This is one of the most important videos on youtube. It holds the keys for stabilization of the environment, and how we can feed ourselves while healing the earth!
@unclejohnthezef Fungi and other plants transports water throughout the system. Plants are colony-living organisms. They may not be able to move but they still cooperate and communicate with each other in a gigantic network of chemical signal substances and symbiosis.
@GOTclarity Yes, but once again the only thing holding it all back is that man mad "game" we call money. Money holds this world back from really sorting it self out. Google Zeigeist addendum.
@GOTclarity Yes, but once again the only thing holding it all back is that man made "game" we call money. Money holds this world back from really sorting it self out. Google Zeigeist addendum.
@Dymmesdale Even though you can green the desert, there is still a limit on the types of fruiting plants you can grow in that climate.
Desert climates, even with permaculture techniques, are limited to high-yield desert plants such as dates, olives, pomegranates, some citrus, some fruiting herbaceous plants such as tomatoes and peppers, some grains and so on.
Given those limitations, this will eventually be done through necessity as the world's arable land becomes infertile.
This has extraordinary implications, it has the potential to improve millions of peoples lives. If you were around when the Wright brothers changed the world, would you have told them it would eventually be done when people got tired of driving everywhere?
This is why I don't trust people who say that we are 'running out of food'. Ridiculous. Anyone with some curiosity and common sense can find the answers to world hunger online. Sadly, most people are lacking in those two qualities.
Click the graph button right below the full screen button. Like most permaculture videos it's on a constant rise year in, and year out. Permaculture's inevitable destination is viralization. Monoculture is busy hiding in it's box meanwhile the beast grows outside
@VenusProjectFTW Sadly hungry people have no internet access and no money. If we had global basic income and free telecommunication the planet would be transformed into a beautiful garden within months.
@ecocreditfan I completely agree with your statement, however national sovereignty and the capitalist model as we know it ('every man for himself') would never result in such a world. I was implying the people living in the 'extended' north american culture when I said "most people", if that wasn't clear.
Prince Charles and Prince Phillip awarded Henry Kissinger the Commander of the Knights of the British Empire for his essay National Security Memo 200, which planned, through the IMO 'conditionalites', to wage food war on the 3rd world, and sterilization ploicies, to depopulate and starve 13 chosen countries in Africa and Asia. They will be hitting the f*ckin roof over this plan. What great work you are doing in the face of such organised impoverishment of the desert peoples!!
Nature works the right way, WE (human beings) just like to go the opposite way... If we let Nature go her way, and even help her, it's "miraculous". In fact it's just the way it's suppose to be. Nature is generous, it's time for us to stop "stealing", and start cooperating.
it's so lovely to watch this. it amazes me why we all sit down and think that world cannot change. i guess we (hopefully) are not one of these in future. go green go desert.
Nah, why waste time doing this when you can just shit all over the earth, make pollution, keep people poor, war over oil, and make rich people even richer?!!? -_-
you think you can change the earth?! the desert got to be that way because thats simply what the environment around it called for. Anything you try to grow there will die off. The enviroment there cannot sustain the kind of wildlife you suggest.
@casmatt1 (CONTINUED) i wanted to add somthing else to this that i forgot to mention. The desert is not a place for life like that. You WILL NOT find enough raw resouces in the desert to sustain life. IN a very small sample like an acre or two yes. but for many millions of acres of desert... no
@casmatt1 This is not about changing the desert, they did it the desert to PROVE that it works everywhere else on the planet and that we are actually destroying te soil with fertilizer's that in the long term destroy the soil...
all the billionaire corporations need to wake up and realize this is the future... but i guess people wont change until water and food are unavailable to there convenience.. unfortunately everything has to collapse before we start over, its the only way to get the power from corporations, to humanity
@33noa33 Actually word population is another lie If you do the maths you will find that 8 billion people could fit into Australia each person would have one quarter acre each, astonishing isnt it?
@ahamatmabrahman Your incompetent...Where are the resources supposed to be? Where is their food grown? It is impossible for a person to live on a quarter of an acre and have their own little world..
so when the people of afghanistan say they cannot grow anything but opium, we can turen around and show them this. All the farmers say they would gladly grow rice, melons, etc but there is not enough water.
how can you dislike this video.. its awesome! the only reason i can think of "oh shit that guy is thinking differently than everyone else and proving shit wrong!" which also doesn't make any sense to me.. but 9 ppl be CRAZY!
Amazing! In the last photo, the ten acre patch of desert had become a mini forest! Keep it up, expand it, convince others, and before you know it... DESERTS precede us and FORESTS nip at our heels!!!
Wow, amazing. Reminds me a little of the terraforming in the "Dune" sci-fi series. :-)
I see why some people I know are so into permaculture. Amazing results with low-tech relatively simple methods.
I wonder if you greened enough of the desert if it would effect the weather, maybe bring more rain? I read somewhere that the rain forests help maintain the rain they receive or something. They tend to become deserts when you cut them down. (I'm obviously ignorant about this stuff.)
Geoff is a eco-systems genius and needs to be supported to spread this technology through out both the developed and undeveloped world. Self sufficiency is the best revenge against the current mono culture, global dependency.
Check out "Greening the Desert - Revisited" on the PermaScience Channel for a capsule review of the the renowned "Greening the Desert" project, with recent footage from the original site and the new Jordan Valley Permaculture Institute.
The dust bowl was caused by various forms of idiocy including intensive monoculture, removing natural systems, irrigating with salty ground water, and leaving fields barren between croppings. Troll elsewhere, thanks.
Sites exist, mainly in south-eastern Australia, which have been applying these principles (we can talk about a couple if you wish) for over the 20 years mark you referenced in your original comment. Life is flourishing there.
Permaculture is about locals being directly involved in managing their means of survival. It differs from post-industrial revolution agriculture which has consumers ignorant of what it is that they are eating and producers looking to survive financially.
this is the kind of mindless ecoblabber that needs to be challenged. tell me why we shouldn't grow food in the most famine-stricken part of the world- ie, (sub) sahara? permaculture will create another functioning ecosystem in the desert- what makes one ecosystem better than another? is it the number of species thriving there? because i guarantee you will see a lot more life flourish in a green desert.
there's not much of an ecosystem in many deserts. And many deserts are a product of poor agriculture methods. Check out what's going in Yemen and Sahara.
