 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. Very, very warm welcome to our March by side chat. We're really excited today to have David Wallala and Isabel from Cititunga, Italy. I hope I pronounced that correctly, David. In Kenya, they're in the west of the country. They are an ecosystem restoration community that is doing two hugely inspiring projects. They're two incredible facets really that they're focusing on with restoration. And David and Isabel are going to be telling us a bit more about those a little later on. We even have a short video of the wetland restoration initiative to tell you about. And the other one is the capital at first, but David is going to go into detail later on. I just want to start actually by giving you a couple of updates from the global ecosystem restoration communities movement. So bear with me while I open my presentation. So this opportunity is at Campo Teplano in Spain for people under 30. And it is a brilliant opportunity to live off grid and meet other inspired people learn about ecosystem restoration and really have an opportunity for personal growth as you live on the ground with others learning how to restore the planet. And of course, ecosystem restoration community Campo Teplano is now in its sixth year, they have so much to teach you so many lessons they've learned from years and years of of restoring the very degraded land there. And the great thing is that there's no cost to participate. You'll be accommodated in either the straw bale house or else in the one of the bell tents. And you also get a small stipend of 150 euros per month. So pocket money. So it's a great opportunity for under 30s. Just pop on to erc.earth onto our website and click on the link, the big tab that says participate. And you'll find all the details there. Another upcoming opportunity at Campo Teplano in Spain from the second to the eighth of June. All the details are here. This is a paid experience. It's a real learning experience. There'll be actual learning material combined with physical restoration on the ground. Delicious organic meals included an opportunity to learn firsthand about everything that's been happening there plus also downtime for you to enjoy the real majestic sunsets and sunrises at Arte Plano and to hear about this this erc camp which has become something of a legend. And I said camp because they do still call themselves Camp Teplano. But you'll be looked off very well by Sylvia from Teplano and her team there will ensure that you just have the most enriching experience and that you leave even more fired up than ever before to take on this great work of our time as John calls it. And then to rush through these just because you can find all of them on our website but there are some great opportunities for you to volunteer at the ERCs across the globe from Kenya, Citigocchi, which we're meeting with now, to Sino de Val in Brazil, another Kenyan ERC which is Carame River, the Coca Vada Foundation in Costa Rica, France, that's Versailles in the Ladildonia area. There are two different opportunities there so really some great opportunities which you'll find and participate on erc.earth. Very simple URL we have now. It used to be EcosystemRestorationCommunities.org but now we've just simplified it to erc.earth and it's it's so simple to remember. I just wanted to tell you quickly about an event that took place last month in February. This was the Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration practical component to the course that we've been running in partnership with the Swell Food Web School. That's Dr. Lene and Swell Food Web School. We had a great opportunity here for people to learn from Paul who in the photograph is on the left hand side, Paul Morris who's an ecologist and an educator and he also heads up the Ecosystem Restoration Community in the Yucatan Peninsula called the Earth Connection Center and he hosted people from all over the world to come and learn how to hands on put into practice what the students had learned at this Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration online course through us in the Swell Food Web and Ruma has it that there is another practical component that's going to be offered next February following on the success of this year's one. So if you are interested in learning more the first thing to do is to sign up to the Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration course you'll find more information on our site under Learn. Once you've started the course you're automatically eligible to to participate in this practical component so there's something to look forward to and you can consider in the next year maybe including in your travel plans this trip to to Mexico. Quickly wanted to draw your attention to a new blog series which my colleague Melissa is really enjoying doing. Melissa is studying environmental science and she has a brilliant skill of storytelling and has a unique way of managing to make stuff that's really sciency and that can be quite technical really accessible to to the rest of us. So the series that we started is called Earth Restoration in your backyard and it's really for those of us who don't have the the privilege or the opportunity to be physically involved on the land at an ecosystem restoration community or other restoration site and it gives you tips on things that you can do literally where you are. So you know start where you are and learn how to do things like improve water retention which used to be maybe more prevalent for people living in some of the dry climates but also that as many of you will know is becoming a big issue in Europe even with drought and also learn about things like microclimate buffering and if you ask what on earth is microclimate buffering head over to our website click on our latest news, our blogs and tap right in and really enjoy learning about this in a very as I said accessible format. I'm really excited to let you know that we have welcomed a new ecosystem restoration community in the last couple of weeks to our mighty movement and that is Quinta de Vale Lama and please all the Portuguese speaking community out there you'll have to excuse my pronunciation but I hope I got it right. We'll be doing an introduction to them very soon on our social media and in our upcoming newsletter but they're doing amazing work on the ground and we really are excited to to have them on board the movement so that's Quinta Vale de Lama or something like that and then just lastly I really want to just remind you all to help us grow and to continue to of the support to the communities in the ground to continue to be able to provide them with the resources and tools and expertise and knowledge that they need to get trees to them to get volunteers to them and to help more ecosystem restoration communities