Can Large-Scale Environmental Devastation Really Be Reversed?
April 20, 2013
Story at-a-glance
Our soil and water are becoming increasingly contaminated
and infertile on a global scale due to poor farming
practices, ignorance and greed.
The barren Loess Plateau in North-Central China, where
relentless grazing of domestic animals caused widespread
erosion, became a model of how whole ecosystems can be
restored through sustainable agricultural practices.
Similar ecosystem restoration in South America, Africa and
the Middle East have illustrated how formerly devastated
lands and villages can be transformed into vistas of lush,
thriving vegetation.
Man-made ecological damage has manifested itself in more
ways than on farms and forests. Greed and power have been
the basis for such travesties as genetically modified crops,
BPA, melamine and plastic contamination, slash-and-burn”
farming and monocropping have caused untold damage that
won’t be remedied without people being informed and
empowered to make a change.
Throughout centuries of farming, animal grazing and
deforestation, the earth’s natural resources have been
exhausted. Deserts are encroaching into previous lush areas and
water is becoming alarmingly scarce.
Our soil is depleting 13% faster than it can be replaced, and
we’ve lost 75% of the world's crop varieties in just the
last hundred years. Over a billion people in the world
have
no access to safe drinking water, while 80% of the world’s
fresh water supply is used for agriculture.
Even from space, the visual scale of the destruction is both
disheartening and sobering. Add to this travesty the fact that
the world’s population is expanding by a billion people
every 12 years.
On a photographic assignment of the 640,000-square-kilometer
Loess Plateau in North-Central China in 1995, cameraman John Liu
witnessed the
ravaging effects of man’s ignorance and greed. But he was
amazed to discover that the mindful, purposeful efforts of local
Chinese residents had rehabilitated a stark desert area the size
of the Netherlands into a lush, green oasis.
He wondered if similarly devastated landscapes had once been
vistas of lush, thriving vegetation that include waterfalls,
rainforests and fertile valleys – before several thousand years
of exploitation had stripped the land of every natural resource.
The epiphany Liu experienced spawned his provocative film,
Hope in a Changing Climate, which he posted on the
Internet. You could say the results have gone viral …
'What Happens When Humans Don’t Understand How Ecosystems
Function?'
As Liu witnessed the negative trend being reversed around the
Loess Plateau, he discovered that not only can damaged
ecosystems be rehabilitated, and that similar remediation can
restore other parts of the world, but that the pathway for
accomplishing it is fairly simple.
But the first order of business is to understand how it
happened in the first place. It often begins with several
thousand years of relentless grazing of domestic animals on
mountainous slopes until there’s nothing left but barren ground.
Rains that may have restored the land erode, carrying fertile
topsoil down the hillsides, effectively removing any chance for
new growth to emerge. On the Loess Plateau, millions of tons of
powder-fine silt were swept down into the Yellow River, not only
obstructing its flow, but causing massive flooding and the
river’s new name: China’s Sorrow.
On his travels, Liu noticed the same scenario of cumulatively
encroaching desert land where it had once been fertile.
“The lands are exhausted. They allow hundred of
thousands of sheep and goats to walk across here, and any
green thing that sticks up its head is food, and they’re
just walking around here getting everything. Well, you can’t
let them do that any more. They’ll have to stop… that’s
what’s destroyed this area. If that doesn’t stop, you won’t
be able to fix this.”
Greening the Desert – Can This Be Replicated in Other Parts of
the World?
This same trend in Jordan prompted the government to take
action. Working with civil engineers and scientists, Liu
sectioned off areas to allow the land to rest for three years.
In an amazingly short time, grass began to appear. A plant
species last recorded in the 1800s and thought to be extinct
emerged on its own.
“Grasses develop perennial root systems that spread,
encouraging microbial communities living and growing in this
microclimate that’s created,” Liu explained. “Then
you won’t have direct sunlight hitting, and UV radiation
sterilizing this microbiological habitat. Then, everything
will change – you’ll have a cumulative situation where
there’s always vegetation, organic matter and biodiversity.
“You can see the relationship between hydrology and
vegetation and biological life. That’s the basis of the air
and the natural water system. It’s how the atmosphere and
the hydrological cycle were created and how they were
constantly renewed. …If we emulate those and don’t disturb
them, we can live in the Garden of Eden.”
