 Right. Thanks, Ali. Welcome. Welcome to this fireside chat with one of the latest additions to the ERC movements, Rancho Cacatillas. We have two wonderful presenters from their side with us today and Florence. And John is here also. Thank you for being here. We are very pleased to have you around the fire. I'm dressed in a suit which is not usually very suitable for sitting around a fire. But my day has been with suits. I always call it camouflage, like a biologist would dress up in greener clothes when they're in the forest. I dress up in suits when I'm amongst a meeting rose anyway. Enough about my clothes. Let's go straight into this fireside chat. I am going to share my screen. I hope it works. It's the ninth of May 2023. In the sixth year of the ERC movements being fully up and functioning. And we are about to welcome our 60th community to the ERC movement, which is an incredible growth and it shows how much there is a need from people who are working on the ground. And who are thinking about how to involve local communities, farmers and those who are most involved in the local ecosystem that they're joining this movement. It's very empowering and very, very positive, gives you a very positive feeling. This particular fireside chat has a standard format. I share some news from the movement. Then, John will start the actual conversation around what's going on, and then the particular ERC who we are featuring will present their work and their ambitions. And this time that's Rancho Kakacilas. Hold your questions until after the presentations. It makes it more comfortable to tell your story. And maybe the question will be answered. After that, you may ask your question in person by raising your hands. I'm okay with you putting it in the chat also, but I will give you the floor to then ask that question. There's plenty of space for conversation for questions for philosophizing, because the session will last one hour. But we usually don't shut down the zoom, because the conversations are still ongoing, feel free to stay for an open discussion, and sometimes completely different themes pop up also that can be discussed around the fire. If you put it visually in your mind, it helps. We're sitting. We've worked our heart. We've worked hard all day in restoring. It's getting darker. We're about to eat something and we've lit a fire. We're sitting around it. And we're curious about each other. We're curious about what the others are thinking about patting each other on the back. And, yeah, we'll see what happens when you're sitting around the fire with the conversation. Before we, before we do this, I'd like to share a bit more about what's going on currently in the movement and especially the things you can find the participant, the participatory exercises you can join in at some of the ERCs around the world. This weekend, if you're in the Netherlands, there's the boot beauty vegetates festival co-organized by the Dutch ERC called Kings Garden. It's a festival with music learning workshops around biodiversity in agriculture. And in May, the French ERC is organizing another body, heart and soil immersive regenerative experience with people that have done these find very, very enlightening and very regenerative. So definitely would recommend you looking into going to France at the end of this month or in the middle of this month. And then in the beginning of June, there is a course that you can take about existing restoration at the ERC at the Plano in Spain. Another course in July, very old then but still worthwhile going. And then another course after the summer in September that they're inviting you to and I call this slide participate and learn we have launched a new website and there is more to discover what you could participate while you're going there. If you go to ERC earth or ecosystem restoration communities.org or ecosystem restoration camps.org they'll lead you to our new website. And if you click on the participant menu participate menu you'll get to see those organized event that you usually have to pay for to participate in. But you can also see volunteer opportunities I had I don't have that on my screen right now. But there is a few hundred volunteering opportunities at ERCs around the world. You don't have to pay for those to participate. You just give your time on your expertise or your skills. And then there's some long term volunteering opportunities at specific ERCs around the world that you can also find through that new we call it the restoration project finder. But those who want to participate in these. In the work of these ERCs, you can probably find something that matches your needs, your skills, and your interests through that website so do visit it. See what's on there and see if there's anything that matches your desires. ERC news we have a new website and the reason we have a new website and you can also see it in the logo behind me is because we've changed our name. We're now calling our movement ecosystem restoration communities. You can also call it ecosystem restoration camps still or ecosystem restoration camps and communities. But in the conversation with the ERCs that are part of the movement. We learned that communities just better fits better reflects the nature of these ERCs in the movement, which are usually very much local community based local farmer based but very happy to have people from around the world to come and join in the work. There is a new website attached to it. The old website was very much about what we as a foundation are doing and the movement was all the secondary. It's all about the movement. You can learn more about the movement on it. You can also find out what you can learn there's courses being offered around the world. You can participate in the work of these ERCs and you can donate to the movement as a whole but you can also donate directly to the ERC of your choice by finding their page on the website. Clicking on the donate button that's on their page and donating directly to them. And we promise to make sure they get that money as soon as possible. So go and find ERC earth. We're using that one, which is an abbreviation. You know, there's lots of abbreviations out there, but it's easiest to remember the ecosystem restoration communities.org website. It links to where you can find all these new developments to new ERCs are joining the ERC movements in the next few weeks. One is in South Dakota. It's the Bison People Land group. It's a Lakota Sioux initiative to work with Bison to regenerate the South Dakota steps, I think, or the grasslands that are there. Very exciting because it's a native led initiative in the US. And the people behind it aren't new, but the ERC is new eco camp tree top in California. It is organized by Matthew Trump who started our third ERC in the movement, which is the eco camp paradise in California, which is very near to where the street top ERC is being initiated and it focuses very much on fire resilience and fire restoration. After the incredibly disastrous fires that hit that region. I put a YouTube link in this presentation. I realize it's impossible to copy and paste, but I will put it in the chat. It's a new promo film. It's very much intended for audiences in what we would call the West, where our donor community lives most. And where people are struggling to find out how in earth we're going to change the direction of