join the movement so that we can expand our ever-growing community and and really become more thriving and and more in a position to inspire people everywhere to take up this work and we need we need help so I want to encourage you to tell your friends about ecosystem restoration communities tell them to tell their friends too and there will be a great opportunity at the end of the presentation shortly for you to actually make a donation to Citadel Catunga and we'll be sharing the link with you so if you are moved which I have no doubt you're going to be by the presentation that you are going to hear you are certainly very welcome to make a donation by popping on to their webpage on the ERC website and and supporting them financially. Right and before I go further I really wanted to welcome John D Lu again John is joining us in the middle of the night in Beijing as I mentioned there's no limit to to what we ask him to do and he always obliges very willingly so and John I know you wanted to say a few words and I'm going to hand the mic over to you now so that you can you can you can chat to us. Thank you I really am very excited to see how many people are working around the world and how this movement continues to grow and I think we generally want to hear as much as possible from our presenting group so I'm not going to say too much right now I'm going to stay on afterwards for a little while it is early morning but I think this is more valuable even then sleep perhaps so it is very important that we understand how urgent restoration is on a planetary scale and that each of us locally can do a tremendous amount and if we're not then we need to really consider what does this mean so we have to work locally and we also have to work simultaneously on a planetary scale because together we're facing enormous challenges and these challenges are not simply ecological issues we're seeing a lot of social psychological problems we're seeing violence at the edges and the potential for really war so peace is ultimately what we're also working to have we we I personally as a journalist have seen all over the world that the majority of people are good and but we really need to create an environment in which everyone can be happy and be satisfied an ecological restoration and restoring the human spirit that's what's we need that's what we need to do so we're going to hear something really great today I think because working beyond the idea of just growing food and caring for people but really taking care of the wilderness areas and wildlife and wetland areas this is of such critical importance so I'm going to be here and stay as long as I possibly can but I'd like to turn it over to our camp and so Cath could you bring them back and we'll all learn together thank you so much absolutely thank you John welcome all of you to our ERC today and I want to give special thanks to Mr. Thadiliu for thinking of coming up with this great initiative and giving us an opportunity to share the kind of work we do with the rest of the world so I think it's a very special place and we really want to appreciate the kind of work the ERC is doing both here in Kenya and all over the world that will be my opening remark and before I go into March I just want to introduce my friend my colleague here yeah I'm Isabel I assist Mr. Valala for the coming three months I'm an anthropology student but I study human-nature relationships in order to become a climate anthropologist and yeah thank you everyone for joining a presentation today thank you I also have my other colleagues in the page but maybe you get to know them better in the next time as we go ahead so I want us to go straight to the presentation so that we don't take a lot of time we want to give Mr. Thadiliu time to rest so let's begin so we are from the Statunga ERC which is in Kitalik Kenya click yes so we are based in Transah County that's in Transah County it's in western part of Kenya we are a community-based organization and it means we are from the community most of our members we are membership based and the people we work with mostly from our local community we currently do not have like fully employed staff all of us are volunteers in this course our main mission is to foster harmonious coexistence for posterity so we look at how man and nature can coexist harmoniously so that we can have a future a better future for everyone so we exist to build capacities and even main based interventions we also mobilize resources and organizations and partners and communities in order to achieve our goal of conserving the environment and as well as improving the conditions of the people locally here so that we don't only look at the environment we also look at the human nature and societies click so as you can see from the map we are based in the western part of the country Transah is one of the 47 counties in Trans in Kenya the landmass area of the Transah is 2470 km2 the population is almost a million and the ratio of male to female is almost like 50-50 we are branded as David the breadbasket sorry to interrupt could we please ask everyone to mute their microphones if they haven't already done so we've got quite a bit of interference coming through from somebody else okay so our county is branded as a food basket to the country Kenya because we are an agricultural county and we produce food mostly maize that is supplied across the country so when you come to Kenya to Kitale specifically or Transah you expect to meet farmers and unfortunately most of the practices have been commercialized and we use they're a bit unsustainable for the soil and for nature because we use machinery and chemicals in most of the agricultural practices to include we spray farms local communities spray their farms to to plow and to weed and also to grow crops so which is a tremendous effect to the to the environment um we are blessed with a very crucial success in Transah County two out of five key water towers in the country are found in Transah County so we have the Terangani Hills water tower and we have the Mount Elgon water tower which are the key sources of water and rivers uh in Kenya so we also have River Nzoya which is the second longest river in Kenya it begins from Transah here and then we have River Kiplina and others uh Transah also has a few endangered species of animals um these species are conserved in Mount Elgon National Park our account is blessed with two national parks to include Mount Elgon National Parks and Siwa Swamp National Park which is our area of interest we also have a private uh Conservancy which is called Italian Nature Conservancy whereby they um they keep some animals where people can visit and see click now before you click um our key point of interest is the two points at the map below you can see the Terangani Hills water tower