Pardon my ignorance, but is the mulch (sp?) from "organic fields nearby" merely necessary in order to kickstart the process or do you have to keep adding organic inputs? I mean, does it become selfsustainable after the initial layer?
Glargl, yes it does become self-sustaining quite quickly. Nitrogen fixing trees, when pruned, will shed root nodules, which decompose in the ground and turn to rich soil. Leaf litter also becomes soil and provides natural mulch. The initial input of organic matter can be phased out after a while, so this is not a zero-sum game.
well I'd assume that they'd get leaf litter from the trees, and once the trees are up and providing shade, then you can get less evaporation on the ground level.
One more point - this area would almost certainly have supported food plants before thoughtless human activity turned it into a desert. Now that the landscape-humidifying properties of those plants are gone, it makes perfect sense for humans to re-humidify the landscape through swales etc., which get the water underground where plants can use it. The plants will restore the fertility of the landscape and halt the erosion of millions of years worth of accumulated soil.
@bmed, e.g. the amazon rainforests, most of the precipitation that sustains them is created by the forests themselves through a rapid cycle of transpiration and precipitation. Water doesn't disappear when it goes into the atmosphere or ground - it comes back as precipitation, or ends up as streamflow further downstream. Like the rainforest, PC methods just slow the water on its passage back to the sea, & make very good use of it in the meantime to capture free energy from sunlight via plants.
1. Life is what can intervene to turn a situation around. Mulch, otherwise burned is used to cool the ground and prevent evaporation. Trees grow + shed leaves -> more mulch.
2. Small bugs deposit carbon into the soil. This locks up the salt. Salt is still there but no longer prevents plants from growing.
3. The mass media sells bad news. Why? If I tell you a threat is approaching, you'll want to know everything about it for self preservation. Might be malarkey but it draws many in.
The organic matter he used was stuff which had been removed from other land and would have otherwise been burned. He just 'rescued' it to kick-start the project.
They used the 'garbage' from the community to start as mulch and then the planted trees and shrubs create the mulch. Collecting the water via swales on contour 'wake up' the nutrients. The insects show up too. Amazing!
Anyone see the same problem that I do? He mentions using lots of organic matter as mulch, but it takes a relatively very large area to supply a small area with a lot of mulch. The greening of his farm would require the removal of organic matter from 1 area, to another. There's no net gain. There's a great loss in one area for a gain in another. It's always best if one can put back as much organic matter grown in one area back into it, such as a no till farm, that leaves the waste in place.
the leaf-litter dropped from the plants can be used for such. additionally, nearby farms he says burn their mulch, which is better, to take what is to be destroyed and use it oneself, or let it be burnt to ash and to do without? i'll go with the first, myself.
you say no net gain, but the earth has generated life from nothing (so we are told), from no land animals to many, from no plants to how many? this is creation, not mere substitution and transferal.
I think you underestimate how much area it takes to generate enough mulch to do what he does, and you take for granted the fact that what the area he is farming gains in nutrients, the area that mulch comes from, loses.
He says they were burning it, well many 3rd world farmers burn left over plant material, and use the ash as fertilizer. What makes slash and burn so productive in the short term, is in part, the nutrients from the ash.
There are many different possible sources for mulch. I've even seen people use shredded paper, sawdust, manure etc... The man in the video is just another example of people doing what other people say is impossible. If everyone had his attitude we would advance greatly as a species.
only 1/2 of a tree/plant comes from the soil...the other 1/2 is made through photosynthesis...basic high school science stuff buddy. all the debris that falls from a forest just builds soils deeper...you can take this debris for all eternity and that forest will thrive! there is a "net gain" you fool and it comes from photosynthesis. you really need to read a book man its sad...same as the guy leaving that comment about slash and burn being good for the soil....comeplete bullshit!
Well then, you should tell all those retarded farmers that use fertilizer that it's completely unnecessary, because despite the fact that organic material is pulling nutrients from the soil, and that organic material is leaving never to return, it magically keeps renewing itself.
Silly farmers keep adding phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and more for no reason whatsoever.
Go get your message out, mmimic34, before those millions of silly farmers waste another dollar on fertilizers.
aredditor, fertilizers kill microbes & earthworms, resulting in loss of fertility and topsoil. The NPK in synthetic fertilizer lacks balanced nutrients as well... less healthy plants.
um...taking 1% of fallen debris from a forest is a little different than farmers who year after year take more than 25% of their crop mass to market (along with most of the essential nutrients for life that concentrate in fruits and veggies)
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Do you really truly think there's enough organic material to supply organic fertilizer to all farms?
It wouldn't be at all a practical or green endeavor to do such a thing. BTW, you should google map the region. There's no nearby forests to to get debris from, and it would be a horrible idea anyway.
Like it or not, most farmers are going to need chemical fertilizers to replace what leaves their fields. Hundreds of years ago, the solution was slash and burn, so we've come a long way.
Exactly right. in San Francisco they have found that money talkes they are making money getting restaurants to compost all organic waste as well as homes. this could be done in the middle east. imagine if we spent all that weapons money on regreening instead!
ok, ur right that photosynthesis captures CO2 from the atmosphere and converts it into plant matter and that overtime soil wil form from dead organinc matter . but what ur forgetting is that humans take the fruit, or plant matter from these gardens and consume it. rather than falling to the ground, we are transporting the nutrients in the plants to some place. this is why we need fertilizer. agriculture is mining the soil for nutrients for us to use in the form of food.
there are many solutions to your problems, just on solution- cut the tree off at the top of the trunk and use this as mulch, the tree grows back. also, think of humans as transforming the nutrients in the plants, through defecation and urination.. these products will in time become "fertilizer" if one designs a waste composting system.
Not everything is removed. The plant, peelings, tops, and table scraps can be composted. This returns 90% of everything to the soil. Then other inputs are easy -- coffee grounds, urine, etc. Because high-N fertilizer kills earthworms, it's actually detrimental to plant health and results in loss of topsoil and fertility. Read up on John Jeavons' work.