society, struggling with governments and corporations and black farming agribusiness not changing very much. I haven't discovered that yet that there's this global movement of people who are making that change already with their hands and their minds and collaborating. And this new promo has been developed specifically for that group of people. Go see it. I hope it moves you. It moves me every time I see it. I find it's very well done. Congratulations on the team to doing that because we're improvising everything. There's very little budget to do this work with. And I do not know why my PowerPoint is no, I don't want to do that. You still see the PowerPoint or you know watching my. So a final I finally an invite from me to help us grow this movement. There's great initiatives you know about that you join have them join. There is an up and running knowledge exchange platform. There's all the work we do as a community to help each other. And the presentation of Florence and Anne will be about this. But we also still need donations, because it's not coming in very easily. So if you have friends who you know are loaded. Tell them about us. We are the one global initiative that's truly locally focused truly locally set up locally led on the ecosystem restoration. And we need, we need that support. Our theory is that if we have hundreds of these initiatives join the movement, we can truly and long lasting we change the face of this planet and change the way humans interact with nature to a sustainable route sustainable path. So yeah, tell us tell the world about us. I am going to stop with my presentation. Hand over to john for some wise introductory words john. Well, thank you, Peter. And thanks for everybody who's coming in. Everyone will hear this later on. Personally, I'm really happy that the movement is growing. It really needs to, because we live in interesting times. This is a Chinese kind of a concept, and it's not a good thing. You want to let you want to go to the garden and look at the moon and drink some heated rice wine and write poetry. And if you live in interesting times, you're forced to do other things. And we're forced to realize that humanity has been making a lot of mistakes for a very long time. And we're now. We're now seeing the results. So there is definitely cause and effect. Human civilization has kind of reversed evolutionary succession. So what I noticed when I was studying ecology is that there's always more biodiversity, always more biomass and always more accumulated organic matter. And that this is the basis of the creation of the oxygenated atmosphere, the freshwater system, the fertile soils. And over historical time, human beings have turned that around, but there's always less biodiversity always less biomass, always less accumulated organic matter. And this has led to the deregulation of the hydro hydrological cycle the weather the climate the reduction in fertility in the soil. And we are there. And no amount of container ships, going back and forth across the world with stuff in them is going to change that. The only thing that's going to change that is if human beings actually change their consciousness and understanding of what's important, and what is the basis of life. And it is very, very satisfying to see that people are joining the movement, the camps are joining the movement. And I would say something, you don't have to know people who have loads of money. We need to have loads of people. Everybody gives $5 or $10 a month to the ecosystem restoration camps foundation. We could go to very large numbers of members. And in the current world. That's a cup of coffee or two cups of coffee a month to share with this movement. We've got a million people to share 10 $10 a month. We would have 120 million dollars per year to share with camps. Now this is completely different than grant writing or, or writing proposals. The opportunity, then to be led by the people. And I think we should all realize that everyone is equal that what we're looking for is a horizontal social organization, not a vertical system. And that everyone, if we all have the ability to work together to collaborate, we're not in competition with one another, we're working together. And that is what makes it possible for us to do amazing things. So as individuals, we're very limited. But if we all work together, we can do things which are quite amazing. And somehow, over time, we've been socialized to kind of compete with one another. And we need to realize that no one will remember that that that's not important. And that's what we understand and what we do that's reflected in how the ecosystems function that that will determine the quality of life for all living things in the future. There's a couple of other things that are happening which I'd like to just invite, let you know about. One is that the UN decade for ecosystem restoration is getting a bit more functional. And there is a youth task force working on food. And I think if we can tell and work with the young people so that they understand that there is a way for them to directly today tomorrow and every day work, which is more effective at actually infiltrating water or, or mitigating human impacts on climate change or just restoring community restoring us to a place where humanity is in a better place. I, I don't know if in America, it's just unbelievable what's going on with these mass shootings. So I can't, I'm traumatized every day, whenever I turn on the news or open the paper it's just horrible. So one thing is the UN decade that's that's happening and we're going to have many more chances to engage large numbers of young people and the young people will be leaving this. The second thing is, I've mentioned this a few times. This is a group called eco flicks. I don't know if you've seen eco flicks but it's ECO FLIX.com eco flicks.com. And what's interesting about eco flicks is, they will give that they have a large number of films, mainly on animals, but they have been now putting on something called the great work of our time. And what's interesting about this is that they will give free educational subscriptions to teachers and schools. So if we as activists go to our schools and our teachers everywhere around the world and we say you should get a eco flicks free educational subscription, then children all over the world could learn about these issues. When they're young, they don't have to wait until they're older they can see it. And some of the places in the developing world they don't have many educational resources so this could really be important for them. So those are the things that I've been thinking about. And I think we need to work on just. To change the name to communities. We need to understand what it means to be in community. We need to all kind of take that to heart that we are part of a whole. We're not just individuals. And that's what I'm working on and thinking about and we're going to have a great presentation. Now, and a new camp a very large and interesting collaboration. So I'm very happy to learn more and I'm sure you will be too. So welcome again and thanks for listening to me. I hope you enjoy this and I'll stay as long as I can I do have another meeting later today but I'll stay as long as possible after the presentations to talk with anybody who's interested. Thanks john. Thanks for the introductory remarks and this the spirit