, both for the structure of planning, management and governance institutions, as well as for how trees and forests might be used to improve sustainability, adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Graphical abstract

Effects of forests on water and climate at local, regional and continental scales through change in water and energy cycles. (1) Precipitation is recycled by forests and other forms of vegetation and transported across terrestrial surfaces to the other end of continents. (2) Upward fluxes of moisture, volatile organic compounds and microbes from plant surfaces (yellow dots) create precipitation triggers. (3) Forest-driven air pressure patterns may transport atmospheric moisture toward continental interiors. (4) Water fluxes cool temperatures and produce clouds that deflect additional radiation from terrestrial surfaces. (5) Fog and cloud interception by trees draws additional moisture out of the atmosphere. (6) Infiltration and groundwater recharge can be facilitated by trees. (7) All of the above processes naturally disperse water, thereby moderating floods.

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Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world

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We review the advantages of forests highlighted in the literature on forest, water and energy cycle interactions. * Forest, water and energy cycle interactions provide the foundation for achieving forest-based adaptation and mitigation goals. * Forests can be used, in particular, to mitigate problems related to water scarcity and global warming.

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Simple explanation

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Yes, it's true. Trees make rain!

Scientists have evidence supporting the widespread perception that vegetation is an important factor in rainfall patterns.[1]

Plants release microbes and other microparticles, enabling water to condense and form clouds.

Vegetation stores water and increases water infiltration and storage in soil. With less runoff, more water is kept in our catchments for evaporation from the soil, leaf surfaces, and transpiration of water by plants. Cloud cover increases, boosting rainfall and reducing temperatures.[2]

On average, 40% or more of the precipitation over land originates from evaporation and transpiration.[4]

When forests are replaced by pasture or crops, less water is evaporated from soil and vegetation, suppressing precipitation.[5] Large-scale deforestation reduces rainfall in some areas by up to 30%.

When we grow more vegetation over large areas rainfall increases and transports moisture inland - the Biotic pump theory . Reliable rainfall in continental interiors of Africa, Australia and elsewhere, may, therefore, be dependent on "maintaining relatively intact and continuous forest cover from the coast".[6]

Here's some of the evidence

For more than 60% of the tropical land surface, the air that has passed over extensive vegetation in the preceding few days produces at least twice as much rain as air that has passed over little vegetation.[7]

In southwest Australia, more rain used to fall on the western side of a 750 km long fence built to exclude rabbits. Today the land on the eastern side of the barrier gets higher rainfall than the west side. The reason - on the west side, most of the vegetation has been cleared for arable cropping.[8]

The effects of deforestation on rainfall[10]

If you're asking yourself - "what's the best thing I can do to drought-proof my property?" - you'll get the answers in the Drought-proof your farm .

Digging dams, bores and putting in new water points? Using planned de-stocking and rotational grazing practices? Mulch, water-smart irrigation technology, and seasonal cropping in horticulture and arable production? Engineering solutions like swales, keylines, and Natural Sequence Farming?

They all help.

There is, however, a remarkably simple solution that tends to get overlooked.

That gets the rain in your rain gauge infiltrating and stored in your soil, rather than running off and is cheap to implement right across your farm - improving your water cycle.

>>Discover how to use this eco-logical approach to drought-proof your farm.

References

[1] Shukla, J and Mintz, Y, 1982. Influence of Land-Surface Evapotranspiration on the Earth's Climate Science19 Mar 1982 : 1498-1501. Vol. 215, Issue 4539, pp. 1498-1501
DOI: 10.1126/science.215.4539.1498 ( https://science.sciencemag.org/content/215/4539/1498)

[2] M. Kravcík et al., 2007, Water for the Recovery of the Climate - A New Water Paradigm. ( http://waterparadigm.org)

[3] Daisy Ouya, 2017, insights for a hot world: trees and forests recycle water. Agroforestry World, Feb 2017 ( http://blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2017/02/09/cool-insights-hot-world-trees-forests-recycle-water/)

[4] Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world. David Ellison, Cindy E. Morris,et al. 2017. Global Environmental Change 43 (2017) 51-61 ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378017300134)

[5] Spracklen, D., Arnold, S. & Taylor, C. 2012, Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests. Nature 489, 282-285 doi:10.1038/nature11390 ( https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11390)

[6] Makarieva, A. M. and Gorshkov, V. G. 2007. Biotic pump of atmospheric moisture as driver of the hydrological cycle on land. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1013-1033, 2007 ( https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1013/2007/)

[7] Spracklen, D., Arnold, S. & Taylor, C. 2012, Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests. Nature 489, 282-285 doi:10.1038/nature11390 ( https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11390)

[8] Nair et al-2011-Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres (1984-2012) The role of land-use change on the development and evolution of the west coast trough, convective clouds, and precipitation in southwest Australia ( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2010JD014950)

[9] Charles Massey - Farming in the Middle East and Australia: lessons about a brittle climate. ABC Saturday Extra ( https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgE7ZdmYZ6?play=true)
[10] Aragão, L. The rainforest's water pump. Nature 489, 217-218 (2012) (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11485)

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How trees make rain - Learning from Nature

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Yes, it's true. Trees make rain! Scientists have evidence supporting the widespread perception that vegetation is an important factor in rainfall patterns.[1] Plants release microbes and other microparticles, enabling water to condense and form clouds. Vegetation stores water and increases water infiltration and storage in soil.

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Suzanne Simard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Annie Proulx and others on the old growth forests of British Columbia

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Trees will save our planet | VPRO Documentary

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Industrial agriculture, drought and floods in the Slovak Republic and the remedies

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Going local: how to make a big difference in small ways

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Going local: how to make a big difference in small ways

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Energising grassroots activism and inspiring local conservation

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Confronted by climate breakdown, the extinction crisis and rising inequalities, it is easy to feel anxious and hopeless. I feel those things, but in recent months I've also been heartened by a surge of grassroots action, of diverse people responding in myriad ways to multiplying crises. To call it an ecosystem of resistance would be overly dramatic, but it is a flowering of good deeds and positive care for local neighbourhoods.

In my blue corner of conservative Norfolk, traditionally slow to adopt national trends, I've encountered all kinds of inspiring work. The Norwich Soup Movement is one of four women-led volunteer groups providing hot suppers for the homeless every day of the week. Eves Hill Veg Co is a community market garden (again women-led), which trains people in horticulture and grows healthy fruit and veg for local people. Dandelion Education is an outdoor nursery and forest school with an enlightened focus on improving youth mental health, run by two brilliant former teachers. The Felbeck Trust is one of scores of new micro-local conservation groups seeking to restore wildlife.

This explosion of local kindness is clearly a response to a need and a failure - of political institutions and mainstream charities to provide the basic building blocks of a good life. But does it have theoretical underpinnings? Are there books inspiring this new localism?

Hannah Claxton, who quit her glamorous job in Damon Albarn's management team to set up Eves Hill Veg Co - on land donated by a local farmer - cites Raj Patel's book about the "world food system", Stuffed and Starved, as a "massive influence" on her community garden. It is "the book I recommend to anyone trying to join up the dots about changing the way our food is grown and sold", she says. Claxton's project is also shaped by Vandana Shiva's work in India and her books, such as Soil Not Oil, which demonstrate the importance of women working together. "Other books have described these ideas well," Claxton says; "but those two stand out as making me believe: 'Yes, this is what I need to do.'"

Claxton is in the vanguard of a market garden renaissance that is one response to the realisation that carbon-intensive industrial food production is bad for both consumers and producers. Another radical change is stirring larger landowners. The intensively farmed British countryside is set to be transformed more drastically than at any time since the 1970s: Brexit and the slashing of agricultural subsidies could bankrupt many farms.

In Norfolk, two estates, Ken Hill and Somerleyton, are rewilding significant tracts of their land. They have been influenced by the unlikely 2018 bestseller by Isabella Tree. Few expected the story of a wealthy couple who inherited a 3,500-acre estate in Sussex to be the biggest nature writing success of the past 18 months, but Wilding has sold more than 150,000 copies and spawned a movement.

"I've been completely amazed," Tree says from her study at Knepp, the farm that she and her husband, Charlie Burrell, have radically transformed. "If I'd published this book six years ago, I don't think it would have done anything. It just hit the moment."

Wilding tells of the collapse of their conventional mixed dairy farm, and how they auctioned off their farm machinery, rewilded their land and accidentally discovered a new model of farming. Nineteen years on, Knepp is challenging concepts from three millennia of farming such as "hedgerow", "field" and "weed", as well as conservation orthodoxies that we must "manage" land to help certain species. It is a profitable farm that also features an abundance of wildlife, including new (returned) species such as storks and beavers and rarities that are vanishing from everywhere else - from turtle doves to nightingales.

Tree is now inundated with requests for help and talks. Knepp hosted 2,000 people on special "safaris" in 2017; this year it will host 6,000; 31 farmers from the area around Knepp have signed up to join a neighbourhood "cluster group" to improve the wider landscape for nature. "The loveliest thing is that they are all responding to that message of hope. There's so much eco-gloom out there, the feeling that we can actually turn things around is what people are grabbing on to ... Great white egret flying over!" Tree interrupts herself, as she spots one of Knepp's latest exciting arrivals.

The first question she is always asked is a practical one: how can I rewild my land/garden/backyard? Tree thinks wilding can occur in tiny settings with the right interventions, and recommends Dave Goulson's The Jungle Garden. She is now writing The Wilding Handbook to provide practical advice for everyone from big landowners to window-box owners.

Nature writer Mark Cocker believes that Tree has started a movement. "Grassroots activism is breaking out beyond the confines of the establishment and it's possible that Wilding is the one book that has catalysed it." His own book, Our Place, published in 2018, tells the history of British conservation in the 20th century and ends with a powerful list of hard truths that society must confront if nature's decline is to be reversed.

Cocker is interested in what the plethora of new micro-local conservation groups reveals about mainstream conservation charities, many of which he thinks are now "irrelevant" to ordinary people who "actually want to be more emotionally identified with the action that takes place". Charities such as the National Trust and the RSPB are "trapped by the size of their membership", which makes them cautious. Even so, he believes they are still "very important because they are repositories for cumulative wisdom - they provide jobs and an outlet for members. They are channelling money in all the right directions but in terms of the needs of the moment, it's a 16-year-old girl sitting outside her school in Sweden who is making the weather."

Neighbourhood conservation efforts other than the remarkable rise of Extinction Rebellion are often driven by volunteers who Cocker believes aren't prepared to think globally or act "politically". "They are very happy to act locally, but they fall away the moment anyone makes noises beyond the parapet of their village boundaries," he says. Localism's big challenge is to unite and form part of a global effort, he argues. Cocker wants the vast but disparate British environmental movement to come together in a "council of nature", which could apply proper pressure to central government.

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Beavers are returning to English rivers. Photograph: Michael Symes/Devon Wildlife Trust/PA

For Rob Hopkins, the co-founder of the Transition Network, meaningful change is now most likely not at the centre but through local government. The Transition movement began in Hopkins's home town of Totnes, Devon, in 2006, when people began sharing ideas of how to move from a carbon-based economy to a healthier, more sustainable community. Community change often begins with food. "You don't need anyone's permission around food. It's not expensive. You just need people, tools and a deadline," Hopkins says. In Totnes, "it's been a fairly lonely furrow for a long time. Finally the surrounding world is starting to catch up a little bit." Now that 245 local authorities across the UK have declared a climate emergency, which requires tough new carbon-reduction targets, councils will require the practical ideas of the Transition movement.

When we are told we must cut carbon emissions by 80%, "Where's the story in that? Where's the 'I have a dream' in that? What would that smell like?" Hopkins asks. "What communities can do so powerfully is to tell stories." His new book, From What Is to What If, offers many inspiring stories of practical action, from the National Park City movement to the Bristol streets that have banned cars to allow children to play. Hopkins argues that we are "frogs in the boiling pan of imaginative decline" and we can and must leap free. As Paolo Lugari, the founder of a Colombian experiment in sustainable living, put it: "We are not confronting an energy crisis, but one of imagination and enthusiasm."

We are social creatures living in a time that is trying to stop us from being that

Rob Hopkins

In France, some local mayors have already instituted radical neighbourhood changes. The former mayor of impoverished Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk made all public transport free, created allotments around apartment blocks, and passed on to the poor savings made from converting to low-energy street lights. In Ungersheim in Alsace, the mayor Jean-Claud Mensch created a community solar farm, made all school food organic and created market gardens to grow that food. "This is a win- win-win-win-win," Hopkins says. "Why doesn't this happen everywhere? It's good for everything - physical and mental health, schooling, the local economy, the neighbourhood. There is so much waiting to happen, if you can just get beyond these 'yes, buts' all the time."

There are two obvious "yes, buts" about burgeoning localism. One is that if individuals devote all their energies to parochial concerns they won't bring about national or international political change. If we do good deeds in our market garden or forest school, we're not demanding systemic change: we're letting Boris Johnson's government get away with it. Another fear is that local action simply fulfils David Cameron's vision of a "big society", proving governments don't have to provide essential local services or even a safety net; instead we have the survival of the fittest communities.

Hopkins argues that people don't choose between community action or wider political activism. Lots of Transition Totnes folk have joined Extinction Rebellion; the energy, he says, flows back and forth. "We really resisted the 'big society' quite vehemently. We can't do business as usual and expect local people to run libraries. It's not about communities doing things that governments should be doing. Transition groups really change the narrative about what's possible, and do stuff governments could not do, wouldn't imagine doing, wouldn't dream of doing."

I have discovered through my own volunteering for a couple of forest schools that the best way to chase away anxiety and despair is to do something positive locally with other people - something that isn't driven by money. As Hopkins says: "I've never been anywhere where anybody has said: 'I was doing all right until I got involved in this Transition stuff,' or: 'I was doing all right until I learned to grow my own food.' We are social creatures living in a time that is trying to stop us from being that. There's something good for the heart about being involved in projects with other people."

* Patrick Barkham's Wild Child, about children, nature and volunteering in forest schools, will be published by Granta in May.
Topics

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Going local: how to make a big difference in small ways

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Confronted by climate breakdown, the extinction crisis and rising inequalities, it is easy to feel anxious and hopeless. I feel those things, but in recent months I've also been heartened by a surge of grassroots action, of diverse people responding in myriad ways to multiplying crises.

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Nina Simons of Bioneers on Leadership and Bringing Back the Feminine

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Nina Simons of Bioneers on Leadership and Bringing Back the Feminine

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Consciousness creates matter, language creates reality, ritual creates relationship.

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"One of the systems errors that we as humans tend to make, is to think that people who think like us are smart and people who don't think like us are not - and actually nature shows us over and over again that the most resilient ecosystems are the ones with the greatest diversity of species." ~ Nina Simons E81 - NINA SIMONS ON LEADERSHIP, DIVERSITY AND RESTORING THE FEMININE NATURE, CULTURE AND THE SACRED: LISTENING FOR LEADERSHIP Listen to the conversation: If you love the show, you can subscribe through iTunes, stitcher or spotify and listen offline on your favourite device (podcasts are great for long drives and commuting!) About this interview:

How can we restore the feminine within ourselves and society in order to lead from our hearts?
In this episode Amisha connects with award-winning social entrepreneur and visionary thinker Nina Simons. Nina is Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist of Bioneers, a nonprofit organisation that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet.

Nina speaks about what she has witnessed, experienced and learned over 30 years working with change-makers and activists. She shares how her understanding of leadership has shifted and evolved, and how we can cultivate in ourselves and our society the kind of leadership our times are calling for.

Nina believes we must reclaim the wholeness of our humanity - as social creatures who thrive in community - and let our guard down to feel. She speaks about learning to lead from the heart rather than the mind by decolonising our inner world, learning to value difference, feeling our communal challenges and prioritising the love that can carry us through them.

Nina speaks about her own process of emerging and awakening - peeling away layers of conditioning that came through systems of patriarchy, neoliberalism, capitalism and racism. She shares some of the practises, tools and ways of being that have supported her to do this, and some of the most formative and influential relationships and collaborations that have shaped her work and ways of being in the world.

Together Nina and Amisha discuss the importance of ritual, how to build, sustain and grow with relationship, and reclaiming the feminine in ourselves and in our cultures. They enquire into the nature of activism - how we can each find our individual assignment and role in these times, and what - if anything - is truly worth dying for.

"I aspire to live in a way that gives me a full toolkit, and access to an entire spectrum of my human capacities. If you imagine them as a spectrum of masculine to feminine, or feminine to masculine - I want to have access to everything I've got all the time. What better way to meet a time of challenge and turbulence than to have access to all of our human capacities?" ~ Nina Simons
Nina Simons is an award winning social entrepreneur and visionary thinker. In 1990, she co-founded Bioneers with her husband and partner, Kenny Ausubel. As cofounder, she created the Everywoman's Leadership program, and has helped to lead years of identifying, gathering and disseminating breakthrough innovations that reveal a positive and life-honoring future that's within our grasp, today. Nina's work currently focuses on writing and teaching about women, leadership, diversity, systems thinking and restoring the feminine in us all. She leads workshops, speaks widely, consults and hosts convenings that create the conditions for transformative awakenings. Nina edited the anthology, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, which contains 30 essays by over 40 contributors, who collectively help to redefine the leadership landscape. The book is being used by educators in college and graduate-school classrooms and has garnered passionate and positive reviews. Her new book is Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, which won two Nautilus Awards upon publication, one in the category of women, and the other in social justice. To find out more about Nina visit ninasimons.com To connect or work with Amisha, visit amisha.co.uk Links from this episode:
Nina's recent book - Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership
Amisha shaves her head for Womankind Worldwide Womankind Worldwide Destination Arts Deborah Eden Tull - Relational Mindfulness Rachel Bagby Dawna Markova Eve Ensler - The Apology Deena Metzger Extinction illness Tikkun Magazine Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Earth Guardians Greta Thunberg Drew Dellinger Join Presence Collective ** Creating The Future - Our ebook gift featuring wisdom and inspiration from the first 44 episodes of the podcast ** The Future Is Beautiful Patron Video Circle
The Future Is Beautiful book (gift)
Amisha's Presence Mentoring Programme Support this podcast: You can be part of the community that make this happen by supporting our show through Patreon in $, or direct through donorbox in £. (this podcast is about people not products, we are disrupting the current model and are an advertising free zone, powered by you). You can donate anything from £2 a month or make a one off donation. Thank you. Yes I want to be a Patron of The Future Is Beautiful Become A Patron
Love this? Take a moment to support The Future Is Beautiful on Patreon!

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The Future Is Beautiful - Think Act Vote

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E81 - Nina Simons on Leadership, Diversity and Restoring the Feminine // Nature, Culture and the Sacred: Listening for Leadership - The Future Is Beautiful

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"One of the systems errors that we as humans tend to make, is to think that people who think like us are smart and people who don't think like us are not - and actually nature shows us over and over again that the most resilient ecosystems are the ones with the greatest diversity of species."

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Martin Crawford's Agroforestry Research Trust

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Martin Crawford's Agroforestry Research Trust

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A forest garden with 500 edible plants could lead to a sustainable future

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A forest garden with 500 edible plants could lead to a sustainable future

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Martin Crawford's forest garden is abundant, diverse, edible, and might be one answer to the future of food systems.

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Local Communities Dismantling Corporate Rule

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Local Communities Dismantling Corporate Rule

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Paul Cienfuegos and the work of the CELDF

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Local Communities Dismantling Corporate Rule, part 1

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Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

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Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

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Join this list to support CELDF's ongoing efforts.

Aside from donating time or money, this is the #1 thing you can do to support CELDF. Sign up now!

News from the Grassroots

Progressives may find Democratic wins favorable. But as long as Dillon's Rule (legalized state preemption) stops local community self-government from heightening environmental and economic protections, no political party is going to help.

2019 has been a remarkable year for CELDF and our partner communities. Check out what we are celebrating!

The epic story of Grant Township, Pennsylvania, fighting for their community's water in the face of PGE's proposed fracking wastewater injection well.

LEBOR activists exchanged views with The Guardian on Rights of Nature and human rights. Here, they make clear the need to recognize that it is not nature's rights vs human rights, but those combined against corporate claimed rights.

Fight for a more democratic tomorrow, today.

Our democracy has been usurped by corporations. Please give today to help CELDF return the democratic process to the people. CELDF uses every dollar of your donation to fight for rights.

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Thank you for donating to CELDF!

Your generous donations are advancing the Community Rights and Rights of Nature movements! Our work is possible because of your support.

CELDF has helped communities to protect themselves from environmental, democratic, and other harms by securing rights since 1995.

Thank you for helping CELDF return the democratic process to the people!

Immerse yourself in the fundamentals of our current legal system.

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Water Protectors in Nottingham, NH

Nottingham, NH, residents have stood their ground to protect the Lamprey River Watershed, a water ecosystem supporting innumerable human and natural communities. They are up against water thieves - corporations taking their water against the will of the people.

For over a decade they have enforced their Community Bill of Rights banning corporate water withdrawals. CELDF stands with them.

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Lincoln Co, OR, Residents & the Siletz River Challenge the Timber Industry

For decades, Lincoln County, OR, residents and surrounding ecosystems have been subjected to toxic aerially spraying of pesticides by the timber industry.

Today, they've had enough. Working with CELDF, they are asserting the rights of the Siletz River, their own rights to clean air and pure water, and - together - they are challenging the timber industry.

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Grant Township, PA: A Stand to Protect Their Water & Their Community

For more than 3 years, Grant Township, PA, residents have been fighting PGE's proposed frack wastewater injection well. Now their own Department of Environmental Protection has turned on them as well. Grant residents are unwavering in their commitment to protect their community.

CELDF is standing with them.

Show Your Support

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CELDF | Community Rights Pioneers | Protecting Nature and Communities

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Join this list to support CELDF's ongoing efforts. Aside from donating time or money, this is the #1 thing you can do to support CELDF. Sign up now! Progressives may find Democratic wins favorable. But as long as Dillon's Rule (legalized state preemption) stops local community self-government from heightening environmental and economic protections, no political party is going to help.

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How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1%’

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How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1%’

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The non-violent transformation of Scandinavian society in the 1930s

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While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it's worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They "fired" the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn't find oil, but that didn't stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls "an enviable standard of living."

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that "accounted for" the differences I saw: "small country," "homogeneous," "a value consensus." I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.

Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn't expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral "democracy" was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.

In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people's movement because Norway's small population-about three million-was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the "country rubes," of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.

When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn't stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.

In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers' response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers' strike of 1923-24.

The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers-this in a country of only 3 million!

The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway's workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.

The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn't pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers' federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.

Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.

By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.

This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor's success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)

Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.

Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society's high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.

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How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the '1 Percent'

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While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it's worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle.

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Young indigenous activist decolonising environmentalism to save the planet

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Young indigenous activist decolonising environmentalism to save the planet

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Young Tasmanian marries indigenous knowledge and science in his activism

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Photography Jacob Collings
This article originally appeared on i-D AU.
Jamie Graham-Blair is a young and warm-hearted specialist in matters of science, Indigenous resistance and the spiritual world. Soon to graduate from University of Tasmania as a Marine and Antarctic scientist and working with NITA Education teaching people Aboriginal practices of sustainability, he is committed to protecting and healing country. "I've always wanted to learn the tools to help protect the environment," he tells us via facetime. "I don't know if it's because of my heritage or my upbringing, but since primary school I imagined a future where I went to university to study conservation." At 24, the trawlwoolway pakana from North East lutruwita (Tasmania) is doing what he's always envisioned.

Jamie's knowledge about environmental conservation is rooted in traditional Aboriginal practices and further informed by modern science. It's a well rounded approach that seeks to tackle sustainability from all angles. Through his advocacy Jamie is now asking Australia to listen to Indigenous people in order to survive the environmental and spiritual despair the world is currently facing. We spoke with Jamie about the limitations of Eurocentric universities, how Aboriginal people have always been the original scientists and how younger generations are the key to saving the future.

What's a major difference between the way Western countries and Indigenous cultures view conservatism ?
Studying environmental science within a Western institution means that the knowledge is very compartmentalised - they like to break things up into maths or physics, all these different little boxes. However, within my culture, conservation is incredibly holistic. I've grown up compartmentalising all these different knowledges - plant science is meant to be separate from geology - but really it's all one thing. I find that beautiful. When I started learning about my culture I realised that our dances speak of ecology, of community, of spirit, it's all connected. Learning that holistic approach helped me to understand the technical aspect of my degree better.

Did your university degree inform your own cultural background in any way?
I've been learning cultural knowledge my whole life but most intensively in the last three years. I've known my whole life that I was Aboriginal, but I didn't know what tribe I came from in lutruwita. Once I took part in a repatriation ceremony I started connecting to country more and was drawn deep into my culture and community. Even through my degree I felt my old people calling out to me, and my studies took on this new meaning because I understood my responsibility of taking care of the land better. When I realised that knowledge was helping me connect to my roots it helped me push forward. It was like a spark lit and all the pieces of the puzzle finally fit together. It felt like the ancestors were calling me to heal the land and help in a meaningful way.

Western cultures seem to assume that Indigenous cultural practices are not based on scientific knowledge.
It's painful and I feel sorry for people who don't understand our traditional knowledge. My ancestors were the OG scientists. Science is based on observations and questions - and then testing those questions to find answers. If my people didn't go through those processes, they wouldn't have been able to survive for as long as they did - and they didn't just survive, they thrived. We've lived here for millennia, through at least two different ice ages maybe more, so without being able to observe, question and then come up with answers, adapt and share, we wouldn't have come so far. We are the masters of sustainability and community.

Do you think science and spirituality go hand in hand?
Yes, one example is the smoking ceremonies. During these rituals Indigenous people in Australia - and all over the world - burn certain plants in order to cleanse and welcome you to their country. For a long time the scientific perspective on that was that it was all mumbo jumbo, but as science progressed, they realised that plants like the Eucalypt have strong antibacterial properties that are used in modern medicine today to disinfect. So when our people practice these methods for spiritual reasons like a welcome to the land or introducing you to their ancestors, that ritual is now partially understood by Western science. Smoking ceremonies literally cleanse your body - it's a medicinal smoke. Western science is slowly catching up to so many of our traditions and stories.

Research shows that Indigenous people worldwide have been practicing environmental sustainability within their spiritual traditions for centuries.
Our culture has always been about protecting country. We look after ourselves, our communities and the resources around us by looking after the land. For example, we've always known how and when to burn certain areas to help with regrowth and to reduce bushfires. We can tell simply by listening to country when she needs to be burnt. We burn it, open country up, and this helps other species thrive. One example is the Orange-bellied parrot, which migrates between Victoria and lutruwita every year. When it lands down here it nests in the gum trees and feeds on the button grass plains, but both of these plants need good fire to be healthy and grow. When [British fleets] rounded up our people and chucked us onto offshore islands in the Bass Strait, our country stopped getting that medicine - the good fire - that it needed and so did we. The forest started to encroach on all the grasslands, and the Orange-bellied parrot numbers started to decline. At the start of this year there were only 14 remaining. Only recently, conservation groups have realised what was going on and began talks of implementing burning regimes to increase the parrot's population. They realised the things we were doing for tens of thousands of years, needed to start again.

This shows how much Europe's invasion directly led to an ecocide.
Yes, that's just one example of how removing us and our knowledge from our land makes country suffer. It wasn't until non-Aboriginal people realised what was happening [to the Orange-bellied parrots] through their scientific processes that they truly understood that Aboriginal people were practicing burning traditions for specific environmental functions. These ceremonies and practices are good for country, the whole system, including ourselves. [Settlers] think of fire as a destructive and scary thing but within our culture it's as healing as water. The bush can't survive without fire, just as it can't survive without rain.

In recent years there's been massive generational changes and kids seem more political than ever. As someone who is often teaching kids, what changes have you noticed?
When my mother was in school, she was taught that Tasmanian Aboriginal people didn't exist. I was even taught that in school and I'm 24, you can imagine how conflicting that is. These myths are still perpetuated behind closed doors, but at least now we get to go to schools, teach about our culture, our shared history and they see we still exist and have a wealth of knowledge in connecting to and protecting our land. The majority of kids are so accepting it's heart-warming, the most common comments we get are, "Why haven't we been taught this earlier? Why is this not just part of our everyday lives?" They connect to the knowledge because it's a human thing to want to connect to nature. We can't truly disconnect ourselves from country because we are country.

Is your vision of Australia's future hopeful?
One of the most incredible things I've heard an older student say was, "Imagine where we could be as a nation, if instead of dispossessing the Aboriginal people, we learnt from them when we arrived." Imagine where this nation could be, if we had worked in parallel, if these two empires came together to inspire and create. I'm envisioning really healthy country, more connection and happier people. I don't think it's good to dwell on what could have been but I believe every day is a new opportunity to work towards that vision.

What's the best thing Australia can do to help curve environmental crisis?
Listen and support Indigenous voices on these issues - we know what we are talking about. For example, SEED mob are at the forefront of the climate justice movement here in Australia. We are calling for the banning of fracking in the Northern Territory, to stop Adani's mega mine and to help the Murray-Darling. Listen to us and take us seriously - we get ignored so often. A proud Butchella woman once said, "As climate change continues to make our country sick it's going to come to a point where everyone is going to need us, everyone is going to need our knowledge. I would like to ask people - why don't you start listening now?"
We acknowledge that we work on stolen land and pay our respects to First Nations elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded. This article originally appeared on i-D AU.

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meet the young indigenous activist decolonizing environmentalism to save the planet

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Photography Jacob Collings This article originally appeared on i-D AU. Jamie Graham-Blair is a young and warm-hearted specialist in matters of science, Indigenous resistance and the spiritual world. Soon to graduate from University of Tasmania as a Marine and Antarctic scientist and working with NITA Education teaching people Aboriginal practices of sustainability, he is committed to protecting and healing country.

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Geoff Lawton property design

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Food forests grown on treated sewage water in Egyptian desert

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Food forests grown on treated sewage water in Egyptian desert

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Sustainably managed commercial forests fed by wastewater near Ismailia

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Desertification, also known as desert-creep or desert-spread, is a process that has caused much concern over the last decade-and it's a major problem for the ancient land of Egypt, where 96% of the country's landmass is desert.

So why is it that-if you drove a car 10 miles west of the Suez Canal-you would see bountiful forests of eucalyptus, teak, and mahogany trees limned against the orange sand and blue sky of the Sahara?

Serapium Forest is the most prosperous of Egypt's 36 tracts of land that make up an ambitious program to combat desertification by creating sustainably managed commercial forests fed entirely by wastewater.

The 500-mile forest is only a short distance from the populous Egyptian city of Ismailia, inhabited by 400,000 people who produce millions of tons of sewage and sewage water every year.

RELATED: First Drone Project of Its Kind in Canada is Aiming to Plant 1 Billion Trees by 2028

Routed a dozen miles to the Serapium site, the sewage water arrives in massive microorganism-populated underground vats where oxygen is fed in to accelerate the bacterial purification process. A system of pipes then deposits the wastewater throughout the forest.

Since human wastewater is still rich in nitrogen and phosphorus even after being treated, it is effectively a MiracleGro formula provided free of charge by Ismailia's citizens. (Watch the encouraging video below.)

An Ambitious Effort

Recent efforts by Egyptian scientists have produced plenty of research suggesting that the wastewater potential for afforestation in the country could turn 1.6 million acres of desert into commercial forests that are arable and economically viable.

CHECK OUT: Man Succeeds Where Government Fails-He Planted a Forest in the Middle of a Cold Desert

The federal effort, called the National Program for the Safe Use of Treated Sewage Water for Afforestation is going a long way towards achieving the country's commendable ambitions voiced in the 1992 UN Rio conference on climate change-because so many trees can soak up hundreds of tons of CO2.

The research was supported by Forest Finance, a German forest investment company that has already established near-natural forests in Panama and Vietnam to aid those countries in economic development, CO2 absorption, and wildlife conservation.

Forest Finance wants to increase the number of species grown in Serapium by including a plantation on the site. That way, the biodiversity of the commercial forest would be able to support a greater array of life and species, and hopefully increase the profitability as well.

Green Walls

Although desertification is sometimes thought of as the swallowing of lands adjacent to deserts, it is actually a process whereby land that was once fertile or semi-arable becomes desert as a result of things like unsustainable agricultural practices, or long-lasting drought.

MORE: For First Time Ever, Scientists Identify How Many Trees to Plant and Where to Plant Them to Stop Climate Crisis

Africa's Great Green Wall project, a remarkable effort across more than 10 countries to build a giant patchwork wedge of vegetation to combat desertification in Africa's Sahel region-the band of semi-arid yet arable land south of the great Sahara-swaps the word desertification for land degradation.

Africa's Great Green Wall is a success that is also currently being matched by the Chinese, whose "Green Great Wall," is made in a similar way to Egypt's.

The African green wall has produced some staggeringly good figures along their stated goals of jobs created, carbon sequestered, land reclaimed, and food produced. It has established best practices for the combating of land degradation by ensuring that the "wall" is a mosaic of different families of plants and land use strategies, providing greater robustness and flexibility in the face of drought or fire.

Although the Serapium Forest suffers from the precarious circumstances derived from lack of funding and political stability, it's still growing-a 500-acre green wall to join the others in the world in fending off the sands of the world's deserts from spreading.

( WATCH the 2016 news coverage on Egypt's miracle forest below)
Plant Some Positivity By Sharing The Good News With Your Friends On Social Media...

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Scientists Use Recycled Sewage Water to Grow 500-Acre Forest in the Middle of Egyptian Desert

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Desertification, also known as desert-creep or desert-spread, is a process that has caused much concern over the last decade-and it's a major problem for the ancient land of Egypt, where 96% of the country's landmass is desert.