Yes because most the plants we choose to farm use nitrogen, but there are also "nitrogen fixxing trees" which take nitrogen "from its relatively inert molecular form (N2) in the atmosphere and converted into nitrogen compounds (such as ammonia, nitrate and nitrogen dioxide". The idea of permaculture is not to exhaust your soil, or rotate crops, but to start a self sustaining natural system that continues to replenish itself, and grow.
yea thats great an all. but i see this 'permaculture' as just another way humans are messing with nature. we are sucking the life out of these arid soils the way we are with aerable land. how are these man made ecosystems forced into unfavourable climates self sustaining? we are constanly requiring the addition of water which is captured via these man made ponds that steal the water from other settlement downstream. you are just creating an oasis at the expense of those around you.
That's pretty sad that you think that. Without trees, and plants the water just runs off, or evaporates. So in reality you are adding water to the soil not removing.
yea but where do u think that evoprated water and runoff go? they go to adjacent settlements. by trapping this watter in ur little permacuture plot u are stealing the water from other ppl. you might have a lush jungle, but ur neighbours will have a desert
So by your reasoning no one be they a central authority or otherwise should attempt to harvest any rainwater? The desert was already there, although the bible indicates that at one time that area was not a desert. Geoff has restored that piece of land to what it was. There must have been something off key happening that it was reduced to desert in the first place.
i dont doubt that there was a time when this area was a lush forest instead of a desert. what my point is however, is that we need to realize that greening one area will ALWAYS be at the expense of ungreening another. always
Hang on, on the one hand we are talking desert landscape. The question is why? Geoff has shown them how to harvest by holding water in the landscape. That water will remain there and create a water table, he has shown me this himself at the institute in The Channon. I saw for myself a spring that had broken out below the swales. Using The Channon as an example, that water would otherwise flow thru the creeks and rivers and quite quickly to the ocean. No one is being denied anything.
the only water available to these desert ecosystems is what comes through precipitation. what happens during a drought? u'll have to resort to the groundwater. and we know that the aquifers in deserts are fossil aquifers that dont recharge. even if u claim these permaculture ecosystems recharge aquifers they will do it at a very slow rate. so ultimately during times when we dont have surface water to use we will risk severely depleting the aquifers to save the plants.
permaculture is not sustainable. it is a temporary ecosystem that drains all the resources in the region at a rate WAYYY greater than what the region can support. its a fantasy. these ecosystems arent real. to think they are self sustaining is a sign of ones misunderstanding of the environmtnal dynamics of a region
Are you an ecologist? No fantasy involved just plenty of examples of keyline water harvesting that work effectively from the first one put in place at Windsor by PA Yeomans, still there, despite developers wishes, to the many examples since put in place. By your reasoning no one anywhere should attempt to harvest rainwater. If that is the case where does that leave you or anyone? Your argument is the sort of argument that Peter Andrews has had to endure from bureaucrats who prefer denuded land.
i am by no means an ecologist. but this permaculture thing just doesnt add up. ppl should harvest rainwater in regions that naturally sustain the type and density of vegetation that inhabitants want to grow. isnt that the ultimate form of env sustainability - working within natures limits? permaculture does not respect these limits. it tries to artificially expand them, the same kind of over-cultivation that got us into trouble in the first place.
I would suggest that you begin to study ecology and doing a permie course is a good start. If the Jordan was at some point a lush region as described in the Bible then that would suggest that it is not naturally a denuded desert landscape and that Geoff has in fact begun a restoration process. If working within PC zone design then the aim is to restore what is not needed back to forest. The intense cultivation is for zone one or two. Even that is cultivation with diversity.
im not doubting that these desert regions were once heavily vegetaged, but but alot has changed since those facts were recorded in the bible. human settlement patterns, climate, and nutrient/water flows have changed. is it fair to say that lush vegetation can be supported in these new conditions? to support such PC growth one must focus on restroring the human population/settlement, climatic, and water flow patterns that allowed such lush growth.
wouldnt u agree that for PC growth to be sucessful u need to look at the big picture? Its a desert for a reason. trying to change it will be a battle u cannot win unless u change the surrondings which try to keep it desert-like.
Is it a desert landscape for natural reasons or for human reasons? Has it remained denuded due to human settlement? If humanity was removed from the picture would nature leave it as a desert or would it restore itself to previous conditions. Is it arid due to a rain shadow created by a mountain range or is it arid due to human interference and tree removal? At one time, it appears there was not a rain shadow condition. A few thousand years is nothing in the big picture.
Diversity is not in the least against nature. Monoculture cultivation is what has got us into trouble in the first place. Monoculture is like a neon lit Las Vegas for insect plagues. Where we went wrong is that we forgot to mimic nature and that loss of connection has gone to near the speed of light with the advent of a fossil fueled dependent agriculture. There are many examples of diverse PC gardens with no problems from insect plagues, which would suggest that something right is in place.
Permaculture is a practice with a deep level of respect for nature. If there is a human population in an area such as this (which there is) they need to eat. And these methods are the most environmentally sound ways to sustain these populations of people, plus if the desert would be "greened" then there would be much more co2 consuming organisims, as well as cooling very hot areas of the Earth, and as one person already mentioned these areas where once very vital with tremendous vegetation.
It's not stealing if neighbors are letting it run right off because the land they own lacks terrain. I live in the sonoran desert. The greenest parts of the land are the places where canyons are blocked by plants, or swales that were built a hundred years ago. The rest is not sand dunes, the majority of it is recovering from the clear cuts that took place to supply local mines with timber. Some hills have never recovered where the trees cannot keep themselves rooted due to severe soil erosion.
We'll actually the trees begin to produce their own mulch. The sun is the energy input that your overlooking, also the nutrients already in the soil. It's not like the soil was completely void, it was just inactive due to "hyper-arid" conditions, surface evaporation, and runoff (the salt didn't help, or the 120+ degree temperatures).
Have posted a video response about using waste water from Europe in returning Oilt Tankers that curently use sea water as ballast in order to return back to the oil terminals. This is crazy as they do not get paid for the return voyage and have to pay to clean the sea water before releasing it into the ocean. Use waste water and we solve pollution, desertification and global warming in one go. With your system we really could make a huge difference in a short time.