and the, the, what is called the charge, I guess, or the impulse that you just gave. I'm going to turn it over to Anne and Florence. And starts from, I'm not going to introduce you any further because I've seen your presentation and you will explain perfectly well what you're doing and who you are so and I give the group to you. Hello everybody. I'm just uploading my presentation. Can everybody see. See. Okay. Well, we're very excited to be here. And like john was mentioning, starting this, this community. So we always hear bad news everywhere so when I started to be an ecosystem restoration communities. It's good to hear some good news on restoration. And also, we're doing this with and from innovation is a lumbra. I'm Anne McEnany. I'm a senior program officer at a lumbra innovations foundation. And we are a collective of businesses and nonprofits that's working toward a world in which community environment and economy function as an integrated system for well being. We have a high risk tolerance. We're always learning. We try to think as holistically as we can. And we have a long term commitment to the projects that we work on. I'm working with the team from Rancho Cacochillas on the land and water stewardship strategy for our collective and Rancho Cacochillas really is the crown jewel of where we demonstrate what's possible. It's where we test. It's where we invest. It's where we innovate. And it's where we invite others. And eventually we hope to influence to forge connections to build community awareness. And to, as john says, to equip the learners, workers and leaders of tomorrow with the care and the passion that we have for the land. We really consider Rancho Cacochillas a hope spot in the world. And we're proud of what we've done, but we're here to learn. And that's, we want to thank you all for inviting us and for allowing us a seat at the table to share what we know but also to allow us to ask questions and and learn from everything that you're doing around the world. Rancho Cacochillas is in Mexico and the California Peninsula at their very tip in the Cape region. I would like to mention that it's a very arid landscape we the rains that we get it's around 200 to 250 millimeters per year. Normally it's with the monsoons from August to October. The rains had changed over time before we got rains. Well, when you talk to elders 50 years ago they would say that rains would start in June, but now rains are more scarce. And the rainy season is every time a little bit smaller. And also one of the things to say is that because of this rdT, the human footprint is very small. There's not a lot of people around here in the whole state, there's around 1 million people so it's not a very dense state. We're going down zooming in into Rancho Cacochillas. What Rancho Cacochillas is this polygon. And we've been adding other polygons, as you can see around here, all of these two. So there's around 16,000 hectares that in some day we will have to manage for the moment, the ones that we have been managing are the ones that are in green. The green is the fences. And it's about 50% of the total land that is being under conservation. So after 10 years of conservation, we can see the differences like in the wild populations. Like 10 years ago we could see these groups of deer in the summertime when everything's dry and animals gather into the springs. 10 years ago maximum groups were three deers. Now we see groups of six, seven deers and sometimes we see males too in there. So these are some of the regeneration programs. There's a lot of programs going on in Rancho Cacochillas. So Rancho Cacochillas is part of the tourism ranch. It's part of the profit, but we're working with the foundation with them to so Rancho Cacochillas can be a farm school where people can learn of these practices and start replicating them outside of our boundaries. And then there's the watershed management, the holistic livestock management, and then there's a regenerative agriculture. So as you can see here the fence effects on the right side is inside of Rancho Cacochillas, you can see much more vegetation. This was fenced out like in 2020 so the changes can be very fast once you protect it. So we started fencing because normally here ranchers have their cattle roaming around freely. So once animals are roaming freely they go to where there's better vegetation, more forage. So to the point that they overgray, they compact and at the end they desertify so we start to have more bare ground coming in. So this is a zoom in to the ground as you can see on the outside. There's a lot of bare ground in the back, and also when you can see like directly to the soil there's barely vegetation covering it. And on the right side, you can see how the annual grasses are coming in and how they are weaving all the leaves that are drying from the from other bushes that are around. This is NDVI picture image of one of our sites, one of the ranches. It's called the Ancon Ranch. If you can see here inside Ancon, this has been protected for more than 12 years. And this is the outside that now is protected for two years. But just as we compared like the reddish, the yellowish are the, it's more bare ground and the greens, the dense green is dense vegetation. So you can see that as a sky image how it can change. And also one of the things that I wanted to point it out is the percentage of organic matter. Like inside of the 10 year fencing there's 1.45% of organic matter, and outside it's 0.89. It may seem a little bit, but if you do the math, normally 1% of organic matter in the soil can hold 150,000 liters in one hectare. So just here inside it would be around 80,000 liters of the soil to retain more water for every hectare. It starts to act more as a sponge. On the watershed management, it's what we do is different kinds of gabions. The kinds of gabions we do is according to the sites from the slopes and also into the small creeks and the arroyos that we call. So on the slopes, we use a lot of small branch bundles to retain water on the sides and also these ute bags that are filled up with sand and a small mix of cement. And down into the arroyos we use a little bit more of rocks that are available around there. And in the bigger arroyos we use rock and cement dams. So I just want to give a small example of one place that we fenced for four years and erosion kept going on. But once we started with these small branch bundles and these ute bags, one year after, well after the rains, a lot of annual grasses and annual plants started to come in. This is the gabions after the rainy season. You can see how much soil is being retained here. And also we have an example on the ranch of a kind of stairway of gabions going up the arroyo. And now after eight months of after the rains, it still has water running where other canyons that we haven't worked are drying out. The whole estate life stock management is another way we we try to regenerate the land. We started that in 2014. With 42 Criollo cattle. I highlight the Criollo cattle because it's genetically adapted to the region. The Spanish brought them 400 years ago, and they let them wild into this land. So the ones that are alive right now are have passed through natural selection where they have resisted a lot of heat, the landscape, the lack of foraging summer and a lot of parasites. So it's a very, very adapted genetics for the