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Pre-Inca canal irrigation system revived

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Pre-Inca canal irrigation system revived

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Ancient water retention landscaping system revived to rehydrate landscape

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Pre-Inca Canal System Uses Hillsides as Sponges to Store Water - Eos

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To prepare for a drier future on Peru's western coast, researchers are turning to techniques of the past.

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Regenerative grazing on a Cumbrian hill farm

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Regenerative grazing on a Cumbrian hill farm

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Turning farming upside down

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Sam and Claire Beaumont are in the process of turning their Lake District hill farm on its head.

Theirs is a landscape dominated by sheep. But in October they sold their flock of Swaledale sheep, keeping only a handful and replacing the rest with a small herd of hardy Shorthorn cattle.

Where most upland farmers graze their stock on the rougher hill ground during the summer, and bring them in to lower-lying paddocks or barns during the winter, the couple's cows will spend their winter roaming the rugged fell pasture and sheltering in the woods above the farm.

Unlike all their farming neighbours, the Beaumonts will not make any hay or silage - growing grass and then drying or compacting it to feed the animals when fresh grass is in short supply.

And then there are the trees. Rejecting the widespread belief that woodland and livestock must not mix, the Beaumonts want to see many more trees on their land.

Even their cows don't graze in the familiar way. Over the summer, Sam has been using electric fencing to restrict the cows to a small sector of each field at a time. They graze intensely, deposit their manure and, every one to three days, are moved onto a fresh patch. This is called regenerative grazing (also known variously as "mob", "conservation", "holistic", "adaptive multi-paddock" grazing) and it is designed to mimic the way that, in intact ecosystems, predators keep large herbivores moving through the landscape.

"We're keen to demonstrate to other farmers in the Lake District that you can farm in a way that increases biodiversity and helps the soil," says Claire. Crucially, the Beaumonts hope to do this in a way that is also profitable: "We need to find a farming system that is not reliant on subsidies at all," says Sam.

***

Livestock farming in the UK is in a state of turmoil. Farmers, many of whom are already struggling to turn a profit, are facing a rising tide of anti-meat sentiment. They must also square up to the cold reality of Brexit - and the end of EU farm subsidies that will follow. But even more important is a growing global concern that mainstream farming practices are damaging the environment and exacerbating the climate crisis.

Decades of public subsidies that have incentivised the removal of "non-productive" features, including wetlands, waterways, hedges and woodlands, have removed natural reservoirs for greenhouse gases, destabilised soils and destroyed crucial wildlife habitats. Many farmers, even in the green hills of the Lake District, have also become increasingly reliant on expensive, carbon-intensive and often polluting inputs: processed animal feeds, artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Excessive use of synthetic fertiliser is also a major source of nitrous oxide, a long-lasting greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Then there is the inescapable reality that the flatulence of ruminant mammals, such as cows and sheep, is a significant source of methane, another gas with a more potent climate heating effect than carbon dioxide, at least in the short-term. Finally, there is the charge that overgrazing by sheep has turned great swathes of the UK uplands into a tree-less ecologically impoverished " green desert ".

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Many hill farmers rely heavily on EU subsidies for their survival

David Hall, the National Farmers' Union's (NFU) north-west regional director, who is also a sheep farmer, acknowledges that "historically, parts of the land have been pushed too hard", but explains there is a growing acceptance among upland farmers that they must find new ways to rise to the challenge of "optimising productivity and playing to the strengths of their land" while also nurturing "natural capital".

Looking ahead, UK livestock farmers face a stark choice. One option is to double down and intensify their methods to maximise the amount of food they can produce per hectare. The other is to de-intensify farming methods, cut costs and work to restore ecology and resilience, and rely on the market to reward them. That is the path the Beaumonts are pursuing.

The Beaumonts are not alone in reducing stocking densities and switching from sheep to cattle. Much of what this small but growing number of forward-thinking farmers and landowners scattered through the northern uplands are doing is, by their own admission, experimental. But these are experiments the farming community urgently needs.

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The Beaumonts sold their flock of Swaledale sheep and replaced them with Shorthorn cattle

A report published in November by the RSPB, National Trust and The Wildlife Trusts concluded that farming with lower stocking densities and less costly inputs could be more financially viable for hill farmers.

In announcing their ambition to make UK farming carbon neutral by 2040, the NFU tacitly admitted that the whole sector needs to be overhauled to play its part in addressing the climate emergency.

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got," says Hall. On balance, he is optimistic that real change is afoot. "We need the early adopters, the innovators and the thought leaders," he says, but as more farmers start to restructure their businesses, they need advocacy and support too.

***

Claire grew up on this farm, which sits above the idyllic north shore of Ullswater, before training as an engineer and moving to London to launch her career. During the decade she was there she met Sam, whose family run a sheep farm in Derbyshire. Then in 2017, Claire and Sam took the bold decision to move to the Lake District and steer the family farm in a new direction.

Back in the very early days of the project, Caroline Grindrod, a former hill farmer, who founded Wilderculture, an organisation working on rewilding and regenerative agriculture, came to visit the Beaumonts and look at their soil. She took a spade's-depth of turf and topsoil from the edge of one of the hay meadows. Beneath the closely sheep-cropped grass was a shallow layer of root, and below that sticky, clay-heavy earth.

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Claire grew up on the farm before leaving to train as an engineer. She moved back to the farm with Ben in 2017

She then hopped over the wall to the fringe of a wood that had not been grazed. The grass grew longer, but so too did the roots - dramatically so. And attached to the deep roots were crumbly aggregates of brown, well-aerated soil.

The field soil, already waterlogged, refused to absorb any more water. The wood-edge soil, although based on identical geology, absorbed water like a sponge: a graphic demonstration of the dramatic role healthy soils can play in preventing flooding, erosion and nutrient leaching by holding water on the land.

"The soil comes first," says Sam, explaining that bringing the farm's soil back to thriving health is their central ambition. Healthy soils don't just store water, they also lock down large amounts of greenhouse gases. Maintaining healthy soils is not just critical for food production and biodiversity, but also at the vanguard of the fight to tackle climate breakdown.

"Rest," says Sam, "is the most important tool in managing grassland." During the un-grazed weeks or months, advocates of regenerative grazing report that the grasses and other plants expand their root systems, lay down leaf litter, and encourage the growth of soil-forming bugs, worms and microorganisms, which all build fertility and accumulate carbon underground.

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Cattle grazing on the Beaumonts' farm

The degree to which soil can sequester carbon, and whether it can keep doing so in perpetuity, is the subject of rapidly advancing scientific research and increasingly rancorous debate, however.

A 2017 report challenged the bold claims made by some champions of regenerative grazing. One of its co-authors is Aberdeen University's Professor Pete Smith, who is also a senior author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Assessment Reports. Smith points to a widespread "misunderstanding between carbon stocks and carbon sinks".

As he explains it, grassland soils only sequester carbon actively when they are recovering from a state of serious degradation, or when converting from arable to pasture. Once grassland is in a mature state, which he says is the state of most of Britain's permanent pasture, "the carbon that comes in is equal to the carbon that's going out. So you've got a high carbon stock but a zero carbon sink." "As a climate change solution it doesn't make sense," he concludes.

Grindrod points to relatively new research describing pathways thought to fix carbon at greater depths, via the association between plant roots and microbes and mycorrhizal fungi, a process called rhizodeposition. Smith acknowledges that it's a plausible mechanism, but says there is still little or no evidence that it is a major soil-building mechanism in the UK. So, "if you're going to be claiming a carbon credit for it, the burden of proof is really to show that it's happening".

Nor does Smith have much time for the proposed reappraisal of the climatic effect of methane, based on the fact that it is a relatively short-lived greenhouse gas. In his view, methane's strong warming effect over a short lifetime should be "all the more reason to put a lot of effort into reducing that [gas] now", in order to reach fast-approaching targets for net zero.

As Smith acknowledges, the greenhouse gas budget of livestock farms could shift dramatically, once increased tree cover becomes part of the plan.

Despite being the dominant mode of farming for many thousands of years, silvopasture, the practice of integrating livestock with woodland, is something of a forgotten art in the UK.

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Cattle will spend winter roaming the rugged fell pasture and sheltering in the woods above the farm

The upper part of the Beaumonts' farm is soggy underfoot and dominated by a monotonous sea of unpalatable soft rush and rank purple moor-grass. The Beaumonts want to turn it into wood pasture.

As well as providing much-needed winter cover for their cows, the Beaumonts explain that trees improve soil by aerating it and making available nutrients and minerals from deep below the surface. The NFU's Hall is also supportive, pointing to the positive role trees play in flood management. He hopes more farmers will come to see them "as a benefit rather than a hindrance to their stock".

Combining grazing with significant new tree growth is the clearest path towards reducing the climate impact of cows and sheep. As Smith explains, each tree can sequester around 300 tonnes of carbon as it grows to maturity. Moreover, Project Drawdown, a climate change mitigation initiative, identified silvopasture as one of the top 10 solutions to climate change. By their calculations, it is not far behind the deployment of solar farms.

Some will always argue that if restoring biodiversity, managing water and locking down carbon are our priorities, we should remove large herbivores from the uplands altogether. Grindrod disagrees emphatically. "Fencing off and planting trees isn't really rewilding, and it certainly isn't functional ecosystem restoration," she says.

Citing the work of Dutch ecologist Frans Vera, Grindrod points out that, before humans made a substantial impact, this part of the world was not exclusively forested. Mixed woodland would have been interspersed by grassy meadows, clearings and scrub. Large herbivores played a crucial role in maintaining these rich and diverse ecosystems. "A woodland without livestock is not a truly functional ecosystem" she says. The Beaumonts want to see their cows recycling nutrients, sp

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Ben Martynoga, photography by Anthony Cullen

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Turning farming upside down: mob grazing on a Cumbrian hill farm

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Sam and Claire Beaumont are in the process of turning their Lake District hill farm on its head. Theirs is a landscape dominated by sheep. But in October they sold their flock of Swaledale sheep, keeping only a handful and replacing the rest with a small herd of hardy Shorthorn cattle.

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Controlled burns destroy ecosystems and may not reduce fire risk

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Controlled burns destroy ecosystems and may not reduce fire risk

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As fires rage across five Australian states, well ahead of the expected bushfire season, debate rages about our fire management of forests

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As fires rage across five Australian states, well ahead of the expected bushfire season, debate rages about our fire management of forests. Some call for more controlled burning during cooler months, thinking this will decrease the rate of uncontrolled fires. But biologist Kinsley Dixon explains, so-called prescribed burning, produces a more flammable system in the first years after a fire. And he says there are devastating effects on the natural ecology. He says whereas some forests may experience a natural fire every 80 years, there is no chance for the ecosystem to re-establish when that frequency becomes a prescribed burn every five years.

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Controlled burns destroy ecosystems and may not reduce fire risk

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As fires rage across five Australian states, well ahead of the expected bushfire season, debate rages about our fire management of forests. Some call for more controlled burning during cooler months, thinking this will decrease the rate of uncontrolled fires. But biologist Kinsley Dixon explains, so-called prescribed burning, produces a more flammable system in the first years after a fire.

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Jadav Payeng's single-handed planting of a 550+ hectare forest on Majuli Island, Brahmaputra delta.

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Hugh Wilson's 30-year mission to regenerate native forest on the Banks Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand

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Man Spends 30 Years Turning Degraded Land into Massive Forest – Fools & Dreamers (Full Documentary)

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Beyond agriculture. Living as Nature

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A breathtaking journey through Japan, Korea, and the United States
that turns our perceptions of food and life upside down
in an amazingly simple and poetic way.

Solutions for our most pressing global issues come from unexpected places in a film that New York Times bestselling author Alicia Bay Laurel calls "beautiful ... both art and documentary."

Inspired by the works of Masanobu Fukuoka, author of the seminal environmental book The One Straw Revolution, the film weaves together meditative landscapes, an eclectic original soundtrack, and inspiring stories from some of the world's foremost figures in the natural farming movement. Together they give modern-day relevance to age-old ideas about food, environmentalism, and happiness.

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Starring: Yoshikazu Kawaguchi (Japan), Larry Korn (USA), Seong Hyun Choi (Korea)

Supporting Cast: Kristyn Leach, Etsuko Kagamiyama, Ryosok Hong, Maki Sobajima, Kenji Murakami, Yoshiki Yamamoto, Osamu Kita, Kazuaki Okitsu, Dennis Lee

Directors: Patrick M. Lydon, Suhee Kang

Studio: SocieCity Films
Associate Producer: Kaori Tsuji

Running Time: 74 minutes
Languages: English, Korean, Japanese

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You can purchase the film through our distributor, Gumroad with subtitles in the following languages: English // Japanese // Korean // Turkish

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2018 Update

In 2015-2016, the directors undertook a 110-date screening and event tour of Japan and Korea, to much acclaim. This work included the piloting of a community-based restaurant and garden project called REALtimeFOOD, which gained considerable attention and has since been replicated and produced by multiple community and nonprofit organizations.

The film's grassroots popularity doesn't seem to be slowing down. It's been translated into seven languages (English, Korean, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Chinese, Turkish, with others in progress) and continues to enjoy community screenings and events held regularly around the world.

In March 2018, the directors continue their work by opening The Branch, an environmental art and media lab and natural farm in Osaka, Japan that was inspired by the characters in the documentary film. They continue to work in collaboration with natural farmers around the world.
As always, 100% of the proceeds from this film go toward our current and future projects for fostering social and ecological well being. Four years in the making, the film's Co-Directors Patrick Lydon (Silicon Valley) and Suhee Kang (Seoul, Korea) walked away from their salaried jobs to further ways of thinking, working, and living that might enable humanity to thrive together with this earth, instead of working against it.
From our first meeting in South Korea in 2011, our similar interests in sustainability issues lead us to conduct a joint interview with a noted author and natural farmer in the Korean countryside. A short few days with Mr. Seong Hyun Choi showed us the beginnings of what was possible when the connection between humans and the environment are the basis for how we grow our food.

It quickly became clear to us however, that Mr. Choi's mindset was not really about how to grow food, it was about how to live on - and with - this earth.
We realized that this was not simply about a way of farming to sustain our environment, it was about a way of thinking and being to sustain and nurture all human relationships, ecological and social.
Shortly after departing from Mr. Choi's small, mist-covered mountain farm, we began seeing examples everywhere, of how such a connected mindset could transform the way we live, both on and off the farm. It rocked our perception of the world so deeply that we dove in, spending the next three years researching, working, and filming on these kinds of farms all over Korea, Japan, and the United States.

To us, this is more than just a documentary film. In addition to our filming, we have reached out, to create cross-discipline community events, we've used art and ecology together as a bridge for understanding and connecting, and we have conducted large amounts of research, not only in libraries and academic centers, but firsthand, person-to-person, both within some of the largest cities, and smallest communities in the world.

It's hard for some to comprehend that the Final Straw film and events have thus far been created on a shoestring budget by two people with a camera and determination... and then you realize that it took directors Patrick Lydon and Suhee Kang four years, their entire life savings, and the help of a global cast of volunteer translators, coordinators, and musicians to get it done. It's not always been easy, but in truth, it's been like riding on a wave; an inspiring path filled with support from others, and with so much excitement for these ideas and how they can move us towards a truly equal and sustainable society.

We're still at the very beginning of what we can (and need to) accomplish too, we're hopeful that you'll join us for the journey!

About Patrick M. Lydon

Patrick is an internationally exhibited artist and writer working across multiple disciplines to ignite unconventional dialogues on humanity's relationship with the natural world. He has lead projects involving diverse casts of people; from farmers, to city planners, to artists, rural and urban community organizations, and educational institutions. In addition, he is the founding editor of SocieCity collective, and the arts and events editor for The Nature of Cities. Patrick holds an MFA with distinction from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and previously studied at San Jose State University (USA) and Aichi University of the Arts (Japan).

More at:
www.pmlydon.com & www.sociecity.org

About Suhee Kang

Suhee is a photographer and social and ecological activist. She has worked as an Editor of books on ecology and sociology topics, and has served as a volunteer for many like-minded organizations including the 'Dumulmeori' organic farming struggle, and 'Rogpa' organization for Tibetan refugees. Suhee has traveled throughout the Middle-East, Europe and Asia to engage with the traditional way of living, for which she won the grand prize in the traveling photography contest by Istanbul Cultural Center. Solo and group shows of Suhee's work have taken place in Seoul, Kwangju, and Yangpyeong. Suhee graduated from Sungkyunkwan University in 2007 with a degree in Journalism.

More at:
suheekang.tistory.com & vertciel.blog.me

Patrick and Suhee are currently on tour (August 2015 - July 2016) with the Final Straw. We are not only holding screenings of the film, but initiating community-based events using art, food, and the teachings of these natural farmers.

To arrange an event or screening with us, please contact:

Kaori Tsuji (Japan)
kaori@finalstraw.org

Suhee Kang (Korea)
suhee@finalstraw.org | (+82) 010-4462-3688

Patrick Lydon (North America and elsewhere)
patrick@finalstraw.org | (+1) 415-347-1981

Firstly, it's important to point out that natural farming is not a farming method, but a mindset; it is way of thinking about our relationship with nature and this environment we live in. Natural farming can generally be thought of as 'farming with nature' as opposed to our current farming industry's way of 'fighting nature' or 'farming against nature'.

In Japan, the modern version of this way of farming was developed in middle of the 20th century by Masanobu Fukuoka. Yet, it's not so much of an 'invention' as it is a re-discovery of our human ability to connect in a deep and meaningful way with the earth. Similar movements in agriculture (and in all other aspects of human life) have happened not only in Japan, but in every corner of this earth over thousands of years of human history.

As opposed to our standard top-down view of agricultural production, natural farming is a horizontal system, placing humans and nature on equal footing. That is to say, neither humans nor plants nor animals are higher or lower than one another in terms of importance/value, as we are all part of a system which must work together in order to thrive. This view allows us to be thankful and respectful in ways which are similar to those of the native North Americans, or other native peoples who lived with the land as a partner.

Natural farming then, asks us to cultivate a working relationship with nature.

This way of producing food is "regenerative," which is to say it helps the immediate and surrounding environment become enriched instead of depleted. It's worth noting that no form of industrial agriculture, even organic agriculture, can claim to be 'sustainable' in this sense.

Natural farming is an amazingly ecologically beneficial way of farming. A recent study by Rodale Institute showed that if natural farming were implemented on a global scale, could "sequester more than 100% of current [global] annual CO2 emissions".

Natural farming depends distinctly on cultivating a relationship with your individual plot of land, and using this relationship to inform how you grow food. In this respect, natural farming is more a 'way of seeing' nature, rather than a 'method of farming' however, natural farmer, Yoshikazu Kawaguchi gives some main "ideas" to be mindful of:

1. There is no need to till the soil
2. Bugs and weeds are not your enemies
3. There is no need to make prepared compost
4. Do not bring any inputs from outside the farm (eg: pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer)
5. Respond to nature, weather, and the specific conditions of your location

Again, these are Kawaguchi's thoughts, and they are based on his relationship with the land, but they are not a "natural farming" bible. In fact, there is no such thing.

We must allow ourselves to come into a working relationship with our land, and to have a respect for the land and for other people, and from this working relationship we can develop our own way of natural farming. Natural farming is indeed inside each of us, we must only remember how to listen.

What About Feeding the World?

The Myth that We Need Industrial Agriculture has been debunked, and the only ones who are holding onto this myth, are the industry giants who helped create it - as well as the mainstream media who rely on the industry for funding. This partially explains why most people seem to think we need industrial agriculture.

In reality, natural farming can be far more productive than even the most productive conventional (GMO based) farm, but real sustainability on this level requires real investment, not in a monetary sense, but investing the time to know the natural world around you.

This 'way of seeing nature' which natural farming suggests, is also a way to help everyday people live more happily, peacefully, and sustainable, no matter what we choose to do for a living.

It sounds absurd, yet once you've physically experienced both methods of farming, it becomes clear that methods such as permaculture, biodynamic, and natural farming are the only way we can possibly sustain and feed humanity into the future. For the interested - or skeptical - there is a lot to learn and importantly, to experience. For a starting point, see the Study Materials section of this website, where we put together several resources that outline our ecological issues and solutions.

More Learning

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A breathtaking journey through Japan, Korea, and the United States that turns our perceptions of food and life upside down in an amazingly simple and poetic way. Solutions for our most pressing global issues come from unexpected places in a film that New York Times bestselling author Alicia Bay Laurel calls "beautiful ...

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Video documentary assessment of land availability across Europe

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The Land for Our Food from Access to Land Network on Vimeo.

The Land for our Food is a documentary movie produced by the Access to Land network and directed by Julio Molina. The video takes us on the journey of Gavin Bridger, a grower from the Community Supported Agriculture project of Farnham Local Food in England, through various European countries in his quest of accessing land for agroecological farming. The Farnham community food project is actually in search of land and Gavin discovers that this is by far an isolated problem! All over Europe the difficulty to find suitable and affordable land is posing a great barrier to the development of sustainable and often small-scale agriculture. His mentor, Rachel Harries from the Soil Association, links Gavin up to the Access to Land network and the journey is on its way.

This road-movie documentary gives us insights into the contexts and approaches of civil society initiatives from various countries in Europe regarding access to land: England, France, Spain, Italy and Romania. Gavin meets some of the initiatives from the Access to Land network, and also meets farmers and journalist George Monbiot to better understand the scope and historical roots of access to land issues. This documentary provides a very concrete introduction to access to land issues in Europe and captures a range of practical experiences in a unique way!

Language versions:

Practical informations:

Duration: 34 minutes
Original language: English
Sub-titled versions: in French, Romanian, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Czech and German.
Distributed under Creative Commons Licence Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 2.0

How to view and share the film?
Feel free to view, screen and share the movie as much as you want!

View the movie on-line - in English (above), French, Romanian, German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and Czech.
Download the movie on vimeo (click on the video above) to share it, organise a public screening or view it off-line.
Share your thoughts on twitter: #accesstoland and #landforourfood
Share on Facebook
Download our background materials to present the movie around you or announce a public screening:

Film Overview

Pictures and quotes from the movie

Land for our Food Poster (A4/A3)

View here the list of upcoming public screenings. If you are organising a public screening, please tell us about it here so that we can know about it and share it more broadly!

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We are happy to present you our film: The Land for our Food! This 34min road movie follows Gavin Bridger, a young UK farmer from a community supported agriculture project, after his farm has been ordered to leave their land.

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Global agricultural crisis and holistic management

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Global agricultural crisis and holistic management

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Allan Savory, speaks to a crowd of 200 at an event sponsored by Harvard Food and Law Society

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Allan Savory Presenting at Harvard Law School

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We must see them as one to fix the climate crisis

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Reconnecting with nature. Steve Carter/Unsplash, CC BY-SA

From transport and housing to food production and fashion, our civilisation is driving climate and ecological breakdown.

It's no coincidence that almost every single sector of industry is contributing to the planet's downfall, either. A deeper issue underlies each one's part in the malaise enveloping the planet's ecosystems - and its origins date back to long before the industrial revolution. To truly bring ourselves into harmony with the natural world, we must return to seeing humanity as part of it.

Though a varied and complex story, the widespread separation of humans from nature in Western culture can be traced to a few key historical developments, starting with the rise of Judeo-Christian values 2000 years ago. Prior to this point, belief systems with multiple gods and earth spirits, such as paganism, dominated. They generally considered the sacred to be found throughout nature, and humanity as thoroughly enmeshed within it.

When Judaism and Christianity rose to become the dominant religious force in Western society, their sole god - as well as sacredness and salvation - were re-positioned outside of nature. The Old Testament taught that God made humans in his own image and gave them dominion over the Earth.

As historian Lynn White famously argued, such values laid the foundations of modern anthropocentrism, a system of beliefs that frames humans as separate from and superior to the nonhuman world. Indeed, those who hold literal beliefs in the Bible tend to express significantly more concerns over how environmental degradation affects humans than animals.

In the early 17th century, French father of modern philosophy René Descartes framed the world as essentially split between the realm of mind and that of inert matter. As the only rational beings, Descartes saw humans as wholly separate from and superior to nature and nonhuman animals, who were considered mere mindless machines to be mastered and exploited at will. Descartes' work was hugely influential in shaping modern conceptions of science and human and animal identities in Western society.

White and philosopher Val Plumwood were among the first to suggest that it is these attitudes themselves that cause the world's environmental crises. For example, when we talk of "natural resources" and fish stocks", we are suggesting that the Earth's fabric holds no value apart from what it provides us. That leads us to exploit it recklessly.

According to Plumwood, the opposition between reason and nature also legitimised the subjugation of social groups who came to be closely associated with nature - women, the working class, the colonised, and the indigenous among them.

Life as entanglement

Scholars such as Timothy Morton and Bruno Latour remind us that viewing the natural world as separated from humans is not only ethically problematic but empirically false. Microorganisms in our gut aid digestion, while others compose part of our skin. Pollinators such as bees and wasps help produce the food we eat, while photosynthetic organisms such as trees and phytoplankton provide the oxygen that we need in order to live, in turn taking up the carbon dioxide we expel.

Read more: Nature is being renamed 'natural capital' - but is it really the planet that will profit?

In the Anthropocene, we are seeing more and more how the fates of humanity and nature are intertwined. Governments and corporations have developed such control over the natural systems they exploit that they are destabilising the fundamental chemistry of the global climate system. As a result, inhospitable heat, rising seas, and increasingly frequent and extreme weather events will render millions of humans and animals refugees.

Reconnecting the dots

The good news is that the perceived separation from nature is not universal among the planet's human inhabitants. Australian, Amerindian, and countless other indigenous belief systems often portray nonhumans as kin with intrinsic value to be respected, rather than external objects to be dominated or exploited.

Eastern philosophies and religions such as Zen Buddhism also entangle humanity and nature, emphasising that there is no such thing as an independent self and that all things depend on others for their existence and well-being. For example, strongly influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, Bhutan has enshrined ecological resilience into its constitution. Mandating that at least 60% of the nation remain forested, the country is one of just two in the world to absorb more carbon than it emits. It measures progress not by GDP but against a "gross national happiness" index, which prioritises human and ecological well-being over boundless economic growth.

Of course, entanglement with nature exists in the Western world too. But the global socioeconomic systems birthed by this region were founded on the exploitation of the natural world for profit. Transforming these entrenched ways of working is no easy feat.

It will take time, and education is key. Higher education textbooks and courses across disciplines consistently perpetuate destructive relationships with nature. These must be redesigned to steer those about to enter the world of work towards care for the environment.

Read more: A climate change curriculum to empower the climate strike generation

However, to bring about widespread fundamental change in worldviews, we need to start young. Practices such as nature journaling in early primary school - in which children record their experiences of the natural world in written and art form - can cultivate wonder at and connection to the natural world.

Schools should use every opportunity in the curriculum and playtime to tell children a new story of our place within the natural world. Economist and philosopher Charles Eisenstein calls for an overarching "Living Earth" narrative that views the earth not as a dead rock with resources to exploit, but as a living system whose health depends on the health of its organs and tissues - its wetlands, forests, seagrass, mangroves, fish, corals, and more.

According to this story, the decision of whether to fell a forest for cattle grazing is not merely weighed against carbon accounting - which allows us to offset the cost by installing solar panels - but against respect for the forest and its inhabitants.

Such a world might seem unthinkable. But if we use our imagination now, in a few decades we might find our grandchildren creating the story we want them to believe in.

This article is part of The Covering Climate Now series
This is a concerted effort among news organisations to put the climate crisis at the forefront of our coverage. This article is published under a Creative Commons license and can be reproduced for free - just hit the "Republish this article" button on the page to copy the full HTML coding. The Conversation also runs Imagine, a newsletter in which academics explore how the world can rise to the challenge of climate change. Sign up here.

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Humanity and nature are not separate - we must see them as one to fix the climate crisis

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From transport and housing to food production and fashion, our civilisation is driving climate and ecological breakdown. It's no coincidence that almost every single sector of industry is contributing to the planet's downfall, either. A deeper issue underlies each one's part in the malaise enveloping the planet's ecosystems - and its origins date back to long before the industrial revolution.

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Survey of various practices

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For regenerative agricultural practitioners

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A series of 10-to-15-minute, science-centered "PED Talks" on soil health has been posted on YouTube. Soil peds are aggregated particles of sand, silt, clay and organic matter. It will be of particular interest to regenerative agriculture practitioners.

Wayne Honeycutt, President and CEO of the Soil Health Institute (SHI), added, " Soil health is the powerhouse of sustainability and the foundation of regenerative agriculture. Healthy soil improves resiliency to flood and drought, filters our water, and is an important key to improving carbon storage. We're eager to share information with everyone who has an interest in soil health. "

Like their namesake, PED Talks combine soil-related topics including explanations of soil health, how we can improve it, and the progress that's being made to ensure we have the healthy soils necessary to feed, clothe and fuel the world in the future.

The inaugural PED Talks include a video introduction from NRCS Chief Matt Lohr and the following presentations:

Shannon Cappellazzi of SHI on "Soil Health Diagnosed as You've Never Heard Before";

Alex Fiock of SHP on "Focusing on Soil Health from the Ground Up";

Barry Fisher of the NRCS Soil Health Division and Betsy Bower of Ceres Solutions Cooperative presenting "Partnering to Enhance Soil Health"; and

Jane Hardisty, former NRCS Indiana State Conservationist on "You Are Changing the World!".

Lohr said, " People say that clean water is the key to life on the planet, but the very same thing can be said about healthy soil - it is literally the foundation to productive agriculture, balanced wildlife habitats, and an overall healthy environment for all. These PED Talks are not only useful for our nation's agricultural producers, but for our educators, policy makers and the general public. We all benefit from good soil health! "
Participating conservation-oriented organizations are also excited about the talks:
Mike Komp, Executive Director of CTIC, explained, " The PED Talks series brings context, insight and even humor to soil health and explains why healthy soil is so vital to feeding the world. Soil health is essential to keeping our agricultural lands productive and profitable, and we're thrilled to be partnering with such great organizations to help get the word out. "

SHP Senior Director John Mesko said, " Through strong outcome-based collaborations, we have seen greater awareness and adoption of soil health practices. SHP is proud to be part of the launch of the PED Talks to continue providing resources to farmers to ensure they have access to the best information to make the right decisions for their farm. "

Said Clare Lindahl, CEO of SWCS, " We see PED Talks as an opportunity for the nation's conservation professionals to share their stories about soil health. It is through these stories we can learn from one another's experiences and together advance the art and science of soil and water conservation. "

Three of the talks were recorded at this year's SWCS annual conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and one was recorded at SHI's annual meeting in Sacramento, California.

The PED Talks series was created by the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC), Soil Health Institute (SHI), Soil Health Partnership (SHP), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

The Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) serves as a clearinghouse of information on sustainable agricultural systems that are productive, profitable and preserve natural resources. CTIC brings together farmers, policy makers, regulators, academic researchers, agribusiness leaders, conservation group personnel, farm media and other interested stakeholders.

The Soil Health Institute is a non-profit whose mission is to safeguard and enhance the vitality and productivity of soil through scientific research and advancement. The Institute works with its many stakeholders to identify gaps in research and adoption; develop strategies, networks and funding to address those gaps; and ensure beneficial impact of those investments to agriculture, the environment and society.

The Soil Health Partnership is a farmer-led initiative that fosters transformation in agriculture through improved soil health. Administered by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the partnership has more than 220 working farms enrolled in 16 states. SHP's mission is to utilize science and data to partner with farmers who are adopting conservation agricultural practices that improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the farm. For more information, visit https://soilhealthpartnership.org.

The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.

The Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS) is the premier international organization for professionals who practice and advance the science and art of natural resource conservation.

NRCS provides farmers, ranchers and forest managers with free technical assistance, or advice, for their land. Common technical assistance includes: resource assessment, practice design and resource monitoring.

Bruce Knight, a former NRCS chief and a key collaborator on the series' development, said " These PED talks are engaging and interesting to a wide range of audiences, from farmers to consumers, conservation organization staffers and people throughout the food production and value chain, because soil health is a goal that unifies us all," Knight said. " They're entertaining, they're informative, and they deliver insight from some of the country's leaders in the science and practice of improving soil health. "

All the talks are available on a PED Talks YouTube channel. The partners plan to continue recording additional presentations and releasing them on the PED Talks channel, with a focus on the next generation of scientists and farmer/innovators.
Featured photo via Adobe Stock. See PED Talks YouTube channel.

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A new series of free, online videos teaches regenerative agriculture practitioners the science of rebuilding soil health

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A series of 10-to-15-minute, science-centered "PED Talks" on soil health has been posted on YouTube. Soil peds are aggregated particles of sand, silt, clay and organic matter. It will be of particular interest to regenerative agriculture practitioners. Wayne Honeycutt, President and CEO of the Soil Health Institute (SHI), added, " Soil health is the powerhouse of sustainability and the foundation of regenerative agriculture.

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Webinar with Eric Ohlsen

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Managing Fire in a Fire Ecology with Erik Ohlsen

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Darren Doherty, David Holmgren, Allan Savory, Art Ludwig, Brittany Cole Bush

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Managing landscape to live with fire

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Indigenous attitudes to fire management, using fire as part of the cycle of life. More at https://allpointsdesign.ca/facingfire/

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Facing Fire: Building Resiliency to Wildfire

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Leaving trees alone might be better than planting new ones

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Leaving trees alone might be better than planting new ones

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The most effective thing that we can do is to allow trees that are already planted, that are already growing.

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This was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

William Moomaw has had a distinguished career as a physical chemist and environmental scientist, helping found the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School and serving as lead author on five reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In recent years, Moomaw has turned his attention to working on natural solutions to climate change and has become a leading proponent of what he calls "proforestation" - leaving older and middle-aged forests intact because of their superior carbon-sequestration abilities.

