Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change
podcast. I'm Ross Kenyan I am the
creative editor at Nori. Today I have with me, John
dealio, ecosystem Ambassador for the common land, Foundation
journalist filmmaker ecologist but a wild career you've had
John and for listeners you very well may have seen his quite
prominent documentaries. In particular featuring a work
that Has been done on the Loess plateau in China, which was
extremely degraded and under winter process of Rehabilitation
that is visually extremely striking.
So, would not surprise me if many of our listeners have seen
it before. And so, I'm very happy to have
you on the show. John, thank you very much.
My pleasure is mine, too. How did you end up working on
large-scale, ecosystem restoration?
I know there's a long version. Maybe we can get the truncated
one because you've had such a Worried career.
Okay, well, I was working in journalism, I helped open the
CBS News Bureau in China, back in the 1980s, and I worked for
CBS for a decade. So, I covered really big
stories, like the rise of China from poverty and isolation and
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And then in the middle of the 90s, I'd already started working
for radio television Italiana. And then Zoe two stitches
fencing. The On state television and the
World Bank asked me to film a baseline study of the Loess
Plateau. So, I went out to look at this.
It's the cradle of civilization and it's in the upper and middle
reaches of the Yellow River. So it's really a important place
in Chinese history. It's an important place in
Chinese revolutionary history. It's where Mal hit out at the
end of the Long March before he was able to His army and, and
take over China for the Communists.
So it has this connection to modern history and a long
connection to ancient history because it was the cradle of
civilization and the birthplace of the Han Chinese race.
And when I went out there and I saw this, I compared it
immediately to the type of political and economic news that
I've been covering for the television networks.
And I I decided that ecology was more important and that I would
rather spend my life studying Earth's systems and and
documenting and communicating about Earth Systems rather than
the hubris of political leaders or the illogical aspects of a
corrupt economic systems and no no punches being pulled their.
So the pictures that you can see of the Loess Plateau before the
restoration, Jim, we're just Barren very eroded mountains and
valleys and gullies. But I imagine there was a
before, right? It didn't used to look like
that. When did it change and what did
it used to look like, right. Well first of all loose it's a
German word, it's loose and the it's a sediment.
So it was created over prodigious time by the movements
of glaciers in the Himalayas when You consider the uplift of
the Himalayas which are the highest mountains on the earth,
it's where the sub-continent of India, hits the Asian continent,
and it pushes this mountains up. And the glaciers were covering
that and then the Glaciers are moving and, and it's called
tillage. I'm not sure why they use that
particular word, but it's the movement of glaciers.
Crushing this rock into powder and Powdery dust than flies and
lands and over millions or tens or hundreds of millions of years
or billions. Who knows?
You get these huge deposits and there are lists deposits in
other parts of the world. But these are the largest list
deposits anywhere, and it's really minerally rich.
So you can imagine these rocks that are being pulverized and
and so all this mineral is there.
But it requires organic material to be fertile.
So over a really long time after Evolution began then, biological
life totally colonize the planet and as the habitat as each
generation of Life died and gave up its body to nurture the Next
Generation, it created a habitat for microbial.
And fungal communities, and these then became the vectors
which made it possible to deliver minerals and water and
nutrients to higher life forms like vascular plants.
And ultimately, of course, animals, which eat the plants.
So it was potentially one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
I think this is also true in the Middle East.
We have place names like the land of milk and honey or that
sort of thing and in western civilization and in Chinese
civilization, this was the first place where the Chinese Empire
emerged and it was a place where all of the different tribal
groups were vying. So it had it was big in
anthropology as well as ecology it was beautiful, it was
probably the most beautiful and that's why the early settlements
and early. Nation grew up around there and
I think that's true around the world.
And many of the places that are desert if I'd around the world
are also in places like that. He's this story of degradation
one of Agriculture. Or is it more complicated than
that? Well I think it's a bit more
complicated. You can go back.
Human impact on natural environments.
Probably began with when we became very good at Social
hunting, we probably studied pack animals, wolves or lions or
something like this. And we've learned how to work
together because we're social has a species.
We're social creatures and when we were very good at getting a
team together, you know, we'd always know who the fastest
runner and the person who could throw the spear or the rock most
accurately. But we could also get everybody
together and make a lot of noise.