region. And they're very good at foraging. So we've, when we started, we would move them with vaqueros. That's the local cowboys and with movable corrals. And once the herd started growing, we finally established electric fences that's much more helpful for this kind of land. And we do big, very big paddocks instead of small ones that normally are. We've seen in other examples in the savory methods. Also, last year we started with the holistic big management. We did some genetic studies on them. And it resulted that 87% of our genetics is also Criollo. So we were starting to this program to, to save the genetics of the Criollos. And also we are trying to finalize them in the rainy season when we have all of these wild plums. So the idea is a little bit doing these added value products like brochuto style hams and all those things. And one of the things other things we are doing is regenerative agriculture. It's agricultural practices where we have polycultures with more than 30 species. We don't tell the land, there's crop rotations. And also in summer when it's there's a lot of heat. There's a lot of plants that we can't grow, but we can grow forages. And those forages are organic forages that we use for our goats and cows. We also use compost and bio fertilizers and we do all of them and also the organic pesticides. And also we're creating the seed bank for the regions where we are every year selecting the best plants that we have. So every time we have more genetically adapted seeds to this region. And one of the things that we do also is the educational programs. So as economic alternatives for the region, we have some beekeeping workshops, cheese workshops, the cheeses that we make are much more higher quality. And also they give at least four times more value to the cheeses than the cheeses that are done around here. And also one of the things that is coming soon is a butcher workshop. So also it's added value to the region. As John mentioned, we need to pay attention to the youth around us and make sure that they're connecting with the landscape, so that this land has a future. We call it a STEAM program, which is science, technology, engineering, arts and math. And both our ranch teams as well as visiting scientists work with kids every week to showcase what we're learning to take them to different places and show them how the land is changing and regenerating. And also giving them access to things like drones and binoculars and how science happens on the ground, a naturalist. And these are the kids in the rural areas that because we live in a ranch culture that is aging. Most of the kids have had to go down to town to earn money and to bring back to the family, but the kids are spending more and more time on the landscape. And we're seeing a lot of enthusiasm for the future generations creating more of a to continue the ranch culture and also, but with we're hoping more regenerative practices. And we're trying to think really big. As I said, at the beginning, we really feel like this area is a hope spot for our region. As you can see in the middle of this photo, there's a lot of barren landscape at the top of our watershed with highly overgrazed and excessive drought impacts. It's those are the places that we want to focus on that are outside of our ranch boundaries. That is the property. Those are many, many owners and this is a very ambitious vision, but that's the role of the foundation is to reach those families. And introduce them to new practices and to help provide technical assistance from our ranch teams and other groups working in the area to basically restore this beautiful landscape to the left here. That boundary is a hard boundary, which is the biosphere reserve that is the water source for the entire region. And if we didn't say it before. One of our major goals from the foundation is to recharge these aquifers. We need to be building water back into our system, which is allowing the land to naturally regenerate. We're not able to, because we live in such an arid landscape, we are not able to plant trees. They won't survive. We need to allow the land to tell us where regeneration will happen. And we've been trying to be very thoughtful and methodical about how we move forward. And we're incredibly passionate and we want to move fast, but we want to make sure we're listening to the land at the same time. And also, now that we're in this movement of ecosystem restoration communities. And there's several people around here that have experienced in doing this restoration on a large scale. Well, we're asking for help to see how we can make this 30 year goal, 20 year goal or 15 year goal so we can accelerate this regeneration in this landscape. Well, and I should also say that this is where we hope to encourage the ecosystem restoration communities. Down the road, we haven't opened this project to volunteers yet, but we are very hopeful to have more hands working on this vision with us in the future. Yes, the idea is opening to restores for 2024. Right now, 2023 is more the knowledge exchange and how we can start this camp in Rancho Cacachiles. So, that was the regeneration we do on Rancho Cacachiles and also we wanted to talk about how we are suffering climate change here in our region. As I mentioned earlier, the rainy season is every time a little bit smaller. And in 2020 we had an exceptional drought. It was the driest year over the last 70 years. And after that we had two good rains. So that had, we think had a possible trigger stress on a lot of in the ecosystem. So there was a lot of cactus and trees right now that we are seeing that are sick, and some are even dying. Also in that year in 2020, a lot of cattle died. It was a lot of virus going in the ecosystem. Also a lot of deers died and also some hairs died. So it was pretty dramatic for that year. So just to give you an example, in that year we had a 50 millimeter rain in Rancho Cacachiles. Normally it's 200 to 150 millimeters per year. And some parts of the ranch didn't even rain. So these, as I said, plants started to stress. So when they stress their defenses go down. So there's a lot of beetle damage in some trees. And it's, I wanted to point this tree out. This is a bursera tree. These normally have some chemicals that don't allow beetles to come in. And now there's a lot of beetles attacking a lot of trees. And also there's apical constriction in some of the cactus. That's when they pass through drought or water stress. And also the fungi on some trees is, there's more fungi on the trees now. And also we can see a lot of cactus that are yellowing. And also some cactus, they have like gray skin. And also the apex where the growth normally goes, it's graying out. So we've seen that some cactus that have more than 50 to 60% of graying, that inhibits its photosynthesis. So some, they are most probably, they, they can die if they, there's more gray on their bodies. And this is what he wanted to share of Rancho Cacachillas. And did you want to add something? Oh, we're just really grateful to be part of the network and to learn from you all. And please anything you have to contribute in terms of learning from the last slides we shared on the drought. We're still trying to determine the root causes. Although there are, it's probably a multiple, multiple stressor cause, but anything that anyone's learning around the world in these same kind of arid