which is um in the far east of the map whereby we have highlighted this area that is Terangani Hills water tower and specifically where we have cut off like this this is um Capulet Forest and this other one here is Siwa Swamp National Park they're not far from each other they're almost um at the same place so maybe you can click when you go ahead um so our key let me introduce you to our Satunga ecosystem as i mentioned earlier we have a two point of interest uh as comes Satunga or as the Satunga ERC the first one is the Capulet Forest which is um far up here as you can see it's far east of the of the county and it's at the border of Transoya and west Bokot here i hope you see my Casa here on the north is Kapenguria west Bokot county and the far east is Elgiomarket county and then the rest of the land is in Transoya county whereby we have the local people living there um just to mention a bit um the second site is uh the Wilheta wetlands which is adjacent to Siwa Swamp National Park the area you see green in the bracket is Siwa Swamp National Park it's the smallest national park in Kenya maybe we shall talk about it later um that we are going to talk about so maybe click so let's talk a bit more about Capulet Forest uh Capulet Forest is a government gazetted forest it was gazetted in 1942 uh as a national uh is a as a government forest and it occupies 1551.4 hectares uh it used to be typical indigenous forests some years back but we had a little bit of a conflict between some government agency and the community and trees were destroyed but uh that was resolved and the land was recovered back to the government and after that the land is available for rehabilitation uh since the 1990s since that time we have not had a serious initiative to help recover that particular land into a forest and um it has been used as a grazing land you can see some cows into the field but now the government is serious it wants to rehabilitate and um as a young environmentalist I saw an opportunity to help restore this particular land of course I've grown up here I know the place very well I know the whole history and everything has been and it's now time to rehabilitate so since we've short interest the government has been serious and has been able to condone the area from the grazing um and it has given hundreds of organizations as a site for rehabilitation in Kenya we have the law allows the law allows us to adopt a forest so we applied to adopt this particular forest in 2022 towards the end of the year and last year in the moment what you see on that picture are shrubs and these shrubs are mostly from the invasive cestrum species that completely frustrate the growth and our growth or the growth of any other species in this place so um to rehabilitate this place we need to remove these invasive species and plant trees so that we can regrow the original vegetation that was here so um uh apart from the cestrum species we have a few scattered trees you can see up there those are mostly crotons and uh african acacia trees um the area also has some streams as you can see um which are almost drying up we need to see if you can recover it up we can recover them up so that's just to mention about cobalt forest uh we need 1.5 million seedlings to be to recover this particular place and make it an original forest like that so far we have had uh from last early last year um we have had uh okay the approach that we want to use for this particular uh forest is uh we are using both we want to use both scientific approach and we also want to use a community-based approach to make sure that we recover this particular place and what we want to do with the scientific approach is we want to collect baseline data um that we can use as a matrix to monitor um the progress and evaluate um our success as well as impact of course our success can be like maybe we didn't have trees and now we have trees but uh we want to also collect ecological data we want to collect weather data we want to collect all that kind of data that we need in these initial stages so that uh as we grow into planning trees and restoring the place rehabilitating it we also look into what does it mean to the ecology of this place what is the impact that you are creating so that after like 10 years we can be able to look back and see the impact we have created by the success that we have brought uh a community-based approach is whereby we are involving communities like you can see up there on the pictures we planned with local communities we work with them to look at the best way possible see on ways to maintain the trees and also involve them in all aspects of the project so that we can have a sustainable future for that particular forest so far uh with the approach and community-based approach we have been able to plan 64 000 trees which we have mostly gotten them from uh some of the members of the organization some from the community tree nurseries and some from the Kenya Forest Service and friends of Kabul Forest so we are looking forward to get um maybe we are keeping on applying for grants looking for partners so that when we get a good grant we can accelerate the rate of restoring this particular forest project so let's go to the next slide please click so we are going to the weata wetlands weata wetlands um which is the second project that we are dealing with or the second site um just to introduce quickly the weata wetlands is uh it's a wetland that is um north of Saewa Sambu National Park as you can see from this picture i don't know whether you can see my kasa we have um we have uh two rivers that supply water into Saewa Sambu National Park as you can remember i said uh Saewa Sambu National Park is the smallest national park in Kenya but it's very very significant in a way the main river that supplies water into Saewa National Park to keep it as a wetland is River Kappenguria and are the architects of this particular park they left a space between before you reach the park they left a space whereby uh it was acting as a buffer zone to uh sieve out all the interference external interference into the park and um allow um okay it used to sieve out every other external interference to the park but uh due to uh human um uh demand for land and the climate change issues people invaded this particular area and the cloud that are made on a particular place and so the river has been exposed so much that um you find the park is now struggling with the invasive species to include um the elephant grass which is threatening the existence of the park so uh just to tell you the significance of the Saewa Sambu National Park and why we should conserve it is uh as i said earlier the smallest um but very significant park in Kenya it has more than 450 uh species of trees it has more than 350 species of birds uh it also has a few endangered