Nobel Peace Prize to Geoff Lawton !!!
abdellism 18 hours ago
your my hero! after wonder-woman of course
MrDavidwilson86 3 weeks ago
Incredible. Re-Green the Deserts!
DopeDivinity 1 month ago
This is one of the most important videos on youtube. It holds the keys for stabilization of the environment, and how we can feed ourselves while healing the earth!
petventures 1 month ago 3
how does the MICRO-IRRIGATION under the mulch work? is it pumped in from somewhere? it shows tubes and hoses?
unclejohnthezef 1 month ago
@unclejohnthezef Fungi and other plants transports water throughout the system. Plants are colony-living organisms. They may not be able to move but they still cooperate and communicate with each other in a gigantic network of chemical signal substances and symbiosis.
lordmetroid 1 month ago
PErmaculture research institute of Australia is the best site to subscribe to
octohorse 2 months ago
put that in your pipe and smoke it Monsanto!
EmilyVanHorn 2 months ago
Just WOW!! Why haven't we rolled this out across all the deserts?
occupytheweb 3 months ago
who is this marvellous individual?
IllichSketchShow 3 months ago
amazing!!!!
ygermino 3 months ago
We are solving all the world's problems in our gardens.
The earth is a garden waiting to be transformed from "Desert to Dessert" through Permaculture Design. Everyone can play a part and have fun doing it.
~ Maui Permaculture Network
GOTclarity 6 months ago
@GOTclarity Yes, but once again the only thing holding it all back is that man mad "game" we call money. Money holds this world back from really sorting it self out. Google Zeigeist addendum.
macdaddy1310 3 months ago
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@GOTclarity Yes, but once again the only thing holding it all back is that man made "game" we call money. Money holds this world back from really sorting it self out. Google Zeigeist addendum.
macdaddy1310 3 months ago
You can do this to any desert, why aren't more people doing this??
Dymmesdale 6 months ago
@Dymmesdale They might not know about it. Wouldn't it be great if all dessert was transformed?!!!!
TheEdwardAP 6 months ago
@Dymmesdale Even though you can green the desert, there is still a limit on the types of fruiting plants you can grow in that climate.
Desert climates, even with permaculture techniques, are limited to high-yield desert plants such as dates, olives, pomegranates, some citrus, some fruiting herbaceous plants such as tomatoes and peppers, some grains and so on.
Given those limitations, this will eventually be done through necessity as the world's arable land becomes infertile.
sustainablehuman 5 months ago
@sustainablehuman
How about some constructive criticism?
This has extraordinary implications, it has the potential to improve millions of peoples lives. If you were around when the Wright brothers changed the world, would you have told them it would eventually be done when people got tired of driving everywhere?
cheezmo722 3 months ago
@cheezmo722 I didn't know they had internet access in the middle of the desert.
sustainablehuman 3 months ago
This is why I don't trust people who say that we are 'running out of food'. Ridiculous. Anyone with some curiosity and common sense can find the answers to world hunger online. Sadly, most people are lacking in those two qualities.
VenusProjectFTW 6 months ago 14
Click the graph button right below the full screen button. Like most permaculture videos it's on a constant rise year in, and year out. Permaculture's inevitable destination is viralization. Monoculture is busy hiding in it's box meanwhile the beast grows outside
StrongArmZZ 2 months ago
@StrongArmZZ Your comment cheered me up very much Here's hoping there are good things coming for humanity in the future! :D
VenusProjectFTW 2 months ago
@VenusProjectFTW Sadly hungry people have no internet access and no money. If we had global basic income and free telecommunication the planet would be transformed into a beautiful garden within months.
ecocreditfan 2 weeks ago
@ecocreditfan I completely agree with your statement, however national sovereignty and the capitalist model as we know it ('every man for himself') would never result in such a world. I was implying the people living in the 'extended' north american culture when I said "most people", if that wasn't clear.
VenusProjectFTW 2 weeks ago
Use this in more places!!
HaxxBlaster 6 months ago
I don't know how anybody can disike this. You'd have to be a complete idiot asshole sadist worthless fool.
Josephjoel3 7 months ago 2
Prince Charles and Prince Phillip awarded Henry Kissinger the Commander of the Knights of the British Empire for his essay National Security Memo 200, which planned, through the IMO 'conditionalites', to wage food war on the 3rd world, and sterilization ploicies, to depopulate and starve 13 chosen countries in Africa and Asia. They will be hitting the f*ckin roof over this plan. What great work you are doing in the face of such organised impoverishment of the desert peoples!!
528hertz 7 months ago
Ancestors of Liet-Kynes
wangninja 8 months ago 2
Nature works the right way, WE (human beings) just like to go the opposite way... If we let Nature go her way, and even help her, it's "miraculous". In fact it's just the way it's suppose to be. Nature is generous, it's time for us to stop "stealing", and start cooperating.
G1ngerFox 8 months ago
This video is the hope of a depleted future.
BOCBlackOps 8 months ago 2
Terraforming the right way. Nice werk.
DrewDubious 9 months ago 8
Hi Perma res guess you should link up with Groasis :)
amoghavarshamurthy 9 months ago
10 people do not live in a desert
fibbsabaddy 10 months ago
This rocks
Wakeuponearth 10 months ago
To do both is excellent. The desert offers much employment and sustainability of desert economies. This in turn assures energy and food. Well done!
E-T
etellurian 11 months ago
it's so lovely to watch this. it amazes me why we all sit down and think that world cannot change. i guess we (hopefully) are not one of these in future. go green go desert.
bethefriend 11 months ago 2
Food land is competing with crops for energy. Why not use the desert to make solar energy saving the fertile land for food crops. Any thoughts?
E-T
etellurian 11 months ago
@etellurian it is possible to do both.
vutEwa 11 months ago
We are in the midst of a great food crisis. Here is part of the solution. Great work, truly inspirational.
bemata7 11 months ago
This guy needs to get involved with the venus project!
brucegalliver 11 months ago
If you like anime's go see Earth Maiden Arjuna !!