regions would be helpful to us. Yeah. Thanks both. And I think we need to be grateful that you decided to join this community with all the knowledge that you bring and all the insights you already share. And in our conversations in the last few months. Arid regions have a lot of ear sees in them. And in these aren't regions, there's a lot of learning going on, but there's also a lot not not yet know. And the search for what will work in restoring our regions and the search, you know, starting at a smaller scale. That's something that we that we're jointly trying to find out. And I'm actually looking forward to that conversation starting with Somalia. Somalia, Turkey, Northern Africa. All the places started dealing with droughts, droughts and droughts Southern Africa. And seeing the impacts on vegetation that have always been there. But they're starting to die and how then to kickstart that. Existing again, and I saw in the comments. Jonathan from hotland that I visited last week or two weeks ago now Jonathan. Huge fire has changed the forest landscape into a desert landscape. And there's some major challenges there too so I think around the world we're trying to grapple with this and I see one of our greatest experts john raises hand because he saw an arid region change, which is are so many of us are in this movement in China but maybe you have some other insights to john that you would like to share. Yes, first of all, front and, and thank you so much for that presentation it's so exciting to have you in the communities and to imagine what we can do together around the world so I think I have a lot of relevant information for you. I'm hopeful that we can have more times to discuss this and five ways to collaborate. But I did want to tell you that we've been working on something called the echo aces with Dr john Todd. And this is, I wonder you might have, you know about the biosphere experiments, or you might know about the Eden project in Britain. We're using geodesic domes and understand that if we, if we create geodesic domes, we can actually control many climate parameters within that. And we can use these as incubators. It's possible to maintain different relative communities inside the dome. And in doing that, it allows you to create an incubator which couldn't in grow soils we one of the one of the things that has been been working is early precursors of soils. And the diatoms, for instance, are critical for the creation of soil, early succession soils, and it's possible to bloom these rapidly in, in the echo aces. So this is something that we could talk about because it's already being developed for Egypt and for other other areas. We can find a time soon to connect with that and I'll be, I'll be in Europe relatively soon staying at the echo aces for a while so I'm going to try to do some documentation of it and some writing about about its major characteristics. And be willing to share that. So I got distracted looking for a video that explains the echo aces. And the only one I can find is in Dutch but um, yeah, that's, that's a way to start regeneration again when all is lost but I get the feeling from the satellite imagery you showed that not all is lost yet. So severe drought events are causing some rapid changes. And I, yeah, maybe there's others here who are working in dry areas who'd like to share some insights in this call. And if not, you know, as I said to you will start a design lab on the new you see knowledge platform to see if we can get some of these people that are doing this on a site. So to join up with you guys and have some joint design thinking, take place and see if we can across the globe start to figure out some methods to get out of the stronghold of trap. Because what we do see that if you are able to regenerate areas rain often does return. It's a very interesting correlation. And what I know when we visited the sign I and what we hear from Syria right now is that just stop tilling the soil already holds so much more water. And I know that you guys are doing that anyway. Jonathan has his hand raised and the Jenna has her hand raised Jonathan. I'm more here but it's almost late time and I will in our region. It's very dry. Usually to be very dry before the climate change. So it's raining more than the new year. The cashew tree is very good for restoration this kind of mirror because he likes of dry, dry region. And he is quite producer production, productive in the dry regions. And now the day that it starts running more here in this region Brazil, where we are. Cashew is not so good because he liked the dry. And then we plant the trees. And between the trees we can restoration the soil, because they protect for the very, the sun and very erosion and very things that like that. And then Cashew it's a very, very good for restoration dry season in Africa and in Asia, they use it to do this too. It's just to share what we are doing here. Thank you. Thanks, thanks so much. I saw your contribution in the chattel so Jonathan, you've got your laptop turned on. Yeah, I just noticed that Carlos put in a comment on this topic. But I think that what we have to recognize looking at that graph that was shown. We're having really extreme weather events. It's not just a drought here in California we're having flooding. In fact, this week here in Northern California. We've had two inches of brain or even two or three inches of hail in mid May which is our you know warming spring season. In just a few hours or less. We literally had, you know, a hail down for yesterday here. I think we have to look at ways of introducing kind of broadcast soil amendment, and I had a really interesting suggestion from a registered professional forestry yesterday about bringing in pine needles. People are trying to get rid of pine needles in areas where there is fire danger, but introducing them back into a region that has lost those pine needles may actually be more conducive to holding the soil from these heavy day looses. And simultaneously we're not introducing a potential pathogen like wood chips, or hey which would introduce invasive species. So coming up with really creative solutions for your specific ecological region is is crucial. I'm just interested to hear what people are doing to address the extreme differences in weather patterns that we're experiencing the climate change is not like on a linear trajectory. It's up and down. And this is why I think, you know, ideas like john is promoting are both good and somewhat troublesome we don't want to wall ourselves off and have some kind of conservation fortress, or have a technological solution that can't be sustained, but looking at the local ecological solutions that promote the resilience to these dramatic climate differences. Here we're having a really really cold springs we're getting snow, this may, which is not unheard of, but it's definitely more extreme after these times that we've experienced for years so I just like to hear what people are suggesting as kind of biological solutions also to their local climate catastrophes. Thanks. So before I give it to you john Carlos, if you're willing, as I see your contribution in the chat, which talks about also about a more system system based approach using local governments and everything. Could you share a bit more about that. Sorry to put you on the spot. Carlos, no. Don't worry. Carlos if you're, if you're