species to include the gray crowned crane and it also has the debraza monkey which you can see from the picture on the on the sides and also it has a rare statoonga antelope which is um an aquatic antelope it lives in wetlands and um it cannot survive without the wetlands so a threat to this rivers that supply water into this park they threaten the existence of both um the the antelope statoonga as well as the gray crowned crane so it's very very significant so um it's um so we what we want to do with this is that we want to recreate um a bavason in the north of the river before it enters the park to be able to sieve out all the external interferences including the ecological interference that is working to the park during the flooding season so let me ask um um i asked maybe you could let's click on the next presentation the next slide please click the next slide yes so there's a link here i want to show you a little video of what we are doing with this particular wetland to show you how exactly we are working in this place to recover the place i grew up in this area and uh i used to love come from this area this area is called weata as we grew up it used to be a great wetland a very lashi marshy area um all that was escape from mystery um you cannot This is Kapenguria River, one of the two rivers that make up Saewa Swabu Machina Park and part of the Saewa Wetland ecosystem. This place has water and due to climate change issues you find that the upper side of our land we don't have water. So people come down here to begin clearing the place and to grow vegetables so that they can meet the demand for vegetables and earn an extra income from vegetables. This is the first time I've met my dad but today I'm going to meet him. Yes, we have met. What is your name? My name is Dawan. He is a squishy and he is very sharp. He has a sharp tongue. I have never heard of him before. He is very sharp. I have a sharp tongue and he is sharp. Yeah, because it's not driven, I can't even know how to do it. I can't do it because I'm behind the vendor. Because they are very common. So the human nature relationship here is not very sustainable because as you can see, most of the natural trees have been cut down as well as the original vegetation is cleared, which means the ecology of this place has changed. You can see like we have this kind of tree, which is a eucalyptus tree. We know that this tree takes in so much water, gallons and gallons of water per day, which is not a very good thing. It's not supposed, actually according to the eucalyptus act in Kenya, this tree is not supposed to be found anywhere near the wetland or water source. So it's a tree that is condemned to be next to the wetland. But here, people grow it in the wetlands. So as you see this tree, when you follow this river, all the way up, we have this tree on the wetlands. We need to find a way of conserving this area, returning it to its original shape. The people who designed this park, this Sayawasop National Park, they were wise enough to leave this space, 600 metres from here to the main road, from the bridge. They left it as a reserve to protect this park from the external variants. We are trying to make sure that we can restore the wetlands to engage with this activity, so that we can pay the money. We are also trying to make sure that we can have a good harvest. We are also trying to make sure that we can restore the wetlands to engage with this activity. Our aim to restore this place is to ensure that the park is protected from any other variants that can come from outside and the intrusion of biological items such as the elephant grass we are talking about. We are talking to communities, we are talking to young people here, we are talking to women, we are talking to youth and schools nearby here, and local leadership to ensure that we work together to be able to conserve this area so that we can be able to protect this park and this river. We are planning to begin doing annual wetlands, which is a day that we shall be commemorating or celebrating. The presence of this river and the return of the wetlands. That is going to be used to create awareness about the human impact to this particular wetland and why the community should live in harmony with this particular area so that we can have a prosperity future for both the park, the river and the human beings here. Right near here is a school that has flourished in sport, the football champion in Central Africa, and we have decided to re-brand the school and use the school to help us carry the message of to conserve this particular river and serve as a national park. Usually we win because of this clean, putting God first, and having enough training at evening sessions. We have a lot of energy and the environment is good. So to appreciate, we usually give back to the environment. People who are playing games, to win like money, to earn some amount of money, to pay the rent, to get some amount of money to the administration which is given to the environmental club. This is on the side of the environmental club where there are girls, there are people. So today the school carries a motto, a vision and a mission to help us protect this park and create awareness of this particular park. And at that particular school we have put down a good nursery of trees, to include bamboo trees that we want to, we are using them to support the community, to plan in their farms, to help in soil conservation and to restore nature in this particular area. We want to expand this project, a special level project. We feel like part of what we need to do is get alternative water sources in people's homes. If we can help the community find water source somewhere far away from here, we are sure that the community, and we already talked to the community, will be more than willing to move and farm in their farms and leave the wetlands to restore naturally as we add more trees to support the banks of this park. So thank you very much for the video. I just want to insist that that's exactly what happens and we are really working with communities. We had a big day of the year today. We planned with the youth of this area and we executed on March 9th, last weekend. And people are very excited and the community is now charged to completely restore their wetlands, the only wetlands. So just as in the forest ecosystem, the Cobalt Forest, we are also going to use the scientific approach to execute this project as well as the community-based approach. And in Vieta, we are rebranding the school, the girl's school as you saw, to carry the mission and vision of restoring this river. So they're going to be our champions to help us create awareness out there about the existence of Vieta wetlands because the school is adjacent to where we're working. In Cobalt Forest, we're also working with