MastaMusical 11 months ago
Nah, why waste time doing this when you can just shit all over the earth, make pollution, keep people poor, war over oil, and make rich people even richer?!!? -_-
gothamfoodie 11 months ago
@gothamfoodie
:))
ImThinkin11 11 months ago
you think you can change the earth?! the desert got to be that way because thats simply what the environment around it called for. Anything you try to grow there will die off. The enviroment there cannot sustain the kind of wildlife you suggest.
casmatt1 11 months ago
@casmatt1 (CONTINUED) i wanted to add somthing else to this that i forgot to mention. The desert is not a place for life like that. You WILL NOT find enough raw resouces in the desert to sustain life. IN a very small sample like an acre or two yes. but for many millions of acres of desert... no
casmatt1 11 months ago
@casmatt1 Just did.
iamkuda 11 months ago
@iamkuda read my second comment
casmatt1 11 months ago
@casmatt1 Hrmmm what are you going on about?
StrongArmZZ 11 months ago
@casmatt1 This is not about changing the desert, they did it the desert to PROVE that it works everywhere else on the planet and that we are actually destroying te soil with fertilizer's that in the long term destroy the soil...
MastaMusical 11 months ago
who the F*uck disliked this?
Morons!!!
incineratex 1 year ago
"You can fix all the World's problems in a garden"
LEGALISE CANNABIS
69salford69 1 year ago
Simply excellent
TrickyHarts 1 year ago
this video has made my day :)
scottishtracy 1 year ago
I'm very impressed!
Yogizuna 1 year ago
all the billionaire corporations need to wake up and realize this is the future... but i guess people wont change until water and food are unavailable to there convenience.. unfortunately everything has to collapse before we start over, its the only way to get the power from corporations, to humanity
rastapastaman420 1 year ago
Excellent work!
ILiveInMyParadise 1 year ago
This is great! It's true all can be made better ... "in the garden".
Janice11353 1 year ago
HELPING NATURE FOR BETTER CLIMATE
Use mighty power of nature
In the northwestern Australia, we have huge tides,
huge deserts, huge evaporation and huge dry rivers and lakes.
Huge 12m tidal erosion can revive old dry paleo dormant once mighty rivers, creeks and lakes,
desalinate the country and change deserts to rain forests to provide more rain across Australia
World population is growing rapidly and we need more energy, food, land and water.
see: Mitic CLIMATE ENGINEERING
33noa33 1 year ago
@33noa33 Actually word population is another lie If you do the maths you will find that 8 billion people could fit into Australia each person would have one quarter acre each, astonishing isnt it?
ahamatmabrahman 1 year ago
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UCWarrior1 1 year ago
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UCWarrior1 1 year ago
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UCWarrior1 1 year ago
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UCWarrior1 1 year ago
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@ahamatmabrahman Your incompetent...Where are the resources supposed to be? Where is their food grown? It is impossible for a person to live on a quarter of an acre and have their own little world..
UCWarrior1 1 year ago
Can you post an update on what's going on with this project? Is it still going well? Please let us know.
adamatova 1 year ago
All I can say is, this would be awesome. Just plain awesome.
videosfromderelix 1 year ago
i've sent this on to so many people so many times. excellent!
jockdoubleday 1 year ago
I have the same feeling!
Olhamo 1 year ago
This is frakking awesome
JonB20 1 year ago
so when the people of afghanistan say they cannot grow anything but opium, we can turen around and show them this. All the farmers say they would gladly grow rice, melons, etc but there is not enough water.
This can fix all of that.
ontariobuds 1 year ago
how can you dislike this video.. its awesome! the only reason i can think of "oh shit that guy is thinking differently than everyone else and proving shit wrong!" which also doesn't make any sense to me.. but 9 ppl be CRAZY!
Durfist 1 year ago
9 evil nazis voted thumbs down
ShaktipatSeer 1 year ago
@ShaktipatSeer may be 9 people clicked their by mistake... :-P
TheMaghi85 1 year ago
Just Love it ! Great Idea!
y4upeople 1 year ago
Very inspiring..
bangaloreprasad 1 year ago
Amazing! In the last photo, the ten acre patch of desert had become a mini forest! Keep it up, expand it, convince others, and before you know it... DESERTS precede us and FORESTS nip at our heels!!!
EdM021 1 year ago
Fantastic news…
RichieRichOlly 1 year ago
This is amazing stuff. Outstanding work by everyone involved!
dragoon84 1 year ago
BRAVO !!! Spread the word the worlgs problems can be solved in the garden...
sunpeer 1 year ago
Fantastic!
itube0033 1 year ago
Incredible!
causechange 1 year ago
wow... amazing!
Erisak 1 year ago
Amazing!
slestie 1 year ago
Great Video to awaken this throw away world...The earth has all the where-with-all to be renewed...
eformulas 1 year ago
can this work in the canyon areas of Utah where it's like rocks and nothing for 100s of miles?
brutus64 1 year ago
@brutus64 send him a mail and challenge him to do it ;)
Ullbritt 1 year ago
wow how incredible it reminds me of this amazing new project in denver called the Growhaus
sceelen 1 year ago
This is going to be the new army. I can see armies of permaculture people teaching this to the villages of the world.
Disneyu 2 years ago 8
Wow, amazing. Reminds me a little of the terraforming in the "Dune" sci-fi series. :-)
I see why some people I know are so into permaculture. Amazing results with low-tech relatively simple methods.
I wonder if you greened enough of the desert if it would effect the weather, maybe bring more rain? I read somewhere that the rain forests help maintain the rain they receive or something. They tend to become deserts when you cut them down. (I'm obviously ignorant about this stuff.)
mlaridon 2 years ago
Geoff is a eco-systems genius and needs to be supported to spread this technology through out both the developed and undeveloped world. Self sufficiency is the best revenge against the current mono culture, global dependency.
larrytx01 2 years ago 9
Check out "Greening the Desert - Revisited" on the PermaScience Channel for a capsule review of the the renowned "Greening the Desert" project, with recent footage from the original site and the new Jordan Valley Permaculture Institute.
permascience 2 years ago 3
@permascience Do you have a link?
plasticparticle 2 years ago
youtube doesn't allow links in comments, but you can copy and paste Greening the Desert - Revisited into youtube search and you should find it
permascience 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Similar thing was attempted in the United States. It worked for about 15 to 20 years.