Eden Restored: Strategy-Inspired Green Resurgence
Centuries of vitality-sapping farming in Ethiopia have
destroyed nearly every inch of vegetation, leaving wide swaths
of bone-dry desert. Heavy flooding has etched deep gullies into
the land, sweeping topsoil downward and away with nothing to
halt its progress. With not even a drop left for farmers to
water their crops, their animals or themselves, the ensuing
drought and famine has been catastrophic.
But in just 6 years, villagers have planted indigenous trees
and vegetation, transforming the severely eroded terrain.
Rainfall now absorbs into the ground, feeding a clear stream
that flows year-round, aided by the cover of dense vegetation.
This has saved the region from desert-induced annihilation and
instilled hope for a future of continued sustainability.
A thousand miles north in Abraha Asfaha, another miraculous
resurgence has taken place. Where five years previous, heat and
wind had induced drought, a government program instigated
relocation for local villagers, who were given permission to set
aside and remediate the land as the Chinese had. Now, villagers
find water at the bottom of their wells, in spite of poor
rainfall.
"In the ravines they built small dams which are now
fed by underground springs… Rain that fell weeks ago slowly
seeps through the subsoil, replenishing the supply of water.
'The land has become fertile again,' the village chief
reports. 'There have been enormous improvements. Our fruit
trees were shriveled up, but now they’re growing again.
There’s even a larger number of species. Those are really
positive results. We now have food security. Our children
can go to school. We have a better life. We no longer need
to ask the government for support, thanks to the changes
that were implemented.'"
'People aren’t thinking about this ecological function. They’re
ignoring science…'
Studies focusing on the relationship between the soil,
moisture and organic matter helped scientists, ecologists and
engineers form strategies to produce other success stories, such
as one in Rwanda, where over-farmed hillsides caused serious
erosion. In a desperate gamble to grow more food, poor farmers
drained the protected Regazi Wetlands. But not only did this
damage the wetland’s fragile ecosystem and wildlife, as it began
drying out, it impacted power stations downriver, including the
hydroelectric power system in Rwanda’s capital city Kagali
three hours south. The Rwandan government was
forced to rent diesel power generators to remedy the situation.
In bringing back the wetlands, as well as restoring fertility
to the villagers’ lands, those responsible for its demise were
solicited to help. Today, carbon-free electricity is replacing
the diesel generators, stabilizing electricity prices throughout
the region. Rwandan President Paul Kagame:
“We had to take a careful look at what had been
happening to damage it, this system, and how to reverse that
with human action. And it’s important to understand how
human actions can destroy, or reverse what has been
destroyed (to) even protect our environment.”
Identifying the Goal: Is It Temporary Production or Ongoing
Sustenance?
Liu contends that our source of wealth is a functional
ecosystem, not the products derived from them.
“It’s impossible for the derivative to be more
valuable than the source. … And yet, in our economy now, as
it stands, the products and services have monetary values,
but the source – the functional ecosystems – (have) zero.
This cannot be true. It’s false! We’ve created a global
economic institution based on a theory of flawed logic.
Carry that flaw in logic from generation to generation, we
compound the mistake. “We’ve only just begun to understand
the real value of natural capital. Surely investing in the
restoration of damaged environments is a cost-effective way
of solving many of the problems we face today.”
But farmers the world over sometimes need convincing. The
problem, Liu says, is that they usually believe “production” is
the goal, when the crucial, pressing need is sustainability so
that the entire planet can be functional. In 1995, Jordanian
farmers scoffed at the suggestion that trees be planted in order
to build a more sustainable agricultural platform. It was
confusing at first, but the premise held that investing in the
program would come to fruition, literally, in their own
foreseeable future, with the promise of ongoing agricultural
enrichment for upcoming generations.
It meant the area’s farming-and-grazing status quo had to
stop temporarily, but homesteaders were financially compensated.
As villagers headed up the mountains with shovels, their new
objective was to create a “hat” of trees at the top, terraces to
form a “belt” and “shoes” – the foundation of a constructed dam
at the bottom. Hills and gullies were designated as protected
“ecological zones.” And it worked.