While Moomaw lauds intensifying efforts to plant billions of young trees, he says that preserving existing mature forests will have an even more profound effect on slowing global warming in the coming decades, since immature trees sequester far less CO2 than older ones. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Moomaw explains the benefits of proforestation, discusses the policy changes that would lead to the preservation of existing forests, and sharply criticizes the recent trend of converting forests in the Southeastern U.S. to wood pellets that can be burned to produce electricity in Europe and elsewhere.

"The most effective thing that we can do is to allow trees that are already planted, that are already growing, to continue growing to reach their full ecological potential, to store carbon, and develop a forest that has its full complement of environmental services," said Moomaw. "Cutting trees to burn them is not a way to get there."
Q. How do you define proforestation?
A. So I began looking at some of the data and some of the papers that had come out recently, and I found that if we managed our forests and grasslands in a different way they could be sequestering twice as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they currently do. One paper found in multi-aged forests around the world of all types, that half of the carbon is stored in the largest one-percent diameter trees. So I began thinking about this, and I realized that the most effective thing that we can do is to allow trees that are already planted, that are already growing, to continue growing to reach their ecological potential, to store carbon, and develop a forest that has its full complement of environmental services.

We needed a name for that, so I began thinking about names. I actually sat down and went to Google and searched for prefixes, found a whole bunch of them, and the one that I settled on was 'pro.' Proforestation. It's not that we shouldn't do afforestation [planting new trees] and we shouldn't do reforestation. We should. But recognize that their contribution will be farther in the future, which is important. But in order to meet our climate goals, we have to have greater sequestration by natural systems now. So that entails protecting the carbon stocks that we already have in forests, or at least a large enough fraction of them that they matter. We have to protect wetlands, which are actually storing an amount of carbon in the United States that equals what's in our standing forests. We need to protect and improve the carbon sequestration by agricultural soils and grazing lands.

It's taken a very long time for people to focus on something besides reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And to recognize that even though we're putting almost 11 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, the increase is only 4.7 billion tons. So where is the rest going? It's going into plants on land and plants in the ocean. And the largest single place that's removing carbon dioxide [from the atmosphere] on an annual basis is forests. Even what we think of as mature forests are still accumulating carbon because carbon makes up about roughly half of the dry weight of wood, but it is also in the soils. Even older forests continue to accumulate carbon in the soils. In fact there are forests where there's more carbon in the soils than there is in the standing trees. As trees get older, they absorb more carbon every year, and because they are bigger they store more carbon.

We've seen a lot of interest lately in planting more trees. And planting trees is great and it makes us all feel good and it's a wonderful thing to do and we absolutely should be reforesting areas that have been cut. A recent paper talked about how we could plant more than a trillion trees on nearly a billion hectares of land and how much that would do to solve the problem. These are great things to do, but they will not make much of a difference in the next two or three decades because little trees just don't store much carbon. Letting existing natural forests grow is essential to any climate goal we have.
Q. In terms of CO2 emissions, we're putting 30 to 35 billion tons of CO2 from burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere every year, while at the same time there's this dramatic destruction of forests in the Amazon and in Southeast Asia. What we're looking at right now is really a perfect storm for soaring CO2 emissions.
A. That's right. But don't leave out the United States. The most disturbed forests in the world are in the United States, not the Amazon and not Indonesia. I don't wish to lessen the significance of the Amazon and Indonesia. But the loss of forest canopy is the greatest in the Southeastern United States of any place on the planet.
Q.Let's talk about what's happening in the Southeastern U.S. and the wood pellet and biomass-burning industry that is driving that deforestation and what can be done about it.
A. Well, a little over a decade ago, as a result of a rule change in the European Union, they declared bioenergy, like burning wood pellets, to basically be a carbon-neutral and renewable energy source. But bioenergy is more expensive than all the fossil fuels, more expensive than wind and solar, and the industry would not be economically viable without huge subsidies. So the EU, particularly the UK, is giving bioenergy huge subsidies. The U.K. has reduced their coal use a lot, but their emissions have not been reduced at the same rate as their coal reductions would indicate because a big part of their replacement is from burning wood in the form of wood pellets that primarily come from the Southeastern U.S. The largest coal plant [in the U.K.], Drax, has converted half of its units to burning wood pellets instead of coal. And there are a bunch of other power plants in the U.K. that are doing the same thing, and the same thing is happening on the continent. And they claim it's carbon-neutral.

The tragedy in the Southeastern U.S. [where large amounts of wood for biomass burning originates] is it's the most biodiversity-rich region in North America and has more species of animals and plants than anyplace else. That is being decimated. For pellets, wetland, hardwood forests are preferable to the pines and the pine plantations, which don't burn as hot, so those wetland hardwood forests are really being gone after. For a long time, the companies made the claim they were only using the residuals, the branches and so on. An NGO down there called Dogwood Alliance documented that that isn't true. They're converting whole trees [into pellets].
Q.What is the solution here, both in the U.S. and in Europe?
A. As you may recall, [former U.S. EPA administrator] Scott Pruitt made the declaration that all forest bioenergy was carbon-neutral. [U.S. Senator] Susan Collins of Maine actually introduced an amendment, which is still binding, that states that all federal agencies must consider all forest bioenergy from sustainably managed forests to be carbon-neutral. There have been lots of letters by scientists and statements that that is just false.

We'll continue to need and want forestry products - that's understood. But the attitude in much of the forestry industry is that all forests must be managed by principles that improve forests for timber production. But we have to recognize that there's a distinction between industrial production forests and natural forests, and we must make clear that natural forests are managed for biodiversity and the full set of ecosystem services that forests provide. And, by the way, which biodiversity are we shortest of? The biodiversity that's associated with older forests. We hardly have any older forests left in the Lower 48 states. It's in the small single digits of our original forests. The Forest Service says that less than 7 percent of U.S. forests are over 100 years old.
Q. Talk about the need to expand protections of forests that now have little or no protection.
A. Except for the designated federal wilderness areas and national forests, the rest of our forests are almost all devoted to timber production. And as you've seen, the Trump administration is now going after the roadless areas, as well. We need to have a conversation about which forests are most capable of sequestering carbon in the near term. And those are forests that are generally in the age range of 70 to 125 years - they are the ones that are going to add the most carbon in the coming decades. Unfortunately, 70 years, for many species, is the perfect size for the sawmill. So it is going to mean saying ,well, we're going to not cut these. This has to apply to federal and state forests. In Connecticut, there is not a single acre of state forest that is not subject to being cut.
Q. And this is New England, the legendary home of reforestation in the last century.
A. That's right. And that all happened by benign neglect, which worked out in our favor. The [U.S.] Forest Service has just moved into Massachusetts in an alliance with the state and is creating cooperative organizations that will lead to more cutting of this now very carbon-dense, rich forest that we have in this part of New England. The Department of Energy Resources in Massachusetts has put forth proposed changes and regulations that would increase the amount of forests that qualify for subsidies for bioenergy as a renewable resource, as an alternative energy resource. The outcry from the scientific community, the nonprofit community, and citizens has been enormous. There's pressure to build a wood-burning electric power generating station in a low-income neighborhood in Springfield, Massachusetts. And that's being pushed back against very hard by the public. But the governor and his team are pushing forward to make it happen, with more subsidies - subsidies that come from our electric bills. That subsidy doesn't go to solar panels, it goes to burning wood. We've got a real problem here.
Q. So what policies do you pursue to have a sustainable forest products industry?
A. I think what you do is you concentrate it on an appropriate set of lands. [Biologist] E.O. Wilson argues that we need "half earth" - that is, half the world needs to be left to nature in order to function. I suppose with one kidney and one lung, we can make it.

One policy that I would suggest is that with privately owned forests and relatively small forest plots, people be paid for the ecosystem services of storing carbon and promoting old-growth biodiversity and the resiliency to climate change that these forests provide. We need to compensate private land owners for leaving their forests standing. Not everybody will do it, but that might get us a mechanism where we get closer to our goal.

The other thing - and there's legislation proposed here in Massachusetts - is that there be no more timber harvesting on state forest lands. We now have a regulatory system that sets aside about 60 percent of forest lands as either parks or reserves. This would say that the remaining state woodlands would become reserves or parks and not harvested. Well, that would mean that 13 percent of the forests in Massachusetts would not be available for timber. The howling has been unbelievable - "This is the end of the world!" And yet, today, the regulatory system is not controlling this adequately at all.
Q. What about in the Southeastern U.S.? How do you slow down what's happening with the wood pellet industry?

A. The best thing of course would be to remove subsidies. That would end it.

The other thing is there's a social justice issue here. The plants that make the pellets are all being built in low-income, African American communities that have five times the asthma rate as the state of North Carolina as a whole. These plants produce a tremendous amount of dust and particulate matter. Some of these communities are beginning to fight back. There's a big push down there politically to deal with this. You know, it's really amazing how short-term economic interest can dominate social justice, climate outcomes, everything else. So I think one way is to fight fire with fire and turn the subsidies around. Get rid of the subsidies for bioenergy, begin to support the maintenance of existing forests for private landowners, and really change our policies on state and federal public lands.
Q. Is there any progress in Europe in terms of recognizing that this is not a carbon-neutral source of energy and should not be supported or subsidized?
A. Yes, there are efforts. There's an organization called Biofuelwatch in the U.K. They are an amazingly well-informed, spunky bunch of activists. The scientific community in Europe is beginning to shift its views on this. It turns out that almost two-thirds of all the renewables used in Europe are bioenergy.
Q. If we do a better job of protecting these older forests, what difference could it make in moderating temperature increases?
A. If we get to net-zero emissions by 2050 and we continue to reduce our emissions after that, and if we continue to increase the biological sequestration - the nature-based solutions as they're sometimes referred to - we would actually start reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 2050 and 2100. The more we can increase the sequestration rate and the faster we can reduce the emissions, the better off we'll be. But cutting trees to burn them is not a way to get there.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Leaving trees alone might be better than planting new ones

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This was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. William Moomaw has had a distinguished career as a physical chemist and environmental scientist, helping found the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School and serving as lead author on five reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Christine Jones and Elaine Ingham on soil regeneration

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Christine Jones and Elaine Ingham on soil regeneration

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Microbial life, liquid carbon pathway, biomass, ground cover, no till farming for carbon sequestration.

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Put carbon where it belongs… back in the soil

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Using polycultures, ground cover and animals to restore the living soil.

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Using polycultures, ground cover and animals to restore the living soil.

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And excellent article, an example of transition to agriculture that regenerates soil by the EU.

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Isabella, along with her husband, the environmentalist Charlie Burrell, are custodians of the 3,500 acre Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex. She's author of the acclaimed book Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm

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Isabella Tree @ 5x15 - How rewilding can save the environment

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Correlation between use of glyphosate to finish crops and cancer outbreak

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Farmer's Footprint | Regeneration : The Beginning

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This film series explores scientific findings from ZACH BUSH MD and soil health expert Dr. Allen Williams of Soil Health Consultants, LLC that identify the root cause of the current chronic disease epidemic and its connection to chemically dependent agricultural practices. 

This film features the trials, learnings and victories of the four generation Breitkreutz family from Stoney Creek Farm transitioning from conventional farming to regenerative agriculture in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Using conventional methods they saw their soils degrade and their input costs rise every year. Transitioning to regenerative practices has helped their row cropping operation and significantly reduced their input cost for their cattle. This film tells the story of how they did it.
More of our content and grassroots effort at https://farmersfootprint.us/

SUPPORT: https://farmersfootprint.us/

TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/311936042

DIRECTOR - Nicol Ragland
EXEC. PRODUCER - Dr Zach Bush 
POWERED BY - Seraphic Group

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The practical drawdown of 20 billion tonnes of carbon back into soils
annually, to rehydrate bio-systems and safely cool climates. By Walter Jehne, Healthy Soils Australia

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Forest Restoration Potential Global Maps

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Forest Restoration Potential Global Maps

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Crowther Labs

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Understanding and addressing global climate change and biodiversity loss requires an ecologically-informed knowledge of Earth system dynamics.

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Walter Jehne on strategies to restore ecosystems

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EU Agriculture Ministers: Agriculture can help increase soil carbon sequestration

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EU Agriculture Ministers: Agriculture can help increase soil carbon sequestration

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Supporting carbon sequestration through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy

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EU agriculture ministers convened for an informal meeting in Helsinki on Tuesday 24 September to discuss soil carbon sequestration as a climate action in agriculture. The discussion focused on supporting carbon sequestration through the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Jari Leppä chaired the meeting.

Funding needed to support actions

Soil carbon sequestration on agricultural land is one of the key means of mitigating climate change. Good farming techniques can help agricultural land absorb more carbon from the atmosphere, and these techniques can be supported through the CAP.

According to Minister Leppä, soil carbon sequestration makes farmers key providers of solutions.

"In addition to mitigating climate change, the accumulation of soil carbon improves soil structure and quality, which helps agriculture adapt to climate change. Soil that is in good condition is also more productive and brings economic benefits to farmers," Minister Leppä said.

The ministers heard the views of agricultural stakeholders and environmental organisations as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament on soil carbon sequestration and climate action in agriculture. According to the ministers, the CAP provides sufficient capacity to increase carbon sequestration, but funding for agricultural policy must be secured.

Several practical methods for carbon sequestration

The debate highlighted the need to consider local and regional special needs. Methods for measuring carbon must be improved, research must be increased and translated into practice, and the development of innovations must be supported. Grasslands, crop rotation, reduced tillage, direct sowing, afforestation and agroforestry were highlighted as concrete actions in a number of speeches.

"We should also remember that the primary task of farmers is to produce food. We need to find win-win solutions that benefit both farmers and nature in order to keep agriculture commercially viable," Minister Leppä said.

During the informal meeting, the ministers also had a chance to visit a dairy farm and a forest management site. Among other things, the visits presented good practices to promote animal health, Finnish food production and the role of grasslands in carbon sequestration.

The CAP reform is an opportunity for member states to support soil carbon sequestration and other environmental measures in agriculture through national support measures. In addition, the reform includes mandatory requirements for all member states to promote, for instance, good soil condition and the preservation of soil carbon stocks.

The Informal Meeting of Ministers for Agriculture was the last of the six informal meetings of ministers held in Helsinki during Finland's Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Inquiries

Ahti Hirvonen, Head of Unit, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, tel. +358 295 162 337
Satu Haapaniemi, Special Adviser to the Minister, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, tel. +358 504 005 193
Pekka Väisänen, Chief Communications Specialist, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, tel. +358 295 162 480 (interview requests)

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maatalous- ja kalastusneuvosto (eu) (p14095)

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EU agriculture ministers: agriculture can help increase soil carbon sequestration

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EU agriculture ministers convened for an informal meeting in Helsinki on Tuesday 24 September to discuss soil carbon sequestration as a climate action in agriculture. The discussion focused on supporting carbon sequestration through the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Jari Leppä chaired the meeting.

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An Interview with Paul Kingsnorth

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An Interview with Paul Kingsnorth

In this interview, writer Paul Kingsnorth discusses some of the central themes explored in his work. The conversation centers on the "myth of progress," the failure of technology to deliver the "good life," and how both have led us into the environmental crisis. He describes how old myths offer a way to be with the uncertainty embedded in our time, and how we can listen for new stories.

One of the dangerous things about the story of progress is that we don't think it's a story. We think it's the truth.

Transcript

Paul Kingsnorth

I mean, in one sense, everything we do is a story, everything we think is a story, and everything we tell ourself about the world is a story. Every culture has its own stories, which is why cultures end up being so different from each other. We tell ourselves a story about, for example, our relationship with the rest of nature. So, if you were to talk about modern Western society, you could say that the story that it tells itself about its relationship with the rest of life on Earth is that there is something out there called "nature" that is rather different from humans. We're either above it or we're separate from it, and we have a relationship with it really based on extraction.

One of any number of indigenous cultures around the world would tell a different relationship. A lot of those cultures don't have a word for nature because they don't see it as anything separate from themselves, which is true of most premodern cultures.

It's my feeling that we're living in an age of global crisis. It's more than a feeling-much of that is measurable. We know about climate change, we know about extinction, and we know about deforestation and all of the other horrors of what industrial society is doing to the Earth.

It's my suspicion that much of that has to do with having told ourselves the wrong stories about the relationship that humanity has with the rest of the Earth. If you are a society that tells itself a story that human beings are separate from the rest of nature-that human beings are really the center point and the centerpiece of the planet, that life is primarily measurable through economics and science-then you end up with a relationship with the rest of the Earth and with the rest of life where you see both largely as material goods to be exploited.

That's a story, and it's a damaging story. I think that the story of our separation from nature and our superiority to it is probably at the heart of the ecological crisis that we're unleashing on the world. The question that interests me at that point is: what stories could we tell instead that would give us a healthier relationship with the natural world?

PK

When we look at the ecological crisis, we tend to look at it through the lens of economics or politics or science or culture. So, we might say that the problem is that we're using the wrong technologies, that we're burning fossil fuels and putting gases up into the atmosphere, and that we need a different kind of energy source. We might say that we have political systems that don't work, as they are not allowing nations to cooperate with each other in a way that can protect the planet properly.

We might say that it's an economic problem. We might say, for example, that because we don't put a price on nature, that means that we don't value it properly, and that we could use economics to value the natural world properly. While all of that may be true, and all of those points are maybe worth making, I think that the deeper problem is a problem of relationship, which is maybe another way of talking about stories.

We have in our culture a particular relationship with the rest of life which, I think, is based on the notion that we're separate from it, and that we can either protect it or exploit it. That it's really something "out there" that is different from us. It's not something that we are equal to. That to me is a kind of human chauvinism, and that's an incorrect story. You can see it's an incorrect story by looking at the damage we're doing externally. You can also look inside yourself and ask yourself if that story seems satisfying to you on a spiritual level, which I don't think it does to a lot of people.

So, what story would you tell instead? How would you tell a story in which we were not separate from the rest of life, but connected to it? How could you tell that story in a way that has meaning for people? Can you do that in a society like this in which we are so disconnected in everyday life? I don't know. But that's the big question for me.

PK

Probably the central story of our culture-which I think has replaced a lot of the religious stories that used to be at the heart of our culture-is the story of progress.

What we say is: it is possible, through human ingenuity, to create a utopia. We have a story that tells us that human beings started as ignorant savages and are moving through a series of progressive steps, in which, at every point, they get cleverer, they get richer, they get smarter, they develop technologies which allow them to live longer, they learn more. Eventually, that ends with us probably leaving the planet and colonizing the stars, or living forever, or downloading our brains onto silicon chips. It's a kind of technological rapture that sees time in a linear fashion rather than in a cyclical fashion.

It sees an endless series of steps, every one of which improves things in the material sense from the one before. I don't think it's historically true. Actually, what happens is that things tend to rise and fall in cycles. But it has an enormously powerful grip on us, and it informs everything from our view of the past, which we increasingly believe was a savage place in which our lack of technology and science drove us to a sort of misery and poverty, to our view of the future, in which we assume that more technology and more scientific focus and more centralization will take us to a kind of paradise.

And so we have this story that we believe in which everything continues to get better every generation, and our job is to keep that process going. I think once you believe that, then you are stuck in a very linear narrative. You are unable to see, you are unable to learn much from the past on your own, and you are probably unable to learn much from the mistakes of the present as well.

PK

One of the dangerous things about the story of progress is that we don't think it's a story. We think it's the truth. We think it's real, rather than that it's simply an interpretation of the world which we have chosen to believe. I think that all of us believe it in some way because it's how we were brought up. It's just what we think is happening. In every generation, things are getting better and better through the use of technology and science. And so, if you can improve people's lives generation upon generation, then they can start to believe that that's an endless process that will go on forever.

But we're only managing to do that by stripping away the life support systems of the planet. And so, at some stage, you start to reach a reckoning. If we start getting two or three or even four degrees of climate change over the next century or so, then the material benefits, the short-term benefits that people are getting at the moment from that process, start to look pretty hollow. That's what's starting to happen now. We can see the ecological limits being hit, and we can see all sorts of pain and difficulty emerging from that. But it hasn't hit enough people in the wealthy world for that to be a process that really makes people think differently about this notion of progress and modernity.

PK

I think it is a big leap. I don't think it's a leap that you can consciously make. I don't think we are in a situation where we can sit down and say, "Right, we need a new story and a new way of seeing." People's worldviews and their stories and their myths develop out of their circumstances. That's true of any culture. From the smallest tribe to the biggest civilization, people develop a story that fits with their practical experience. While we're all still wealthy and sitting around having middle class lifestyles, the story of progress makes perfect sense. It will only change when those things fall away.

When we hit a wall and it's impossible to believe that this is working anymore, when things are getting considerably worse for most people, then we'll start thinking about the world differently. New things will emerge from that, but that's a long process. It's not something that can be consciously constructed. I think we are making a mistake if we think we can sit down and draw up some sort of monomyth or new way of seeing that everyone is supposed to buy into. We will believe what appears to be true. For some people in the world today, it appears to be true that things continually progress in a sort of upward direction. There are a lot of other people for whom it doesn't look true.

PK

Well, I think I can still do that in a way. It's what I do when I write, although I don't necessarily do it consciously. But the act of writing an essay, or the act of writing a novel, or the act of telling any kind of story are very small ways of telling different stories and challenging things. I think actually that that's what the work is-people doing things at really quite a small level-at a personal level-doing their small work.

I think that what I used to believe (arrogantly, probably)-that we could work together to create some grand new story for humanity-was just foolish. But that doesn't mean that lots and lots of small stories don't come together to form something bigger, which I think is probably how it always works. If enough people are questioning the way the world works and the values we have and the stories we tell ourselves, then what they will start to do instead will start to add up to something. This is really what we have been trying to do with the Dark Mountain Project for nearly ten years.

PK

It seems to me that a lot of the stories that we need are there already, and that what we're looking at here is not a process of creating a new story that we somehow all have to live by, but rather of paying attention to older ones that we've forgot. That might mean stories from indigenous cultures, it may mean fairy tales, it may mean old myths, it may mean stories in some of the old religious books. But a lot of the stories that we need, in terms of giving us an indication of how we can live well with the rest of the world, are probably out there already.

One of the problems in our culture is that we don't quite know how to hear these stories anymore. We tend to want to rationally analyze and imagine that we can intellectually grasp and understand every aspect of something that we hear in order for it to make sense, but that's not necessarily the case. A lot of the older stories and the myths work on you on a level that isn't necessarily rationally measurable, but you can still see what's going on. They come from a time when people were still living in a broadly oral culture and were hearing stories in a communal setting. These stories gave them a relationship between people and places and landscape.

[Stories] start to work on you, and they change the way that you see the world-that's been my experience of them-in a way that no amount of argument and no number of rational cases ever could. You start to see the kind of symbolism and the meaning beneath a lot of everyday stuff.

PK

In European fairy tales, very often the landscape is alive with magic and strangeness. There's another world that is in a constant relationship with the material world we live in. Most of that stuff in those fairy tales is treated very casually. An old woman will walk out of a tree and deliver a message to you, and there will be fairies and demons in the woods. People can talk to animals, and animals can talk to them. This is not necessarily meant to be taken literally, in the sense that you will walk into the woods and a deer will talk to you or offer you a secret. But there's this constant notion of an endless exchange in language between humans and the rest of nature, which you also find in many indigenous cultures, too: that you are just in a conversation with the rest of nature. Whereas, in our society, we're not in a conversation with the rest of nature. We have forgotten how to hear it. We don't talk to it: it's a resource. We either protect it or we exploit it. We don't really feel threatened by it; we don't feel we have to give much to it.

If you close that door between the human world and the other world-the world of humans and the world of the forest-if you put a great fence between the village and the forest, then you're in for some big trouble. Stories that can break that wall down or can open that door again-take us out into that strange, almost supernatural exchange between people and the rest of life-are stories that we need now. They are stories I have ended up writing in my fiction as well, not even necessarily intentionally. I find in the fiction that I write, the places, the landscape, and the natural world are as much characters as the humans. Often [these characters] have a voice and they're in an exchange with [the humans], which isn't always necessarily a pleasant exchange or a benevolent one.

But you're in a conversation with the landscape, in a conversation with the natural world and with other things. We just don't really know how to do that anymore. I think it's something we could be relearning, clumsily. I think it's what we need to fumble towards. How do we get that conversation going again? For me, that's the big question now.

PK

Sure, well, I mean, what if there's something we have forgotten? What if we've forgotten how to speak to and to listen to other things that live? I think it's a question of shutting our mouths for a while and being a bit humble and going outside and listening and learning again.

I think that one of the things we are really good at as a society is identifying a problem and proposing a solution to the problem, then going off and putting that [solution] into place. That's been our kind of special genius as modern humans, which is why we've got so much technology and so much power.

But we're very, very bad at listening to what everything else has to say. We don't really believe any of it is alive. I think that learning from old stories, listening to them, listening to storytellers, paying attention to indigenous ways of seeing, and just going out and listening and paying attention to things does start to subtly change your worldview. It certainly happened to me; and I couldn't point to any enormous instantaneous change that has happened to me, but certainly over the last ten years, this notion-that I don't really know everything and that I've got a lot to learn, rather than a lot to teach, and that there is a conversation I don't know how to have, that I'd like to learn how to have-has been a constant for me, and it's changed me subtly.

There's still a lot I'd like to do and a lot I'd like to learn, a lot I'd like to know. I think that's increasingly such an important task: just to learn how to listen, to relearn what we've forgotten. I don't think there is any easy sort of ABC curriculum for it. There's a lot of work you can do.

PK

I think that stories come from people connected to landscapes. Again, the old fairy tales and myths work because they are told by people who really have paid attention to the forest and the creatures in it. I just think it's very hard for us to listen. Last year I spent four days sitting in a wood with no food on a wilderness vigil-a rite of passage, if you like, a vision quest-in which you choose a spot to sit in, you make your little circle of fifty feet around you, and you don't move out of that for four days. You don't eat anything, you just drink. You just sit there and pay attention and see what happens, not necessarily with the expectation that anything spectacular will happen. It's very hard work, actually, to get yourself out of your head and your own expectations-to not get impatient, to want to do something, to want to walk off and do something productive. I think that's the society that we've found ourselves in. It's very hard to sit still and pay attention. But after about three days of being forced to do that, you do realize that it is possible, and you end up just sitting there and listening.

It's just a fascinating process. You notice the sounds of the forest in a way that you wouldn't have noticed them before. You notice the touch of the wind on your skin. You can hear music that you didn't think you could hear before. Your relationship with the land has deepened in a way that you can't quite put your finger on.

You start to see, even if you just do that for a few days, how somebody who'd grown up in a culture that just lived in a forest and relied on it for their lives would have a completely different relationship with that landscape. Totally different. Like I say, I think that process of relearning how to listen is so important. We're either going to do that successfully, or that's gonna be the end of this particular cultural experiment that humans are on. It's just not sustainable in any sense to be a culture that just takes, and just passes by and just walks through and doesn't listen.

You can't create stories unless you're listening to something. You can't create stories that have any meaning unless the rest of nature can speak to you in some way, or unless you can hear what it's got to say. Unless there's an exchange, you're just humans talking to other humans about humans in a human world. That's a broken world, actually. If it's just got people in it, if it's got nothing else, if there's no exchange with anything else outside our bubble, then we haven't got any story to tell that's real.

PK

Well, that's part of the crisis, isn't it-which is only going to get worse before it gets better. All I can say to that is that those people who are in a position to pay attention, to listen, to try and write or create new ways of seeing, have a responsibility to do that. They probably also have a responsibility to protect what remains of older societies of indigenous cultures, who are still endlessly suffering colonization, land theft, extinction, and annihilation. I do increasingly think that a lot of the really important work around the world is going on in indigenous cultures, and they continue to be pushed out and destroyed by settled cultures and city-based cultures. If we can't protect them and the stories that they carry and the knowledge that they have, then we're in some trouble.

I always come back to the same answer, which is that those of us who can do what we can should just do it without any expectation that it's going to lead to a quick world-changing solution, because I don't think it is. It's more a sense that-those of us who can, building refuges, protecting what we can protect, telling the stories we can tell, trying to look for truth-if that's what we're doing-and hoping that that can be passed down generations as things go on. It's a long process. I think Gary Snyder said something like "we're in a two-thousand-year or maybe even a five-thousand-year process of trying to live well on the Earth."

I don't think that this is something that we are going to turn around in a generation or two. I think it's just slow work, so we will just do what we can do.

PK

Increasingly, it seems to me that the kind of spiritual void, if you want to use that word, at the heart of our culture is the essential thing. If you don't hold anything sacred at all, if you don't believe as a society or as an individual that there is anything greater than you, whatever that thing is, then everything is about you. If you have a society that doesn't believe anything is greater than itself, then it becomes-what we've become I think-narcissistic and materialistic, really almost a society of what Buddhists would call "hungry ghosts," wandering around and eating the world.

I've written a little bit about this. I was always very struck with the meaning of the word "holy." It is an Old English word-the original word is hālig, which also meant whole, as in not separated, not divided. If you see the Earth as whole, you have a very different relationship to it than if you see the Earth as a collection of separate parts which you can use and manipulate. I think that we as a society don't hold anything sacred anymore, and, as you say, even using words like sacred or spiritual will invite derision in a lot of quarters. We've convinced ourselves that everything that matters can be measured.

I think that's the heart of the crisis that we have. The way that we react to a beautiful forest, or a sunset on a mountain, or a whale breaching in the ocean, the way that way we personally react to that is always hugely emotional. You know, you have a deep emotional connection to that, it stirs something in you. That's not something that can be put into words very often. It's very real, but because you can't put it into words or measure it, we treat it as if it isn't real. That old animal, emotional, spiritual connection to the natural world-we just pretend it isn't there anymore, or that it's just a kind of bit of fluff that doesn't really matter, but it does. I think it's the heart of things. If you don't acknowledge that sense of specialness, holiness, otherness, wonder, and beauty in the natural world, then you haven't got anything. You've lost one the most central parts of being human, and the stories you tell are always going to be empty.

Recalling a visit from a dark figure in a dream, who reappeared in his novel The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth reflects on writing as an alchemical process, one involving transformation, discipline, and purification.

Interviewee

Paul Kingsnorth

Paul Kingsnorth is a writer living in rural Ireland. In 2009, he created and launched Dark Mountain Project, a writers' and artists' movement designed to question the stories our culture is telling itself in a time of ecological and social unraveling. Paul has won various prizes for his poetry, including the 2012 Wenlock Prize. His first novel, and his most recent book, The Wake, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Gordon Burn Prize and the Bookseller Book of the Year Award. Paul's second novel, Beast, was shortlisted for the Encore Award for the best second novel. In 2017, Paul published his first collection of essays, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, Savage Gods, was released in June.

Interviewer

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee is a filmmaker and composer. His award-winning films have been featured on PBS, National Geographic, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic, exhibited at the Smithsonian, and screened at festivals worldwide. He is the executive editor of Emergence Magazine.

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The Myth of Progress - Interview with Paul Kingsnorth - Emergence Magazine

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In this interview, writer Paul Kingsnorth discusses some of the central themes explored in his work. The conversation centers on the "myth of progress," the failure of technology to deliver the "good life," and how both have lead us into the environmental crisis.

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The British farmers producing top quality food and taking on intensive farming – and veganism

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The British farmers producing top quality food and taking on intensive farming – and veganism

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New generation of farmers switching from commercial farming to Regenerative Agriculture

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"I can't remember when I last had the day off. I work all the time and I'm exhausted."

Ed Hooper sounds like any one of us. But you would never guess his solution to the problem - to defrost The General's sperm, frozen in the 1970s.

The General was Hooper's grandfather's award-winning Hereford bull, which is now a rare breed.

Like many farmers, the family had since switched to faster growing breeds of cattle more suitable for supermarket appetites, but his grandmother kept some of the bull's semen - for prosperity.

"As a commercial farmer you have to farm to specific targets.

This is farming with biology rather than chemistry that will increase the biodiversity of the farm and eventually require less physical input

A supermarket wants 380 kilos dead weight with a particular fat coverage and for the cow to be under 30 months old," says Hooper.

"All these targets don't make for good quality beef. It creates a culture of pushing the animal by increasing their grain intake - and growing maize is pretty crap for the soil."

Hooper and his wife, Nicola, now have eight of the smaller, docile but hardy Herefords and are in the process of setting up Trefrawl Farm to farm them completely differently to the conventional model - free-range and on a diet that comprises 95 per cent grass and five per cent of cereals grown on the farm.

For the Hoopers this is farming with biology rather than chemistry. It will increase the biodiversity of the farm. It will, eventually, also require less physical input because the cows live naturally outside, grazing and fertilising the land.

Their family is about to go full circle, back to breeding native breeds for quality of beef rather than quantity - just like their grandfather did.

And they're not the only ones making the switch.
Unconventional farming
"There is a growing body of evidence to show how well managed soils using grazing animals can contribute to reverse global warming," says Fidelity Weston from Romshed Farm and vice-chair of Pasture for Life.

These farmers are challenging the notion that we need intensive farming, as 70 per cent of the world's food is produced by smallholder farms

"In a country such as the UK where 60 per cent of land is grass, it makes sense to graze sheep and cattle on pasture rather than feeding them on cereals."

These farmers are also challenging the notion that we need intensive farming to feed the world, when, in fact, 70 per cent of the world's food is produced by smallholder farms.

Intensively reared, grain-fed livestock consumes one-third of all cereal production, meaning it takes around 7-8kg of cereal to produce 1kg of beef.

The Ten Years For Agroecology report by European think tank IDDRI, which specialises in biodiversity and ecosystems, says if we were to stop feeding all animals with cereals we could feed the growing population of Europe in 2050 on organic farming methods.

This mirrors a 2013 report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations that shows how this could be achieved at a global level.

For meat eaters, this style of production ticks all the right boxes - it has much higher standards of animal welfare, it's better for the environment and it's healthier, too.