St. Anthony Boys. It's one of the also football stars in East Africa. We have a school called St. Anthony Boys and we are going to work with them to help us carry a message of hope for Cobalt Forest. We also began the Vieta, Anya Vieta Resilience Day as you've seen in the film. We also have, we're also doing educational awareness in schools and in communities. And creating also dialogue, people to discuss more about the wetland. Maybe click the last please. Yes, so Assante Sana, that's to say thank you very much for listening to me and you're welcome our Karibu Sana at Statunga ERC. God bless you. Thank you. I welcome any question now. Thank you so much, David, for preparing that presentation. This preservation of these beautiful natural habitats is so, so, so important. I mean, ecosystem restoration is so multifaceted and in terms of the effects of what it has, apart from that, but you guys are just covering it all. I mean, the livelihoods, the restoration of livelihoods, alternative livelihoods that you're providing people, getting the community on board, helping the community not just know about it, but be involved. And that's why I love the wetlands day that you had this past weekend. And when we spoke on Thursday, you were still planning this and it's wonderful to see how many people were there and how well they embraced it. But just the other aspects of ecosystem restoration and the positive outcomes around creating these habitats for natural, for all species and for everyone on Earth and for it to be a place that people can enjoy and treasure. And you spoke about the dual benefits for the people and for nature and really I'm just really overwhelmed with how comprehensively you and your team have planned this to make sure that you're covering everything. And of course, getting the police chief involved is always a good thing too. I saw him sticking a tooth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Really, really very well done. And I'm very excited to see how this initiative grows and strengthens. So it'd be great actually to check back with you in a year's time. I'm sure that everyone in the audience will agree to really see how it's evolved and how the continued uptake from the community has grown. Thank you. Just to say one more thing is that the most interesting fact about this is a friend of mine who is here with us on this page and I, we grew up here. So we are doing, we grew up here and we're inspired by the National Park and the Cabbage Forest. And we went into school to study environment. So we have come back to give back to our community. That makes it very special for us. And that makes it very personal as well. And it comes across the reason why you're doing this. And it also came across how the community know you and recognize you and welcome you into their homes. And that really does underline the importance of community-driven ecosystem restoration. And I think you guys have nailed it. You really, you've nailed it so well done. Melissa is, she's just posted, she took a catalogue as link in the chat. Remember when I spoke earlier, I mentioned that if you've been inspired and you cannot not have been inspired by this presentation and the passion behind this particular initiative to really consider if you can, even if it's $5 or euros or $50 euros or whatever you move to contribute. I know that David and his team will greatly appreciate it and put it to really good use on the ground. And we're open for questions, guys. It's far away. Ask us what you want to know. Ask David what you want to know. I know that John has had his hand raised. So I'm going to invite John to kick off the Q&A session. John, please go away and go ahead. There's two things that I would like to ask. I'm wondering which are the tree species that you're focusing on? And are you considering creating your own nursery system or working with the communities on nursery systems? I would mention that this was very important in China during the restoration in many areas of the country. And the first step was creation of really, really excellent nurseries. So that's one thing. And the second thing is I believe you met Old Peron at Jane Frazier's house. Is that correct? Yeah, a little bit. If you remember, you met her at one point when she came. Yeah, I met her briefly in an event. Yes. I hope you'll get back in touch with her because her friend runs something called grassroots economics. And the grassroots economics is building localized economies that help the people to really grow their communities. And it allows them to focus on the things that are most important to them. And I think when you see that a lot of the degradation is coming from people who are encroaching on the wetlands or who have been running cattle where there was once forest or now vegetables in the wetlands, that you need to have this alternative for them, alternative economy from the degrading actions that they're taking. Otherwise it would be very difficult to restore this area. So I do hope those things. But first of all, which species and are you thinking about making nursery systems? Okay. Just quickly to answer you on that. We are mostly planting indigenous trees, indigenous African trees because one of the conditions we are given, we are adopting the forest by the Kenya Forest Service, which is the government agency in charge of forests in Kenya. It's very clear that they want the area to return to become an original native forest with indigenous trees. So we are not planting anything new that's not native, apart from the bamboo which are planting on the river side, along the rivers inside the forest. At the wetland also we are also doing the same, we are planting native species there and the bamboo. And then about the tree nursery, when we began last year to work on the restoration project, the county government of Transoya saw effort and they donated nursery tools and equipment. We began at least small nursery, but we have not expanded so much because we have not had any grant or support to grow the nursery. So we have a nursery, but it's still very small. We need to grow it into a big nursery. But also working with communities, the local community have different groups that we are working with and these different groups also have pre-nurseries. So to make sure that the community really participate, we were preferring if we could buy trees from the community so that they feel from different nursery so that we can have a bigger group benefiting from the project and support their livelihood in that form. So we can have our own nursery, but also we will feel better if we also support other nurseries to grow and people feel like there's a benefit in supporting such initiative. Thank you. Melissa has a question. I'm going to ask Melissa to pop onto the screen and share her question. Yes. Hey, nice to