there you're muted. If you're interested in speaking. I would, I would just say that in many of the successful restoration projects that I've seen. We took a method to stimulate and and increase the rapidity of evolutionary succession. So they were expressing. They were necessarily always endemic or or indigenous species, but they were expressing pioneer species that would grow rapidly. It's interesting in China where where I began to study this. They used really fast growing and non native species. Now when you go to these areas you don't really see those you see a massively diverse, higher succession situation, which, in many cases return, because the legacy genome was there dormant, but the conditions were not right. And I think when you're what you're saying, when you say you can't plant trees. I think this is what this suggests. And I found one one agronomist. And I would say scientist who was working in Kenya. He actually won many awards for his restoration efforts. His name is Renee Pollard. I don't have a chance he's quite old at this point. I don't know how his condition is we had helped him 15 years ago to. He had had many masters and PhD students studying within. And there is a place called Pollard Park near Mombasa. I was working for a cement factory. And the cement factory had completely done this open pit mining to get aggregate for cement through from calcium carbonates so uplifted coral from ancient coral, and they were just wiping it out. There was nothing left there was no vegetation there was no, and when you do this the other thing that's very important to understand is, when you, what you mentioned with your orange color, coloration in the, in the satellite imagery is that when you expose the soil the solar radiation directly hits the ground. In my experience, the temperature increases are enormous. They're like 1520 degrees that's normal. 10 degrees would be like, you know, you know, not very much. And I've seen as much as 45 degrees differences between below a vegetative canopy and unexposed soils. So, when you do this, you're altering the physics. And when you alter the physics, then you're pushing the moisture into the upper atmosphere where it's no longer circulating close to the earth. This is the phenomenon. There's one more aspect that I noticed about this. It's not simply in the organic material in the soil. So it's not just about infiltration and retention in the organic layer that's important, very important and that should be a sponge. And it should be moist and friable and have a lot of porous areas for the water to go down. But actually, the water is in the vegetation. So, so the cellular water it's almost like there's, there's different kinds of water you know we talk about gaseous or we talk about liquid or we talk about solid, but actually it's cellular we're 70% water. So, so the water is in the, in the, in the living material. And the canopy the height of the canopy. That's also a critical understanding is when the higher the canopy. That's where the solar radiation is interrupted. And you get this micro climate below the canopy. So the higher the canopy. The larger this, this micro climate is below the canopy and that's where the moisture circulates and the temperatures are massively lower. So those are those are things. If, if, if you could emulate the, the evolutionary succession, starting with pioneer species and going further up. A rapid, a rapid change. And the other thing that happens is, it reduces the wind speed changes the wind direction and lowers vortex activity. And one of the extreme weather events that we're talking about are the result of these enormous surface temperature changes, and the reduction of the density of the air. So that's what it makes me think about when I hear what you're facing. John, there's an important point in what you raised is that many restorative restorationists feel hesitant about non-endemic species and succession in that sense. Still, you know, the fear of invasives. I don't know about you Florence, how you feel about those. But they, yeah, we do see evidence everywhere that they speed up that restoration process simply by providing shade to endemic species who otherwise find it difficult to grow and indeed help with that hydrological cycle. Jonathan has his hand raised again, but do Florida and want to respond to any of these conversations so far or things suggested in the chat. Yes, I just wanted to add a little bit on what John was saying, but just to answer a little bit of your invasive species. There's there's several ones, but like the ones that we worry most about is buffalo grass. Because of what its history is in the world. It's very, it likes a lot fire. And the species around here didn't evolve with fire. So if we have more buffalo grass, there's going to be more fires. And it can be a monoculture of buffalo grass in some point. That's one of them and the other one. I don't know the rubber vine. It, it's a vine that comes from Madagascar. And it's very invasive in the, in the arroyos. So like in the where the water where there's more water. So those are invasive species that we're trying to get out of the system before we start the revegetation of the area because once we start revegetation and there's more water in the system, those are going to proliferate much more. And I just wanted to add what John was saying of the micro climate. More people hear the elders when you listen to the elders 50, 60 years ago, rain started in June and went up to October and there could be like 30 rain events. And it wasn't like very hard rain. It was more soft rain of what I've heard from them. And now when we have rain, it's in August, sometimes September and sometimes it's just one event per year. And for me, it's part of that, that there's a lot of bare ground that's pushing the clouds away. And what we want to do with a 30 year goal is start to revegetate the whole system, the whole region to the point that we can bring the clouds back and their brains back as it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. And it will work. Carlos said that his microphone is working. I'll give you the floor after Jonathan because he's had his hand raised for a while and then I'll give it to you Carlos. Jonathan. Why don't we hear from Carlos first because I'm kind of responding to his comments. Feels very parliamentary. He yields to you Carlos. Okay, thanks. Well, I just got to say it's been quite interesting because we gathered local organizations because of the policy and management. We have a lot of fullness in our city, in Queretaro City. Here is the city next to Mexico City. So we have dry lands and we have a very exacerbated urbanization model. So we were running out of green areas to recharge aquifers and to allow the hydrological cycle to properly function. We started making pressure because also we got our water privatized by a model of public private association here in our city with corrupt governments and all kinds of Mexican things, you know. So it has been hard, but we are still pushing. We are growing, we call it collective intelligence with the concept, but it is about we are learning and educating about water. So we have lawyers. I am an environmental engineer with the watershed management master's degree. But we also have a lot of artists and different fields of working for water. So we wish to, we are looking forward to help expand