Unfortunately, it created the dust bowls of the 1930's, and destroyed the environment for decades to come.
AirelonTrading 2 years ago
The dust bowl was caused by various forms of idiocy including intensive monoculture, removing natural systems, irrigating with salty ground water, and leaving fields barren between croppings. Troll elsewhere, thanks.
HolyFrijoles90210 2 years ago 4
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I love how any point raised? Is acused of instantly "trolling". It's akin to invoking Godwins law whenever a conversation doesn't go your way.
There was a LOT more to the dustbowl, than some of those facts (some of which are slightly in error).
AirelonTrading 2 years ago
@AirelonTrading,
Sites exist, mainly in south-eastern Australia, which have been applying these principles (we can talk about a couple if you wish) for over the 20 years mark you referenced in your original comment. Life is flourishing there.
Permaculture is about locals being directly involved in managing their means of survival. It differs from post-industrial revolution agriculture which has consumers ignorant of what it is that they are eating and producers looking to survive financially.
LoveHeartLogicHead 2 years ago
Awesome ! The world needs to see and know this !!!!!
misterrgerbil 2 years ago 43
@misterrgerbil Of course, but there is too much at stake for the fat cat elite.
JonB20 1 year ago
i've watched this video twenty times by now. i don't know why i don't get tired of seeing this, but it blows my mind every time.
ahahahayeahright 2 years ago 54
@ahahahayeahright It certainly is uplifting and a clear indication that the people who have hijacked our world are nuts
ahamatmabrahman 1 year ago
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momentinpassing 2 years ago
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momentinpassing 2 years ago
Now see, it's an interesting idea, but we shouldn't regreen the whole thing... I mean, there are ecosystems that exist there.
Plozen 2 years ago
this is the kind of mindless ecoblabber that needs to be challenged. tell me why we shouldn't grow food in the most famine-stricken part of the world- ie, (sub) sahara? permaculture will create another functioning ecosystem in the desert- what makes one ecosystem better than another? is it the number of species thriving there? because i guarantee you will see a lot more life flourish in a green desert.
ahahahayeahright 2 years ago 4
there's not much of an ecosystem in many deserts. And many deserts are a product of poor agriculture methods. Check out what's going in Yemen and Sahara.
kavinho 2 years ago 3
just remember that many of the deserts of the middle east are man made.
Over thousands of years deforestation has turned these areas into just that..... desserts.
We dont need to regreen it all either just enough to feed the people, which is not that much if you use permaculture practices.
Peace
dancidelics 2 years ago 6
so why arent more people doing this? great job, great idea, and great vid.
questone100 2 years ago 2
questone100, more people are doing this. Google "rehydrating the landscape"
Snurdgerbly 2 years ago 3
Pardon my ignorance, but is the mulch (sp?) from "organic fields nearby" merely necessary in order to kickstart the process or do you have to keep adding organic inputs? I mean, does it become selfsustainable after the initial layer?
Glargl 2 years ago
Just to kick start. After that the nitrogen fixing "mulch trees" take care of it.
StrongArmZZ 2 years ago 3
Glargl, yes it does become self-sustaining quite quickly. Nitrogen fixing trees, when pruned, will shed root nodules, which decompose in the ground and turn to rich soil. Leaf litter also becomes soil and provides natural mulch. The initial input of organic matter can be phased out after a while, so this is not a zero-sum game.
PratimokshaABC 2 years ago 4
well I'd assume that they'd get leaf litter from the trees, and once the trees are up and providing shade, then you can get less evaporation on the ground level.
Aussiemoo 2 years ago 7
One more point - this area would almost certainly have supported food plants before thoughtless human activity turned it into a desert. Now that the landscape-humidifying properties of those plants are gone, it makes perfect sense for humans to re-humidify the landscape through swales etc., which get the water underground where plants can use it. The plants will restore the fertility of the landscape and halt the erosion of millions of years worth of accumulated soil.
carringtonblush 2 years ago 6
@bmed, e.g. the amazon rainforests, most of the precipitation that sustains them is created by the forests themselves through a rapid cycle of transpiration and precipitation. Water doesn't disappear when it goes into the atmosphere or ground - it comes back as precipitation, or ends up as streamflow further downstream. Like the rainforest, PC methods just slow the water on its passage back to the sea, & make very good use of it in the meantime to capture free energy from sunlight via plants.
carringtonblush 2 years ago 4
I made grass in kindergarten once.
frootEpebbles 2 years ago
1. Life is what can intervene to turn a situation around. Mulch, otherwise burned is used to cool the ground and prevent evaporation. Trees grow + shed leaves -> more mulch.
2. Small bugs deposit carbon into the soil. This locks up the salt. Salt is still there but no longer prevents plants from growing.
3. The mass media sells bad news. Why? If I tell you a threat is approaching, you'll want to know everything about it for self preservation. Might be malarkey but it draws many in.
LoveHeartLogicHead 2 years ago 2
all you people are too smart !!!
Krys0lovers0sos 2 years ago 2
great vid
questone100 2 years ago
this man is awesome, im really happy this kind of work is getting done.
UFOMAN618 2 years ago
i have a new crush! LOVE this man!!! brilliant in every way.
littletravelers 2 years ago 4
these ideas sound complicated, not for the lay men.. i hope they can simplify so others in arid lands can use these techniques
sadmanbadmanGLADMAN 2 years ago
These techniques are so much common sense when you begin working with them. It works in so many climates.
fwsrsafe88 2 years ago
The organic matter he used was stuff which had been removed from other land and would have otherwise been burned. He just 'rescued' it to kick-start the project.
burramaluca 2 years ago
More swales, less bombs!
thank you permaculture...
mjayd3 2 years ago
these techniques are AMAZING ....... thank you :)
deevinewizzdumb 2 years ago
They used the 'garbage' from the community to start as mulch and then the planted trees and shrubs create the mulch. Collecting the water via swales on contour 'wake up' the nutrients. The insects show up too. Amazing!