Pasture for Life meat tends to be lower in total fat. It also contains more omega-3 fatty acids compared to omega-6 fatty acids, the reverse of which is thought to be a leading driver of modern diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

It tastes different, too.

"We don't go to butchers and say 'taste our beef, it's amazing'," says Neil Heseltine from Hill Top Farm in Yorkshire.

"We say 'our beef is 100 per cent grass fed. We don't use routine antibiotics. Our animals are benefitting the natural environment and we don't kill our bullocks until they are at least four years old.'

What is Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative Agriculture is all about naturally restoring soil health. Broadly speaking, this is by planting a variety of crops that stores carbon and adds nitrogen

More carbon is the basis of soil fertility, enabling the release of nutrients for plants to grow. More carbon in the earth also means less carbon in the atmosphere, which is better for climate change

Nitrogen is also vital because it helps plants to photosynthesis and is important for plant growth and structure

When you prioritise soil health it forces you to farm more in tune with nature and this leads to more biodiversity, and more nutritionally rich food

The best way to do this is to use pasture-fed animals as part of arable farming systems, growing grass and cover crops to feed to livestock that then fertilise the soils with their dung and help to regrow soil structure

"The taste of the beef speaks for itself."
Grass roots movement
There has been a lot of talk about the future of British farming post Brexit, which, of course, was already meant to have happened by the time you're reading this.

But a growing number of farmers are turning their backs on industrialisation and producing food differently - and better.

Regenerative Agriculture is the name given to this rising trend that prioritises soil health across all areas of farming. It was gaining traction way before reports that we have just 30-40 harvests left hit the headlines last year.

Arguably, it's farming regressing back to before the agrochemical revolution; the best of Pasture for Life and organic. It's no coincidence the UK's largest organic certifier is called the Soil Association.

But it's also being appropriated by the next generation of farmers, who are experiencing first hand the difficulties of growing crops in soil that has been fed a relentless concoction of herbicides, fertilisers and pesticides.

They're not just toiling in the fields. They're also monitoring soil activity, collecting data and sharing knowledge in WhatsApp groups and on social media, writing blogs and recording award-winning podcasts.

Instagram, especially, is helping to bring the message from farms to city plates, drawing in food lovers with photos of piglets in lush green fields, fatty steaks and giant purple artichokes.

It doesn't get much more geek-chic than coupling these images with captions about sequestering carbon in soil and it's no wonder these media savvy farmers are fast catching up with chefs in becoming the next superstars of food.
Regenerative agriculture vs veganism
"Livestock plays a huge role in this farming approach, with grazing animals being essential for locking carbon into the soil, rather than being vilified as methane-producing, climate change-inducing monsters," says Matt Chatfield founder of the Cornwall Project, which links farmers to London chefs helping to increase demand for produce farmed in this way.

He works with the likes of Fred Price, who is an arable farmer from Somerset firmly focused on heritage grains, popular with craft bakeries.

Price now also produces highly coveted pork available at Ben Chapman's London restaurants Smoking Goat and Kiln.

Price admits that when he took over his aunt's 250-acre farm 10 years ago he had a chip on his shoulder and wanted to prove that small family farms could be viable as a way to feed the world.

"I transformed yield from eight to 11 tonnes per hectare," he says.

"But I was less profitable and spending more on agrochemicals. This type of farming is a broken model - it's literally kicking the can (of chemicals) down the road. The more you grow, the more fertiliser you have to use because each harvest the soil is more degraded."

After trying to "break out of the cycle without falling off a cliff", Price has switched his focus on one-third of the farm to just one measurable aspect - the amount of carbon in the soil.

Price believes carbon is the driving nutrient for soil health: "If I can measure every action on the basis of whether it's good or bad for carbon in the soil, then it gives me a whole list of things I should and shouldn't do - plant cover crops, till the soil less, introduce farmyard manure as fertiliser - and everything else follows."

Organic and Pasture for Life
Organic standards have the highest animal welfare standards in commercial farming systems and drastically limit the use of fertilisers or herbicides. Organic farmers can feed their animals a limited about of (organic) grains

Pasture For Life standards mean animals have to be reared outside on a 100 per cent grass based diet. They do permit the use of fertilisers and herbicides, although it is discouraged, and a 2018 survey demonstrates that usage falls as pasture management changes

As such, he has brought pigs into his arable system - and was able to do so because he had a guaranteed market for his meat.

This led to Price to planting lucerne, which isn't a profitable crop to sell but it has a value as pig feed and helps to fix nitrogen in the soil - and this is an investment in the future.

And so the positive cycle continues.

Oli Baxter and Sally Hole are also Cornish arable farmers who are planning to introduce chickens to their fields of rhubarb, strawberries and gooseberries grown for chef-favourite wholesaler Natoora and Simon Rogan's two-Michelin star restaurant, L'Enclume.

Before they took over the 10-acre Mora Farm it had been used to grow crops conventionally.

"It was poor and hungry land, we took a longer term view to increase organic matter," Baxter says.

They believe chickens will help to maintain the grass and be good for pest control as they have a penchant for the sawflies that feast on their prized gooseberries.
Forward thinking dairies
Regenerative Agriculture is extending to every area of food production, with promising results.

Sam Bullingham and Katie Bray of Taw River Dairy in Devon also keep bees, which play an important role in the pollination of their herbal and grass leys, increasing biodiversity within each field. They believe their low intensity farming methods means their 400 acre farm traps more carbon in the soil than it releases.

The couple produce, pasteurise and process milk and ice-cream on site to supply local shops and restaurants, ensuring their carbon footprint is as low as possible.

Similarly, Stroud Micro Dairy is a community supported farm that's just doubled in size to 31 acres so it can double the size of its herd of 13 cows.

Award-winning rich and creamy raw milk, keffir and yoghurt are the by-products of founder's Kees Frederiks goals to restore land using grazing animals and milking equipment from the 1980s.

"Our reason for existing is to heal the land and the best way to do that is with a ruminant. Grass has co-existed with cows for millennia and this interdependence makes the restoration of land a lot easier from a biological point of view," says Frederiks.

"The purpose of selling dairy products is to enable me to muck around with soil."

Another by-product of this type of farming is community spirit. After their launch party in 2017 they had 40 people waiting for weeks for the first calves to be born. That support is still there in the form of people who come with their glass bottles to buy a litre of milk for £1.75 from the raw milk vending machine - a glorified honesty box.

Fiona Provan is the founder of the pioneering The Calf at Foot Dairy. This is the dairy system where calves stay with their mums until they are of natural weaning age instead of being separated at birth as they are in conventional systems. Cows are typically milked for human consumption once a day, with the rest of the milk reserved for the calf.

Provan has just trademarked the term to ensure the high welfare and environmental standards don't become watered down as this style of dairy farming becomes more common. She sells her milk all over the country and is oversubscribed in terms of demand.

Even vegans were buying cheese - for friends or family - in support of The Ethical Dairy 's crowdfunding campaign, last year.

Time and time again, when presented with the facts, consumers are showing our support for genuinely sustainable farming. Regenerative Agriculture in its purest form is a system where everyone wins - the farmer, the animals, our health and the environment.

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The British farmers producing top quality food and taking on intensive farming - and veganism

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"I can't remember when I last had the day off. I work all the time and I'm exhausted." Ed Hooper sounds like any one of us. But you would never guess his solution to the problem - to defrost The General's sperm, frozen in the 1970s.

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Dr Christine Jones

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Soil restoration is the process of improving the structure, microbial life, nutrient density, and overall carbon levels of soil. Many human endeavors - conventional farming chief among them - have depleted the Earth to the extent that nutrient levels in almost every kind of food have fallen by between 10 and 100 percent in the past 70 years. Soil quality can improve dramatically, though, when farmers and gardeners maintain constant ground cover, increase microbe populations, encourage biological diversity, reduce the use of agricultural chemicals, and avoid tillage.

Soil restoration begins with photosynthesis.

The Power of Photosynthesis

Imagine there was a process that could remove carbon dioxide (CO 2) from the atmosphere, replace it with life-giving oxygen, support a robust soil microbiome, regenerate topsoil, enhance the nutrient density of food, restore water balance to the landscape, and increase the profitability of agriculture. Fortunately, there is. It's called photosynthesis.

In the miracle of photosynthesis, which takes place in the chloroplasts of green leaves, CO 2 from the air and H 2 O from the soil are combined to capture light energy and transform it into biochemical energy in the form of simple sugars.

These simple sugars - commonly referred to as photosynthates - are the building blocks of life. Plants transform sugar into a great diversity of other carbon compounds, including starches, proteins, organic acids, cellulose, lignin, waxes, and oils.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains are packaged sunlight derived from photosynthesis. The oxygen our cells and the cells of other living things utilize during aerobic respiration is also derived from photosynthesis.

Significantly, many of the carbon compounds derived from the simple sugars formed during photosynthesis are also essential to the creation of well-structured topsoil. Without photosynthesis there would be no soil. Weathered rock minerals, yes... but no fertile topsoil.

The Plant-Microbe Bridge

It comes as a surprise to many that over 95 percent of life on land resides in soil, and that most of the energy for this amazing world beneath our feet is derived from plant carbon. Exudates from living roots are the most energy-rich of these carbon sources. In exchange for ' liquid carbon,' microbes in the vicinity of plant roots - and microbes linked to plants via networks of beneficial fungi - increase the availability of the minerals and trace elements required to maintain the health and vitality of their plant hosts (1,2).

Microbial activity also drives the process of aggregation, which enhances soil structural stability, aeration, infiltration, and water-holding capacity. All living things - above and below ground - benefit when the plant-microbe bridge is functioning effectively.

Sadly, many of today's farming methods have severely compromised soil microbial communities, significantly reducing the amount of liquid carbon transferred to and stabilized in soil. This creates negative feedbacks all along the line. Over the last 150 years, many of the world's prime agricultural soils have lost between 30 and 75 percent of their carbon, adding billions of tons of CO 2 to the atmosphere (3).

The loss of soil carbon significantly reduces the productive potential of the land and the profitability of farming. Soil degradation has intensified in recent decades - around 30 percent of the world's cropland has been abandoned in the last 40 years due to soil decline (4). With the global population predicted to peak at close to 10 billion by 2050, the need for soil restoration has never been more pressing. Soil dysfunction also impacts human and animal health.

Nutrient Depletion In Our Food

Over the last 70 years, the level of every nutrient in almost every kind of food has fallen between 10 and 100 percent. This is an incredibly sobering fact. An individual today would need to consume twice as much meat, three times as much fruit, and four to five times as many vegetables to obtain the same amount of minerals and trace elements available in those same foods in 1940.

Dr. David Thomas (5,6) has provided a comprehensive analysis of historical changes in food composition from tables published by the Australian Medical Research Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Fisheries and Foods, and the Food Standards Agency. By comparing data available in 1940 with that in 1991, Thomas demonstrated a substantial loss in mineral and trace element content in every group of food he investigated.

The nutrient depletion summarized in Thomas' review represents a weighted average of mineral and trace element changes in 27 kinds of vegetables and 10 kinds of meat:

Mineral Depletion in Vegetables (1940-1991; average of 27 kinds of vegetables):
Copper - declined by 76%
Calcium - declined by 46%
Iron - declined by 27%
Magnesium - declined by 24%
Potassium - declined by 16%

Mineral Depletion in Meat (1940-1991; average of 10 kinds of meat):
Copper - declined by 24%
Calcium - declined by 41%
Iron - declined by 54%
Magnesium - declined by 10%
Potassium - declined by 16%
Phosphorus - declined by 28%

Significant mineral and trace element depletion was also recorded in the 17 varieties of fruit and two dairy products tested over the same period (5). The mineral depletion in meat and dairy reflects the fact that animals are consuming plants and/or grains that are themselves minerally depleted.

In addition to the overall decline in nutrient density, Thomas found significant changes in the ratios of minerals to one another. Given that there are critical ratios of minerals and trace elements for optimum physiological function, it is highly likely that these distorted ratios have an impact on human health and well-being (5).

Restoring Nutrient Density to Our Food

It is commonly believed that the significant reduction in the nutrient density of today's chemically-produced foods is due to the dilution effect. Dilution occurs when yields rise but mineral content falls. Significantly, though, vegetables, crops, and pastures grown in healthy, biologically active soils do not exhibit these compromised nutrient levels.

Only in rare instances are minerals and trace elements completely absent from soil. Most of the 'deficiencies' observed in today's plants, animals, and people are due to soil conditions not being conducive to nutrient uptake. The minerals are present in the soil but are simply not plant-available. Adding inorganic elements to correct these so-called deficiencies is an inefficient practice. Instead we need to address the biological causes of dysfunction.

Around 85 to 90 percent of plant nutrient acquisition is microbially-mediated. The soil's ability to support nutrient-dense crops, pastures, fruits, and vegetables requires the presence of a diverse array of soil microbes from a range of functional groups.

The majority of microbes involved in nutrient acquisition are plant-dependent. That is, they respond to carbon compounds exuded by the roots of actively growing green plants. Many of these important groups of microbes are negatively impacted by the use of "cides" - herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides.

In short, the functioning of the soil ecosystem is determined by the presence, diversity and photosynthetic rate of actively growing green plants - as well as the presence or absence of chemical toxins.

But who manages the plants and the chemicals? You guessed it... we do.

Fortunately, consumers are becoming increasingly aware that food is more than a commodity (7). It is up to us to restore soil integrity, fertility, structure, and water-holding capacity - not by applying Band-Aids to the symptoms, but by better managing our food production systems.

The Soil Carbon Sink

Soil can function as a carbon source - adding carbon to the atmosphere - or a carbon sink - removing CO 2 from the atmosphere. The dynamics of the source/sink equation are largely determined by land management.

Over the millennia a highly effective carbon cycle has evolved, in which the capture, storage, transfer, release, and recapture of biochemical energy in the form of carbon compounds repeats itself over and over. The health of the soil and the vitality of plants, animals, and people depends on the effective functioning of this cycle.

Technological developments since the Industrial Revolution have produced machinery capable of extracting vast quantities of fossil fuels from beneath the Earth's surface as well as machinery capable of laying bare large tracts of grasslands and forests. This has resulted in the release of increasing quantities of CO 2 into the atmosphere while simultaneously destroying the largest natural sink over which we have control.

The decline in natural sink capacity has amplified the effects of anthropogenic emissions. Many agricultural, horticultural, forestry, and garden soils today are a net carbon source. That is, these soils are losing more carbon than they are sequestering.

The potential for reversing the net movement of CO 2 to the atmosphere through improved plant and soil management is immense. Managing vegetative cover in ways that enhance the capacity of soil to sequester and store large volumes of atmospheric carbon in a stable form offers a practical and almost immediate solution to some of the most challenging issues currently facing humankind.

The key to successful soil restoration and carbon sequestration is to get the basics right.

Five Principles for Soil Restoration

Green is good - and year-round green is even better

Photosynthesis draws hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO 2 from the atmosphere every year. The impact of this reduction was dramatically illustrated in a stunning visualization released by NASA in 2014 (8). The movement of carbon from the atmosphere to soil - via green plants - represents the most powerful tool we have at our disposal for the restoration of soil function and reduction of atmospheric CO 2.

While every green plant is a solar-powered carbon pump, it is the photosynthetic capacity and photosynthetic rate of living plants (rather than their biomass) that drive the biosequestration of stable soil carbon. Photosynthetic capacity is the amount of light intercepted by green leaves in a given area (determined by percentage of canopy cover, plant height, leaf area, leaf shape and seasonal growth patterns).

On agricultural land, photosynthetic capacity can be improved through the use of multi-species cover crops, animal integration, multispecies pastures, and strategic grazing. In parks and gardens, plant diversity and mowing height are important factors. Bare soil has no photosynthetic capacity. Bare soil is also a net carbon source and is vulnerable to erosion by wind and water.

Photosynthetic rate is the rate at which plants are able to convert light energy to sugars. It is determined by many factors, including light intensity, moisture, temperature, nutrient-availability and the demand placed on plants by microbial symbionts. The presence of mycorrhizal fungi, for example, can significantly increase photosynthetic rate. Plants photosynthesising at an elevated rate have a high sugar and mineral content, are less prone to pests and diseases, and contribute to improved weight gains in livestock.

Photosynthetic rate can be assessed by measuring Brix with a refractometer. An increase of around 5 percent in global photosynthetic capacity and/or photosynthetic rate would be sufficient to counter the CO 2 flux from the burning of fossil fuels, provided the extra carbon was sequestered in soil in a stable form. This is feasible. On average, global cropland is bare for around half of every year (9). If you can see the soil, it is losing carbon!

Both photosynthetic capacity and photosynthetic rate are strongly impacted by management. Leading-edge light farmers are developing innovative and highly productive ways to keep soil covered and alive, while at the same time producing nutrient-dense food and high-quality fiber.
Grazing Management
This topic requires far more space than is available here, but it is vitally important that less than 50 percent of the available green leaf be grazed (see figure on the right). Retaining adequate leaf area reduces the impact of grazing on photosynthetic capacity and enables the rapid restoration of biomass to pre-grazed levels. Over a 12-month period, significantly more forage will be produced - and more carbon sequestered in soil - if pastures are grazed tall rather than short.

In addition to leaf area, pasture height has a significant effect on soil building, moisture retention, nutrient cycling, and water quality. To maintain photosynthetic capacity (and to ensure rapid recovery) it is highly beneficial to remove livestock from a pasture before you can see their feet.

Regenerative grazing can be extremely effective in restoring soil carbon levels deep underground. The deeper the carbon, the more it is protected from oxidative and microbial decomposition. The sequestration of most significance is that which occurs below 30 cm (12).
Crop Production
Increasingly sophisticated machinery and a plethora of "cides" have provided the means for the planet's rapidly expanding population to create bare ground over billions of acres, dramatically reducing global photosynthetic capacity. Reduced levels of photosynthesis have in turn resulted in reduced carbon flow to soil, significantly impacting soil and landscape function and farm productivity.

Organic carbon holds between four and 20 times its own weight in water. This means that when carbon levels are depleted, the water-holding capacity of the soil is significantly compromised. Low water-holding capacity results in poor structural stability when soils are wet and reduced plant growth when soils are dry.

One of the most significant findings in recent years has been the improvements to infiltration, water-holding capacity, and drought-resilience when bare fallows have been replaced with multi-species covers. This improvement has been particularly evident in lower rainfall regions and in dry years (13).

A healthy agricultural system is one that supports all forms of life. All too often, many of the life-forms in soil have been considered dispensable. Or, more correctly, they have not been considered at all.

The significance of the plant-microbe bridge in transferring and stabilizing carbon in soil is becoming increasingly recognized. The soil microbiome is now heralded as the next frontier in soil restoration research.

One of the most important groups of plant-dependent soil-building microbes are mycorrhizal fungi. These extraordinary ecosystem engineers access water, protect their hosts from pests and diseases, and transport nutrients such as organic nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, and essential trace elements including copper, cobalt, zinc, molybdenum, manganese and boron - all in exchange for liquid carbon. Many of these elements are essential for resistance to pests and diseases and climatic extremes such as drought, water-logging, and frost.

When mycorrhizal symbiosis is functioning effectively, 20-60 percent of the carbon fixed in green leaves can be channelled directly to soil mycelial networks, where a portion is combined with biologically-fixed nitrogen and converted to stable humic compounds. The deeper in the soil profile this occurs the better. Humic polymers formed by soil biota within the soil matrix improve soil structure, porosity, cation exchange capacity, and plant growth.

Soil function is also strongly influenced by its structure. In order for soil to be well-structured, it must be living. Life in the soil provides the glues and gums that enable soil particles to stick together into pea-sized lumps called aggregates. The spaces between the aggregates allow moisture to infiltrate more easily. Moisture absorbed into soil aggregates is protected from evaporation, enabling soil to remain moist for longer after rain or irrigation. This improves farm productivity and profit.

Well-structured soils are also less prone to erosion and compaction, and they function more effectively as bio-filters.

Sadly, many of the microbes important for soil function have gone missing in action. Can we get them back? Some producers have achieved large improvements in soil health in a relatively short time. What are these farmers doing differently? They diversify.

Diversity is indispensable

Every plant exudes its own unique blend of sugars, enzymes, phenols, amino acids, nucleic acids, auxins, gibberellins, and other biological compounds, many of which act as signals to soil microbes. Root exudates vary continuously over time, depending on the plant's immediate requirements. The greater the diversity of plants, the greater the diversity of microbes, and the more robust the soil ecosystem.

The belief that monocultures and intensively managed systems are more profitable than diverse biologically based systems does not hold up in practice. Monocultures need to be supported by high and often increasing levels of fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides, and other chemicals that inhibit soil biological activity. The result is even greater expenditure on agrochemicals in an attempt to control pests, weeds, diseases, and the fertility issues that ensue.

The natural grasslands that once covered vast tracts of the Australian, North American, South American, and sub-Saharan African continents - plus the 'meadows' of Europe - contained several hundred different kinds of grasses and forbs. These diverse grasslands and meadows were extremely productive prior to simplification through overgrazing and/or cultivation.

Innovative farmers are experimenting with up to 70 different plant species to see which combinations perform best for soil restoration. Some grain and vegetable producers are setting aside up to 50 percent of their cash crop area for multi-species diverse soil primers. They believe the benefits far outweigh the costs. It has been reported that two full seasons of a multispecies cover can perform miracles in terms of soil health. Mixtures of peas with canola, clover or lentils with wheat, soybean and/or vetch with corn, and buckwheat and/or peas with potatoes are becoming increasingly common.

The integration of animals into cropland can also be extremely beneficial. This doesn't need to be complicated, though. Something as simple as including one or two companions with a cash crop can make a world of difference.

As well as improving soil function, companion plants provide habitat and food for insect predators. Recent research (15) has shown that as the diversity of insects in crops and pastures increases, the incidence of insect pests declines, reducing the need for insecticides.

An aspect of plant community structure that is gaining increased research attention is the presence of 'common mycorrhizal networks' (CMNs) in diverse pastures, crops and vegetable gardens.

It has been found that plants in communities assist each other by linking together in vast underground super-highways through which they can exchange carbon, water and nutrients (16,17). CMNs increase plant resistance to pests and diseases (18), enhance plant vigor, and improve soil health.

In my travels I've seen many examples of monocultures suffering severe water stress while diverse multi-species crops beside them remained green (see photo above).

In mixed-species plantings, warm-season grasses (such as sorghum and maize) are the most generous 'givers' to soil carbon pools, while broadleaf plants benefit the most from the increased availability of nutrients. In livestock production systems, animal health issues linked to lack of plant diversity (and hence animal nutrition) can often mean the difference between profit and loss.

Chemical use can be dangerous

Living soils can significantly improve the mineral cycle. Researchers have shown, for example, that mycorrhizal fungi can supply up to 90 percent of plants' nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) requirements (20). In addition to including companions and multi-species covers in crop rotations, maintaining a living soil often requires reducing the application of high-analysis synthetic fertilizer and other chemicals.

Profit is the difference between expenditure and income. In years to come we will perhaps wonder why it took so long to realize the futility of attempting to grow crops in dysfunctional soils, relying solely on increasingly expensive synthetic inputs.

No amount of NPK fertilizer can compensate for compacted, lifeless soil with low wettability and low water-holding capacity. Indeed, adding more chemical fertilizer often makes things worse. This is particularly true for inorganic N and P.

An often-overlooked consequence of the application of high rates of N and P is that plants no longer need to channel liquid carbon to soil microbial communities in order to obtain these essential elements. Reduced carbon flow has a negative impact on soil aggregation and limits the energy available to the microbes involved in the acquisition of important minerals and trace elements. This increases the susceptibility of plants to pests and diseases.
Inorganic Nitrogen
The use of high-analysis N fertilizer poses a significant cost to both farmers and the environment. Only 10 to 40 percent is taken up by plants, which means that 60 to 90 percent of applied N is lost through a combination of volatilization and leaching.

It is often assumed that nitrogen only comes from fertilizer or legumes. But all green plants are capable of growing in association with nitrogen-fixing microbes. Even when N fertilizer is applied, plants obtain much of their N from microbial associations.

Farmers experimenting with yearlong green farming techniques are discovering that their soils develop the innate capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen. If high rates of N fertilizer have been used for a long time, though, it is important to wean off N slowly, as free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria require time to re-establish.

Another of the many unintended consequences of the use of nitrogen fertilizer is the production of nitrous oxide in water-logged and/or compacted soils. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas with almost 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Inorganic Phosphorous
The application of large quantities of water-soluble P, which is found in fertilizers such as in MAP, DAP, and superphosphate, inhibits the production of strigolactone, an important plant hormone. Strigolactone increases root growth, root hair development, and colonization by mycorrhizal fungi, enabling plants to better access phosphorous that is already in the soil. The long-term consequences of the inhibition of strigolactone include destabilization of soil aggregates, increased soil compaction, and mineral-deficient (e.g. low selenium) plants and animals.

In addition to having adverse effects on soil structure and the nutrient density of food, the application of inorganic water-soluble phosphorus is highly inefficient. At least 80 percent of applied P rapidly adsorbs to aluminium and iron oxides and/or forms calcium, aluminum, or iron phosphates. In the absence of microbial activity, these forms of P are not plant-available.

It is widely recognized that only 10-15 percent of fertilizer P is taken up by crops and pastures in the year of application. If P fertilizer has been applied for the previous 10 years, there will be sufficient P for the next 100 years, irrespective of how much was in the soil beforehand. Rather than apply more P, it is more economical to activate soil microbes in order to access the P already there.

Mycorrhizal fungi are extremely important for increasing the availability of soil P. Their abundance can be significantly improved through cover crops, diversity, and appropriate grazing management.

Avoid aggressive tillage

Tillage may provide an apparent quick-fix to soil problems created by lack of deep-rooted living cover. Repeated and/or aggressive tillage increases the susceptibility of the soil to erosion, though. It also depletes soil carbon and organic nitrogen, rapidly mineralizes soil nutrients (resulting in a short-term flush but long-term depletion), and is highly detrimental to beneficial soil-building microbes such as mycorrhizal fungi and keystone invertebrates such as earthworms.

The increased oxidation of organic matter in bare soil from tillage, coupled with reduced photosynthetic capacity, not only adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere but may also contribute to falling levels of atmospheric oxygen.

Conclusion

All food and fiber producers - whether grain, beef, milk, lamb, wool, cotton, sugar, nuts, fruit, vegetables, flowers, hay, silage, or timber - are first and foremost light farmers.

Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have sadly resulted in significantly less photosynthetic capacity due to the reduced area of green groundcover on the Earth's surface. Human activity has also impacted the photosynthetic rate of the groundcover that remains.

Our role, in the community of living things of which we are part, is to ensure that the way we manage green plants results in as much light energy as possible being transferred to - and maintained in - the soil battery as stable soil carbon. Increasing the level of soil carbon improves farm productivity, restores landscape function, reduces the impact of anthropogenic emissions, and increases resilience to climatic variability.

It is not so much a matter of how much carbon can be sequestered by any particular method in any particular place, but rather how much soil is sequestering carbon. If all agricultural, garden, and public lands were a net sink for carbon, we could easily reduce enough CO 2 to counter emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

Everyone benefits when soils are a net carbon sink. Through our food choices and farming and gardening practices we all have the opportunity to influence how soil is managed. Profitable agriculture, nutrient-dense food, clean water, and vibrant communities can be ours... if that is what we choose.
The author extends special thanks to Sarah Troisi for expert technical assistance with the photographs used in this article. Soil ecologist Dr. Christine Jones works with innovative farmers and ranchers to implement regenerative land management practices that enhance biodiversity, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, productivity, water quality, and community and catchment health. She launched Amazing Carbon (www.amazingcarbon.com) as a means to share her vision and inspire change. In 2005, Dr. Jones held the first of five "Managing the Carbon Cycle" forums to promote the benefits of soil carbon. Over the past decade she has gained international recognition as a speaker. She was also the keynote speaker at the 2017 Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag Conference & Trade Show in Columbus, Ohio, and taught a course on restoring diversity to agricultural soils during Eco-Ag University.

This article originally appeared in the October 2017 issue of Acres U.S.A. magazine.

Literature cited:

1. Jones, C.E. (2008). Liquid carbon pathway. Australian Farm Journal, July 2008, pp. 15-17.

2. Kaiser, C., Kilburn, M. R., Clode, P. L., Fuchslueger, L., Koranda, M., Cliff, J. B., Solaiman, Z. M. and Murphy, D. V. (2015), Exploring the transfer of recent plant photosynthates to soil microbes: mycorrhizal pathway vs direct root exudation. New Phytologist, 205: 15371551. doi:10.1111/nph.13138.

3. Lal, R., Follett, R.F., Stewart, B.A. and Kimble, J.M. (2007). Soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change and advance food security . Soil Science, 172 (12), pp. 943-956. doi: 10.1097/ss.0b013e31815cc498

4. Pimentel, D. and Burgess, M. (2013). Soil erosion threatens food production. Agriculture 2013 , 3, 443-463; doi:10.3390/agriculture3030443

5. Thomas, D.E. (2003). A study of the mineral depletion of foods available to us as a nation over the period 1940 to 1991. Nutrition and Health, 17: 85115.

6. Thomas, D.E. (2007). The mineral depletion of foods available to us as a nation (1940-2002) a review of the 6th Edition of McCance and Widdowson. Nutrition and Health , 19: 21-55.

7. Latham, J. (2016). Why the food movement is unstoppable. Independent Science News. https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/why-the-food-movement-is-unstoppable/

8. Miller, P. (2014). Stunning NASA visualization reveals secret swirlings of carbon dioxide. https://www.nasa.gov/press/goddard/2014/november/nasa-computer-model-provides-a-new-portrait-of-carbon-dioxide/

9. Siebert, S.; Portmann, F.T.; Döll, P. Global Patterns of Cropland Use Intensity. (2010). Remote Sensing, 2 (7), 1625-1643; doi:10.3390/rs2071625

10. Voth, K. (2015). Great "Grass Farmers" Grow Roots. National Grazing Lands Coalition.

11. Crider, F.J. (1955). Root growth stoppage resulting from defoliation of grass. U.S. Department of Agriculture Technical Bulletin 1102, 23 p. babel.hathitrust.org

12. Jones, C.E. (2011). Carbon that counts. New England and North West Landcare Adventure 16-17 March 2011. amazingcarbon.com

13. Weller, J. (2015). Testimony to House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture bipartisan subcommittee on Conservation, Energy and Forestry hearing on the Benefits of Promoting Soil Health in Agriculture and Rural America.

14. Natura, H. (undated). Illinois Native Plant Guide. Root systems of prairie plants. nrcs.usda.gov

15. Lundgren, J.G and Fausti S.W. (2015). Trading biodiversity for pest problems. Science Advances 1(6). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1500558

16. The Plant Guy (2012). Plant Social Networks- is this why companion planting & inter-cropping work?

17. Walder, F., Niemann, H., Natarajan, M., Lehmann, M.F., Boller, T. and Wiemken, A. (2012). Mycorrhizal networks: Common goods of plants shared under unequal terms of trade. Plant Physiology , 159(2): 789797. doi: 10.1104/pp.112.195727

18. Johnson, D. and Gilbert, L. (2014). Interplant signalling through hyphal networks. New Phytologist, 205(4): 1448-1453. doi: 10.1111/nph.13115

19. Kelly (2014). Who knew? Cover crop cocktails are commune hippies.

20. Smith, S.E, Read, D.J. (2008). Mycorrhizal Symbiosis, 3rd Edition. Academic Press.

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Soil restoration is the process of improving the structure, microbial life, nutrient density, and overall carbon levels of soil. Many human endeavors - conventional farming chief among them - have depleted the Earth to the extent that nutrient levels in almost every kind of food have fallen by between 10 and 100 percent in the past 70 years.

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The Moroccan Food Forest That Inspired an Agricultural Revolution

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The Moroccan Food Forest That Inspired an Agricultural Revolution

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Comprehensive history of food forests and their modern revival

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It was 1975 and Geoff Lawton was wintering with friends in Morocco. Camping on beaches north of Agadir, they'd been surfing for weeks when locals told them about Paradise Valley. Located along the Tamraght River in the High Atlas Mountains, it promised 5,200-foot vistas, blue-green waterfalls, and lush, rainforest-like vegetation.

Lawton, then 21, was on his first trip outside the U.K. "Tourists had yet to 'discover' the area, so the culture was very much preserved," he says. "For me, it was like going back to Biblical times."

The dirt road to the Valley climbed through a barren, arid landscape into rural hills studded with mud brick homes. Twenty kilometers in, the group stopped at the tiny village of Inraren for directions. Lawton went to relieve himself in a roadside wood.

"I remember thinking it was odd that this lush, green forest should be bursting from the desert," he says.

Stepping inside, things got stranger. The air felt cool, almost misty. Growing in the shade of tall date palms were trees, vines, and shrubs bearing bananas, tamarinds, oranges, figs, guavas, pomegranates, lemons, limes, mulberries, carobs, quince, grapes, and other fruits and nuts. Following a footpath through the grassy understory past groves of olive and argan trees, Lawton discovered a cluster of fenced-in vegetable and herb gardens-most about a quarter-acre in size. Here and there, goats were tethered to posts. Chickens clucked through the underbrush and roosted in trees. Gazing down a leafy corridor, he spotted a man leading a donkey. Its saddlebags brimmed with produce.

"I felt like I'd wandered into some kind of ancient organism," says Lawton. "I had goosebumps all over."

Totaling about 65 acres, the food forest was a remnant of one of the world's oldest sustainable systems of agriculture. While its origins have been lost to history, scientists agree it is at least many centuries old. Some, including Lawton, date its establishment to 2,000 years ago. When asked about the forest's age, villagers shrug.