this kind of networking in other countries in other places just like ecosystem restoration communities to understand and on a deeper level of water from chemistry from society to social and cultural meanings. And we are celebrating with the protection of Pena Colorado because it is a micro watershed which joins three aquifers, which will allow to recharge the groundwater from our metropolitan zone. But also there are a lot of errors coming like aqueducts and a lot of things that we are not happy our government to commit, but we are still pushing. Okay, thanks. And feel free to join the movement. We are not a competitive organization costs, the initiative is nothing to be part of us. The only thing we ask is that you share your insights and your knowledge seems like you have quite a few of those so be very welcome for people in other water stressed areas to hear about your approach. Maybe it can be copied. Jonathan. Yeah, I love this topic. And I also know that it's quite controversial. Those who are initially working on some of these things were even referred to as eco terrorists when they were trying to relocate plants. You mean invasives or exotics. Yeah, well exotics. Maybe one word. I don't like the word invasive. I mean we're in a global ecosystem at some level that you know there's colonization that's been happening for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds if not longer years. And migration, I like the word migration, and how do we assist migration. And simultaneously, I think we have to recognize the importance of indigenous peoples and species. So one of the approaches that I'm doing because I found out that the state seed bank does not have any seeds in the seed bank. And from the valley, the region in which I'm in, is I'm looking to collect seeds from trees from in in DEMIC species that have a history of living through these kind of environmental conditions from the edges in which the fire did not actually touch. We used to have trees forming a canopy that John mentioned how important the canopy is that were, you know, 150 meters high. And most of those trees have have died within the fire zone. But there are edge trees that I'm discovering, as I hike around into the wilderness and looking to try to find ways to find these from those historic genetics, the progeny, will simultaneously, I'm bringing trees from lower and drier elevations up mountain which is the way that a lot of commercial forestry units are doing. And the federal government is also doing a reforestation project where they're introducing a different kind of pine. And so I don't think it's an either or but an and also, and I think we do have to work on our, you know, heirloom heritage seed banks. And so I think there's, you know, something that we can provide as local activists and local, you know, whatever we want to call ourselves restoration experts to try to find those seeds. And to propagate them from species that were endemic to the area prior. And so I'm approaching this in this way and hoping to have some camps that are specific around seed collection from native species. So that's a thought that I have. So, Florence and others. There's invasive being pushed on you or the exotic, but you responded with two that are threatening the health of the ecosystem. The ones you mentioned the grass. Could introduce fire and the divine. And as a way to rewet the system. How do you think about that? What is your response as an expert on your ecosystem? Well, as Jonathan says, like invasive is kind of a mean term. I understand that. And also as humans, we're pretty invasive so they're, but for us, for me, there's several species that we can use more in like, like in the fruit forests, like where the canyons are where there's more humidity. What we've been using as that could be possibly invasive. But is a moringa tree. So moringas. As you know, our super foods, and here they grow very good. So for us, it's an alternative for us to to eat as vitamins. But we use it a lot for our animals that normally in the, in the dry season, we have to supplement. And supplementation here for animals is alfalfa and it's what it comes from the low lands where there's a lot of exploitation of the aquifer. And it's used with chemicals. So that's something that we're trying to get out of our equation with some other species that's not native. I'm not against using other species, if we can use them in benefit of everyone. I'm so fast at this question. I forgot looking at the time, but the hour has officially ended. And if you feel obliged to stay, you don't have to. We can also start to migrate into any other issue you would like to discuss with this group being here because it's an interesting group of people. So that's sort of how fireside chats evolve. That's perfectly possible. If you are having to run away, feel free, we're not offended. That's okay. But because the official hour has ended, I would like to formally thank you, Florence and Anne for your contribution and john or your contributions and everyone else who's contributed to this discussion. And if you don't mind, I will end the recording, although I'm sure I'm going to miss some great conversation. So you can persuade me to do differently for people who may want to see this after this conflict, this, this zoom ends. Maybe we should leave it on. I'm thinking out loud now. I see Ali saying yes, leave it on. I'll leave it on such influential persons. Yeah, so feel free to leave but free free also to freely contribute because we're in a very good content conversation right now. That is producing knowledge that might be useful for others who see this later and absolutely feel free to go. Thank you for being here. And Carlos is going to chase you. Good. I hope Carlos is still here. I just don't need him again. No, Carlos. No, because I feel is very interesting any project that is involving water. I'm really worried. So a brief introduction I have a Spanish name I have Colombian, but I'm also half Italian I grew up in Italy, and one big project regarding water is taking no place in Lake Como, because in Italy there has been the worst droughts in the past year. And the glaciers are melting. So, even places where usually don't face this problem now are facing me. And I think it's really good to connect and maybe in the knowledge exchange open a conversation about this. We have lost Carlos so I don't know. I'm watching it. I'm watching it. I didn't keep it. Tell us what you want to say. Just that like it's so interesting. I mean, some parts of the water get in dryer and dryer and some others. Christina shared with me a few weeks ago. An amazing video of the desert in Jordan with grass in April. So maybe these are just circles. Yeah, but it's interesting. I'm really worried about Italy. So I would like to connect everyone that is doing something similar together. Yeah, that was my intervention. Thanks. Thank you, Ali. And absolutely I think we need to figure out some sort of structured dialogue about water stress areas and strategies. Anyone else would like to contribute something if not then we're going to slowly wind down to ending this call but John. Yeah, that's one too. I would just say that this, the situation with extreme and erratic weather events is going to continue for some time. It's not possible for this to, to be corrected quickly, but I think it's interesting to know that the surface