And scare all the animals and I think when we started this we
got so good at it. We pretty much took out all of
the Giant megafon and many continents.
So things like mastodons or mammoths.
You know, they sort of big elephant, precursors.
They got killed and we were also probably pray before we were
predators so we started to identify By those, we were most
afraid of, and then try to try to kill them too.
And this alteration of predator-prey relationships,
this changes Landscapes. So this causes a type of
degradation, but it was to two other things.
I think deforestation is massive and then you have agriculture.
So all of those Are quite significant and deforestation
and agriculture are kind of the same thing because often wear
deforesting in order to have agriculture because we assumed
wrongly. It seems to me that agriculture
is more productive than natural evolutionary succession systems.
So, you have this degradation process and it has led to a huge
amount of erosion and that all comes down these Hills and into
rivers, the tributaries flow, into the Yellow River.
And this is why it's yellow in my understanding.
This is why I got its name. Correct, that's correct.
It's loose. Deposits floating in the river.
And what's interesting about the restoration is that they were
able to mitigate at least 80% of those sediments.
So this is, this is quite a significant.
Probably the largest type of In this way and to see that we can
change the sedimentation levels. This way is something that we
need to consider, but there's more than that sediment control
was definitely the major aspect of the beginning of the project.
The other part that was very motivating to the Chinese and
everybody working on the project was poverty reduction because
Cuz if you have such a massively degraded state, or landscape,
it's impossible for these people to have a really good life.
So they were fairly miserable. And this was at the same time
that China was really rising from poverty and isolation
globally. So it's interesting that the
government in China said, well it's not just the East Coast
that needs to get rich. We need to remember the people
in the Cradle of Any civilization who whose
Landscapes have been destroyed and to see what can be done, and
when they saw and analyzed it and they're very the Chinese are
sort of, you know, they're they're pretty systematic and
hard-working. So when the Chinese Academy of
Sciences were asked to analyze this, they did a really good
job. They had a lot of people working
on this and they We saw the basic multi-dimensional
symbiotic systems. So they, they saw that actually,
the hydrological cycle and the vegetation and the microbiology,
and the biodiversity, they're all kind of interrelated.
In fact, they don't exist without the other systems.
So they are symbiotic multi-dimensional systems and
this understanding really help them to have a holistic.
Design plan, and then the relationship between the social
problems in the economic problems and the ecological
problems was recognized. So that led to really good
results because when you don't know why something is happening
and you think you can continue with a corrupt or a
dysfunctional economic system, but actually what you're seeing
is a disruption of the highwomen, Hydrological cycle
erosion, infertility loss of productivity and loss of
biodiversity. Then what's interesting about
this is it's actually if you if you look at those individually
hydrology or soil fertility or biodiversity, you're kind of
looking at the symptom and it is in its holistic nature in the
symbiotic relationships between these systems that you actually
What's happening? So they were quite good at that.
That was an Enlightenment for me.
I mean for me to go out there and look at that after looking
at all the political. And so the major political
events of the late 20th century, it was astonishing to realize
that we were on the wrong track entirely that there was
something which was much more valuable and much more directly
determining the safety of not only Humanity.
But of life on Earth and that that it was to some degree
understandable and that we were having an effect either through
our ignorance or we could have a positive effect through our
understanding and knowledge that does sound quite astonishing.
Very much would like to talk about the getting locals botting
to trying this out. We're going to get there before
we do. I want to close the loop a bit
on the Hello River. Do you know how long the
degradation had been going on? Another way of asking is, how
long has it been called? The Yellow River?
Is this thousands of years? Hundreds of years is just like
as long as there's been settled civilization.
It's been this bad? Well, it's interesting because
Chinese civilization is very ancient.
So before writing, there was something happening obviously,
and I think the Chinese were among the earliest to have a
written language to be literate. So what the river was called
initially was the mother River And as the mother River, and I
think this might have happened in more than one place around
the world because the societies are an civilization grew up
along river systems. And because in this case, you
had not only the Han Chinese, you had the Kazakh and the Weger
and the Mongols, and search it and kitten you had a number of
ethnic groups. Urging around this.
So they were in a sense vying with one another because at
certain times the Mongols would be in dominant.