"I have no idea how old it is or when our ancestors first began gardening here," says 45-year-old Abdelmajid Ziyani, a construction worker and member of a local argan and olive oil cooperative. "But I know it has been here for centuries."

"It is really old," adds 28-year-old Brahim Jidi, with a laugh. He works as a waiter in a local hotel and gardens in the forest as a hobby. He says he grew up hearing stories about his "grand- grand-grandfather" helping tend the forest.

In the 1970s, the communal space was "farmed" by about 800 villagers. Fed by underground springs and shaped by human hands since time immemorial, it was the image of a true oasis. The system remains in use today.

Now 65, Lawton describes his experience at Inraren as life changing, and he has spent a career growing food forests and advocating for their importance as a solution to climate change and other environmental ills. But back in 1975, his friends were threatening to leave him in the woods. Snagging a few oranges, he split. By the time the group reached Paradise Valley, the forest seemed like ancient news.

Before modernization, food forests were a staple of indigenous communities in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. Though most have vanished, vestiges have been identified in places as diverse as Tanzania, southern India, Indonesia, the Amazon Rainforest, Central America, and the Caribbean islands.

"This method of agriculture was used throughout the world, but particularly in tropical regions, where multi-species food forests were once the dominant method of production," says John F. Munsell, Virginia Tech professor of agroforestry and co-author of 2018's The Community Food Forest Handbook. Though little is known about their early history and adaption, Munsell says forest gardens began with villagers seeking to make their lives easier.

"They settled inside or along forest edges and relied on them for food," he says. "Naturally, they started managing and altering the environment to their advantage."

Useful plants were cultivated. Those that weren't got weaned out. As space opened up, new species were added.

"Say you find bananas growing a mile away," says Munsell. "That's great. But it takes time and energy to harvest those resources. Planting them in your backyard is infinitely more convenient." If you apply that thinking across centuries, "the region's indigent edible plants became aggregated in one spot."

Villagers mimicked natural relationships and planted certain species closer to others. Trade introduced non-native plants. Trial-and-error brought horticultural knowledge. Techniques were passed down and steadily improved.

In time, conditions supporting helpful or edible bugs were encouraged. Ditto for mushrooms and medicinal herbs. Gardens came to include plants and nuts that fed livestock such as pigs or goats. Waterways were diverted and rainwater impoundments installed. Domesticated birds including chickens, guineas, and pheasants ate unwanted insects. Restricted to given areas, goats cleared brush. Pigs rooted in the soil, preparing it for planting. The animals' manure served as fertilizer.

"The goal was effectively to create an agricultural ecosystem that was as self-sustaining as possible," says Munsell. As a result, advanced region-specific methodologies emerged.

Lawton points to Inraren as an example. Its overstory of date palms has at least four purposes. Thriving in harsh environments, the trees provide bounteous shade and, when planted close together, have a cooling effect. Tall, limbless trunks give other plants space to grow and serve as trellises for epiphytes and vines. Long taproots retrieve water hidden deep in the soil. Fruit provides tasty sustenance.

"The palms shield sensitive species with shorter root systems from the sun and help them access the moisture they need to survive," says Lawton. Through the process of transpiration, the latter raise interior humidity levels, bringing further cooling effects. Dead leaves and plant matter build the soil, enabling it to retain more moisture. Combined, these factors produce a haven for grassy plants, herbs, and vegetables-all without the help of industrial irrigation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or mechanization.

"Unlike modern commercial farming practices, the goal isn't to maximize the output of a single staple crop," says Lawton. "Instead, farmers focus on the yield of the overall system. The goal is to provide their families with a year-round food supply as rich as it is diverse."

As the ecosystem matured, it became more and more self-sustaining. Farmers were able to focus their energies on enlargement, additions, or other tasks. In places like the Amazon, Munsell says experts now believe the techniques were so successful that they produced tracts of managed forest spanning thousands of square miles. Unfortunately, colonization, modernization, and rampant logging have left scant traces of their existence.

It's unlikely indigenous farmers referred to such gardens as food forests. In fact, the term didn't exist until the early 1980s, when it was coined by English horticulturalist Robert Hart.

In a book titled Forests and Food: Addressing Hunger and Nutrition Across Sustainable Landscapes, Bhaskar Vira, who directs the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, identifies a variety of historical appellations. Translated, the names range from simply "home gardens" in Zambia, Nepal, and Kerala, India, to "forest gardens" in Sri Lanka, "the gardens of complete design" in Java, and Mexico's "family orchards."

According to Vira, it wasn't until Western anthropologists began studying indigenous agricultural practices in the early 20th century that scholars took note of the gardens. Even then, reports remained largely obscure.

"In all but the most rural and isolated places, forest gardens were eradicated in favor of commercial, monocultural production techniques," says Munsell. Before Europeans colonized the Caribbean, for example, food forests were likely the primary method of agriculture. Sugarcane production would have wiped them out entirely, "but a few plantation owners noted the systems' ability to cheaply feed their workforce and allotted resources to maintain them."

Agronomists didn't recognize forest gardening as a viable "technology" until the late 1960s.

Facing global adaptation of Green Revolution farming practices-which advocated monocultures, mass application of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, mechanized production techniques reliant on fossil fuels, and genetically engineered crops-Indian agronomist P.K. Nair helped pioneer a new field of agricultural science: agroforestry. A native of Kerala, he'd grown up tending forest gardens. Studying agronomy in Germany and England, he came to appreciate the method as a means of increasing food security in space-limited locations or developing countries.

"He was the first to conduct serious scientific research with the goal of developing a systemic, adaptable approach for improving forest gardens," says Munsell. Nair co-founded the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya in 1978. Accepting a position at the University of Florida in the early-1980s, he worked to establish the field as a component of U.S. agricultural programs. For many of today's agricultural students, agroforestry is required learning. "He's basically the father of food forests being taught in academia," says Munsell. "Without him, my title would likely be very different."

Inspired by Nair, the 1970s OPEC oil embargo, and emerging scientific consensus connecting carbon emissions with climate change, horticulturalists such as Hart began adapting and experimenting with forest gardening techniques. University of Tasmania bio-geography professor Bill Mollison upped the ante when he co-authored a radical treatise on agriculture, Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements in 1978.

Like Nair, Mollison advocated for a system of sustainable, perennial-reliant agriculture that would sequester carbon and offer an eco-conscious alternative to Green Revolution technologies-i.e., forest gardening. As with agroforestry, his methods involved "the intentional combination of agriculture and forestry to create integrated and sustainable land-use systems."

The idea was to capitalize on the benefits of integrating useful trees, shrubs and, vines with crops and livestock. In the process, problems like mass erosion, desertification, deforestation, irrigation-induced water shortages, pollution from unchecked storm runoff, and rampant carbon emissions could be curbed dramatically.

Warning of impending environmental catastrophe, Mollison called for permaculture to be adapted en masse. Toward that end, he established a central non-profit credentialing institution to train agronomist-farmers. In turn, he hoped they would disseminate practical techniques throughout the world and found regional sister institutions.

"Bill wanted to shift the paradigm of food-production away from clearing forests to make room for fields of artificially supported corn and soybeans, or boundless pastures for cattle," says Lawton. In short, he wanted to use the techniques that built Inraren's food forest centuries or even millennia ago to help address climate change and other environmental ills. In 1981, his efforts netted Mollison a Right Livelihood Award, also known as The Swedish Nobel.

Combined, Nair and Mollison paved the way for a global food forest revival. But it was Geoff Lawton that succeeded in bringing the idea to the mainstream.

By 1979, Lawton was running a contract cleaning business in Australia. A girlfriend told him about Mollison, who was then launching the first Permaculture Institute. Struck by the book's name, Lawton read Permaculture One. With a degree in engineering, he was impressed by its scientific approach.

"And when I realized he was writing about what I'd seen in Morocco, man, that hit me like a bolt of lightning," says Lawton. The forest had stayed in the back of his mind for years. "It felt kind of, well, fated."

Within a year, Lawton was attending classes at Mollison's institute. By 1985, he was a certified instructor of permaculture buying 30 acres of land in rural Australia. There, he made history.

"Everyone was talking about establishing these food forests, but nobody had done anything really substantial," says Lawton. As he worked as a consultant on permaculture design projects-essentially a more food-oriented and eco-sensitive approach to landscaping-the lack of visual examples was problematic. Clients were interested, but wanted to see a precedent. "I needed photos showing step-by-step implementation and how these things would look one, five, 10 years in," says Lawton. "So, I decided to transform my farm into a working model."

The strategy worked. By the early 1990s, food forest designs began to sell. In 1997, Mollison retired and asked Lawton to assume directorship of the Permaculture Institute. The designation led to worldwide notoriety. Lawton used it to push the envelope and put food forests on the map.

"I thought, 'What's the craziest thing we could do with this technology?'" he says. Again, his thoughts returned to Inraren. "The answer was: Establish a food forest in the desert."

The result was a precursor to Lawton's ongoing Greening the Desert initiative. Beginning in 1999, the project aimed to establish a food forest demonstration site in Jordan, about two kilometers north of the Dead Sea.

"This was the toughest project I've ever worked on," says Lawton. The site was 400 meters below sea level. Mid-summer temperatures rose to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Soils were salty. Rainfall averaged less than six inches per year. "Nothing of this nature had ever been attempted," says Lawton. "The only model I had was Inraren. And what we created basically mirrors that site."

The before-photos of the area resemble a landscape from Mars. Follow them through the years, though, and you'll witness the blossoming of an oasis. The resulting media coverage helped reintroduce food forests to the world. More importantly, it proved their viability.

"What Geoff did was take this fantastical, abstract concept and transform it into an achievable reality," says Jacqueline Cramer, who helped found Seattle's Beacon Food Forest in 2009. The 1.75-acre plot is open to the public and supported by a partnership with the city. Inside, there are more than 40 species of fruit and nut trees, and, depending on the season, upward of 100 varieties of herbs and vegetables. An additional 5.25 acres are slated for development. Gardening meetings routinely feature more than 100 attendees from surrounding neighborhoods.

Cramer says Lawton's work made it possible to provide city planners with well-established examples of food forests. "Then there's the perspective brought by Greening the Desert," she adds. Screening Lawton's documentary made "installing an edible forest ecosystem here seem like a piece of cake."

A tragic irony of food forests is that at the same time that advocates are promoting them as the future of agriculture, historic examples, such as Inraren, are endangered.

In Morocco, increased tourism has brought paved roads, running water, electricity, and better access to produce markets. A taste for costly new amenities and goods has been introduced. Uninterested in a self-subsistent lifestyle, youths are drawn to cities for education and better work. Those who stay have focused on argan oil production and supplementing their income through tourism or other jobs. The shift toward monoculture has disrupted the sensitive forest ecosystem and is beginning to deplete the soil.

"Our ancestors had a deep connection with [this forest]-they used to live from it; they were united," says Jidi. "But now it's different. People have other options. They can be doctors or go work in [modern] fields. And we have more expenses. Now, we want expensive shoes, and phones, and internet. Before, [about $20] a month was enough. Now, my kids alone spend [more than $30] each week. You cannot make that much from the forest."

Still, older residents continue to rely on the forest for much of their food. Nearly everyone sells forest products for extra cash. And gardening plays a central role in village life.

"All of us work here," says 68-year-old Inraren native Mohamed Ait Dakha, a former tourism director. "It provides almost all of my family's food. For us, it is sacred ... I only hope our [young people] leave, study, make something of themselves, then come back. My wish is that they will be capable of watching over this land."

Unfortunately, that might be easier said than done. In various documentaries, Lawton has urged governments to recognize and preserve indigenous forest gardens as natural historical landmarks. Inraren's story is common: Youths are migrating to cities, and the passing of village elders means the loss of management practices. In time, logging or development may erase old food forests entirely.

Today, food forests are being created throughout the developed world at breakneck pace-as of 2018, more than 70 have been installed in public spaces throughout the U.S. alone. After helping install a food forest in Seattle, Cramer served as a consultant for large-scale food forest projects in cities such as Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Philadelphia. Many are in low-income neighborhoods, or amid food deserts, and can provide community programming, urban greenways, and access to better nutrition.

While proponents are enthusiastic about their benefits, those hoping for agroforestry to reform global agriculture are looking beyond the model of Inraren. "The point was never that home forest gardens and small-scale community food forests would somehow magically eradicate world hunger or solve climate change," says Munsell. Instead, the goal of urban food forests is to cultivate public awareness and change how we think about agriculture.

"To understand the truly limitless potential of these traditional technologies, we need to look deep into the past," says Lawton. He points to an era when the indigenous techniques that gave rise to permaculture and agroforestry fed some of the world's largest societies.

During the decades that Lawton and other advocates spent honing permaculture techniques to create new food forests, historians and geographers looked to old food forests to re-write our understanding of human development and geography.

Today, it is a known fact that "people living in and near forests have, for millennia, been altering forests ... to meet their food and nutrition needs," writes Bhaskar Vira, the Cambridge professor of geography and environmental economics. A prominent example came in the mid-2000s, when paleobotanical research in New Guinea revealed "that people as early as the late Pleistocene (30,000-40,000 years ago) were manipulating the forest by trimming, thinning, and ring-barking in order to increase the natural stands of taro, bananas and yams."

According to Munsell, early academic advocates of food forests tended to see them as a way to solve food shortages among small or isolated populations in developing countries. In the West, some of the first adopters were homesteaders and communalists who, influenced by the dreams of the Sixties, considered them a means of dropping out of society, being self sufficient, and reforesting small tracts of land. "But now, you have findings that imply forest gardening techniques once supported populations of tens of thousands of people or more," he says. "And that changes everything."

The most jaw-dropping example of this revisionist history is the Amazon Rainforest. For decades, the region had been considered a kind of false paradise: Its rich biodiversity obscured the fact that its poor soil could only support small villages. But as Charles C. Mann writes in 1491, anthropologists have more recently argued that the rainforest was home to large, impressive societies. Rather than plant European-style fields of crops, they cultivated orchards, which fed them until the disease and destruction brought by colonization. Eventually the jungle hid these decimated settlements, and Europeans assumed the landscape was pristine wilderness. But as Mann writes, drawing on the work of academics such as William Balée, Amazonians may have modified the environment to the extent that the rainforest is "largely a human artifact."

This thesis is bitterly contested by the old and new guard. But it is increasingly accepted, and not just by those studying the Amazon. A theme of Vira's work is that global agriculture has not just meant cutting down trees to plant fields; it's equally meant modifying forests-by transplanting seedlings, burning understories, and changing watercourses-so that they evolve into better food systems. Put another way, nearly all of the world's "pristine" forests show signs of being shaped by the techniques now encapsulated by agroforestry and permaculture.

Munsell, Lawton, and Vira envision a future that, in many ways, emulates this past. In it, agriculture has integrated forest gardening techniques advanced by agroforestry and permaculture.

"On the simplest level, you're doing things like planting nut trees between rows of corn," says Munsell. This runs counter to the monocrop perspective, which gauges success by the output of a single crop such as corn. But the trees provide shade and groundcover, lessen inputs such as irrigation and pesticides, and prevent erosion-thereby reducing costs. Meanwhile, they produce salable nuts and provide habitat for beneficial birds and insects. "When you look at these systems as a whole, they're going to be more productive, more efficient. And that's before you consider environmental impact, or certifications that could increase crop values."

"Once upon a time, American farmers planted [nutrient-intensive] cash crops like cotton year in and year out," says Munsell. "They went on doing that until they depleted the soil and nothing would grow at all. Of course, we now know crop rotation would have maintained the soil. Today, that's the dominant model."

Fifty to 100 years from now, he hopes the same will be true for agroforestry. The question is: Will it be too late?
Abdellah Azizi contributed reporting to this article. Gastro Obscura covers the world's most wondrous food and drink.
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The Moroccan Food Forest That Inspired an Agricultural Revolution

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It was 1975 and Geoff Lawton was wintering with friends in Morocco. Camping on beaches north of Agadir, they'd been surfing for weeks when locals told them about Paradise Valley. Located along the Tamraght River in the High Atlas Mountains, it promised 5,200-foot vistas, blue-green waterfalls, and lush, rainforest-like vegetation.

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The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology: It's Forests

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The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology: It's Forests

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Forests are the most powerful and efficient carbon-capture system on the planet

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The latest IPCC report does not mince words about the state of our planet: we must act now to achieve global change at a scale that has "no documented historical precedent" in order to avoid the climate catastrophe that would result from a 2 degree C rise in average global temperature. Climate change already disproportionately affects the world's most vulnerable people including poor rural communities that depend on the land for their livelihoods and coastal communities throughout the tropics. Indeed, we have already seen the stark asymmetry of suffering resulting from extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires and more.

So far, advocates and politicians have tended to focus on reducing fossil fuel consumption through technology and/or policy, such as a steep carbon tax, as climate solutions. These proposals are, of course, essential to reducing manmade carbon emissions-71 percent of which are generated by just 100 fossil fuel companies. For this reason, fossil-fuel-related emissions reductions rightly figure heavily in the national climate commitments of the 181 nations that signed the global Paris Agreement.

Recent scientific research confirms that forests and other "natural climate solutions" are absolutely essential in mitigating climate change, thanks to their carbon sequestering and storage capabilities.

Yet the international focus on fossil fuels has overshadowed the most powerful and cost-efficient carbon-capture technology the world has yet seen: forests. Recent scientific research confirms that forests and other "natural climate solutions" are absolutely essential in mitigating climate change, thanks to their carbon sequestering and storage capabilities. In fact, natural climate solutions can help us achieve 37 percent of our climate target, even though they currently receive only 2.5 percent of public climate financing.

Forests' power to store carbon dioxide through the simple process of tree growth is staggering: one tree can store an average of about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in one year. Recent research shows intact forests are capable of storing the equivalent of the carbon dioxide emissions of entire countries such as Peru and Colombia.

For this reason, policy makers and business leaders must create and enforce ambitious policies and incentives to prevent deforestation, foster reforestation of degraded land, and support the sustainable management of standing forests in the fight against climate change. Protecting the world's forests ensures they can continue to provide essential functions aside from climate stability, including producing oxygen, filtering water and supporting biodiversity. Not only do all the world's people depend on forests to provide clean air, clean water, oxygen, and medicines, but 1.6 billion people rely on them directly for their livelihoods.

Unfortunately, we are fighting a crisis of deforestation, much of it driven by conversion to agricultural lands to produce a handful of resource-intensive commodities, despite zero-deforestation commitments from companies and governments. With increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, insufficient emissions reductions and continued high rates of deforestation, urgent action is needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Now is the time to increase investment in and attention to forest protection and restoration. In doing so, we will also address a number of other pressing global issues. For example, increasing tree cover can help address the problem of food security in many areas. Trees can enhance farm productivity and provide farmers with another source of revenue through the sale of fruits, nuts or timber-all while storing carbon dioxide. It is estimated that increased investment in the multi-strata agroforestry area could help sequester up to 9.28 gigatons of carbon dioxide, while saving a net $709.8 billion by 2050. In production landscapes where large-scale tree cover increases are difficult, agroforestry serves as an attractive compromise.

And in less-developed, rural areas-especially in the tropics-community-based sustainable forest management programs can provide pathways out of poverty. In the Petén region of Guatemala, for instance, community-managed forests have boasted a near-zero deforestation rate over the past 14 years, as compared to 12 percent in nearby protected areas and buffer zones. These communities have built low-impact, sustainable forest-based businesses that have bolstered the economy of the region enough to fund the creation of local schools and health services. Their success is especially poignant in a region otherwise besieged by deforestation; outside the community-managed zones, deforestation rates increase by 20x.

Finally, landscape restoration promises an unparalleled return on investment, in terms of ecosystem services and carbon sequestered and stored. Landscape restoration could potentially sequester up to 1.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide every year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Reforestation projects can also intersect neatly and positively with human systems-restored forests provide a renewed resource base and new economic opportunities for communities.

There is good work being done on this front already. The Bonn Challenge, issued by world leaders with the goal of reforestation and restoration of 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2020, has been adopted by 56 countries. Many governments and groups pledged to halve global deforestation by 2020 through the New York Declaration on Forests. And in an exemplary display of public-private sector cooperation, the Cocoa and Forests Initiative in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana aims to end deforestation from cocoa cultivation.

With world leaders gathering in December for their yearly U.N. climate talks, the time is ripe for concrete action on forests and natural climate solutions. World leaders now have the opportunity to make big gains on climate by dramatically ramping up their investment in proven, natural solutions. More trees in the ground. More reforestation projects. More sustainable forestry. More avoided deforestation through sustainable agriculture and certified crops.

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The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology: It's Forests

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Forests are the most powerful and efficient carbon-capture system on the planet.. The latest IPCC report does not mince words about the state of our planet: we must act now to achieve global change at a scale that has "no documented historical precedent" in order to avoid the climate catastrophe that would result from a 2 degree C rise in average global temperature.

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How We Can Offer Hope For Our Grandchildren in a Floundering, Leaderless World

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How We Can Offer Hope For Our Grandchildren in a Floundering, Leaderless World

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Allan Savory

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If you are concerned about the future of young people today please read this to the end because in today's short-attention-span sound-bite world, I believe this offers true hope for my grandchildren and yours. In many ways what I write is the culmination of sixty years of struggle to find workable solutions to the devastation I was seeing in my youth.

Confused, without leadership and defenceless, and with children beginning to speak up as they are in America and as did a Swedish 15 year old at COP24, we face grave danger from global environmental degradation with its many symptoms such as ever-increasing droughts, floods, mega-fires, poverty, social breakdown, mass emigration to cities and across borders (Europe and America), violence and war. All of which symptoms are increasing as global desertification and destabilized climate feed on one another in one of Nature's most alarming feedback loops.

To solve any problem we all know that we need to address the cause of the problem, otherwise all the effort in the world will not succeed.
What is the Cause of global desertification and climate change?
Livestock, coal and oil, according to our institutions, media and society generally, are to blame for desertification and the increasing instability of our climate, commonly referred to as climate change or global warming.

Wrong! In blaming livestock, coal and oil, our best minds missed the simple fact that these are resources and no resource can ever cause such problems.

It is how we manage livestock that causes desertification of the world's seasonally arid areas with high or low rainfall that constitute about two-thirds of our planet's land mass.

It is management that calls fossil resources "fossil fuels " and burns them at a damaging rate adding greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.

With 100% certainty it ismanagement causing global desertification and climate change and all the many symptoms. Despite this unarguable fact our best minds including Nobel Laureates continue to blame our resources and ignore the cause.
What is it about our daily management that results in such unintended consequences?
We are in the early stages of the second major paradigm shift in history. Like goldfish in a bowl we cannot see the bowl. The first major shift in world view was from a flat world with the sun going around us, and now we are shifting gradually from centuries of a mechanistic worldview to a holistic worldview. Forty years ago, helped by many people, I discovered almost accidentally that management by humans is, and always has been, what we today call reductionist. And we discovered how, with minor changes to the way we've always made management decisions, we could manage holistically in all walks of life.

After over 10,000 years of being unable to prevent global, human-made desertification, we can now reverse it, and address its role in destabilizing climate. And we have repeatedly demonstrated this over the last 50 years to the extent that the work has been recognized in several international awards and holistic management is being taught in the first universities. How has society responded to such new knowledge? Most people would hope with positivity and creativity, just as society did when the Wright brothers learned how to fly after thousands of years of failed efforts. In that case, within seventy years of them learning to fly, we put a man on the moon! The human spirit flew because it is what we are capable of. But with discovering how we could reverse desertification this did not happen.

In the early1980s shortly after I came to America as a political refugee from what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) far-sighted oﬃcials in Washington and Albuquerque, knowing a potential solution to desertification had been developed sought my help. After discussion the U.S. Department of Agriculture commissioned me to provide training over a two year period for 2,000 scientists, managers and academics employed in American land management agencies and agricultural (land grant) universities. Some World Bank and USAID staff also participated. The USDA's intention was to establish an American training center if the response was positive and demand apparent. Over two years, participants analysed hundreds of U.S. government and World Bank policies in a manner that was not possible until the development of the Holistic Management framework. They found that none of their own policies was likely to succeed and that all of them were likely to have unintended negative consequences. One group in training made a unanimous statement which we recorded and published - "We now recognize that unsound resource management is universal in the United States!"

How we manage resources is, as I earlier explained, 100% the cause of global desertification and climate change. With that in mind, the fact that after a week of training such a large sample of resource managers could make that acknowledgement almost forty years ago was encouraging.

Most people involved responded positively demanding further training. One agency alone (U.S. Forest Service) began talks with me for training some 17,000 foresters. Our Interagency Committee began talks about setting up a formal government training program. Then we struck an unexpected blow. Suddenly all further training of officials was banned by incoming staff in the Reagan Administration. This setback has still not been overcome. It caused what we call a logjam, preventing any constructive policy changes.

That this outcome was inevitable and natural those of us involved, including myself, did not know because we were naïve about how knowledge that is truly new and counter-intuitive spreads in society - no doubt since before Galileo's time.

Let me explain what I have learned from experience, research and history about why this logjam is natural, why no one is to blame, and how people like yourself, your family and friends, can clear it.
The role of institutions
We do not deal with major issues as individuals, but always do so through organisations, or institutions. We form organizations because they enable us to pool capital and efficiently do what individuals cannot. However, with our mechanistic worldview what we did not know is that organizations do not behave as we expect they will behave. Once formed, organizations take on a life of their own. They do not behave like an individual human would behave, nor in a predictable, mechanistic manner. Even when an organization poisons millions of people, it is not tried for murder, as you or I would be. Nor is any executive severely punished no matter how much damage his or her organization has done to society, our economy, or our environment. When an organization goes bankrupt management is commonly rewarded, with multi-million dollar severance packages, while thousands of people are out of work without compensation. Society, and our institutions, generally do not recognize that organizations are defined in systems science as being complex. Nor do we know what "complex" means in that sense, so let me explain.
Organizations and nature are complex while nothing we make is complex
Everything we do not manage in our material lives is something we " make."And everything, without exception, that we make - from a toothbrush to space exploration vehicles, or electricity from solar, wind or any other source - stops working if a part breaks, fuel runs out, a battery goes flat. Nothing we make is self-organising. In systems science everything we make is defined as a c omplicated system.

By definition, nothing we make is complex, no matter how complicated it might be. Problems that occur with things we make are called 'kind' problems -relatively easy to fix.

Organizations at all levels - ranging from the family to large institutions and governments - on the other hand are self-organising and do not end when key people die. They simply re-organise. In systems science jargon we define organizations as complex systems.

Everything in nature is also self-organizing and does not stop if species disappear. The biological community self organizes and continues in changed form. Being self-organizing, everything in nature, like organizations, is defined as complex.
Together, nature and organizations, constitute everything humans manage, from our families to governance, with minor exceptions. We manage complexityand it is our weakness at doing so that is the cause of most that ails us.
Rebecca Costa who wrote The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, concluded past civilizations failed because they could not address the complexity of rising population and deteriorating environment. They turned away from their equivalent of science to sacrificing people and shelved the problems for future generations.

Where problems with complicated things we make are defined as kind, those that occur with managing organizations or nature can be what are defined as "wicked" meaning almost impossible to fix. It took over 10,000 years to solve the riddle of desertification.

Climate change constitutes a 'wicked' problem (as did desertification), meaning it is incapable of solution by the institutions we rely upon to do so, as I will explain. Institutions, having given us knowledge of 'wicked' problems, are not, as far as I know, doing anything further to either study or alert the public to the danger of institutional problems. This, despite trillions of dollars being spent over many years addressing symptoms of global desertification and destabilised climate, which are now feeding on each other.
There are at least three known 'wicked' problems within organizations:
1. While organizations readily accept anything aligned to society's beliefs, they ignore, ridicule, or violently oppose truly new insights that, given the beliefs of society, are counter-intuitive (paradigm-shifting). A wicked problem in Galilleo's time and still unsolved.No amount of facts, evidence, data, lives lost or danger to society leads to organizations accepting new insights. This they do not do so until a shift in the public mind takes place. For this to happen can take a century or more as for instance the 200 years it took the British Royal Navy to accept lime juice could end scurvy, despite the importance to Britain and over a million sailors dying. People who discover insights that fly in the face of deep beliefs are generally rejected or persecuted by institutions while alive.

2. No matter how intelligent and good the people in any organization are, the outcomes are commonly stupid- lacking common sense. Once you are aware of this problem, it is incredible how widespread it is. For example, ask any person if it makes sense for America to produce oil, to produce corn, to produce fuel. People laugh and say it is stupid - but our institutions do it.

3. Organizations seldom admit to error. Commonly they 'circle the wagons' and defend the organization, even when it goes entirely against their mission. Think of the Catholic church with wonderful caring intelligent people and how the Church has for centuries protected paedophile priests although against its mission to protect the innocent.

The first of these wicked problems - inability of institutions to accept paradigm-shifting insights ahead of the public - may never be solved. Having battled for decades against ridicule during which no scientist has shown where the Holistic Management framework logic or science is flawed, I have no answer other than I am urging here, that the public become concerned educated and knowledgeable as rapidly as possible.

The next two wicked problems we may not solve for centuries, but I have a feeling they may be symptoms of the reductionist framework we unknowingly use in management. For the present, let's look at the first wicked problem endangering humanity and easily demonstrated.

Let's look at an example of societal beliefs prevailing over science in connection with both desertification and climate change. Society, as far as I can determine, has believed for thousands of years that planting trees is the solution to desertification. Institutions reflect this belief and modern society has expanded it to include planting trees as part of the solution to climate change. There is no Nobel Prize for environment, but society is beginning to realise that environmental degradation and desertification underlie social breakdown and violence. So, it was no surprize that a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 2004 to a Kenyan woman for exceptional leadership mobilising her community to plant trees. However, the trees were planted in a small high rainfall region of Kenya that is not desertifying. Almost any botanist, or educated person, knows that trees do not grow close enough to cover soil over hundreds of millions of hectares of Kenya where the rainfall is below 250 mm (10 inch) with prolonged dry periods. And without covering soil there is no chance of ending violence associated with the serious desertification of Kenya.

Common sense, thousands of years of civilizations like the Nabataeans who harvested runoff water to plant trees, and simple botany should all tell us that planting trees, desirable and successful as it is in higher rainfall, can never address desertification. So why then do institutions - government, universities, environmental - act without sense? They do so because there is absolutely no possibility of any solution without livestock that society, and thus institutions blame for desertification. Until the public perception changes we can expect institutions to continue to favour planting trees no matter the cost or evidence of failure. Look at this example of desalination of water and tree planting in the United Arab Emirates. Their government has spent over $30 Billion on about 1% of their land and so obviously failing. The UAE are not alone. China on an even larger scale continues removing livestock and planting trees, even though over a quarter of a million tons of sand blows into Beijing some days, and it is getting worse.

Had those far-sighted American government officials and myself in the early 1980s known about wicked problems we would have understood that the ban on further Holistic Management training was inevitable. I look back with hindsight and think how could I have been so stupid as to think universities, environmental and cattlemen's organizations were going to accept that livestock properly managed reverse desertification? The universities of seriously desertifying Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California mainly that brought about the government ban on training of officials could have acted in no other way. And the people within universities who gave me so much help developing the work were as powerless as any to prevent such a ban.

What is most important is that no one is to blame. This behaviour of organizations has been normal and natural behaviour since organizations were first formed I have no doubt.

While wicked problems explain some of the floundering and chaos today, they do not fully explain the global lack of leadership despite the need, so let's look at that issue.
Why is there no leadership as we face dangers more serious than all wars ever fought?
In the 18 th Century major blundering by organizations was serious, even playing a role in the American revolution. The best minds of the time "solved the problem" - the blunders were clearly due to amateur leadership because men could buy or inherit leading positions in organizations. This was to end with the "Age of Reason or Enlightenment" from which time on organizations would be led by highly trained professional people, as they generally are today. Napoleon championed this ideal solution more than any leaders as it spread throughout Europe.

John Ralston Saul, who wrote the best-selling book Voltaire's Bastards, studied across many fields to learn how management fared under trained professional leaders. Contrary to expectations that mass stupid blundering would decrease, Saul discovered that it increased under highly trained leadership. Few people today head major organizations without high academic credentials in narrow fields of expertise.

To quote Saul on why experts leading complex organizations managing nature's complexity are not faring well: "The reality is, that the division of knowledge into feudal fiefdoms of expertise has made general understanding and coordinated action, not simply impossible, but despised and distrusted."

People increasingly appeal to the leaders of political parties, corporations, large environmental and other organizations to take action on climate change. We do not appeal to individuals to lead us but to those leading organizations.

That history, knowledge of complexity and wicked problems indicate there can be no leadership from politicians, universities, environmental organizations or the United Nations we need to understand more widely. Tragically most people have faith that politicians and our institutions will safeguard future generations. Every parent concerned with the future of their children needs to understand why the world is floundering leaderless with institutional stupidity - there is no one at the helm! And to understand what they can do about it.
If the leaders of institutions cannot lead then who can?
Thankfully history and social research I believe answer this vital question. While we have to manage climate change through institutions, because we cannot as individuals, leadership requires our institutions shifting from reductionist management to managing holistically and thus taking a new direction. However we know institutions cannot do what is needed ahead of a significant shift in society's view. I have been unable to find a single case in history where any organization has ever changed ahead of the public, when new counter-intuitive knowledge is involved.

Increasingly I read about, or hear people stating that we need to take a holistic approach. However, many people over centuries saw a higher degree of connection to our environment, and thought more holistically, than we do today with most of our population in cities and divorced from our environment. Thinking more holistically did not help those earlier people prevent civilizations from failing when their agricultural practices led to environmental degradation. If we are to not to repeat history, we have actually to change from reductionist management to managing holistically.