Hollandverdicchio 2 years ago
Anyone see the same problem that I do? He mentions using lots of organic matter as mulch, but it takes a relatively very large area to supply a small area with a lot of mulch. The greening of his farm would require the removal of organic matter from 1 area, to another. There's no net gain. There's a great loss in one area for a gain in another. It's always best if one can put back as much organic matter grown in one area back into it, such as a no till farm, that leaves the waste in place.
aredditor 2 years ago
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iwcccars 2 years ago
AHH the Fukokoa method. After trying his method in a very urban area, I gotta agree with the wise Mr. Fukokoa.. (sorry if I mispelt his name)
PakaNoHida 2 years ago
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4trahasis 2 years ago
Comment removed
4trahasis 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
where do you get your food from?
the leaf-litter dropped from the plants can be used for such. additionally, nearby farms he says burn their mulch, which is better, to take what is to be destroyed and use it oneself, or let it be burnt to ash and to do without? i'll go with the first, myself.
you say no net gain, but the earth has generated life from nothing (so we are told), from no land animals to many, from no plants to how many? this is creation, not mere substitution and transferal.
4trahasis 2 years ago
this was a response to aredditor, but youtube's being funny and not putting it there right now. bah.
4trahasis 2 years ago
@ 4trahasis
I think you underestimate how much area it takes to generate enough mulch to do what he does, and you take for granted the fact that what the area he is farming gains in nutrients, the area that mulch comes from, loses.
He says they were burning it, well many 3rd world farmers burn left over plant material, and use the ash as fertilizer. What makes slash and burn so productive in the short term, is in part, the nutrients from the ash.
aredditor 2 years ago
There are many different possible sources for mulch. I've even seen people use shredded paper, sawdust, manure etc... The man in the video is just another example of people doing what other people say is impossible. If everyone had his attitude we would advance greatly as a species.
vinayakaya 2 years ago
only 1/2 of a tree/plant comes from the soil...the other 1/2 is made through photosynthesis...basic high school science stuff buddy. all the debris that falls from a forest just builds soils deeper...you can take this debris for all eternity and that forest will thrive! there is a "net gain" you fool and it comes from photosynthesis. you really need to read a book man its sad...same as the guy leaving that comment about slash and burn being good for the soil....comeplete bullshit!
mmimic34 2 years ago
Well then, you should tell all those retarded farmers that use fertilizer that it's completely unnecessary, because despite the fact that organic material is pulling nutrients from the soil, and that organic material is leaving never to return, it magically keeps renewing itself.
Silly farmers keep adding phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and more for no reason whatsoever.
Go get your message out, mmimic34, before those millions of silly farmers waste another dollar on fertilizers.
aredditor 2 years ago
but its got 'electrolytes' (idiocracy)
UFOMAN618 2 years ago
Hahahaha, good movie haha :D.
DarthVaygr 2 years ago
aredditor, fertilizers kill microbes & earthworms, resulting in loss of fertility and topsoil. The NPK in synthetic fertilizer lacks balanced nutrients as well... less healthy plants.
thpt 2 years ago
um...taking 1% of fallen debris from a forest is a little different than farmers who year after year take more than 25% of their crop mass to market (along with most of the essential nutrients for life that concentrate in fruits and veggies)
mmimic34 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Do you really truly think there's enough organic material to supply organic fertilizer to all farms?
It wouldn't be at all a practical or green endeavor to do such a thing. BTW, you should google map the region. There's no nearby forests to to get debris from, and it would be a horrible idea anyway.
Like it or not, most farmers are going to need chemical fertilizers to replace what leaves their fields. Hundreds of years ago, the solution was slash and burn, so we've come a long way.
aredditor 2 years ago
or we could systematically compost all of our waste, which would be plenty
UniversalBrother108 2 years ago 5
Exactly right. in San Francisco they have found that money talkes they are making money getting restaurants to compost all organic waste as well as homes. this could be done in the middle east. imagine if we spent all that weapons money on regreening instead!
zoezuniga 2 years ago 2
ok, ur right that photosynthesis captures CO2 from the atmosphere and converts it into plant matter and that overtime soil wil form from dead organinc matter . but what ur forgetting is that humans take the fruit, or plant matter from these gardens and consume it. rather than falling to the ground, we are transporting the nutrients in the plants to some place. this is why we need fertilizer. agriculture is mining the soil for nutrients for us to use in the form of food.
bmed19 2 years ago
there are many solutions to your problems, just on solution- cut the tree off at the top of the trunk and use this as mulch, the tree grows back. also, think of humans as transforming the nutrients in the plants, through defecation and urination.. these products will in time become "fertilizer" if one designs a waste composting system.
Tidnull 2 years ago
Not everything is removed. The plant, peelings, tops, and table scraps can be composted. This returns 90% of everything to the soil. Then other inputs are easy -- coffee grounds, urine, etc. Because high-N fertilizer kills earthworms, it's actually detrimental to plant health and results in loss of topsoil and fertility. Read up on John Jeavons' work.
thpt 2 years ago
Yes because most the plants we choose to farm use nitrogen, but there are also "nitrogen fixxing trees" which take nitrogen "from its relatively inert molecular form (N2) in the atmosphere and converted into nitrogen compounds (such as ammonia, nitrate and nitrogen dioxide". The idea of permaculture is not to exhaust your soil, or rotate crops, but to start a self sustaining natural system that continues to replenish itself, and grow.
StrongArmZZ 2 years ago
yea thats great an all. but i see this 'permaculture' as just another way humans are messing with nature. we are sucking the life out of these arid soils the way we are with aerable land. how are these man made ecosystems forced into unfavourable climates self sustaining? we are constanly requiring the addition of water which is captured via these man made ponds that steal the water from other settlement downstream. you are just creating an oasis at the expense of those around you.
bmed19 2 years ago
That's pretty sad that you think that. Without trees, and plants the water just runs off, or evaporates. So in reality you are adding water to the soil not removing.