temperatures are what's driving wind speed wind direction and vortex activity so I just want to you know, reinforce that idea that when we understand this, then we start to see that there are microbiologic biologic issues, but there's also So, you know we need to really be generalists or be holistic about our view of this. So, when we're thinking about hydrology in some of the places that I've been and in research institutes and in development projects with UN and World Bank and others. There's some misunderstandings in thinking about hydrology they're not necessarily thinking about the cycling all the time. They're thinking about quantities, like when I'm, I'm currently in California. And California has been thinking about water, more or less as if the river systems and the aquifers and reservoirs that have been built are just storage facilities, and, and we have a big pipe and we just turn it on and take the water. It's a very simplistic view. And it's not understanding the, the, the concept of the cycling of the moisture. And then I think the other thing that's really important about this is that it's not simply local impacts that we're having. We're having local impacts, which then release. So if you have, if you have very high surface temperatures, creating thermic drafts and pushing moisture into the upper atmosphere. You're actually now losing that water from the local system. So where is it going. You know, and I think this is this is the interesting thing now, which is coming up in scientific areas is looking at how does this affect the global things we're having in California this year. And last year have been dealing with atmospheric rivers. So they were, they were dealing with drought for more than a decade, and then suddenly they're hit with atmospheric rivers. And we saw this in Spain, a couple of years ago, where there were right on our, the camp in Altiplano there was this event called I don't know what they exactly call it, but it was just this unbelievable cloud formation. That cloud formation just dropped all the water in one go. Huge huge just push down. It's, I've never, I had not actually thought that that was such a thing because what what we're seeing is, we're in the scarcity. We're looking at just achieving critical mass for compensation and precipitation. In the case that we changed the physics on the planet, we're pushing huge amounts of moisture into the upper atmosphere. And there are two aspects about the moisture in the upper atmosphere one, it's a greenhouse gas. And it's more of a greenhouse gas, and it's more prevalent than CO2. And it's more effective as a greenhouse gas or more impactful as a greenhouse gas, and it's more, more quantitatively larger than the CO2 in the atmosphere. And secondly, that water is going to come down. Quite interesting. One person I've been working with is Professor Mian Mian, who was in the Mediterranean. He was the director of the Mediterranean climate monitoring station in Spain for many many years. He's now quite old he's in his 80s. But his work is remarkable in that it shows, and he was able to very, very accurately pinpoint where the water would come down. So this, this is something that most people are not getting to this level of granularity in their, in their considerations of these things, but he's been doing that and there are some institutes, but it's, it's, there's a lot of work to do in this but I think we need to be aware of this. And we need to kind of consider, and that's why we have to work locally, but we also have to work simultaneously on a planetary scale, because this is not about a single place. So when we have these kinds of impacts, where it's, it's global impact. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone want to contribute to the conversation. Hi Chris, I see your video turned on. Chris, you may want to unmute yourself there you go. There we go. Yeah, lovely to hear from everybody again inspiring presentation. I want to give some voice into the invasive vegetation conversation. Because in our situation we are dealing with what established 5060 70 year old established lot of mature invasive vegetation and declining diversity. I feel like the capacity of organizations and initiatives to monitor and manage appropriately in the long term is really important in that decision making as well. The risk of initiating something and not seeing it through and then not knowing the long term knock on effects down the line. So, I think it's always very contextual to understanding the ecosystem and the project within the ecosystem and looking at those dynamics over time. My input into into that warning to be careful and considerate and to make sure you have a deeper understanding if that's my interpretation. I see Jonathan applauding that. Thank you Chris. Anyone else want to contribute. John. I think that what's happening there and in Baja is really good because they're planning for this. I mean at least for decades, and they have the long term goal in in place. That true Florence, you're, you're really dedicated to the monitoring and understanding. Yes, yes, it's true. Are you already working with restore. The, the, the technical university in Zurich. No, I haven't heard about them. Okay, well, I will get you in touch. Yeah, we'll put you directly in touch with. Thank you. Well, I'll send make our team members current on the shuttle today and mail because we will help you will help you get uploaded to the restore platform is a really good platform to monitor what you're doing. Your hands still raised Chris you want to add some more or is that an accidental raised hand struggling with your phone I think. That's okay. I think the enthusiasm to contribute this is going down and might be because it's late in the evening in some parts of the world or the day is waiting and the work is waiting. So I think I'm going to close this wonderful session. It is recorded we will publish it on YouTube, right Ali. Thanks to go watch it and learn, and I think john one of our big next efforts with the advisory council should be a dedicated session with your seasons water stress and some of the experts in the council to start discussing what we can what we can invent, learn from each other and do to help each other. Let me just add something to that then. We have been talking with the Buckminster Fuller Institute and also with common land foundation. Also, potentially with the Presencing Institute and others to to join in design laboratories on a planetary scale. So this could work by directing it toward different projects. So, whatever project is meeting it can just raise their hand and say focus on us. And then we can gather everyone together and look at that and and find out different ways to connect and collaborate. Yeah, that is the intent to collaborate and to build a system that can deal with the complexity and they can bring in all those talents. I am going to wish you a very pleasant evening from my perspective but it might be morning or day in your perspective. And I hope to see you again in a next session with a new project that will present itself. Very likely to come to talk about droughts and vegetation cover. But as we do this, the knowledge will grow. Thank you for participating and see you probably next month already. Thank you. The recording will be on YouTube. Thank you all very well. Thank you. Thank you everybody and everyone else.