Most people are apathetic and so it only needs a relatively low percentage of people to whom it makes sense insisting on change for it to happen. Not a full understanding, but a ground swell of people to whom it makes sense that management, including policies should be holistic in a holistic world. Both history and research suggest that when enough people are actively stating such views institutions can and will change.

Knowing this, when asked where the leaders are I respond by saying it is not the people who discover new insights who lead. It is the first people who help spread the new insights against institutional resistance - free-lance writers, film makers, investigative reporters or widely followed social outlets like TED that make new information available to society. TED by affording me the opportunity to give a 20 minute talk on desertification that went viral did more than thousands of us had achieved over fifty years against institutional opposition. And TED has been criticised by some academics, vegans and environmentalists for even allowing me to speak. In southern Africa I was banned from even setting foot on any university campus for over twenty years to prevent students hearing blasphemy. Slowly as the knowledge gets out it is ordinary people that unknowingly become the leaders as they spread the information and discuss the need till change follows. And that is happening as we see with the first university-led Holistic Management hub in Michigan. A few other institutions are also beginning to collaborate and become involved in the regenerative agriculture movement that is emerging.

Ultimately it is we ordinary people, including those of us working in institutions, that have to become concerned and determined to save our families and offer everyone's children and grandchildren a future. Recently a 15 year old Swede, Greta Thunberg, spoke up clearly at COP24 almost shaming adults into action with the threat of people power - but what action? And in America the youth are also rising in frustration and fear as we see.
If we ordinary people are to lead what do we need to know to demand change in the right direction?
The clamour for action and change and the mounting frustration and rage associated with it will increase as we continue to flounder leaderless. And it can only increase conflict and violence when everyone is paddling canoes in different directions. Today in conferences, social networking and media there are a plethora of suggestions for what to do: plant trees, remove or reduce livestock, eat less meat, be vegan, manufacture artificial meat, stop fossil fuel use or geo-engineer Earth's climate. All these actions will fail for the simple reason that none of them address the cause of either desertification or climate change. So we need to apply more wisdom and common sense.

Knowing as we do with 100% certainty that our present reductionist management is the ultimate cause of desertification and our increasingly unstable climate, we need to know what management options are available, and then what each of us can do, personally, today. We need to know what young people, like Greta Thonberg in Sweden or Emma in Denver can demand through youthful people power that is not yet another recipe for chaos.

Libraries, bookshops and Amazon.com are full of management books giving the impression of many management options. However, if we 'peel the onion' and keep digging into every management option to the deepest level where the actual management actions are determined, we find that they are all built on the same fundamental foundation. This foundation has been used by all humans since we first picked up and used sticks and stones as tools. Discovered in the 1980s this framework is common to all tool-using animals, and it looks like this:

Intending to improve our lives, we take actions to meet our needs, desires or to address problems we face. So we determine an action -use some tool - make our decision on one or more of many factors (past experience, expert opinion, research results, cost, cash flow, expediency, peer pressure, friends advice, etc.) Without using a tool in this case technology (tap, cup, pipe, dam, etc), we cannot even drink water unless we go to the nearest river and drink with our mouths. So let's begin looking at all the tools we have in every profession in the world with which to manage our environment.

We have three tools:

1. Technology

2. Fire

3. Resting the environment (conservation)

When society and thus scientists and institutions believe we have a great many tools you might wonder at how I arrive at only three. I did this while training the 2,000 professional people mentioned earlier. I had them write down every tool they had ever used, or been taught to use, in their private or professional lives. That resulted in long lists of things that were all technology in its many forms. Apart from some technology the only other tools were fire or the action of resting the environment.

The only other possibility known, is to use technology to plant trees to address desertification and now climate change, which has been done for 10,000 years without success, and is now being advocated widely as though new thinking.

So, leaving aside the tools at our disposal, let's see why we call management with this framework reductionist. Everything we manage (organizations and nature remember) involves a web or social, cultural, economic and environmental complexity that is unavoidable. When managing we always reduce this web of complexity to meeting our needs, desires, or solving problems as the reason, or context, for our management actions. It is because management reduces the complexity to a simple context - generally need, desire, problem - for our actions that such management is best described as reductionist.

Another reason, apart from reductionist management, for global desertification is the fact that none of our three tools can prevent or reverse desertification. Two of the tools in our small toolbox - fire, and resting the environment, lead to desertification over most of the world's land. The other tool - technology - can never address desertification that is a biological problem.

Policy development, an aspect of management, is also reductionist even where the most sophisticated interdisciplinary teams of scientists develop policy. In such cases where every scientist is aware there will be social, environmental and economic consequences and the disciplines in the team cover all of these fiefdoms, the web of complexity is consistently reduced to the problem addressed, as the context for policy actions. The result, as we see for example with policies of the U.S. on drugs, noxious plants, terror, or immigration is that the problems increase and lead to unintended consequences. Remember that sample of 2,000 officials concluded their policies were likely to fail and lead to unintended consequences. So common is this that economists refer humorously to the Law of Unintended Consequences.
What is the Holistic Management framework that offers an alternative to the reductionist framework?
When managing holistically we still take actions to improve our lives as before to achieve needs, desires and address problems. However, we first clarify the WHOLE situation being managed to ensure we know who is deciding management actions or developing policy, and for whom is this being done. Because the web of complexity is not going to be reduced and all actions are going to be in the context of the full social, cultural, economic and environmental complexity, a holistic context has to be determined. The relevant people once identified are those who develop the holistic context, or in some cases develop a generic holistic context that reflects how people in their culture want their lives to be, tied to our life-supporting environment in a state that would ensure such lives for generations to come.

Because this concept does not exist in any branch of science, religion or philosophy, here is a generic example I use when visiting new places, reading research papers, policies, newspapers or simply listening to people talking about their management. I can use a generic holistic context like this, while forming an opinion as to whether the actions or policies would lead to such lives, because it is how almost all humans wish to live:
We want stable families, living peaceful lives, in prosperity and physical security, while free to pursue our own spiritual or religious beliefs. We want adequate, nutritious food and clean water. We want good education and health, in balanced lives, with time for family, friends and community and leisure for cultural and other pursuits. All to be ensured, for many generations to come, on a foundation of ethical and humane behaviour to all life, regenerating soils and biologically diverse communities on Earth's land and in her rivers, lakes and oceans.
With either a real holistic context or generic holistic context depending on circumstances, we then go about determining actions to meet our needs, desires or solve problems, using all current science, scientific principles, or other sources of knowledge in an entirely non-disciplinary manner with the holistic context as the sole reason for our actions.

Doing this, management becomes easier because most people intuitively know if what they are considering is in line with their holistic context. However, when there is any doubt we use seven filtering questions that help us ensure that the management of our lives, businesses, policies, etc. are in line with the holistic context, while meeting needs, desires or solving problems. Apart from actually making management decisions in this holistic manner, there is one other essential step and that is adding one more tool to our small tool box.

We add the missing tool - livestock - without which, it is not possible to stop human-made desertification over about two thirds of the world's land, or to address climate instability as mentioned earlier. It is important to understand, that it was my conclusion that only livestock properly managed could save civilization as we know it, and not Holistic Management, that led to half a century of institutional resistance, ridicule and abuse. And it is largely institutional vilification of livestock that underlies the media and celebrity vegan, artificial meat drive. Tragically this public perception of livestock has drowned the very idea of Holistic Management providing a way of managing complexity, something no scientist or institution has opposed.
Where do we go from here?
With nations floundering leaderless, institutions incapable of changing till there is a shift in public perception and demand, each one of us no matter our station in life, no matter whether we work in an institution or not, can start to play a vital role.

Immediately this brings to mind celebrity citizens enjoying large public microphones who could shift public perceptions more easily than other citizens.
Failure of celebrities to lead.
Entertainment, sports, fashion and other celebrities with the purest of motives and whose simplest tweets reach millions of fans owe their status to their fans. So, understandably and somewhat like organizations, celebrities align themselves to the prevailing beliefs of those fans. As I write, literally hundreds of celebrities are jumping on the vilify-meat-bandwagon sensing that this is what fans desire and believe is the right thing to do for our environment, due to animals suffering appalling treatment under industrialized animal production. None distinguish between appallingly cruel factory production and meat produced by caring farmers and ranchers who abhor animal cruelty and confinement and manage their animals in a way that regenerates soils and grasslands. Just this past week Beyoncé and David Attenborough (who I hold in deep esteem) jumped on the vegan bandwagon.

While hundreds of celebrities are investing fame and fortune vilifying meat, a few are also investing in the factory production of artificial meat that can never match the nutritive value of organ and other meat from whole animals, and never sustain millions of people in the largest, most violent region of the world, across North Africa up into China. Over this vast region only animals can feed people on 95% of the land, while addressing the desertification. Humans cannot digest grass and about two thirds of the world's land is under seasonal rainfall where grass plants play a dominant role in stability and production. Tragically, such well-meaning celebrities are not connecting the dots in our holistic world.

If, as I believe, only ordinary people (including all those within institutions as private citizens) can bring about the needed shift in public perceptions, then let's briefly see what we should address first, in such a vast sea of issues:
Where do we start faced with so much confusion and "noise"?
The simple answer is we begin with agriculture because we cannot have a church, school, town, university, army, orchestra, government, city or any business without agriculture, so that is the place to start.

Remember that while media and most scientific papers and governments treat agriculture as crop production this is not correct. Agriculture is the production of food and fibre from the world's land and waters.Our whole planet is today supporting agriculture - fisheries, forestry, cropping, dairy, ranching, pastoralism, wildlife and more. And most vital of all, ultimately no economy (capitalist or other) can sustain any community, or nation other than through agriculture and the photosynthetic process-green plants growing on regenerating soil.

Every scientist, and person with common sense, knows agriculture has to be based on the biological sciences. Humans did so for 10,000 years developing agriculture enabling city-based civilizations. That was until expert leadership led to modern institutional agriculture, on land and waters, based on technology - machines, chemicals, fertilizers, giant ocean bottom dredging nets or now gene modification and transference. The unintended consequences and true cost of such institutional stupidity are staggering.

One statistic says it all. Conservative published figures show over 75 billion tonnes of dead, eroding soil is produced every year mainly from our cropland soils. That is twenty times the weight of the food needed to nourish our current population. Only 6% of our planet is producing crops, on approximately 20% of the land surface. Ocean life is being obliterated, especially in the most productive continental shelves, which are being blanketed by eroded soil and agricultural chemicals. Deserts are expanding, billions of hectares of grasslands burn every year, and millions of hectares of forests burn periodically - all having a profound eﬀect on climate. Modern so-called scientific agriculture is unarguably the most extractive, destructive industry ever in history and a major contributor to desertification and climate instability, as well as rising health problems.
What sort of agriculture should the public, Emma, Greta and millions of youths be demanding?
Organic? Sustainable? Grass fed beef? Permaculture? Biodynamic? Mainstream factory animal production (CAFOs)? Mono-cropping? Agroforestry? Silviculture? Frankly, debating different practices as people are doing in social media ensures a free for all of conflicting opinions. If we promote any practice, be it organic, permaculture or any other that we believe is a good practice you can be sure others will argue for their favoured practice. Even people promoting what they believe are organic, sustainable, permaculture or other good practices end up competing validity of their "solution."

It is just such public argument that leads to institutional change taking up to 200 years or more as Britain's Eric Lord Ashby wrote about in Reconciling Man and the Environment. Ashby's research on how change occurs in democratic societies was based on Britain and America over the last centuries as his case study.We owe it to future generations to seek a faster way to act sensibly.
All agriculture in the past was organic.
Many people favour organic crop production and grass-fed beef believing them to be good for our environment. But that is what every civilization was built on before coal and oil were exploited. All crops were organic and livestock were not force-fed grain. That organic agriculture, we now call sustainable, led to the failure of civilizations in all regions of the world because the environments were degrading. In all of the sustainable agriculture movement under the many names of organizations or practices I can find almost nothing new that was not practiced by past people thousands of years ago.

This is why we need a new, Regenerative Agriculture - a name I first heard in early 1980s from Robert Rodale.
An agriculture that regenerates communities, economies, soil, soil life and our environment. An agriculture that reverses desertification and plays a major role in stabilising climate. An agriculture that enables stable economies to eventually be developed.
Regenerative agriculture needs to become the subject of discussion around every dinner table, social gathering by thinking and caring mothers, fathers, soon-to-be parents or celebrities capable of reading, writing and speaking up. It is long past time for all to speak up, including Nobel Laureates conspicuous by their silence over the destructive nature of today's industrial agriculture. The first universities to change are beginning to talk about and teach Holistic Management using Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment (Island Press 2016) as their text. The tide is turning and now is a time for millions more concerned people to speak up. Remember an institutional wicked problem is the blockage, not the people employed and managing institutions. Our institutions are full of caring, competent people, ignorant about wicked problems, and powerless to bring about institutional change until they and enough people insist on change.
What is regenerative agriculture and what does it look like?
How do you describe it? If we are not clear, this will become yet another cliché, or name used by green-washing institutions continuing with reductionist management for short term profit at everyone's expense. Already people in the regenerative agriculture movement are promoting practices that while good in themselves will not be regenerative because they are not dealing with the cause of either desertification or climate change.

Agriculture will become regenerative when farmers, ranchers, pastoralists, fishermen, foresters and wildlife managers and institutions developing policies manage holistically. Till that change occurs, politicians and thus governments, United Nations and the big international environmental and humanitarian non-profit organizations (BINGOs) will continue to exacerbate global desertification and climate change even as they respond to public pressure to end the use of fossil fuels.

As soon as a holistic context guides policy deliberations and actions I have found it elevates agriculture above politics and any person pushing a political party or lobbyist point of view appears ridiculous. Once this is done without reducing the web of complexity to needs or desires of special interests the most appropriate agricultural "practices" automatically float to the top for adoption. This literally means the best of agricultural practices including some from mainstream agriculture and, of course, from small farmers, permaculture, organic, biodynamic, pastoral and traditional agriculture sources.
So, if we are to define regenerative agriculture, it would be: Regenerative agriculture is not any specific practice, but an agriculture that regenerates soils, rivers, oceans, grasslands, forests, wildlife, societies and economies. Its practices are identified within a holistic context, embracing the most up to date science and knowledge, by people acting in their own enlightened self-interest.
The management - holistic, not reductionist - defines regenerative agriculture rather than any specific farming, fisheries, forestry or other practice. And it does so from grassroots level on land and water, to institutional policies. In every region and country, practices would be locally determined and in line with the people's holistic context. Therefore, agriculture for them would entail practices that are socially sound, environmentally and economically sound in their own enlightened self-interest. I stress enlightened self-interest for two reasons: First, we will never prevent people acting in their own self-interest. Secondly, when people do develop a holistic context, they often come to realise that it is never in their self-interest to damage our environment, or another human.

At first glance this might sound daunting and difficult. It is not. The most common remark I have heard over decades from people in training, or practicing Holistic Management is "This is just common sense." Nothing would change but the underlying framework using a holistic context and accepting livestock as a fourth tool for use where nothing else can do what is required. And if we don't allow our personal and institutional egos to block learning as they do, almost any person can learn to manage holistically in a few days, albeit imperfectly.
What can you personally do?
Read about, learn and most of all discuss and share with family, friends, community or co-workers the need for holistically managed regenerative agriculture, and eventually, our institutions will have to change.

All of this now means little for me because at age 83 I am in the departure lounge. I will however continue to urge till my last breath that you focus as much as possible on two things no intelligent person can argue against: that management needs to be holistic and agriculture regenerative.
Can you even imagine arguing in favour of management being reductionist and agriculture unsustainable? Chances are you live in a city and that makes you more effective.
Most of the economic and political power has shifted to cities and all institutions function from cities, as does the massive public funding through donations to mega environmental organizations. So, join the food and health movements supporting regenerative agriculture. Look for the new EOV (Environmental Outcome Verification) label on food and clothing. This means no matter the practice these items of food and fibre are verified as measurably improving our environment.

Become a champion, giving talks and spreading knowledge of the hope that holistically managed, regenerative agriculture oﬀers. Above all be aware that apathy sustains the status quo and is not an option.

Resist being drawn into media and institutional enthusiasm about the latest UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which only address the symptoms of desertification and climate change, not the underlying cause, which we now know is due to our management of the resources at our disposal. Until efforts are focused on that, the symptoms (or problems) will only increase, despite the UN institution's best intentions.

When, as will increasingly happen, young people like Greta or Emma and those they speak for talk about fighting for their future and mobilizing angry youth to bring about desired change, how should you react? Remember they are calling for the management of complexity. Support them blindly and the unintended consequence will be increased conflict and violence and decreasing hope. For them to be supported constructively, as they deserve, I believe it important to make this message go viral - that management needs to be holistic and agriculture regenerative -so that youth of today know that change can happen peacefully and constructively if they insist and demand such change. Something no intelligent person of any age is likely to oppose.

As parents, or soon to be parents, you owe it to your children, grandchildren, families, communities talk to people until our institutions begin seriously addressing what we all want -stable families, living peaceful lives, in prosperity and physical security, while free to pursue our own spiritual or religious beliefs. We want adequate, nutritious food and clean water. We want good education and health, balanced lives with time for family, friends and community and leisure for cultural and other pursuits. All to be ensured, for many generations to come, on a foundation of ethical and humane behaviour to all life, regenerating soils and biologically diverse communities on Earth's land and in her rivers, lakes and oceans.

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How We Can Offer Hope For Our Grandchildren in a Floundering, Leaderless World | Savory Institute

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If you are concerned about the future of young people today please read this to the end because in today's short-attention-span sound-bite world, I believe this offers true hope for my grandchildren and yours.

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Even after a forest has been razed and cleared, it can return. With tech and patience, some projects are helping forests reclaim their old territories

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Half a millennia ago, forests covered much of the Iberian peninsula. But that soon changed. Centuries of wars and invasions, agricultural expansion and woodcutting for charcoal and shipping wiped out most of the woods and transformed places like Matamorisca, a small village in northern Spain, into degraded landscapes.

The region's arid climate and depleted soils would be a recipe for disaster in your average reforestation program, but for the Amsterdam-based Land Life Company it's an ideal place. "We typically operate where nature does not come back by itself," says Jurrian Ruys, its CEO. "We go where there are rougher conditions in terms of weather, with rough or very hot summers."

In Matamorisca, they intervened in 17 barren hectares owned by the regional government and peppered them with their signature device: a biodegradable cardboard donut they call the cocoon which can hold 25 litres of water underground to aid a seedling's first year. Around 16,000 oaks, ashes, walnuts, rowans, and whitebeams were planted in May 2018, and the company reports that 96% of them survived that year's scorching summer without extra irrigation, a critical milestone for a young tree.
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"Does nature return by itself?" asks Arnout Asjes, Land Life Company's chief technology officer, who oversees a mix of drone and satellite imagery, big data analysis, soil enhancement, QR tagging and site-specific tree configuration designs. "Probably, but it can take decades or hundreds of years, so we are speeding things up."

His company belongs to a global movement of organisations trying to save degraded or deforested areas, ranging from exuberant tropical lowlands to arid hills in temperate regions. Spurred by global biodiversity loss and climate change, these groups are pushing the boundary of how to revive forest cover. "It's not a theoretical proposition," says Walter Vergara, a forest and climate specialist at the World Resources Institute (WRI). "It requires the right incentives, the right stakeholders, the right analysis and sufficient capital, but it can happen."

How these factors coalesce around a particular project - and whether saving razed woods is even possible - depends on what kind of ecosystem you have in mind. Secondary forests in the Amazon are different from Texas pines recovering after wildfires or the boreal timber woods that cover much of Sweden. Each provide different reasons for reforestation programs and each has particular needs.

In the arid conditions around Matamorisca and similar areas in Spain, Land Life Company worries about rapid desertification. As its focus is on restoring an ecosystem, it works with organisations that don't expect their money back.

By 2030, the goal is to reach 350 million hectares - 20% more land than India

With around 600 hectares replanted around the world since 2015 and another 1,100 planned for this year, the company's drive fits into the Bonn Challenge, a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world's deforested and degraded land by 2020. That's an area roughly the size of Iran or Mongolia. By 2030, the goal is to reach 350 million hectares - 20% more land than India.

These targets include both the rehabilitation of forested areas that have lost density or look a bit weak (a process known as 'restoration' in forestry lingo) and the recuperation of forest cover in areas where it was completely cleared (what's known as 'reforestation').

That global target is broken into smaller pieces and takes shape in Latin America as the 20x20 Initiative, an effort to contribute 20 million hectares to the overall goal by catalysing small to medium projects with the political backing of governments.

Unlike Land Life Company, this region-wide project makes the economic and business case for reforestation, even though they are after biodiversity conservation. "You need to bring private sector money," says WRI's Vergara, who leads the initiative, "and that capital needs to see a return on their investment." A study he led predicts Latin America would see an estimated net present value of about $23bn (£17.3bn) over a 50-year period if it reaches its goal.

Money can come from timber sales in sustainably managed forests or from harvesting 'non-wood products' like nuts, oils and fruits from the trees. You can take note of how much carbon dioxide your forest is capturing and sell carbon credits to companies keen to offset their emissions. Or you can even grow the forest hoping that biodiversity will attract ecotourists who'd pay for lodging, birdwatching tours and meals.

Still, these backers are not your high-street bank. Money for the 20x20 Initiative comes mostly from financial organisations with triple goals - a modest return on their investment, environmental benefits and social gains - known as impact investors.

Take the German fund 12Tree for instance, one of the 20x20 partners. It put $9.5m (£7.1m) into Cuango, a 1,455-hectare property on the Caribbean coast of Panama that combines a commercial cocoa plantation with timber extraction from a sustainably managed secondary forest. With their money, they reforested a former cattle ranch, provided high-quality jobs for the surrounding communities and made a return on their investment.

By reintroducing trees in the landscape, we impact positively humidity, rain capture, soil conservation and biodiversity preservation - Benoît Bertrand

Even on land cleared decades ago and currently used by farmers, some crops can coexist with the forest, if you find the right balance. Although not technically reforestation, agroforestry provides an opportunity for small-holder farmers to sustain their livelihoods while adding some forest cover to their farms.

A global project called Breedcafs is studying how trees behave in coffee farms, hoping to find crop varieties that manage to grow under the canopy shade. Coffee grows naturally in such forests, so replicating that in farms is taking the crop back to its roots.

"By reintroducing trees in the landscape, we impact positively humidity, rain capture, soil conservation and biodiversity preservation," says coffee expert Benoît Bertrand, who leads the project from the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (Cirad). Bertrand is analysing which of dozens of coffee varieties fits better for this system. A similar approach can be applied to land with cocoa, vanilla and fruit trees.

Not every piece of land is amenable for reforestation. Vergara's partners look for safe investments, and even Land Life Company only runs major projects in what they consider "low-risk" countries, like Spain, Mexico or the US. "We tend to avoid large-scale operations in countries in some parts of the Middle East or Africa where the permanence is not secured," says Ruys.

But in the right location, perhaps all you need is time. In the Central Pacific of Costa Rica, the 330-hectare National Wildlife Refuge Barú looks nothing like the cattle ranch it was before 1987, when Jack Ewing decided to turn this hacienda into an ecotourism destination. Instead of intervening, a friend told him to let nature have its way.

Barú's former grazing lands are now exuberant woods and the property boasts over 150 hectares of secondary forests with no intervention from humans. In the past 10 years, howling monkeys, scarlet macaws and even migratory cougars have returned to the refuge's land, boosting tourism and reinvigorating the ecosystem. Ewing, now 75, explains this success using the words his friend chose three decades ago: "In Costa Rica, when you stop managing the scrubs, the jungle comes back for its vengeance."

--
Diego Arguedas Ortiz is a science and climate change reporter for BBC Future. He is If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. @arguedasortiz on Twitter.

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Half a millennia ago, forests covered much of the Iberian peninsula. But that soon changed. Centuries of wars and invasions, agricultural expansion and woodcutting for charcoal and shipping wiped out most of the woods and transformed places like Matamorisca, a small village in northern Spain, into degraded landscapes.

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UN declares 2021 to 2030 ‘Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’

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UN declares 2021 to 2030 ‘Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’

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The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, approved by the General Assembly on 1 March, will run from 2021 to 2030 and emphasize scaling-up of restoration work to address the severe degradation of landscapes, including wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, worldwide

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The United Nations has issued a massive global 'call to action' to mobilize the political and financial support necessary to restore the world's deforested and degraded ecosystems over the coming decade to support the wellbeing of 3.2 billion people around the globe. More than 2 billion hectares - an area larger than the South American continent - stand to be restored.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, approved by the General Assembly on 1 March, will run from 2021 to 2030 and emphasize scaling-up of restoration work to address the severe degradation of landscapes, including wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, worldwide. It will likely boost landscape restoration work to the top of national agendas, building on a public demand for action on issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the resulting impacts on economies and livelihoods.

"I think there are many stars that are aligning now," said UN Environment's Tim Christophersen, who serves as chair of the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration, in an interview with Landscape News. " We have to conserve what is left - stop the bleeding - but also give patient Earth ... a blood transfusion."

"These things need to go in parallel. There's a clearer understanding of that now, and the broad movement for restoration now has many years of experience," he added.

UN Environment will work with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) to lead the implementation of the Decade.

The concept for the Decade grew from a proposal by El Salvador, a Latin American leader in environmental efforts, to pool global resources and dedicate 10 years to promoting restoration. During a pivotal Bonn Challenge event in March 2018 held in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, El Salvador's Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources urged the international community to support a decade dedicated to landscape restoration.

The ministry alongside former head of UN Environment Erik Solheim continued to push for the Decade at another GLF event in Nairobi in August, a direct prelude to the Decade's proposal being made public in September at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Land degradation is estimated to cost the global economy between USD 2 and 4.5 trillion each year, while economic benefits of restoration efforts could annually reach an estimated USD 84 billion. At least 7 million hectares of tropical forest landscapes are cleared and degraded each year, putting livelihoods, biodiversity and food security at risk, while exacerbating climate change, conflict and human migration.

The Decade also targets coastal and wetland areas, which have been declining even more quickly than terrestrial ecosystems. Coral reefs are projected to decline by a further 70 to 90 percent with a 1.5 degree Celsius rise in global warming, having massively detrimental effects on biodiversity, the global economy and the atmosphere.

"It is a great opportunity to build momentum and political will, awareness and technical capacity at all levels," said Christophersen. "And I think we are ready because there is such a broad movement on restoration existing that has many years of experience. We're ready to scale up."

Increased funding could implement and expand projects to restore ecosystems, reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss, and shore up country-level efforts to meet elements of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"The degradation of our ecosystems has had a devastating impact on both people and the environment," said Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of UN Environment, in a press release. "We are excited that momentum for restoring our natural environment has been gaining pace because nature is our best bet to tackle climate change and secure the future."

The Decade will accelerate existing restoration goals, such as the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded ecosystems by 2030, at an estimated cost of about USD 800 billion. To date, some 57 countries, subnational governments and private organizations have committed to bring more than 170 million hectares under restoration. It builds on regional efforts such as Initiative 20×20 in Latin America and AFR100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which aims to bring 100 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030.

Restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 could generate USD 9 trillion in ecosystem services and remove an additional 13 to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This is critical for livelihoods and human wellbeing, added José Graziano da Silva, director general of FAO. "Our global food systems and the livelihoods of many millions of people depend on all of us working together to restore healthy and sustainable ecosystems for today and the future."

Ecosystem restoration is fundamental to achieving the SDGs, particularly on climate change, poverty eradication, food security, water and biodiversity conservation. It is also a pillar of international environmental conventions, including the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the three Rio Conventions on biodiversity, desertification and climate change.

"We believe that all countries, in some way ... are prepared to make a giant leap in restoration," Lina Pohl, El Salvador's minister of the environment and natural resources, said last year at the time of the Brazil event. "We believe that it cannot be (achieved in only) one year. You can't restore a country in one year. It should really be a coordinated effort over a decade."

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UN declares 2021 to 2030 'Decade on Ecosystem Restoration' - Landscape News

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This post is also available in: The United Nations has issued a massive global 'call to action' to mobilize the political and financial support necessary to restore the world's deforested and degraded ecosystems over the coming decade to support the wellbeing of 3.2 billion people around the globe.

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Christine Jones on Community Tipping Points

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Christine Jones on Community Tipping Points

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Taking soil understanding to the next level. Dr Christine Jones on quorum sensing (density-dependent coordinated behaviour), the incredible impact of plant diversity on soil biota, topsoil building and ecosystem health and the harm done by inorganic fertilisers. No-till on the Plains 2019

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No-till on the Plains 2019 Christine Jones Community Tipping Points

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Regenerative Development:The Art and Science of Creating Durably Vibrant Human Networks

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Regenerative Development:The Art and Science of Creating Durably Vibrant Human Networks

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Dr Sally Goerner

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Richard Young on the case for grazing animals

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Grazing animals have shaped the quintessentially pastoral British countryside for thousands of years and play a vital role in sustainable food systems. However, over the last decade or so we've been told by a succession of high-profile reports that we have to make drastic cuts in our consumption of meat in order to help limit global warming, biodiversity loss and other agriculture-related problems. This has left many people confused about what they should eat to be healthy and have a sustainable lifestyle.

The authors of these reports, such as the recent EAT-Lancet report, all correctly highlight the problems for humanity caused by a rapidly growing global population, high meat consumption in developed countries and an increasing appetite - or in some cases nutritional need - for meat in many developing countries. However, the focus is always put on cutting out red meat, rather than poultry, and no distinction is made in the way the meat is produced.

The basic reason for this is that all cattle, sheep and other ruminants emit the greenhouse gas methane, while chickens do not. They also convert grain to protein less efficiently than poultry or pigs.

It is predicted that by 2050 another billion tonnes of grain will be needed every year to produce enough meat to feed the global population, something which is clearly unsustainable, since continuous grain production is one of the biggest causes of soil degradation and loss. Indeed, globally, cropland soils continue to degrade as carbon is lost to the atmosphere - 24 billion tonnes of soil is lost annually, over three tonnes for every person on the planet.

However, what the researchers invariably overlook is that this is only an issue in relation to grain-fed cattle, such as those in US feedlots, whose rations consist of maize, soya meal and chopped straw.

In contrast, two-thirds of UK farmland is under grass, in most cases because the land is not suitable for growing crops. The only practical way to get food from this land without causing an environmental disaster is to graze it with livestock. Almost all cattle and sheep in the UK are predominantly fed on grass, grazed in the fields during summer and fed as hay or silage over winter - and the UK has one of the best climates in the world for growing grass. Some of these animals do also get grain, but in many cases this is waste grain, like Brewer's grain (what's left after beer making), which humans cannot eat.

Tragically, a high proportion of the UK's most species-rich grasslands have in the past been ploughed for cropping or resown with ryegrass monocultures. However, all organic and most pasture-fed meat producers include legumes, multiple grass species and herbs in their grazing mixtures. Even many intensive farmers have now been persuaded by agri-environment schemes to restore grassland diversity, with wild flowers and delicate species getting a chance to recover once the use of synthetic fertilisers ceases. This in turn helps to revive the intricate web of life, which begins with microbes, soil spiders and other insects, embraces farmland birds and small mammals, and ultimately sustains us humans.

While over-grazing was encouraged by farm subsidies prior to the early 1990s, some grassland is now under-grazed due to falling demand for lamb. This is a problem because many bird and butterfly species have evolved in tandem with grazing livestock. In fact, both the RSPB and Natural England recognise that grazing animals are essential for sustaining healthy wildlife populations.

But what about methane? The high methane levels in the atmosphere are a significant cause of global warming, yet ruminants are responsible for only 5% of UK anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. What's more, all the carbon in ruminant methane is recycled carbon - grazing animals can't add more carbon to the atmosphere than the plants they eat take out by photosynthesis. In fact, fossil fuels are not only the main source of carbon dioxide emissions, they are also responsible for a third more methane than ruminants and all the methane from fossil fuels contains additional, 'fossil' carbon.

So what meat should we choose to help sustain the planet? It's not a red versus white issue. The simple answer is that we should eat far less grain-fed meat, be it beef, pork or chicken, instead we should actively seek grass-fed meat and meat from animals supplemented with only small amounts of otherwise waste grain.

While few people yet realise it, we actually need to encourage increased production of grass-fed meat, since the most effective way to restore our degraded arable soils and wild pollinators is to re-introduce grass and grazing animals into cropland rotations.
Photograph: Steph French

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Adding balance to the meat debate - Sustainable Food Trust

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Grazing animals have shaped the quintessentially pastoral British countryside for thousands of years and play a vital role in sustainable food systems. However, over the last decade or so we've been told by a succession of high-profile reports that we have to make drastic cuts in our consumption of meat in order to help limit global warming, biodiversity loss and other agriculture-related problems. This has left many people confused about what they should eat to be healthy and have a sustainable lifestyle.

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Letter to a Young Activist during Troubled Times

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Letter to a Young Activist during Troubled Times

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Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés

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Letter to a Young Activist - Maven Productions

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"Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now..."

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Massive restoration of world’s forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests

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Massive restoration of world’s forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests

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If such a goal were accomplished, ecologist Dr Thomas Crowther said it would outstrip every other method for tackling climate change – from building wind turbines to vegetarian diets.

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Replenishing the world's forests on a grand scale would suck enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions, according to an ambitious new study.

Scientists have established there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees to grow in parks, woods and abandoned land across the planet.

If such a goal were accomplished, ecologist Dr Thomas Crowther said it would outstrip every other method for tackling climate change - from building wind turbines to vegetarian diets.

Lack of accurate information meant for years experts severely underestimated the number of trees on Earth.

Combining data from ground-based surveys and satellites, Dr Crowther and his colleagues arrived at a figure of three trillion - over seven times more than a previous Nasa estimate.

The same approach, using machine learning and AI to analyse the enormous data set, allowed the researchers to predict the number of trees that could feasibly be planted in empty patches around the world.