see you again. Thank you for this wonderful presentation. It's been great hearing it in full detail. And I had a question about the wetland, about the restoration plans. What do you have, what will be the first few processes that you'll be going through in order to start? You see, for now we are just sensitive in communities and trying to plant trees in their farms. But what we want to do is we want to do a study. If we got a chance, we could begin by doing a comprehensive study of the area. We want to know what exists before even we transform it. So that when we begin transforming the place, the study that we did first will give us a baseline. So we would wish to do, we did wish to do like three studies. The first one should be an environmental impact assessment. The second one, we are detailed, what we call it ecological study, to look at the species which exist on that particular area. Both plants and animals. And after that, we also do a socio-economic study and maybe Aurora applies it so that we completely engage the locals and do what they want. So that they gain the socio-economic earnings and as well as we gain on the side of restoration and recovery of the place. So we need to do all the studies, get our documentation right so that we can keep on put up a monitoring and evaluation matrix to see how best we can deal with it. The second one is maybe to completely engage the community and make sure they buy into the idea so that we move on in the same page with them. Thank you. Melissa, does that answer your question? No, I have so many more, but we'll be on. Okay, we'll come back to you. No, that's great. Thank you. Jane, we're going to come to you in a second because Larissa was just before you, but I wanted to thank Jane for sharing in the chat the name of the most common trees for wetlands. I don't think I'm going to try and pronounce that, Jane. Maybe there's a common name for lay people like me, but I don't think I'm going to pronounce that. It's called Cecedium. Great. I still can't wrap my tongue around that one, but I'm dying to know the common name for it. Jane will come to you in a second, Larissa, would you like to unmute yourself and share your question with David? Thank you. First is a comment. I want to say thank you for the video. Because to me, it was not just showing by demonstrating this combination you're talking about between what I would call technology and community culture, rather than science and community culture, because community traditions of growing and doing everything were also a science. In a different way, it was a knowledge system that was assigned in its own way. So I just think of it that way. So the video was just a great demonstration of that marriage. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I wanted to ask, I'm calling from Toronto, but I'm from South Africa. And I'm very interested in how these projects are rolling out in different parts of the continent. And with your particular one, I want to ask you how you are navigating or thinking about the aspects of protecting your projects from social unrest and political interference and all those things that might come up. Okay. Thank you very much. Do you have another question? No, that was it. Thanks. Okay. So first of all, thank you very much. I credit the little video from a great friend of mine who is a filmmaker and he comes from Uganda, he's Ugandan. He's called Denis O'Neody. I think he's here. And actually, we want to do more projects on film. This is just a small portion. We are trying to see what we can do with it. But we really want to document more about the stories of here. Like the Cabaret Forest is a great story. And even the Guetta Wetland story is another great story. So growing up here, I would wish to document the 70s, the 80s, how the forest was and what happened. And finally, where we are today. Because I've witnessed the forest come down and I've also witnessed the change in climate like I was telling the filmmaker and the Isabel who is here with me, the Drid Director on that job. I was telling them that when we grew up, we used to plant maize in January. And when we close schools in April, we could come back to weed. It was common, that was known. We close school, you come and weed. But today we plant in April when we should be weeding. And we harvest by October when we are supposed to harvest by December. So there's a lot which has changed. It needs to be all documented. It's an area that we need to see if we can explore, to film and get these stories come out. So thank you very much, Dennis. I don't know whether you're here or not. And Melissa has been an inspiration. She has been telling me to document things. And we have Isabel who was also a great part of this. Thank you very much. So far so good. I've not had a lot of political interference. With my project because I'm in good terms with the government and I'm involving them in whatever I do. But my strongest partner, as I can say, has been the community. Like the way yesterday we did, you saw we had a band that played live music and people danced. We had poems. We had the exact stories of the past about the wetland and so on. And people brought tense, the community itself mobilized itself just by my leadership. They brought tense. They brought chairs and they brought everything. Whatever you saw there was donated by the community. The county government just came in to give us maybe water and a few extra things which is something that has not happened in my community before. So it's the first time it's happening. So I'm in good terms with the government. We are trying to keep as transparent as possible. Once we are set, maybe we get some kind of support, we want to constitute a team that we shall have government entity. We shall also have the community entity, all the key stakeholders to be involved in this project so that as we move ahead, they are part and parcel of it so that we can sustain the project and keep it off from politics and other kind of whatever. Thank you. Hope I've answered your question. Can I just follow up? I think what you're talking about, historical documentation would be a really powerful agent of communication with all of us as to the project and also a tool for use in other similar situations. So I hope that rolls out as you wish it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Larissa. Right. So I don't know what happened to Jane. Jane, if you do want to raise your hand again, we can come back to you. But there are a couple of other questions that have come up in the chat. David, this one's from Jogun. He asks if you could tell us a little bit more about the invasive shrub, which was the cistern that's in the degraded area. Maybe he'll let us know if you know anything about the origins of it. And I'm actually just adding to Jogun's