Permaculture: The Art of Working With – Not Against – Nature
Geoff Lawton introduced the permaculture concept in
Australia, where rebuilding functional ecosystems from the
ground up restores them to their fullest potential. It can
create an agricultural heartland even in the desert in as little
as three-and-a-half years, and being fully self-sufficient
year-round, cycling its own nutrients without the need for
irrigation or artificial fertilizer.
“Permaculture isthe conscious design and
maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems (to)
have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural
ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape
and people — providing their food, energy, shelter, and
other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.”1
Lawton says there’s potential for abundance even in arid
climates like Jordan’s Petra, now a stark shell of what was once
thriving, known as “the land of milk and honey.” With its
“ecological range of diversity and abundance, there’s potential
for water flow, regional climate and microclimate moderation,
completely different hydrology and the potential for
well-designed productivity, (can lead) to permanence in human
culture.”
Without restoration, the cycle of poverty continues to be
passed down from generation to generation. When the trend is
reversed, quality of life is improved, followed by improved
diet, healthcare and educational opportunities.
Nature: NOT an 'Enemy' To Be Conquered or Manipulated…
In just the last ten years,
100 million tons of herbicides have been dumped onto our
crops, polluting waterways and the soil where our food grows. A
genetically engineered crop called “golden
rice” has tainted the entire food industry throughout Asia,
thanks to a sizable investment of cash from the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, which socked $20 billion into the enterprise.
Slash and burn agriculture, such as what’s done in Bolivia to
make room for farming, involves burning ‘biomass’ – forests full
of trees and fauna – for short-term monetary gain. But the most
valuable commodity is being destroyed in the process destroying
the most valuable thing in their system – the ability to help
create biomass in other areas. It could create multiple
industries in both areas and be mutually beneficial for
everyone. Massive soy-growing plantations in Brazil are so
dependent on the promise of economic wealth that local farmers
are murdered and their lands confiscated, all to increase
multi-nationally-owned soybean operations that decimated nearly
3 million acres of rainforest in just one year.2
Small- and Large-Scale Sustainability Practices – for Your
Family, Community and the Globe
The life-giving effects of sustainability practices can be
seen on several large scales now, but the principles are only as
deep and complex as the soil. Compost feeds not just the plants,
but the soil – or more specifically the soil organisms – is
where 50 million genuses of bacteria and 50 million genuses of
fungi thrive under the right conditions. According to Liu:
“Farmers in the Loess Plateau have continued to
prosper, and the soil has been accumulating organic material
from plants and animals. This holds the moisture and
contains carbon… Living soils like this retain on average
three times more carbon than the foliage above the ground.
If we were to restore the vast area of the planet where we
humans have degraded the soils, just think what an impact it
would have in taking carbon out of the atmosphere.”
The entire Chinese continent has benefited from the lessons
learned on the Loess Plateau. You can see it in the
marketplaces, Liu says. Incomes have risen three-fold. We can
make it happen here, as well.
The Ecosystem Isn’t Just Broken Over There… Look In
Your Own Back Yard!
The tendency most of us have in so-called “developed”
countries is to think those images of widespread ecological
damage is far, far away and doesn’t involve us. But it does!
Worse than simple farmers destroying the landscape through
ignorance and tradition, the stripping and poisoning of our own
natural resources is being done not unwittingy, but
intentionally; not for the good of whole continents in the
foreseeable future but for the financial profit of a few, now.
Perhaps you can’t do anything about that, and remedying those
situations must be left to others. But you can make a difference
now for yourself, for your family and community that might have
residual effects.
Growing your own vegetables is a growing
concept for thousands of Americans. It can help you save
money, involve everyone in the family and help create a
store that can last through the winter.
Organic gardening isn’t something extra
you do – in fact it’s quite the opposite. It’s what you
don’t do that makes the difference: no
chemicals, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides on your
plate! When you take control of what you eat, you’ll
naturally enjoy better health, ensure and protecting future
generations.
Composting is another way to make what you
already have work for you in the future. Save those scraps,
from egg shells to coffee filters, and use them to feed your
vegetable garden.
When shopping for food, be informed regarding where that food
was produced. A guide to help you can be found by clicking
here!
If you take advantage of the farm-fresh sustainability that’s
becoming more prevalent as people take control of what they’re
consuming, you’ll realize many benefits. First, you’ll know
where the foods you and your family eat comes from, ensure
optimal nutrition, and protect the health of future generations