StrongArmZZ 2 years ago
yea but where do u think that evoprated water and runoff go? they go to adjacent settlements. by trapping this watter in ur little permacuture plot u are stealing the water from other ppl. you might have a lush jungle, but ur neighbours will have a desert
bmed19 2 years ago
So by your reasoning no one be they a central authority or otherwise should attempt to harvest any rainwater? The desert was already there, although the bible indicates that at one time that area was not a desert. Geoff has restored that piece of land to what it was. There must have been something off key happening that it was reduced to desert in the first place.
ninyae 2 years ago
i dont doubt that there was a time when this area was a lush forest instead of a desert. what my point is however, is that we need to realize that greening one area will ALWAYS be at the expense of ungreening another. always
bmed19 2 years ago
Hang on, on the one hand we are talking desert landscape. The question is why? Geoff has shown them how to harvest by holding water in the landscape. That water will remain there and create a water table, he has shown me this himself at the institute in The Channon. I saw for myself a spring that had broken out below the swales. Using The Channon as an example, that water would otherwise flow thru the creeks and rivers and quite quickly to the ocean. No one is being denied anything.
ninyae 2 years ago
the only water available to these desert ecosystems is what comes through precipitation. what happens during a drought? u'll have to resort to the groundwater. and we know that the aquifers in deserts are fossil aquifers that dont recharge. even if u claim these permaculture ecosystems recharge aquifers they will do it at a very slow rate. so ultimately during times when we dont have surface water to use we will risk severely depleting the aquifers to save the plants.
bmed19 2 years ago
permaculture is not sustainable. it is a temporary ecosystem that drains all the resources in the region at a rate WAYYY greater than what the region can support. its a fantasy. these ecosystems arent real. to think they are self sustaining is a sign of ones misunderstanding of the environmtnal dynamics of a region
bmed19 2 years ago
Are you an ecologist? No fantasy involved just plenty of examples of keyline water harvesting that work effectively from the first one put in place at Windsor by PA Yeomans, still there, despite developers wishes, to the many examples since put in place. By your reasoning no one anywhere should attempt to harvest rainwater. If that is the case where does that leave you or anyone? Your argument is the sort of argument that Peter Andrews has had to endure from bureaucrats who prefer denuded land.
ninyae 2 years ago
i am by no means an ecologist. but this permaculture thing just doesnt add up. ppl should harvest rainwater in regions that naturally sustain the type and density of vegetation that inhabitants want to grow. isnt that the ultimate form of env sustainability - working within natures limits? permaculture does not respect these limits. it tries to artificially expand them, the same kind of over-cultivation that got us into trouble in the first place.
bmed19 2 years ago
I would suggest that you begin to study ecology and doing a permie course is a good start. If the Jordan was at some point a lush region as described in the Bible then that would suggest that it is not naturally a denuded desert landscape and that Geoff has in fact begun a restoration process. If working within PC zone design then the aim is to restore what is not needed back to forest. The intense cultivation is for zone one or two. Even that is cultivation with diversity.
ninyae 2 years ago 4
im not doubting that these desert regions were once heavily vegetaged, but but alot has changed since those facts were recorded in the bible. human settlement patterns, climate, and nutrient/water flows have changed. is it fair to say that lush vegetation can be supported in these new conditions? to support such PC growth one must focus on restroring the human population/settlement, climatic, and water flow patterns that allowed such lush growth.
bmed19 2 years ago
wouldnt u agree that for PC growth to be sucessful u need to look at the big picture? Its a desert for a reason. trying to change it will be a battle u cannot win unless u change the surrondings which try to keep it desert-like.
bmed19 2 years ago
Is it a desert landscape for natural reasons or for human reasons? Has it remained denuded due to human settlement? If humanity was removed from the picture would nature leave it as a desert or would it restore itself to previous conditions. Is it arid due to a rain shadow created by a mountain range or is it arid due to human interference and tree removal? At one time, it appears there was not a rain shadow condition. A few thousand years is nothing in the big picture.
ninyae 2 years ago 2
Diversity is not in the least against nature. Monoculture cultivation is what has got us into trouble in the first place. Monoculture is like a neon lit Las Vegas for insect plagues. Where we went wrong is that we forgot to mimic nature and that loss of connection has gone to near the speed of light with the advent of a fossil fueled dependent agriculture. There are many examples of diverse PC gardens with no problems from insect plagues, which would suggest that something right is in place.
ninyae 2 years ago
Permaculture is a practice with a deep level of respect for nature. If there is a human population in an area such as this (which there is) they need to eat. And these methods are the most environmentally sound ways to sustain these populations of people, plus if the desert would be "greened" then there would be much more co2 consuming organisims, as well as cooling very hot areas of the Earth, and as one person already mentioned these areas where once very vital with tremendous vegetation.
UniversalBrother108 2 years ago 8
Water tables are not limited by fences.
ninyae 2 years ago
It's not stealing if neighbors are letting it run right off because the land they own lacks terrain. I live in the sonoran desert. The greenest parts of the land are the places where canyons are blocked by plants, or swales that were built a hundred years ago. The rest is not sand dunes, the majority of it is recovering from the clear cuts that took place to supply local mines with timber. Some hills have never recovered where the trees cannot keep themselves rooted due to severe soil erosion.
StrongArmZZ 2 years ago
We'll actually the trees begin to produce their own mulch. The sun is the energy input that your overlooking, also the nutrients already in the soil. It's not like the soil was completely void, it was just inactive due to "hyper-arid" conditions, surface evaporation, and runoff (the salt didn't help, or the 120+ degree temperatures).
StrongArmZZ 2 years ago
Have posted a video response about using waste water from Europe in returning Oilt Tankers that curently use sea water as ballast in order to return back to the oil terminals. This is crazy as they do not get paid for the return voyage and have to pay to clean the sea water before releasing it into the ocean. Use waste water and we solve pollution, desertification and global warming in one go. With your system we really could make a huge difference in a short time.
AndrewKFletcher 2 years ago
amazing
WintersRequiem 2 years ago 2
Wow - just wow. Is there a charity set up to roll out systems like this to roll back desertification?
dannystaple1 2 years ago 2
"You can solve all the world's problems in a garden" :)
kunchr 2 years ago 2
Wow! I looked up who this guy is, this looks like the web site: worldchanging . com/archives/006617.html
LucidDreamTricks 2 years ago
What comes out has to go back in.
hananokuni2580 2 years ago 2