question. Sorry, Jogun. I'm hijacking your question here. But I'm keen to know it's invasive. So it's not just non-native or alien, as we call it in South Africa. Is it actually an invasive? So if let and checked, is it actually invades the space of other indigenous trees? Yeah. So I'll talk about two invasive species. There are a number of them. But I want to talk about the key to invasive species. In the forests of Kabulet, we have the cistern, which is a small flowery plant. Maybe you can search for it. Cistern means with a C-E-N-T-R-U-M. So that tree, I don't know. The origin I think is somewhere in Mexico or something, but I don't know how it came in Kenya. I've not read about the history. But what I know is that it ensures, it frustrates any undergrowth below it. Even if you plant a tree, and cistern is there to not grow, because it completely protects its territory. And I think that can be among the main reasons why we have not had a natural regeneration in that particular area. And the best way to deal with it is to do a manual removal. Thus we approach it and maybe convert it into something else. I could say we banned it, but I feel like if we got technology, people who have some technology, we can see if we can use this particular invasive species to make things like what we call briquettes or find a way of making it useful to the environment and to people as well. So that's what I can talk about. I don't know what I can talk about. You are satisfied with the answer. And number two, we have in Sewa Swam National Park, among the greatest threats to Sewa National Park, and that's among the key reasons which inspired me to go back and see how we can protect the park is we have a species called elephant grass. It found its way from people's farms into the park and due to eutrophication, due to, of course, there's a lot of silt deposited in the park because there's no protection from external variants. So during flooding, all the fertile soils with chemical fertilizers, they find their way into the park. So this tree found, this species found its way into the park and it grows so wild because it has found a good fertile environment where it can cherish. And while there, it's frustrating all other plants and animals in the swamp, taking away the vegetation that is needed by the statunga to survive. And for that, you can see that the population of the statunga in that particular park has really dindled. The population has come really down in that park. And you remember that this park was created in the 1970s specifically to protect that species. So our park is really threatened. So the only way we are using it, I mean, the park is using to remove that particular species is by manual removal again because you can't use chemicals in that particular sensitive ecosystem. Thank you. I don't know whether to answer your question. Yes. I think you have. I hope you have. Thank you for sharing that. And also, I did note that you mentioned in the presentation that you're also having an issue with eucalyptus which is a big issue here in South Africa too. And of course, they're absolute water gazellers. So yeah, that's something maybe you're going to look and there's a lot of secondary or byproducts that one can make with eucalyptus wood, of course. Actually, we are introducing bamboo to replace the eucalyptus because even though bamboo is not native in this area, but we have the African bamboo which is native, yes. But we believe that even the, I mean, an indigenous bamboo that we bring in, it's still good for the environment. It grows so fast and it can still meet the timber and the wooden products or wooden wood demand which can replace the eucalyptus as well as conserve the ecology of the wetlands. That's really good to hear. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to bring Jane in to the conversation. Yeah. My name is Jane Wages-Frozier. I'm a board member at the ERC. And I'm just, first of all, I want to thank David for the nice presentation and his team for working so hard on the Estatunga, Estatunga camp and the work that they're doing here. It's amazing. I introduced ERC to David sometime back because I saw the kind of work he's doing here in the Estatunga town. And I said, I admire your work in that. Maybe you can join our ERC community. And he said, yeah. So I sent him the website and he looked at it and said, yeah, I think this is something I could want to be part of it. And I guided him to apply and stuff like that. And he started the recording. And I like the work. He's resilient. He's so pushy when it comes to working with the communities into the environment things and so passionate about it and the team are all the same. Very hardworking people. And once the community understands that they can't do in their own ecosystems, they try to now go towards helping to restore it and which is something that I've really loved about this project. The community are into wanting to help restore and not to destroy the trees that they plant. They care for them, for the trees to grow. And it's something that is very amazing. So I just wanted not to ask the question because I love what they're doing already. I just want to appeal to everybody who is here that this is a very good project. This ecosystem is very important because we lost a lot of species of animals like the stathunga itself and which gives the name to the area where the ecosystem is. And we really would love to see the ecosystem restored and the stathunga's coming back and the cranes coming back and all the monkeys and everything, all the ecosystem and have a lot of biodiversity. So I just want to appeal to all those who are here today and those others who will join this later and listen to us to really coming and support this project. It's very important to this ecosystem. And otherwise, thank you so much for everyone for coming and to listen to the Italian staff. Thank you very much, Jen. Actually, you have been an inspiration and we love you. You are a good person. Thank you for introducing me to ERC and for appreciating our kind of work. Asante-san. Jen, yes, I must apologize. It was really a mess of me. I didn't actually introduce you to the audience. You're so famous. I just assume everyone knows you. Jane Maguesa Frazer is not only a supervisory board member for ecosystem restoration community. She's also incredibly active and impactful in the ecosystem restoration space across Africa and probably further refilled. And we're really happy to have you here tonight and that you brought such an awesome new partner into the restoration community movement. So thank you so much. Brian, there's a question from... Thanks, Jane. There's a question from Brian Hamill. It's been wasting for a while and it's a really interesting one. So I'd like to put that up until next time. Sorry, everyone. I'm acutely