They were certainly dominant for 400 years when they had the
strongest military tactics and then the jerk chit and the
kitten which are somehow related ethnically to the Japanese and
to the Koreans were had Dynasty. He's in China, but the main
dynasties were Han in the Han emerged as the dominant force.
And when they did this, they seem to be very self-absorbed.
I guess Homer would call it hubris that the people thought
that they were more important than life itself or that their
lives. Their generation were was so
important. And, you know, obviously, it's
important to them. But now we look back at that and
we say, well, you know, been hundreds of generations, you
know? So, and, and we need to consider
our generation in relationship to this.
I think I may have gotten off your question a little bit where
you were, you asking me about how people began to join this or
what was it again? No, I think you're on a similar
track here. Just wondering when the Yellow
River, maybe went from the mother River to the Yellow
River. When did this die?
Predation running really happen such that the name changed,
right? Well this is this is of course a
little bit hard to pinpoint but I can tell you that after the
written language was you know began there were very extensive
records taken. The Chinese have been pretty
serious about archival activity and there were 2,500 recorded
incidences. Very serious floods, some of
which really were devastating. We're very large numbers of
people were killed even up into the hundreds of thousands and
potentially millions of people, because in a way often people
begin to build their civilizations in the
floodplains. And when you do that, then every
once in a while, you're going to get a flood.
But what also, Happened was that they became pretty good at
engineering. There are still engineering
works that are over 2,000 years old, which are in use today.
So that's pretty shocking. And they started to create
different kinds of bureaucratic and official bodies to take care
of things along time ago. So, one of the things that they
were doing was that they were building Dyke On the sides to
lift up the sides of the river so that they would have less
flooding. Of course, that never quite
worked because the sedimentation was so intense that they had to
keep building it up and up and up and pretty soon the river
inside the dykes was higher than the surrounding landscape so
that made it really dangerous when the dikes were breached.
So it's quite a An interesting aside, I would say but you know
it's something to to look at that human activities.
If we don't really get it right? We can sort of create the
possibility for a disaster in the future to how is it working
with people who live in these ecosystems?
Are they happy that these projects get undertaken.
I imagine sometimes there's a fair amount of Suspicion which
seems Hard to blame them for too much.
I know they don't have a lot in a lot of these cases, but I
think there's a fair amount of worried that what little, they
have might be ruined permanently with these large-scale changes.
And there's a process of trying to convince him that this might
actually end up being better. How does that work?
Well, it works a lot better. Now, 25, you know, more than 25
years later where their forests and rivers and and soil.
And productivity there now, where there was nothing before.
So the seeing it is where you believe when you when you
experience it and the other part of this is that they used a lot
of methods to engage the people. One of the methods was called
participatory appraisal. It's sometimes called rapid
rural participatory appraisal, And when you do this,
essentially not only are you Gathering data, but you are the
people themselves are the agency, which are gathering the
data, and when they do this, they understand at the end, what
has happened. And so, if there are
participating in that type of work, rapid rural, participatory
appraisal is a very good method. There's also a new thing that
we've been using with the in land Foundation, which is called
Theory. You it's been around for a bit
started in MIT by autosh armor and The presencing Institute.
It works quite well to rapidly. Bring people to an understanding
of what happened in the past, what they would like to see in
the future and then to collaborate on designing a way
forward that reaches their goals.
Anyway, when they started this in China, most of the people
there Our were desperately poor and many of them were illiterate
and it was the only place that I've really ever been in China.
Where there was a significant amount of significant number of
people who didn't marry because they couldn't afford to have a
family, they could barely survive.
So this was a this is like the worst place and that's what the
Chinese often discussed. They said well, we have to go to
the The worst place. These are the play.
These are the people and these are the places which are the
hardest, they called it the hardest bones to crack.
These are the hardest places that we can go and after
studying and observing what they were doing for some time I came
to the conclusion that almost you have to go to the worst
places because these are the places with the biggest upside.
And a lot of people don't understand that, they They kind
of obviously it's a permaculture principle to work from The Edge
and the edge systems are very important because their
transition zones between different biomes.
And they they can tell us quite a lot of data, but if you go to
the worst places, if you get it exactly right then you can have
a huge effect because the upside It is higher.
You have like a hundred percent upside.
Whereas, if you're only 50% depleted or only 30% depleted,
or only 10% depleted, then you've really only got a 10 or
30 or 50 percent. Upside.