Dr Crowther said undervaluing trees means scientists have also been massively underestimating the potential for forests to combat climate change.

Project Drawdown, a group that compares the merits of different emission-cutting techniques, currently places onshore wind power and improved recycling of fridges and air conditioners at the top of its list.

If rolled out on a realistic scale, each of these techniques would cut over 80 gigatons of emissions, while growing forests languishes in 15th place with a saving of just 18 gigatons.

New research undertaken by Dr Crowther has used the 1.2 billion figure to estimate the potential scale of carbon capture that could be achieved by planting trees, and reveal their true potential.

"There's 400 gigatons now, in the 3 trillion trees, and if you were to scale that up by another trillion trees that's in the order of hundreds of gigatons captured from the atmosphere - at least 10 years of anthropogenic emissions completely wiped out," he said.

While the exact figures are yet to be released, he said trees had emerged as "our most powerful weapon in the fight against climate change". Dr Crowther discussed his findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington DC.

Full restoration of all sites identified is clearly unrealistic, but tree planting is increasingly being recognised as a critical activity to preserve life on Earth.

The United Nations initially ran a project known as the Billion Tree Campaign, but in light of Dr Crowther's findings this has been renamed the Trillion Tree Campaign. It has already seen 17 billion trees planted in suitable locations around the world.

"We are not targeting urban or agricultural area, just degraded or abandoned lands, and it has the potential to tackle the two greatest challenges of our time - climate change and biodiversity loss," said Dr Crowther.

"It's a beautiful thing because everyone can get involved. Trees literally just make people happier in urban environments, they improve air quality, water quality, food quality, ecosystem service, it's such an easy, tangible thing."

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Massive restoration of world's forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests

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Replenishing the world's forests on a grand scale would suck enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions, according to an ambitious new study. Scientists have established there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees to grow in parks, woods and abandoned land across the planet.

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Regenerative agriculture can make farmers stewards of the land again

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Regenerative agriculture can make farmers stewards of the land again

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Agricultural journalist Stephanie Anderson on the need for regenerative agriculture

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For years, "sustainable" has been the buzzword in conversations about agriculture. If farmers and ranchers could slow or stop further damage to land and water, the thinking went, that was good enough. I thought that way too, until I started writing my new book, " One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl's Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture."

I grew up on a cattle ranch in western South Dakota and once worked as an agricultural journalist. For me, agriculture is more than a topic - it is who I am. When I began working on my book, I thought I would be writing about sustainability as a response to the environmental damage caused by conventional agriculture - farming that is industrial and heavily reliant on oil and agrochemicals, such as pesticides and fertilizers.

But through research and interviews with farmers and ranchers around the United States, I discovered that sustainability's "give back what you take" approach, which usually just maintains or marginally improves resources already degraded by generations of conventional agriculture, does not adequately address the biggest long-term challenge farmers face: climate change.

But there is an alternative. A method called regenerative agriculture promises to create new resources, restoring them to preindustrial levels or better. This is good for farmers as well as the environment, since it lets them reduce their use of agrochemicals while making their land more productive.

What holds conventional farmers back

Modern American food production remains predominantly conventional. Growing up in a rural community of farmers and ranchers, I saw firsthand why.

As food markets globalized in the early 1900s, farmers began specializing in select commodity crops and animals to increase profits. But specialization made farms less resilient: If a key crop failed or prices tumbled, they had no other income source. Most farmers stopped growing their own food, which made them dependent on agribusiness retailers.

Under these conditions small farms consolidated into large ones as families went bankrupt - a trend that continues today. At the same time, agribusiness companies began marketing new machines and agrochemicals. Farmers embraced these tools, seeking to stay in business, specialize further and increase production.

In the 1970s, the government's position became " Get big or get out" under Earl Butz, who served as Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976. In the years since, critics like the nonprofit Food and Water Watch have raised concerns that corporate representatives have dictated land grant university research by obtaining leadership positions, funding agribusiness-friendly studies, and silencing scientists whose results conflict with industrial principles.

University of Nebraska - Lincoln, data from USDA, CC BY-ND

These companies have also shaped government policies in their favor, as economist Robert Albritton describes in his book " Let Them Eat Junk." These actions encouraged the growth of large industrialized farms that rely on genetically modified seeds, agrochemicals and fossil fuel.

Several generations into this system, many conventional farmers feel trapped. They lack the knowledge required to farm without inputs, their farms are big and highly specialized, and most are carrying operating loans and other debts.

In contrast, regenerative agriculture releases farmers from dependence on agribusiness products. For example, instead of purchasing synthetic fertilizers for soil fertility, producers rely on diverse crop rotations, no-till planting and management of livestock grazing impacts.

Agribusiness dogma says that regenerative agriculture cannot feed the world and or ensure a healthy bottom line for farmers, even as conventional farmers are going bankrupt. I have heard this view from people I grew up with in South Dakota and interviewed as a farm journalist.

"Everybody seems to want smaller local producers," Ryan Roth, a farmer from Belle Glade, Florida told me. "But they can't keep up. It's unfortunate. I think it's not the best development for agriculture operations to get bigger, but it is what we're dealing with."

The climate threat

Climate change is making it increasingly hard for farmers to keep thinking this way. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that without rapid action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over roughly the next decade, warming will trigger devastating impacts such as wildfires, droughts, floods and food shortages.

For farmers, large-scale climate change will cause decreased crop yields and quality, heat stress for livestock, disease and pest outbreaks, desertification on rangelands, changes in water availability and soil erosion.

USGCRP

As I explain in my book, regenerative agriculture is an effective response to climate change because producers do not use agrochemicals - many of which are derived from fossil fuels - and greatly reduce their reliance on oil. The experiences of farmers who have adopted regenerative agriculture show that it restores soil carbon, literally locking carbon up underground, while also reversing desertification, recharging water systems, increasing biodiversity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And it produces nutrient-rich food and promises to enliven rural communities and reduce corporate control of the food system.

No single model

How farmers put this strategy into practice differs depending on their location, goals and community needs. Regenerative agriculture is a one-size-fits-none model of farming that allows for flexibility and close tailoring to individual environments.

At Great Plains Buffalo in South Dakota, for example, rancher Phil Jerde is reversing desertification on the grassland. Phil moves buffalo across the land in a way that mimics their historic movement over the Great Plains, rotating them frequently through small pastures so they stay bunched together and impact the land evenly via their trampling and waste distribution. The land has adequate time to rest and regrow between rotations.

After transitioning his conventional ranch to a regenerative one over 10 years, Phil saw bare ground revert back to prairie grassland. Water infiltration into the ground increased, his herd's health improved, wildlife and insect populations recovered and native grasses reappeared.

On Brown's Ranch in North Dakota, farmer Gabe Brown also converted his conventional operation to a regenerative one in a decade. He used a combination of cover crops, multicropping (growing two or more crops on a piece of land in a single season), intercropping (growing two or more crops together), an intensive rotational grazing system called mob grazing, and no-till farming to restore soil organic matter levels to just over 6 percent - roughly the level most native prairie soils contained before settlers plowed them up. Restoring organic matter sequesters carbon in the soil, helping to slow climate change.

Conventional farmers often worry about losing the illusion of control that agrochemicals, monocultures and genetically modified seeds provide. I asked Gabe how he overcame these fears. He replied that one of the most important lessons was learning to embrace the environment instead of fighting it.

"Regenerative agriculture can be done anywhere because the principles are the same," he said. "I always hear, 'We don't get the moisture or this or that.' The principles are the same everywhere. There's nature everywhere. You're just mimicking nature is all you're doing."

The future

Researchers with Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that spotlights substantive responses to climate change, estimate that land devoted to regenerative agriculture worldwide will increase from 108 million acres currently to 1 billion acres by 2050. More resources are appearing to help farmers make the transition, such as investment groups, university programs and farmer-to-farmer training networks.

Organic food sales continue to rise, suggesting that consumers want responsibly grown food. Even big food companies like General Mills are embracing regenerative agriculture.

The question now is whether more of America's farmers and ranchers will do the same.

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Regenerative agriculture can make farmers stewards of the land again

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For years, "sustainable" has been the buzzword in conversations about agriculture. If farmers and ranchers could slow or stop further damage to land and water, the thinking went, that was good enough. I thought that way too, until I started writing my new book, " One Size Fits None: A Farm Girl's Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture."

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The Soil Carbon Sponge, Climate Solutions and Healthy Water Cycles

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The Soil Carbon Sponge, Climate Solutions and Healthy Water Cycles

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Walter Jehne again in April 2018 at Harvard

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The Soil Carbon Sponge, Climate Solutions and Healthy Water Cycles with Walter Jehne

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Pierre Rabhi, his life, his ideas to save the Earth and Humanity

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Pierre Rabhi, his life, his ideas to save the Earth and Humanity

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The French farmer-philosopher Pierre Rabhi has been promoting agroecology for decades and is a major inspiration for ecological engagement in France

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Pierre Rabhi, his life, his ideas to save the Earth and Humanity

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La Ferme Biologique du Bec Helloin https://www.fermedubec.com/

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Reinventing the Economics of Agriculture

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Reinventing the Economics of Agriculture

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The global movement to regenerate ecosystems and reverse global warming has a new, exciting technological tool —Regen Network. No longer will farmers and companies need to choose between profit and ecosystem integrity. Learn more at https://www.regen.network/

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Reinventing the Economics of Agriculture - Kiss The Ground Stories

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Soils, Regenerative farming, Agroecology 

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Soils, Regenerative farming, Agroecology 

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(English with Spanish subtitles)

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(In English)

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The Compost Story (Full Video) by Kiss The Ground

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Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world

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Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world

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David R. Montgomery, Professor of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, on researching his forthcoming book, “Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life,”

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One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn't necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the world using fewer agrochemicals.

When I embarked on a six-month trip to visit farms around the world to research my forthcoming book, "Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life," the innovative farmers I met showed me that regenerative farming practices can restore the world's agricultural soils. In both the developed and developing worlds, these farmers rapidly rebuilt the fertility of their degraded soil, which then allowed them to maintain high yields using far less fertilizer and fewer pesticides.

Their experiences, and the results that I saw on their farms in North and South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ghana and Costa Rica, offer compelling evidence that the key to sustaining highly productive agriculture lies in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil. This journey also led me to question three pillars of conventional wisdom about today's industrialized agrochemical agriculture: that it feeds the world, is a more efficient way to produce food and will be necessary to feed the future.

Myth 1: Large-scale agriculture feeds the world today

According to a recent U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, family farms produce over three-quarters of the world's food. The FAO also estimates that almost three-quarters of all farms worldwide are smaller than one hectare - about 2.5 acres, or the size of a typical city block.

Svetlana Edmeades/IFPRI/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Only about 1 percent of Americans are farmers today. Yet most of the world's farmers work the land to feed themselves and their families. So while conventional industrialized agriculture feeds the developed world, most of the world's farmers work small family farms. A 2016 Environmental Working Group report found that almost 90 percent of U.S. agricultural exports went to developed countries with few hungry people.

Of course the world needs commercial agriculture, unless we all want to live on and work our own farms. But are large industrial farms really the best, let alone the only, way forward? This question leads us to a second myth.

Myth 2: Large farms are more efficient

Many high-volume industrial processes exhibit efficiencies at large scale that decrease inputs per unit of production. The more widgets you make, the more efficiently you can make each one. But agriculture is different. A 1989 National Research Council study concluded that "well-managed alternative farming systems nearly always use less synthetic chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics per unit of production than conventional farms."

And while mechanization can provide cost and labor efficiencies on large farms, bigger farms do not necessarily produce more food. According to a 1992 agricultural census report, small, diversified farms produce more than twice as much food per acre than large farms do.

Even the World Bank endorses small farms as the way to increase agricultural output in developing nations where food security remains a pressing issue. While large farms excel at producing a lot of a particular crop - like corn or wheat - small diversified farms produce more food and more kinds of food per hectare overall.

Myth 3: Conventional farming is necessary to feed the world

We've all heard proponents of conventional agriculture claim that organic farming is a recipe for global starvation because it produces lower yields. The most extensive yield comparison to date, a 2015 meta-analysis of 115 studies, found that organic production averaged almost 20 percent less than conventionally grown crops, a finding similar to those of prior studies.

But the study went a step further, comparing crop yields on conventional farms to those on organic farms where cover crops were planted and crops were rotated to build soil health. These techniques shrank the yield gap to below 10 percent.

The authors concluded that the actual gap may be much smaller, as they found " evidence of bias in the meta-dataset toward studies reporting higher conventional yields." In other words, the basis for claims that organic agriculture can't feed the world depend as much on specific farming methods as on the type of farm.

Garrett Duyck, NRCS/Flickr, CC BY-ND

Consider too that about a quarter of all food produced worldwide is never eaten. Each year the United States alone throws out 133 billion pounds of food, more than enough to feed the nearly 50 million Americans who regularly face hunger. So even taken at face value, the oft-cited yield gap between conventional and organic farming is smaller than the amount of food we routinely throw away.

Building healthy soil

Conventional farming practices that degrade soil health undermine humanity's ability to continue feeding everyone over the long run. Regenerative practices like those used on the farms and ranches I visited show that we can readily improve soil fertility on both large farms in the U.S. and on small subsistence farms in the tropics.

I no longer see debates about the future of agriculture as simply conventional versus organic. In my view, we've oversimplified the complexity of the land and underutilized the ingenuity of farmers. I now see adopting farming practices that build soil health as the key to a stable and resilient agriculture. And the farmers I visited had cracked this code, adapting no-till methods, cover cropping and complex rotations to their particular soil, environmental and socioeconomic conditions.

Whether they were organic or still used some fertilizers and pesticides, the farms I visited that adopted this transformational suite of practices all reported harvests that consistently matched or exceeded those from neighboring conventional farms after a short transition period. Another message was as simple as it was clear: Farmers who restored their soil used fewer inputs to produce higher yields, which translated into higher profits.

David Montgomery, Author provided

No matter how one looks at it, we can be certain that agriculture will soon face another revolution. For agriculture today runs on abundant, cheap oil for fuel and to make fertilizer - and our supply of cheap oil will not last forever. There are already enough people on the planet that we have less than a year's supply of food for the global population on hand at any one time. This simple fact has critical implications for society.

So how do we speed the adoption of a more resilient agriculture? Creating demonstration farms would help, as would carrying out system-scale research to evaluate what works best to adapt specific practices to general principles in different settings.

We also need to reframe our agricultural policies and subsidies. It makes no sense to continue incentivizing conventional practices that degrade soil fertility. We must begin supporting and rewarding farmers who adopt regenerative practices.

Once we see through myths of modern agriculture, practices that build soil health become the lens through which to assess strategies for feeding us all over the long haul. Why am I so confident that regenerative farming practices can prove both productive and economical? The farmers I met showed me they already are.

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Healthy soil is the real key to feeding the world

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One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn't necessarily. After all, soil erosion from chemical-free tilled fields undermined the Roman Empire and other ancient societies around the world. Other agricultural myths hinder recognizing the potential to restore degraded soils to feed the world using fewer agrochemicals.

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Can we ditch intensive farming - and still feed the world?

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Can we ditch intensive farming - and still feed the world?

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Fiona Harvey. Poorly written but some useful stats

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Why do we need to grow more food?

Food production around the world must rise by half in the next 30 years to sustain a global population expected to top 10 billion by 2050.

Compared with 2010, an extra 7,400tn calories will be needed a year in 2050. If food production increases along current lines, that would require a landmass twice the area of India.

These are the findings of a report published in December by the World Resources Institute on the "food gap" between current production and growing consumption.

So we need to find more land to cultivate then?

Bringing more land under agricultural production is one answer to filling this gap, but it cannot solve the problem alone. Finding that amount of land in suitable conditions would spell the end for many of the earth's remaining forests, peatlands and wild areas, and release the carbon stored in them, hastening climate change.

Intensive farming has already had a huge effect on biodiversity and the environment worldwide. Pesticides, which have helped boost cereal and fruit production, have also killed bees and myriad species of insects in large numbers.

Fertilisers that have improved poor soils have also had unintended harmful consequences. The largest ever maritime "dead zone" was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the result of fertiliser and manure from the meat industry running off the land. Chemical fertilisers also contribute directly to climate change, through the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, and to air pollution through ammonia.

Chinese farm workers sort out leeks at an organic farm on the outskirts of Beijing. Photograph: Ng Han Guan/AP

So what are the other answers?

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world's leading body charged with care of our future food supply, has called this year for "transformative change in our food systems".

The most obvious alternative to industrialised intensive farming in the developed world is organic farming. The label organic, or bio, is a familiar one in many supermarkets, but makes up only 2% of food sales in the UK and about 5.5% in the US.

Organic farmers must adhere to strict rules on how they grow their crops and raise their livestock. These include using antibiotics on animals only when necessary, cutting out chemical fertilisers and pesticides almost completely in favour of natural alternatives such as manure and wood ash as fertilisers and plant-derived pesticides, and managing land to provide habitats for wildlife.

Rob Percival, head of policy at the Soil Association, says organic farming can feed the world, if consumption patterns are adjusted to encourage those who can afford meat to eat less of it. "We need an urgent shift in both production and consumption if we're to avert the worst consequences of climate change, including a dietary shift towards less and better meat," he says.

"Livestock grazing on pasture can support soil health and carbon sequestration, and manure can provide soil fertility for other crops."

He adds that the productivity of organic farming is greater than previously thought, "and when the environmental and other damage caused by high energy and chemical inputs in non-organic farming are factored in, organic food is cheaper for society and better for the planet".

A march for agroecology and civil resistance against seed and pesticide maker Monsanto in Bordeaux, France. Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images

But isn't organic a burden for farmers?

For many farmers, the investment and time needed to meet organic standards may be a stretch, but there are ways to move towards more sustainable farming without organic certification.

Agroecology is the name given to a broad range of farming techniques that seek to minimise the environmental impact of farming. It encompasses organic farming, but is informal and does not require certification and inspection.

"It is about using natural systems," says Vicki Hird, food and farming campaigner at Sustain, an NGO. "Reducing the use of artificial chemicals, such as fertilisers and pesticides is an important part of it. Looking closely at the soil and other conditions, nourishing the soil, taking account of the natural pest cycles, natural predators and crop cycles."

She argues that agroecology could be widely adopted as an alternative to damaging industrialised farming. Farmers can sow crops such as clover as cover to suppress weeds and return organic matter to the soil, and rotate crops, including vegetables such as legumes that fix nitrogen. It requires close attention to the land itself and the crops, rather than the standard mode of farming which is to plant cash crops at the highest yield possible.

"Diversity is the key," says Hird. "Having these huge monocultures does not lend itself to being managed in a natural way, and can damage biodiversity."

Diversifying into heritage crops, such as older varieties of fruit and vegetables and a wider variety of grains than the current few strains of wheat that are the norm in intensive agriculture, can also yield benefits. These crops have their own advantages, including natural resistance to certain diseases, pests or conditions.

"You might get a lower yield [by these methods]," Hird concedes, "but you get a higher level of nutrients in the food produced."

What about permaculture?

Some farmers go further, and embrace concepts such as permaculture and biodynamics. The principles of permaculture involve understanding the relationships between plants and using them in combinations, while reusing any waste products, often as fertiliser.

Biodynamics takes a different approach, following the precepts of Rudolf Steiner and incorporating a spiritual aspect, for instance in some cases aligning planting and harvesting to lunar calendars.

Peatlands, which around the world have been grossly degraded, can also be managed organically through paludiculture. This requires re-wetting dried-out peatlands and looking to alternative plants that grow well there, including forestry and medicinal plants such as sphagnum moss, and allowing animals to graze.

Urban farming, shown here in Nairobi, Kenya, produces a fifth of the world's food. Photograph: Luis Tato/The Guardian

And urban farming?

Urban farming can deliver food - or at least some fresh produce - efficiently to dense populations without the greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient loss associated with transporting it across long distances. Already, urban farming produces about a fifth of the world's food.

There are currently more than 3,000 urban farming schemes in London alone. These carry an echo of the "market gardens" and dairies of the Victorian era, when small vegetable farms were sited in or near towns and cows were kept in green places in cities for fresh milk.

The cows of Hyde Park, dispensing fresh milk to Londoners, were a familiar sight until the first world war; in the near future, look out for hipsters drinking smoothies from the underground farms of Shoreditch.

These sound a bit niche. Don't industrial farms produce most of the world's food?

No. There are more than 570m farms worldwide; more than 90% are run by an individual or family and rely primarily on family labour. They produce about 80% of the world's food.

Small farmers will be key to the transition, says Ronald Vargas, soil and land officer at the FAO. Many small farmers are poor and insecure, but FAO considers investment in smallholder production "the most urgent and secure and promising means of combating hunger and malnutrition, while minimising the ecological impact of agriculture".

A weeding robot at an agricultural research organisation in Saint-Hilaire-en-Woevre, eastern France. ¨ Photograph: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images

How can technology and innovation help?

There is no shortage of innovation and tech to help improve efficiencies and yields - on industrial farms and smallholdings. GPS, drones and fine-grained data on topography, soils and other aspects of farmland to allow farmers to target specific areas with fertilisers, pesticides and water, instead of blanket spraying.

For instance, Olam, a global agribusiness that produces cocoa, coffee, sugar, cotton and other crops, uses real-time monitoring on its plantations to finely judge fertiliser quantities and avoid the need for the pre-emptive use of pesticides. Its almond trees in Australia are fitted with sensors to monitor exactly how much water each tree needs, and when.

For family farmers in the developing world, mobile phones are revolutionising what is possible. They have given farmers in remote areas access to tools such as weather forecasts, market prices, yield information and practical advice. GPS is also allowing them to track their produce after it leaves the farm.

Drones and robots may seem futuristic but are already in use, delivering targeted pesticides and picking out damaged or diseased crops before they can infect others around them.

In parts of the world where space is at a premium, vertical farming is catching on. This refers to the practice of stacking crops, usually vegetables, in shallow containers in layers, which can reach any height available. It not only saves on space, but can also be managed to use water and energy more efficiently, as water can be pumped to the top and allowed to flow down by gravity.

Some systems use hydroponics, by which the plants are immersed in water containing mineral solutions, in place of soil. Temperatures can be carefully controlled, water reused, and nutrients recycled. Software systems can control the delivery mechanisms and monitor how the plants are faring.

Our new-found abilities to control light, temperature, air and other environmental factors open up new vistas for farming. Underground growing used to be reserved for mushrooms and niche crops such as forced rhubarb, grown in large warehouses.

If LEDs can take the place of sunlight, a far greater variety of plants can thrive in these conditions, making not only rooftops but basements and disused underground spaces from worked-out mines to old railway lines potentially viable venues for growing short-cycle foodstuffs.

What next?

Our reliance on artificial fertiliser and intensive farming techniques did not happen overnight, but took decades. Along the way, these methods revolutionised farming and enabled huge population growth and economic growth. We now have a wealth of scientific evidence that shows that continuing down the same path would risk runaway climate change, the extinction of species vital to human life, pollution of our water and air, and the death of our soils.

"Industrial agriculture exploits the available natural resources of our planet to an untenable and unsustainable extent," says Vargas of the FAO. "The basic strategy to replace human labour with farm machinery, agrochemicals and fossil energy is a dead end in times of climate change, dwindling oil reserves and over-exploited natural resources."

Experts say a second revolution is now needed, that will encompass not just our growing methods but consumption habits and our entire food economy. This would have to involve farmers, retailers, governments and consumers. In last century's farming revolution, only one future was offered: industrialisation. For this century, there will be a plurality of alternatives, and combinations of new and ancient technology, and all have their place.

"There is not one huge conceptual change where you do everything differently and everything will be OK," says Tim Searchinger of Princeton University and the World Resources Institute. "There is not one single answer. There are lots and lots of things we can and need to do."

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How to feed the world - without killing everything

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From urban farming to drones, innovation can help fill the gap between production and consumption

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Large selection of agroecology resources, soil testing, etc

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Type, texture & structure, Compaction & cultivation, Organic matter, Soil biology, Beef cattle & sheep, Cereals, oil seeds & pulses, Grasslands & forage crops, Crop nutrition & fertility building, Markets & food systems, People & skills

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The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security

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The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security

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Eric Toensmeier

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The Carbon Farming Solution | A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security

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"In The Carbon Farming Solution, Eric Toensmeier admirably harnesses available data with traditional wisdom to propose a practical response to climate change. Toensmeier's solution-oriented ideas combine his clear understanding of ecology, agriculture, and the magnitude of the challenge we face with a set of agriculture-based solutions that are suited to various livelihoods, communities, and systems of production.

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NSF focuses on establishing how the natural system worked in a particular area and how it is working now, then uses some of the same natural techniques (and mimics others) to address soil and water degradation and loss of biodiversity

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Introduction Natural Sequnces A farming system founded on working with nature Maximum natural outcomes with minimum financial and manufactured inputs NSF applied to Grazing NSF applied to Agriculture Sustainable Landscape Outcomes under Natural Sequence Farming Overview

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Tony Rinaudo - Keynote speech at GLF Bonn 2018

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Tony Rinaudo - Keynote speech at GLF Bonn 2018

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Exposition of Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration

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Tony Rinaudo - Keynote speech at GLF Bonn 2018

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Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

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Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

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David R. Montgomery introduces farmers around the world at the heart of a soil health revolution that could bring humanity’s ailing soil back to life remarkably fast

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Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

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Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture

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The key is how we think, Brown says. In the industrial agricultural model, all thoughts are focused on killing things. But that mindset is also killing diversity, soil, and profit. Now he channels his creative thinking toward how he can get more life on the land—more plants, animals, and beneficial insects. “The greatest roadblock to solving a problem,” Brown says, “is the human mind.”

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Red Fern Farm - Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour

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Red Fern Farm - Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour

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Tom Wahl and Kathy Dice of Red Fern Farm who manage over 80 species of agroforestry crops on their farm near Wapello, Iowa. "We're trying to mimic the biodiversity you'd see in nature," Kathy says.

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Savanna Institute - Red Fern Farm - Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour Video Series | Facebook | By Savanna Institute | The Savanna Institute is excited to feature Tom Wahl and Kathy Dice of Red Fern Farm in our Pioneer Agroforestry Farm Tour Video Series! Tom and Kathy...

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17K views, 155 likes, 42 loves, 22 comments, 256 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Savanna Institute: The Savanna Institute is excited to feature Tom Wahl and Kathy Dice of Red Fern Farm in our...

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Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?

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Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?

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Judith D Schwartz. The degradation of soils from unsustainable agriculture and other development has released billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. But new research shows how effective land restoration could play a major role in sequestering CO2 and slowing climate change

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Soil as Carbon Storehouse: New Weapon in Climate Fight?

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The degradation of soils from unsustainable agriculture and other development has released billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. But new research shows how effective land restoration could play a major role in sequestering CO2 and slowing climate change.

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The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint in North America

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The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint in North America

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W.R. Teague, S. Apfelbaum, R. Lal, U.P. Kreuter, J. Rowntree, C.A. Davies, R. Conser, M. Rasmussen,
J. Hatfield, T. Wang, F. Wang, and P. Byck

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Documentary by CNN on Sri Rajendra Singh aka Water Gandhi, Chairman of Tarun Bharat Sangh, Alwar, Rajasthan

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Holistic Regeneration of our Lands: a Producer's Perspective

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Holistic Regeneration of our Lands: a Producer's Perspective

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Gabe Brown and his Keys To Building a Healthy Soil, filmed on Nov. 18th 2014 at the Idaho Center for Sustainable Agriculture's annual symposium

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Gabe Brown: Keys To Building a Healthy Soil

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Fern works to achieve environmental and social justice with a focus on forests and forest peoples' rights in the policies and practices of the European Union

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Fern works to achieve environmental and social justice with a focus on forests and forest peoples' rights in the policies and practices of the European Union.

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“Carbon farming” is good for the climate, farmers, and biodiversity

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“Carbon farming” is good for the climate, farmers, and biodiversity

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Eric Toensmeier interviewed about his new book, The Carbon Farming Solution

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I always encourage people to remember photosynthesis in high school. This remarkable process captures atmospheric carbon dioxide and breaks off the carbon, releasing oxygen for us to breathe. Some of this carbon stays in the tissues of a long-lived perennial plants for decades or centuries. In fact, if you were to dry out the average tree, about half the weight of its biomass would be carbon. Some of the carbon ends up in the soil by a slower process as well, through the decomposition of leaves and root hairs over time. This forms organic matter in the soil, also known as humus. Organic matter is about 57% carbon on a dry weight basis. Thus carbon farming systems remove atmospheric carbon and store it in this form of organic matter and perennial biomass. In the soil it can last for centuries if there is no return to tillage or poor management. In the form of trees it will last for decades or centuries. Both of these are temporary storages and vulnerable to disturbance, but they represent an important tool for climate change mitigation. From the farmer's perspective, these practices can increase yields, rebuild degraded soils, and increase water-holding capacity.

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"Carbon farming" good for the climate, farmers, and biodiversity

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I always encourage people to remember photosynthesis in high school. This remarkable process captures atmospheric carbon dioxide and breaks off the carbon, releasing oxygen for us to breathe. Some of this carbon stays in the tissues of a long-lived perennial plants for decades or centuries.

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The objective is to scale down the material throughput of the economy.  From an ecological standpoint, that’s what matters

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When orthodox economists first encounter the idea of degrowth, they often jump to the conclusion that the objective is to reduce GDP. And because they see GDP as equivalent to social wealth, this...

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A regenerative food system is both a means and an end

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A regenerative food system is both a means and an end

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The land-sparing argument is mostly flawed when it promises to save land for wildlife or for carbon sequestration. A regenerative food system and landscapes with multiple  uses are both means and ends by themselves

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The land-sparing argument is mostly flawed when it promises to save land for wildlife or for carbon sequestration. Continued intensification of the food system will lead to increased pressure on nature as well as the continued erosion of food culture. A regenerative food system and landscapes with multiple uses are both means and ends by themselves.

Since 1960 the global population has more than doubled, but the total production of crop farming increased three and a half times, measured in calories. Meanwhile, agriculture area increased with less than ten percent and grasslands even less (grasslands are now shrinking quite rapidly according to FAOSTAT). The increase of production has been driven by irrigation, multiple cropping and the green revolution technology packet of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and new varieties. By far, the most spectacular development in farming is not yield per area unit however, but the increased productivity of farm labor. Instead of catering for the need of the family and a smaller surplus extracted by lords of various sorts, a farmer or farm worker today often produce food for hundreds of people. If we look at staple foods in the most mechanized farm regions, one worker may actually "feed" thousand person.

Through this extraordinary increase in land and labor productivity, cost of grains, oilseeds and soybeans have plummeted while production has quadrupled. The net effect is a great increase in food energy available to humans. In addition, the rapidly increasing use of crops as animal feed and biofuel feed stock have swallowed an even larger share. Meanwhile, the continued intensification of farming is the root cause of the huge environmental impact from the food system, the destruction of habitats, the broken cycles of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus and the huge effect on the climate.

Some (such as the Breakthrough Institute) are using the land use efficiency argument to promote a continuation of the increased intensification of farming. By doing so we could spare land to "wild nature". Lately, some researcher concluded that
Undoubtedly, humans are outcrowding other species at an alarming pace. Superficially, the land-sparing argument has some appeal. However, there is very limited evidence, if any, that intensification of land use actually saves land, neither locally nor globally. Some marginal agriculture lands have been converted to conservation purpose (such as in the US
In addition, humans demand land for many other things than farming and farm land will often be used for highways, electric grid, hydro dams, lawns, golf courses, malls, urban sprawl, logistic centers, mines or oil wells. So even if our modern civilization limits its use of land for agricultural purposes, the whole system of which it is part is constant putting a bigger share of land into our direct use. Conservation Reserve Program), but as long as land is productive enough it will be used for commercial purposes, be it for animal feed, biofuel or industrial feedstock or forest monocultures (a common fate of abandoned agriculture land).
To allocate land uniquely for carbon sequestration means that we will just increase our demand on the rest of nature, and give us yet another excuse not to tackle the root cause of our predicament, the burning of fossil fuels and the constantly increasing consumption of nature resources, living or dead. Maximized carbon sequestration within the industrial paradigm will most likely mean that even more ecosystems will be devastated and reduced to productive factors. organic farming was much worse for the climate than conventional. Again, land use was the key argument. In his view all land has an alternative use for natural carbon sequestration, which means that land that has a low yield will be very damaging for the climate.
Food and farming are examples of Jevon's paradox; increased efficiency leads to more consumption, not less. It has provided the masses with more calories and a huge increase in consumption of luxury foods such as meat, exotic fruits and soft vegetables. Global chicken consumption increased 13 times between 1960 and 2017, and chicken is now the most consumed meat in the world. Access to cheap staple feeds and the successful industrialization of chicken breeding combined with its short life span - perfect for quarterly capitalism - were key factors for success. The author surveyed the cost of various protein sources in the Swedish retailers and came to the conclusion that the only source of protein that could compete with chicken in price per gram of protein were dried beans. Cheap food has also caused increasing waste and waists.

The intensification is part and parcel of a globalized and homogenized food system and the transformation of whole landscapes into uniform production of soybeans, wheat, asparagus, corn or palmoil. It is the cause of a tremendous loss of local food culture, meaning, biodiversity and nutrient cycling. It also has devastating effects on rural landscapes which no longer are places to live, love and die for and in, but just commodity deserts.