aware that we're running a bit over schedule. I'm not sure how many more questions there are, but I do want to get this one in before we close. So Brian asks, are there any plans to plant very high-value native trees and lumber trees? So I think you have answered the part about the lumber trees already. You've spoken about the bamboo that's indigenous to Africa that you use to replace eucalyptus. But maybe you could speak to the planting of the high-value native fruit trees combined with the lumber so that there's a constant food resource and good economic return for the current community, but obviously looking ahead to future generations. Just to comment on that, when I began this project last year, the county government of Transoya, after giving me the tree as a supply, I mean like the tools, they also came down and they asked me what I wanted and I told them we need to support the livelihood of these communities so that they can be sustainable, our initiative can be sustainable. And sure enough, we tried out a few avacados and we gave to the communities and they planted and the bamboos. And so far so good, those trees are doing well. My vision for the future for this community is to completely support them with livelihood support programs. Like I look into it like the bamboo we give them, we can come up with the cutting industries whereby we train them on the use of bamboo because it's a new crop and how it can be processed so that they can get the benefit they get from eucalyptus. They get it from this bamboo. Or we plant, give them avacados, many avacados, they grow them from like circles and maybe if possible, we get like an industry to process avacado products and sell the products in the market or export the avacado to where we have good market for them. So we have all these kind of ideas where we can support the community or do fish farms and the ponds in their homes so that they have supply of water and an extra benefit of fish to supplement on the nutrition. So we have all these kind of projects that we need to look into in the future so that we can make the places in them. Sorry for talking too much, maybe let me take more questions. No, not at all. It's really interesting information and it's good to see that you're looking as a succession plan not just currently on the restoration but looking beyond that and actually we also have the carbon markets, maybe we are not experts in carbon market but it's a field we wish to look into if we can develop a plan or a program to support communities and carbon benefits from their trees to help them keep the trees sustainable for themselves. Thank you. Thank you, David. There is a lot of conversation happening in the chat. I'm not necessarily going to bring it all into this conversation but there are a lot of people recommending some interesting approaches that you can try and wanting to connect you with various people including Chan from ERC Dooku in Borneo. I know Chan is doing a lot of work with planting bamboo. I'm sure that there's a lot of common ground there that you'd have and we'll make all those connections after this call. Just before I close and thank David again, are there any last burning questions that anyone would like to put to him live? Obviously, you can also reach David via the page, the Citizen with Vitality page on the ERC website or you can pop a mail to Hello, Hello at erc.earth Once again, super simple to remember. Melissa can maybe just pop that email address in case you didn't catch because of my weird accent in the chat and we'll forward any comments with Gladly onto David and his team to answer. But any last questions from anyone? Hello, I just made a comment already in the chat and thank you very much, David, for your great presentation and inspiring project. I just wanted to make a point that your classroom problem looked very much similar to what they had in New Zealand on the Great Forests. That was a gorse spreading everywhere and whatever they tried to eradicate it came back with a vengeance until one restorer figured out it's a succession plan where the education is always resetting the succession to zero and they have to start again so he started with small planting of trees in small islands and they shaded out the plant and killed gorse automatically as the entire succession continued. I've shared the link of the film foods and dreamers in the chat have a look maybe it's not your case but maybe it's something similar to see your images. Thank you very much and good luck with your fascinating project. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Adam. Thank you very much. Great. John, any final thoughts you'd like to add or? I was just thinking when we're talking about vetiver grasses, bamboo, natural things and restoration. I think we also need to think about the beautiful cultural crafts that come out of Africa. I don't know if you've been to whole foods or something in the United States recently but if you want to buy a basket from West Africa it's going to cost you $65 or $75 or something. And not only that but look at what we're facing with micro plastics everywhere with all these plastic things degrading into tiny molecules and spreading around the world it's terribly poisonous and we need to stop that. We need to have natural things to carry our groceries home in. It's ridiculous now. So I think that when we realize that this has a potential to create certainly income but not just income but to transform our societies and our civilization into one which is healthy and natural. So I think you're doing a lot of wonderful things and carry on and whatever we can do to help, let us know and let's try to have a global response because we need you to lead and we need others to help you and then we need to multiply this effort by millions and billions of people. So thank you again if anybody really wants to talk for a while, I'm still awake so we can maybe stop the and just go to general discussion if you want to but feel free if you want to stay for a little while. Thank you John. I will just first officially end our Biosite chat. David, thank you again. Really for your and thank you Isobel for your hand in the presentation as well and thank you to your filmmaker he's a real storyteller and thank you Isobel. Everyone who has joined us, thank you for the questions that you've shared, thank you for all the loads of information and gems of advice that you've shared, we'll make sure that when I download the recording that all those get to David and his team John, for being here I'm going to end the recording now but those that would like to stay on for an informal conversation with John are welcome to. I wish you all a brilliant morning afternoon evening ahead we look forward to connecting with you again next month. Thank you so much at Rowanford and join us and go well.