So going to the worst places is really good and then the other
thing that I've been looking at is Aku puncture points.
Are there certain places on the Earth where if we restore them
it will have an outsized impact all over the world or on a basic
Regional ecosystem. And this seems to be very, very
true too but the people to get them engaged using Participatory
rapid rural appraisal was useful and also they used another
method which was good, they paid them.
So, that worked very well for desperately poor people who can
basically. They also did something else,
which was made it absolutely necessary that they paid them.
They made all of the earlier, unsustainable behaviors illegal.
So they made it impossible. Possible, you couldn't cut a
tree, you couldn't plant crops on the sides of the mountains
and you couldn't free range goats and sheep.
Well, that was basically all that the people did in these
massively degraded areas. So they shut down all of the
negative impacts by making them illegal.
But by making them illegal, they had to do something or the
people didn't, you know, they would starve.
They didn't know what to do. So they paid Them to be trained
in ecosystem, restoration. And now, when you look at the
value of the ecological restoration, it's clearly vastly
more valuable than anything that human beings have ever made and
everything that human beings will ever make.
And the fact of that is that that's a new basis for an
economy rather than a basis of an Economy based on extraction
and Buying and selling things to commoditize everything.
And we know, when we have this materialistic society that we
have winners and losers, but if we have an ecologically
functional economy, it's bigger than the material economy, and
it's can be more fairly distributed because it benefits
everyone. So if we are committed to
selfishness, Then we're going to hold on to our materialistic
economy, but if we care and are compassionate about all human
beings and all living things, then we're going to encourage a
new economy which is based on ecologically function.
So gradually when these kinds of thoughts Dawn on people, because
even illiterate people Since farmers in the middle of
nowhere, can look at nature in awe.
They can look at the night sky and see the stars, they can feel
the changes in temperature and wind and and they can see there
how the rain nurtures there the plants and so on and so on.
And so when they do that and then they look at their things,
they start to realize oh there's something bigger greater than
our things. And we're not valuing them.
So when you analyze how the GDP economy considers ecological
function, it's basically zero. So by calling ecologically
function, the basis of the creation, constant filtration,
and continuous renewal of all the life support systems on
Earth is zero in that economy. Well, it's got to be false.
That means you've got a false. Statement in the middle of the
of the economy. The thing that's organizing
civilization. That's not a very good idea.
Needs to be considered needs to be discussed and it needs to be
understood that there is a another economy and economy,
which is more real, which is not based just on speculation and on
interest-bearing debt and on differentiation and disparity
within the economy. But is based on the
understanding that all life is is in symbiotic relationship
with all of their life and must be valued equally.
So this is this is kind of the type of philosophical things
that I've been thinking about since I started to see this.
And I've also been lucky to go to over 90 countries around the
world to study ecosystems in in relationship and did various
fellowships that I've had with the international Union, for the
conservation of nature, or with rothamsted Research Institute in
the UK, or the University of the west of England, in the UK, or
Netherlands Institute of ecology.
I'm curious about the institutional framework that you
inherit. When you start working within
one of these regions or ecosystems, I imagine some of
them, the land is unowned or it's owned by the government or
there's a patchwork of different types of property rights that
exist. Is it as diverse as I might
imagine or their common patterns that you notice as you're
working. And I also as a little kicker to
that question, I imagine in some cases given what you just
mentioned about materialism and ownership, you might want to
change some of those institutions as you're working
through this process. Does that happen?
Well, I don't think it's up to me to change institutions, it's
kind of up to a consensus of humanity, but I think what we
can see is that there are some mistakes and some flaws in
certain areas and if you don't understand what is determining
life or creating and constantly filtering, and continuously
renewing these life support systems, then.
The chance of getting it right is probably pretty low.
But what we, what we saw in China was that they, they don't
actually have private ownership in China, they have land use
rights, which is very similar in the sense that you can use the
land. So you have the land use rights
so you can use the land, but it's, you know, certainly trying
to be more fair Fair in its distribution.
Although now because of the switch in China to, what's what
they are calling us socialist market economy, which I think a
lot of people would say is very capitalistic because it works
with capital formations and it works with institutional
development. There can be a stratification.