Of course, if we really want to be "efficient", we can easily feed 10 billion people on a diet of monoculture soy, palm oil, sugar, wheat and rice, on the existing agriculture land. To make the whole chain even more efficient we mill them into a powder or process into a liquid which we distribute to the households according to subscription ( it is already happening you know!). In this way we can save a lot by reducing peoples' cooking, their expensive private kitchens and household appliances. Perhaps solar powered drones can deliver? There are alternatives of course. Instead of looking into one commodity or one "ecosystem service" at a time we need to develop the food and agriculture system so that we combine the production of good and nutritious food with carbon sequestration, soil fertility, bio-diversity, human relations and culture in the same regenerative landscape. Such a landscape can host vibrant rural communities instead of being a supplier of raw materials to the cities or a dump. A re-localized food system will become both the means and the end in such a bright future.

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A regenerative food system is both a means and an end

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The land-sparing argument is mostly flawed when it promises to save land for wildlife or for carbon sequestration. Continued intensification of the food system will lead to increased pressure on nature as well as the continued erosion of food culture. A regenerative food system and landscapes with multiple uses are both means and ends by themselves.

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Water: The Missing Link for Solving Climate Change

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Water: The Missing Link for Solving Climate Change

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Monika Berghoff, Martin Winiecki & Leila Dregger of Tamera. Good succinct summary

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Water: The Missing Link for Solving Climate Change

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Co-authored by Martin Winiecki and Leila Dregger http://monika.berghoff@tamera.org As governments prepare for the next round of climate change talks, pioneers are working on very different solutions in many places around the world. While many environmental movements still hope for the negotiations in Paris to produce new decisions, local initiatives are already implementing concrete measures with great success.

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“I’m proud to have brought the rain back”: reforestation revives Cambodian mountains

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“I’m proud to have brought the rain back”: reforestation revives Cambodian mountains

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Reforestation of Kulen national park

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A man works on his home garden around a community-protected area where UN Environment and partners are supporting people to build alternative livelihoods and rely less on rain-fed agriculture.

Women are seen weeding saplings at a tree nursery on top of Kulen Mountain in Cambodia.

People living around one the community-protected areas make roof fronds out of leaves, toothpicks and sticks as part of a project supported by UN Environment to help people build alternative livelihoods and decrease logging.

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"I'm proud to have brought the rain back": reforestation revives Cambodian mountains

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The illegal logging of Cambodian forests has drastically altered regional rainfall, leaving local communities with insufficient water to sustain their livelihoods. A major reforestation project has planted a quarter of a million trees in an attempt to restore the climate.

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Sustainability is not Enough: We Need Regenerative Cultures

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Sustainability is not Enough: We Need Regenerative Cultures

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Daniel Christian Wahl

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Published by INSURGE intelligence, a crowdfunded investigative journalism platform for people and planet. Support us to report where others fear to tread.

Sustainability alone is not an adequate goal. The word sustainability itself is inadequate, as it does not tell us what we are actually trying to sustain. In 2005, after spending two years working on my doctoral thesis on design for sustainability, I began to realize that what we are actually trying to sustain is the underlying pattern of health, resilience and adaptability that maintain this planet in a condition where life as a whole can flourish. Design for sustainability is, ultimately, design for human and planetary health (Wahl, 2006b).

A regenerative human culture is healthy, resilient and adaptable; it cares for the planet and it cares for life in the awareness that this is the most effective way to create a thriving future for all of humanity. The concept of resilience is closely related to health, as it describes the ability to recover basic vital functions and bounce back from any kind of temporary breakdown or crisis. When we aim for sustainability from a systemic perspective, we are trying to sustain the pattern that connects and strengthens the whole system. Sustainability is first and foremost about systemic health and resilience at different scales, from local, to regional and global.

Complexity science can teach us that as participants in a complex dynamic eco- psycho-social system that is subject to certain biophysical limits, our goal has to be appropriate participation, not prediction and control (Goodwin, 1999a). The best way to learn how to participate appropriately is to pay more attention to systemic relationships and interactions, to aim to support the resilience and health of the whole system, to foster diversity and redundancies at multiple scales, and to facilitate positive emergence through paying attention to the quality of connections and information flows in the system. This book explores how this might be done. [This is an excerpt of a subchapter from Designing Regenerative Cultures, published by Triarchy Press, 2016.]

Using the Precautionary Principle

One proposal for guiding wise action in the face of dynamic complexity and 'not knowing' is to apply the Precautionary Principle as a framework that aims to avoid, as far as possible, actions that will negatively impact on environmental and human health in the future. From the United Nation's 'World Charter for Nature' in 1982, to the Montreal Protocol on Health in 1987, to the Rio Declaration in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol, and Rio+20 in 2012, we have committed to applying the Precautionary Principle over and over again.

The Wingspread Consensus Statement on the Precautionary Principle states: "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically" (Wingspread Statement, 1998). The principle puts the burden of proof that a certain action is not harmful on those proposing and taking the action, yet general practice continues to allow all actions that have not (yet!) been proven to have potentially harmful effects to go ahead unscrutinized. In a nutshell, the Precautionary Principle can be summarized as follows: practice precaution in the face of uncertainty. This is not what we are doing.

While high-level UN groups and many national governments have repeatedly considered the Precautionary Principle as a wise way to guide actions, day-to-day practice shows that it is very hard to implement, as there will always be some degree of uncertainty. The Precautionary Principle could also potentially stop sustainable innovation and block potentially highly beneficial new technologies on the basis that it cannot be proven with certainty that these technologies will not result in unexpected future side-effects that could be detrimental to human or environmental health.
Why not challenge designers, technologists, policy-makers, and planning professionals to evaluate their proposed actions on their positive, life-sustaining, restorative and regenerative potential? Why not limit the scale of implementation of any innovation to local and regional levels until proof of its positive impact is unequivocally demonstrated?
Aiming to design for systemic health may not save us from unexpected side-effects and uncertainty, but it offers a trial and error path towards a regenerative culture. We urgently need a Hippocratic Oath for design, technology and planning: do no harm! To make this ethical imperative operational we need a salutogenic (health generating) intention behind all design, technology and planning: We need to design for human, ecosystems and planetary health. This way we can move more swiftly from the unsustainable 'business as usual' to restorative and regenerative innovations that will support the transition towards a regenerative culture. Let us ask ourselves:
How do we create design, technology, planning and policy decisions that positively support human, community and environmental health?
We need to respond to the fact that human activity over the last centuries and millennia has done damage to healthy ecosystems functioning. Resource availability is declining globally, while demand is rising as the human population continues to expand and we continue to erode ecosystems functions through irresponsible design and lifestyles of unbridled consumption.

If we meet the challenge of decreasing demand and consumption globally while replenishing resources through regenerative design and technology, we have a chance of making it through the eye of the needle and creating a regenerative human civilization. This shift will entail a transformation of the material resource basis of our civilization, away from fossil resources and towards renewably regenerated biological resources, along with a radical increase in resource productivity and recycling. Bill Reed has mapped out some of the essential shifts that will be needed to create a truly regenerative culture.

"Instead of doing less damage to the environment, it is necessary to learn how we can participate with the environment - using the health of ecological systems as a basis for design. [...] The shift from a fragmented worldview to a whole systems mental model is the significant leap our culture must make - framing and understanding living system interrelationships in an integrated way. A place-based approach is one way to achieve this understanding. [...] Our role, as designers and stakeholders is to shift our relationship to one that creates a whole system of mutually beneficial relationships."  - Bill Reed (2007: 674)

Reed named 'whole-systems thinking' and 'living-systems thinking' as the foundations of the shift in mental model that we need to create a regenerative culture. In Chapters 3, 4 and 5, we will explore these necessary shifts in perspective in some detail. They go hand- in-hand with a radical reframing of our understanding of sustainability. As Bill Reed puts it: "Sustainability is a progression towards a functional awareness that all things are connected; that the systems of commerce, building, society, geology, and nature are really one system of integrated relationships; that these systems are co-participants in the evolution of life" (2007). Once we make this shift in perspective we can understand life as "a whole process of continuous evolution towards richer, more diverse, and mutually beneficial relationships". Creating regenerative systems is not simply a technical, economic, ecological or social shift: it has to go hand-in-hand with an underlying shift in the way we think about ourselves, our relationships with each other and with life as a whole.

Figure 1 shows the different shifts in perspective as we move from 'business as usual' to creating a regenerative culture. The aim of creating regenerative cultures transcends and includes sustainability. Restorative design aims to restore healthy self-regulation to local ecosystems, and reconciliatory design takes the additional step of making explicit humanity's participatory involvement in life's processes and the unity of nature and culture. Regenerative design creates regenerative cultures capable of continuous learning and transformation in response to, and anticipation of, inevitable change. Regenerative cultures safeguard and grow biocultural abundance for future generations of humanity and for life as a whole.
Figure 1: Adapted from Reed (2006) with the author's permission
The 'story of separation' is reaching the limits of its usefulness and the negative effects of the associated worldview and resulting behaviour are beginning to impact on life as a whole. By having become a threat to planetary health we are learning to rediscover our intimate relationship with all of life. Bill Reed's vision of regenerative design for systemic health is in line with the pioneering work of people like Patrick Geddes, Aldo Leopold, Lewis Mumford, Buckminster Fuller, Ian McHarg, E.F. Schumacher, John Todd, John Tillman Lyle, David Orr, Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, and many others who have explored design in the context of the health of the whole system.

A new cultural narrative is emerging, capable of birthing and informing a truly regenerative human culture. We do not yet know all the details of how exactly this culture will manifest, nor do we know all the details of how we might get from the current 'world in crisis' situation to that thriving future of a regenerative culture. Yet aspects of this future are already with us.

In using the language of 'old story' and 'new story' we are in danger of thinking of this cultural transformation as a replacement of the old story by a new story. Such separation into dualistic opposites is in itself part of the 'separation narrative' of the 'old story'. The 'new story' is not a complete negation of the currently dominant worldview. It includes this perspective but stops regarding it as the only perspective, opening up to the validity and necessity of multiple ways of knowing.

Embracing uncertainty and ambiguity makes us value multiple perspectives on our appropriate participation in complexity. These are perspectives that give value and validity not only to the 'old story' of separation, but also to the 'ancient story' of unity with the Earth and the cosmos. These are perspectives that may help us find a regenerative way of being human in deep intimacy, reciprocity and communion with life as a whole by becoming conscious co-creators of humanity's 'new story'.

Our impatience and urgency to jump to answers, solutions and conclusions too quickly is understandable in the face of increasing individual, collective, social, cultural and ecological suffering, but this tendency to favour answers rather than to deepen into the questions is in itself part of the old story of separation.

The art of transformative cultural innovation is to a large extent about making our peace with 'not knowing' and living into the questions more deeply, making sure we are asking the right questions, paying attention to our relationships and how we all bring forth a world not just through what we are doing, but through the quality of our being. A regenerative culture will emerge out of finding and living new ways of relating to self, community and to life as a whole. At the core of creating regenerative cultures is an invitation to live the questions together.

[This is an excerpt of a subchapter from Designing Regenerative Cultures, published by Triarchy Press, 2016.]

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Sustainability is not Enough: We Need Regenerative Cultures

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Published by INSURGE intelligence , a crowdfunded investigative journalism platform for people and planet. Support us to report where others fear to tread. Sustainability alone is not an adequate goal. The word sustainability itself is inadequate, as it does not tell us what we are actually trying to sustain.

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Female Ranchers Are Reclaiming the American West

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Female Ranchers Are Reclaiming the American West

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As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land.

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Female Ranchers Are Reclaiming the American West (Published 2019)

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As men leave animal agriculture for less gritty work, more ranches are being led by women — with new ideas about technology, ecology and the land.

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We need regenerative farming, not geoengineering

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We need regenerative farming, not geoengineering

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Charles Eisenstein on regenerative agriculture as a shift in paradigm and in our basic relationship to nature

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eoengineering has been back in the news recently after the US National Research Council endorsed a proposal to envelop the planet in a layer of sulphate aerosols to reduce solar radiation and cool the atmosphere.

The proposal has been widely criticised for possible unintended consequences, such as ozone depletion, ocean acidification and reduced rainfall in the tropics. Perhaps even more troubling, geoengineering is a technological fix that leaves the economic and industrial system causing climate change untouched.

The mindset behind geoengineering stands in sharp contrast to an emerging ecological, systems approach taking shape in the form of regenerative agriculture. More than a mere alternative strategy, regenerative agriculture represents a fundamental shift in our culture's relationship to nature.

Regenerative agriculture comprises an array of techniques that rebuild soil and, in the process, sequester carbon. Typically, it uses cover crops and perennials so that bare soil is never exposed, and grazes animals in ways that mimic animals in nature. It also offers ecological benefits far beyond carbon storage: it stops soil erosion, remineralises soil, protects the purity of groundwater and reduces damaging pesticide and fertiliser runoff.

But these methods are slow, expensive and impractical in feeding a growing population, right?

Wrong. While comprehensive statistics are hard to come by, yields from regenerative methods often exceed conventional yields (see here and here for scientific research, and here and here for anecdotal examples). Likewise, since these methods build soil, crowd out weeds and retain moisture, fertiliser and herbicide inputs can be reduced or eliminated entirely, resulting in higher profits for farmers. No-till methods can sequester as much as a ton of carbon per acre annually (2.5 tons/hectare). In the US alone, that could amount to nearly a quarter of current emissions.

Estimates of the total potential impact vary. Rattan Lal of Ohio State University argues that desertified and otherwise degraded soils could sequester up to 3bn tons of carbon per year (equal to 11bn tons of CO2, or nearly one third of current emissions). Other experts foresee even greater potential. According to research at the Rodale Institute, if instituted universally, organic regenerative techniques practiced on cultivated land could offset over 40% of global emissions, while practicing them on pasture land could offset 71%.

That adds up to land-based CO2 reduction of over 100% of current emissions - and that doesn't even include reforestation and afforestation, which could offset another 10-15%, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of course, none of this is license to perpetuate a fossil fuel infrastructure, since there is an eventual limit to the amount of carbon that soil and biomass can store.

Working with nature

Given that they are better even from purely commercial considerations, why haven't regenerative practices spread more quickly? An answer commonly offered by farmers themselves is that "people are slow to change." Maybe so, but in this case there is more to it than that. Regenerative agriculture represents more than a shift of practices. It is also a shift in paradigm and in our basic relationship to nature - as a comparison with geoengineering highlights.

First, regenerative agriculture seeks to mimic nature, not dominate it. As Ray Archuleta, a soil-health specialist at the USDA, puts it, "We want to go away from control and command agriculture. We should farm in nature's image." In contrast, geoengineering seeks to take our centuries-long domination of nature to a new extreme, making the entire planet an object of manipulation.

Second, regenerative agriculture is a departure from linear thinking and its control of variables through mechanical and chemical means. It values the diversity of polycultures, in which animals and plants form a complex, symbiotic, robust system. Geoengineering, on the other hand, ignores the law of unintended consequences that plagues any attempt to engineer a highly nonlinear system. It exemplifies linear thinking: if the atmosphere is too warm, add a cooling factor. But who knows what will happen?

Third, regenerative agriculture seeks to address the deep basis of ecological health: the soil. It sees low fertility, runoff and other problems as symptoms, not the root problem. Geoengineering, on the other hand, addresses the symptom - global warming - while leaving the cause untouched.

There is no quick fix

Unlike geoengineering's quick fix, regenerative agriculture cannot be implemented at scale without deep cultural changes. We must turn away from an attitude of nature-as-engineering-object to one of humble partnership. Whereas geoengineering is a global solution that feeds the logic of centralisation and the economics of globalism, regeneration of soil and forests is fundamentally local: forest by forest, farm by farm. These are not generic solutions, because the requirements of the land are unique to each place. Unsurprisingly, they are typically more labour-intensive than conventional practices, because they require a direct, intimate relationship to the land.

Ultimately, climate change challenges us to rethink our long-standing separation from nature in which we think we can endlessly engineer our way out of the damage we have caused. It is calling us back to our biophilia, our love of nature and of life, our desire to care for all beings whether or not they make greenhouse gas numbers go up or down.

Geoengineering, beyond its catastrophic risks, is an attempt to avoid that call, to extend the mindset of domination and control to new extremes, and to prolong an economy of overconsumption a few years longer. It is time to fall in love with the land, the soil, and the trees, to halt their destruction and to serve their restoration. It is time for agricultural policy and practice to become aligned with regeneration.
The rethinking prosperity hub is sponsored by DNV GL. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled "brought to you by". Find out more here. Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox.

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We need regenerative farming, not geoengineering

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eoengineering has been back in the news recently after the US National Research Council endorsed a proposal to envelop the planet in a layer of sulphate aerosols to reduce solar radiation and cool the atmosphere. The proposal has been widely criticised for possible unintended consequences, such as ozone depletion, ocean acidification and reduced rainfall in the tropics.

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Tropical agroforestry systems

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Agroforestry: An increasingly popular solution for a hot, hungry world

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At first glance Cameroon's western regions seem lush, but a closer look shows a land degraded by overgrazing, unsustainable cropping practices, deforestation of vegetation for firewood, and uncontrolled bush fires. Still, some plots teem with biodiversity: coffee grows under the shade of banana trees, while nearby there are African plum trees (known locally as safou), [...]

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Euro-EducATES, Teaching agroecology in the transitory period and its consequences for the Agricultural Knowledge Systems

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Agroecology, various approaches in Europe.

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Resistance is Fertile: It's Time To Prioritise Agroecology

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Resistance is Fertile: It's Time To Prioritise Agroecology

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Agrochemicals, diversity loss and agroecology

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Food is becoming unhealthy and poisoned with chemicals, while diets are becoming less diverse. There is a loss of plant and insect diversity, which threatens food security, soils are being degraded, water tables polluted and depleted and smallholder farmers, so vital to global food production, are being squeezed off their land and out of farming.

Over the last 60 years or so, Washington's plan has been to restructure indigenous agriculture across the world. And this plan has involved subjugating nations by getting them to rely more on U.S. imports and grow less of their own food. Agriculture and food production and distribution have become globalized and tied to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for the international market, indebtedness to international financial institutions (IMF/World Bank) and the need for nations to boost foreign exchange (U.S. dollar) reserves to repay debt.

This has resulted in food surplus and food deficit areas, of which the latter have become dependent on agricultural imports and strings-attached aid. Food deficits in the global South mirror food surpluses in the West.

Whether through IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs, as occurred in Africa, trade agreements like NAFTA and its impact on Mexico or, more generally, deregulated global trade rules, the outcome has been similar: the devastation of traditional, indigenous agriculture.

The corporate-led, chemical-laden Green Revolution has adversely impacted the nature of food, soil, human health and the environment. Sold on the promise of increased yields, this has been overstated. And the often stated 'humanitarian' intent and outcome ('millions of lives saved') has had more to do with PR and the reality of cold commercial interest.

In an open letter written in 2006 to policy makers in India (which I urge everyone to read), farmer and campaigner Bhaskar Save summarized some of the impacts of Green Revolution farming in India, not least the creation of artificial drought in a land of rain. If Bhaskar Save helped open people's eyes to what has happened on the farm and to ecology as a result of the Green Revolution, a 2015 report by GRAIN provides a wider overview of how U.S. agribusiness has hijacked an entire nation's food and agriculture under the banner of 'free trade' to the detriment of the environment, health and farmers. In effect, the all-American obesity diet is now a reality in Mexico.

Agroecology challenges top-down approaches to research and policy making.

The misrepresentation of the plight of the indigenous edible oils sector in India encapsulates the duplicity at work currently surrounding GM crops, an extension of the Green Revolution paradigm. After trade rules and cheap imports conspired to destroy farmers and the jobs of people involved in local food processing activities for the benefit of global agribusiness, including commodity trading and food processer companies ADM and Cargill, the same interests are now leading a campaign to force GM into India on the basis of the falsehood that Indian agriculture is unproductive and thus the country has to rely on imports.

Today, governments continue to collude with big agribusiness corporations, which seek to eradicate the small farmer and subject countries to the vagaries of rigged global markets. Agritech corporations are being allowed to shape government policy by being granted a strategic role in trade negotiations and are increasingly framing the policy/knowledge agenda by funding and determining the nature of research carried out in public universities and institutes.

Across the world, however, we are seeing farmers and communities resisting the corporate takeover of seeds, soils, water and food. And we are also witnessing inspiring stories about the successes of agroecology: a model of agriculture based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research utilising elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology and the biological control of pests.

This system combines sound ecological management, including minimizing the use of toxic inputs, by using on-farm renewable resources and privileging endogenous solutions to manage pests and disease.

Agroecology challenges top-down approaches to research and policy making. It can also involve moving beyond the dynamics of the farm itself to become part of a wider political agenda, which addresses the broader social and economic issues that impact farmers and agriculture (see this description of what agroecology entails).

Small farms are per area more productive than large-scale industrial farms and create a more resilient, diverse food system.

Last year the Oakland Institute released a report on 33 case studies which highlighted the success of agroecological agriculture across Africa in the face of climate change, hunger and poverty. The studies provide facts and figures on how agricultural transformation can yield immense economic, social, and food security benefits while ensuring climate justice and restoring soils and the environment.

There are many other examples of successful agroecology and of farmers abandoning Green Revolution thought and practices to embrace it (see this report about El Salvador and this interview from South India).

Various official reports have argued that to feed the hungry and secure food security in low income regions we need to support small farms and diverse, sustainable agro-ecological methods of farming and strengthen local food economies (see this report by the former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and this too).

Proponents of agroecology appreciate that a decentralized system of domestic food production with access to local rural markets supported by proper roads, storage and other infrastructure must take priority ahead of exploitative international markets dominated and designed to serve the needs of global capital.

Small farms are per area more productive than large-scale industrial farms and create a more resilient, diverse food system. If policy makers were to prioritize this sector and promote agroecology to the extent Green Revolution practices and technology have been pushed, many of the problems surrounding poverty, unemployment, rising population and urban migration could be solved.

But as long as politicians at national and regional levels are co-opted by the U.S. and its corporations, seeds will continue to be appropriated, lands taken, water diverted, legislation enacted, research institutes funded and policy devised to benefit global agribusiness.

Only a broad-based, global movement of peoples, spanning continents and nations, countryside and cities, farmers and consumers, can take on these vested interests to secure an ultimate victory.

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Resistance Is Fertile: It's Time To Prioritize Agroecology

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Across the world, however, we are seeing farmers and communities resisting the corporate takeover of seeds, soils, water and food. And we are also witnessing inspiring stories about the successes of agroecology: a model of agriculture based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research utilising elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology and the biological control of pests.

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Our best shot at cooling the planet might be right under our feet

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Our best shot at cooling the planet might be right under our feet

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Studies suggest that regenerating soil by turning our backs on industrial farming holds the key to tackling climate change

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It's getting hot out there. Every one of the past 14 months has broken the global temperature record. Ice cover in the Arctic sea just hit a new low, at 525,000 square miles less than normal. And apparently we're not doing much to stop it: according to Professor Kevin Anderson, one of Britain's leading climate scientists, we've already blown our chances of keeping global warming below the "safe" threshold of 1.5 degrees.

If we want to stay below the upper ceiling of 2 degrees, though, we still have a shot. But it's going to take a monumental effort. Anderson and his colleagues estimate that in order to keep within this threshold, we need to start reducing emissions by a sobering 8%-10% per year, from now until we reach "net zero" in 2050. If that doesn't sound difficult enough, here's the clincher: efficiency improvements and clean energy technologies will only win us reductions of about 4% per year at most.

As our soils degrade, they are losing their ability to hold carbon.

How to make up the difference is one of the biggest questions of the 21 st century. There are a number of proposals out there. One is to capture the CO 2 that pours out of our power stations, liquefy it, and store it in chambers deep under the ground. Another is to seed the oceans with iron to trigger huge algae blooms that will absorb CO 2. Others take a different approach, such as putting giant mirrors in space to deflect some of the sun's rays, or pumping aerosols into the stratosphere to create man-made clouds. Unfortunately, in all of these cases either the risks are too dangerous, or we don't have the technology yet.

This leaves us in a bit of a bind. But while engineers are scrambling to come up with grand geo-engineering schemes, they may be overlooking a simpler, less glamorous solution. It has to do with soil.

Soil is the second biggest reservoir of carbon on the planet, next to the oceans. It holds four times more carbon than all the plants and trees in the world. But human activity like deforestation and industrial farming - with its intensive ploughing, monoculture and heavy use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides - is ruining our soils at breakneck speed, killing the organic materials that they contain. Now 40% of agricultural soil is classed as "degraded" or "seriously degraded". In fact, industrial farming has so damaged our soils that a third of the world's farmland has been destroyed in the past four decades.

As our soils degrade, they are losing their ability to hold carbon, releasing enormous plumes of CO2 [pdf] into the atmosphere.

There is, however, a solution. Scientists and farmers around the world are pointing out that we can regenerate degraded soils by switching from intensive industrial farming to more ecological methods - not just organic fertiliser, but also no-tillage, composting, and crop rotation. Here's the brilliant part: as the soils recover, they not only regain their capacity to hold CO 2, they begin to actively pull additional CO 2 out of the atmosphere.

The battle here is not just between two different methods. It is between two different ways of relating to the land

The science on this is quite exciting. A study published recently by the US National Academy of Sciences claims that regenerative farming can sequester 3% of our global carbon emissions. An article in Science suggests it could be up to 15%. And new research from the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, although not yet peer-reviewed, says sequestration rates could be as high as 40%. The same report argues that if we apply regenerative techniques to the world's pastureland as well, we could capture more than 100% of global emissions. In other words, regenerative farming may be our best shot at actually cooling the planet.

Yet despite having the evidence on their side, proponents of regenerative farming - like the international farmers' association La Via Campesina - are fighting an uphill battle. The multinational corporations that run the industrial food system seem to be dead set against it because it threatens their monopoly power - power that relies on seeds linked to patented chemical fertilisers and pesticides. They are well aware that their methods are causing climate change, but they insist that it's a necessary evil: if we want to feed the world's growing population, we don't have a choice - it's the only way to secure high yields.

Scientists are calling their bluff. First of all, feeding the world isn't about higher yields; it's about fairer distribution. We already grow enough food for 10 billion people. In any case, it can be argued that regenerative farming actually increases crop yields over the long term by enhancing soil fertility and improving resilience against drought and flooding. So as climate change makes farming more difficult, this may be our best bet for food security, too.

The battle here is not just between two different methods. It is between two different ways of relating to the land: one that sees the soil as an object from which profit must be extracted at all costs, and one that recognizes the interdependence of living systems and honours the principles of balance and harmony.

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Lines of maize on the Malaysian organic farm run by Dr Mohd Ishak Syed Ahmad in Malacca. Photograph: Bazuki Muhammad/REUTERS

Ultimately, this is about more than just soil. It is about something much larger. As Pope Francis put it in his much-celebrated encyclical last year, our present ecological crisis is the sign of a cultural pathology. "We have come to see ourselves as the lords and masters of the Earth, entitled to plunder her at will. The sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life are symptoms that reflect the violence present in our hearts. We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the Earth; that we breathe her air and receive life from her waters."

Maybe our engineers are missing the point. The problem with geo-engineering is that it proceeds from the very same logic that got us into this mess in the first place: one that treats the land as something to be subdued, dominated and consumed. But the solution to climate change won't be found in the latest schemes to bend our living planet to the will of man. Perhaps instead it lies in something much more down to earth - an ethic of care and healing, starting with the soils on which our existence depends.

Of course, regenerative farming doesn't offer a permanent solution to the climate crisis; soils can only hold a finite amount of carbon. We still need to get off fossil fuels, and - most importantly - we have to kick our obsession with endless exponential growth and downsize our material economy to bring it back in tune with ecological cycles. But it might buy us some time to get our act together.
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Our best shot at cooling the planet might be right under our feet

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It's getting hot out there. Every one of the past 14 months has broken the global temperature record. Ice cover in the Arctic sea just hit a new low, at 525,000 square miles less than normal.

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Learning from nature and designing as nature

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Learning from nature and designing as nature

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Beyond biomimicry

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by Daniel Christian Wahl
MSc in Holistic Science

Most of humanity has lost a vital connection with the natural world - a connection that, from our species' origins until recently, informed and sustained our participation in nature. The scientific and industrial revolutions brought us almost miraculous technological progress and solved many problems, but they also propagated a mindset where progress meant substituting the old with the new. We came to favor widely-applicable technological solutions over place-based bio-cultural wisdom, and to value short-term gratification over the art of the long view. Eventually we came to think of ourselves and of culture as being somehow separate from or even independent of nature.

With 7.4 billion of us facing a common destiny of dangerous run-away climate change, environmental degradation, and the depletion of non-renewable resources, we are at last beginning to pay attention to the scientific fact that we are biological organisms. The cultures we co-create are emergent properties - epiphenomena - of life and of nature. We are intricately interwoven with the bio-geo-physical processes that sustain life on Earth.

Our common future critically depends on all of us - rapidly - understanding biomimicry's central lesson. Janine Benyus put this golden rule for regenerative cultures succinctly and clearly: "Life creates conditions conducive to life." Taking this insight to heart means nothing less than accepting the challenge to "redesign the human presence on Earth," as has put it.

We need to collaborate globally, regionally, and locally at an unprecedented scale to create "elegant solutions carefully adapted the the uniqueness of place" (). To do so, we need to do more than just learn from nature, we need to design as nature, and that means changing the human impact on Earth from being predominantly degenerative to being regenerative.

The bad news - as you probably know - we only have at most a couple of decades to learn to co-create this regenerative human impact at a planetary scale. The good news is that the Regeneration is already on the rise. What Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi describe as the systems view of life is beginning to guide our participation in nature.

Building on the visionary work of and many others, and the team at Regenesis have developed a coherent design framework for regenerative development. It describes the progressive integration of deeper levels of learning from nature, to the imitation, restoration and tending of nature. There is a step-change in our effectiveness as we shift our perception towards participation, and we become fully conscious again of the fact that we are nature and as such, capable of design as nature.

I believe that this reconciliatory step of acknowledging our participatory agency in the complexity of nature is absolutely crucial if we hope to create a regenerative human presence on planet Earth. Whether you call it biomimicry, ecological design, permaculture, green chemistry, industrial ecology, or creating a circular economy, if you are engaged in any of these fields, chances are you are already contributing to the rise of the Regeneration and the redesign of the human presence on Earth.

To simply design for sustainability is no longer enough, we need to design for regeneration! Collectively, as a species, we have already done too much damage to simply aim for sustainability - what William McDonough calls "100% less bad." We have to undo the damage done over centuries - in some cases over millennia. We have to regenerate healthy ecosystems functions everywhere. To be able to do this well, we have to become good at designing as nature.

Here is a short video explaining of how the regenerative design framework describes a continuum of moving from business-as-usual to green, sustainable, restorative, reconciliatory, and on to regenerative design practice:

As life, we cancreate conditions conducive to life

Since the Renaissance and the remarkable period of innovation that followed, we have more than once thrown out the baby with the bathwater, and declared vital wisdom as "primitive" - blinded by the enticements of technological progress. We should have paid more attention to the ancient guiding wisdom of place-based cultures that co-evolved in intimate reciprocity with the bio-cultural uniqueness of their bioregions.

Many biomimics today are still indirectly perpetuating the entirely mind-made divide between humanity and nature by the way they use language to describe their work. The boom in design and technology inspired by nature is - for the most part - still undertaken within a mindset that is based on learning from nature. It is time to recognize that we are nature. We will have to re-indigenize to fit our human cultures into the life-sustaining ecosystem functions of the places and regions we inhabit.

Culture does not have to be divorced from or in competition with the rest of nature. The human impact on Earth does not have to be predominantly degenerative. We can create diverse regenerative cultures together.

All our daily actions - and our failures to act - are interventions in the socio-ecological systems we participate in. Our common future emerges to a large extent out of the why, how, and what we design. As biological organisms, we participate in and can consciously contribute to the way that life creates conditions conducive to life.

This participatory worldview is both relatively new in science ( second order science ) and very ancient. We are moving towards a synthesis of ancient indigenous wisdom and modern science. Most indigenous cultures share a participatory awareness of nature as the ground of our being.

I believe that learning from traditional indigenous wisdom - or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) - is an important aspect of biomimicry practice. Once we overcome the false dualism and mind-made separation of nature and culture we can more fully meet the challenge to redesign the human presence on Earth.

As we move towards a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern scientific and technological capabilities, we can become good at designing regenerative cultures . Among the many lessons we can learn from indigenous cultures around the world are:

The understanding that the world is alive and meaningful and our relationship with the rest of life is one of participation, communion, and co-creation.

The practice of accessing the collective intelligence of community through modes of communication that involve deep listening and sharing from the heart in a council circle.

The insight that the rest of the natural world is in continuous communication with us if we only learn to listen.

Humanity is facing a collective rite of passage as we cease to be an immature, juvenile species and are becoming mature, responsible members of the community of life. As culturally creative members of the Regeneration, we have to learn to emulate life's central pattern of creating conditions conducive to life. By humbly designing as nature we can attempt to move towards sustainable participation in nature and begin to contribute to the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures everywhere.
is an international consultant and educator specialized in biologically inspired whole systems design and transformative innovation. He is a biologist (University of Edinburgh & University of California), holds an MSc in Holistic Science (Schumacher College), and a PhD in Design (CSND, University of Dundee, 2006). Daniel is a member of the International Futures Forum, a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA), co-founder of Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl Biomimicry Iberia , and co-organized two European Bioneers conferences in 2010. Daniel currently works for Gaia Education and the SMART UIB project of the Universidad de las Islas Balears. After publishing academic papers and articles on biomimicry and ecological design since 2003, he published his first book on Designing Regenerative Cultures in 2016 with Triarchy Press in the UK. Twitter: @DrDCWahl Website: www.danielchristianwahl.com

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Learning from nature and designing as nature: Regenerative cultures create conditions conducive to life

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by Daniel Christian Wahl MSc in Holistic Science Most of humanity has lost a vital connection with the natural world - a connection that, from our species' origins until recently, informed and sustained our participation in nature.