And there has been there are billionaires in China who made
in of it Innovations, and then very Happily collected their
profits and now are extremely rich.
But I think that there's been a mistake, we one of the mistakes
is in this concept of the tragedy of the commons.
This is such a Excellent meme which runs off the tongue.
Very lovely semantic concept, but it's false because actually,
the places where I've been studying functional ecosystems
invariably have been protected by indigenous people who have no
concept of ownership whatsoever. And this is where the huge
savannas or the fuge forests or the intact ecosystems were
maintained, the giant herds migrating across the Eastern
step of Mongolia or in the Masai, Mara and the Serengeti.
Although they're being impacted now, the Amazon they're being
impacted now here in California, where you have the highest
expression of evolutionary succession, where the Sequoias
and redwoods, trees or 115 metres high.
But there's only three to five percent of that climax
equilibrium left in California. It's wonderful that this Remnant
exists but we, if we realize that 95 to 97 percent of that
is, Is lost. Then obviously this is this is
an enormous impact and it's so impactful in every way its
biodiversity loss, its loss of hydrological Regulation, its
loss of soil fertility. And it's you know, we're barely
at the point where we're as a, as a collectively, understanding
these things. I think some people have known
for some time. But they haven't always been
listened to. Maybe they were bad
communicators. I always I always wonder why
people haven't reacted more to what I've been studying and I
guess I'm not good enough and sometimes I feel inadequate for
the task. That's a hard thing to
communicate about. We've done podcast about the
tragedy of the commons before. And another way of approaching
it is saying that this sting ssion is to the cottam eyes.
It's actually more complex than that.
There are versions of there are places where private property in
fee. Simple property, Norms work very
well. And there are places where it
doesn't. There are places where
Collective decision-making is appropriate.
And there are cases where that's very inefficient, that's why
someone like Elinor Ostrom is research, has always been such a
great Guiding Light is saying that the Details Matter more
than some sort of broad statement about which of these
Norms are appropriate. So quick if you want is hard to
sell in General John, I'm sure. You know, and if you're talking
about ecosystems, they're all I imagine unique and it's hard to
make too many generalizations without falling into pitfalls
here, or maybe you disagree. I don't know.
No, I would say ecosystems are infinitely complex and there are
certain principles which are kind of universal principles.
I would mention by Biodiversity biomass and accumulated.
Organic matter. Those things seem to be natural
laws. You can't get away from them
anywhere. So any functional ecosystems
will Express, biodiversity biomass, and accumulated organic
matter and dysfunctional ones will show especially, I mean,
there are natural places. I mean, if you're 50 meters
below, sea level, in the middle of the On desert or something,
you're not going to see very much biodiversity or biomass and
accumulated organic matter. And that's kind of a functional
system for what it is. But basically, if you go to
these places, which were like the cradles of civilization,
then they were probably once magnificent and now they look
like deserts. And so, you have to ask.
Why is that happening? What is the motivation?
Is it inevitable? All that human beings, degrade
their ecosystems. And my conclusion is absolutely
not. That's a function of
Consciousness if we are conscious of the value and the
importance of these systems, there's no way that we can
destroy them. But if we are ignorant of this.
So it's about ignorance and greed is the cause of
degradation and Consciousness and generosity is the basis of
restoration. Well personally, I'd For
Consciousness and generosity. What do you do to restore
systems that are inherently complex?
Seems that intervening in them carries its own set of risks, a
potentially making things worse, or making it into some
monoculture or just having an idea of a place that isn't
actually what it should be, but it's what you think it should
be. How do you know the difference
in what you're doing? Well, I mean, having having the
opportunity to travel all over the world over the most of the
last three decades and study about functional and
dysfunctional, ecosystems has made it possible for me to view
things in ways that I had not considered before, I had this
opportunity and while the basic thing that I think is important
is all and getting away from the idea that we have to Stand
everything we have to realize that no matter what we know
we're going to quickly eventually get to the edge of
mystery and that's okay but what we do know is important as well.
So we have made assumptions that human welfare or human
infrastructure or IR abiotic systems that we've created.
Adar governance systems, our laws, our religions our
Communications systems, our language, or whatever it is we
think is more important than the symbiotic relationships between
other life forms. And this is fundamentally false
because the oxygen in the atmosphere is being generated
through photosynthesis, we don't exist without that we have
bacteria in our gut. Which allows us to get nutrients
from our food. So without these other living
beings in symbiosis with us, we wouldn't survive and we're not
just related to all other human beings on the planet, we're
related to all living things. So we need to understand that
and that kind of understanding and that having that in your
mind, as you look, Out at the world, gives you a different
perspective on the world you're not thinking like how can I cut
this down and use it? You're thinking about, I wonder
how I'm in symbiotic relationship with this this
life-form and how awesome is that?
So this is been, you know, a huge thing.
We're in a way we're we're not humble enough to realize.
Well we're going to die. Our one.
We're passing through where one of many generations of human
beings to have lived on the Earth, but we're living in a
time where the accumulated impact of human civilizations on
the earth systems are causing a type of collapse.
So when you see biodiversity loss or you see climate changes,
or you see the ocean acidification or thermal
expansion in the Ins or the all of these impacts then we are
wildly. Crossing planetary boundaries.
I would mention another one toxicity, which is huge.
Now we have released persistent organic pollutants, into the
into the soil, on the water, in the atmosphere and this is
ludicrous. So we're causing huge, huge
impacts, and if we're not aware of that, if we're in and if we
think it's Acceptable to do that for profit that someone could do
that for profit. Well, what profit?
There is no profit. Actually, that's a lie.
And so we've created these systems which are false and
hypocritical and we have to, we have to do something else.
And as I've been thinking about these things, I thought, well,
what am I doing? You know, am I doing the right
thing? and for the last three decades,
I've been working in the collective interest because I
can tell you frankly it's not a very lucrative career to make
films about soil and poor people but but it is in fact, really
satisfying and it does gradually shift and awareness or
consciousness of the things that we Rely on for life.
So this is, this is very important.
I think, the more people who start to realize we have to
change if we're unable to change and it's not just change the
bottom line, or make money in another way, we need to have
fundamental changes because there's huge mistakes.
And these huge mistakes are represented by the degradation
that we're seeing in the world. And, you know, I have to say
that that there are some fundamental mistakes in
reasoning in ecological thinking, as well.
So you have people who are talking about ecosystems
services. I don't see any ecosystem
Services anywhere on the earth. I see either functional or
dysfunctional ecosystems and when you have a functional
ecosystem, Then what is being called?
Ecosystem Services is what are being called?
Ecosystem services are there and when you have a dysfunctional
one, they're not there or they're vastly depleted.
And so what that says to me is that there are primary systems
and secondary systems and the primary systems are functional
ecosystems and the derivatives from those systems are what are
being called. Ecosystem Services.
Another one would be about carbon and I know this might be
close to home but the got Private John tell us how you
really feel. Yeah well I will you know you
can't stop me. Exactly.
I mean you could turn me off I guess but but basically we saw
in 1997 with the creation of the Kyoto Protocol the clean
development mechanism and Trying to use abiotic changes to
control climate change. And what this did was it
reinvested vast amounts of money in the polluting Industries.
So the polluting industries were told, you can't use the same
polluting equipment so you have to upgrade and we'll pay you for
it will give you will subsidize you.
And so we have subsidized extraction Industries and And
petroleum. So we probably extended the
period of unnecessary use of fossil fuels, for several
decades, this way. And at the same time, we took
that investment which could have gone into nature-based solutions
to restore forests and oceans and Alpine systems, and riverine
systems and coastal regions and wetlands.
And Protected by diversity, which is actually the only way
that we can reach the scale that we need.
And the only way that we can begin to express what we
actually are. We need to act as a species on a
planetary scale, instead of as a number of individuals who are,
and everybody is out for themselves in this, we need to
understand that it's our Collective.
Impact that has caused this. And our Collective impact is
increased by our selfishness and our greed.
So carbon disequilibrium in the atmosphere is only one aspect of
climate change. It's more of an indicator.
It's like a symptom rather than a solution and it is a very good
indicator. It tells us quite a lot, but if
carbon has a value, what's the value of oxygen?
Or what's The value of hydrogen. So these sorts of things that
and I guess a massive change and understanding to move away from
scarcity to abundance. So we've said, wealth is caused
by scarcity, but actually life and wealth and health.
Are defined by abundance, abundance of error, abundance of
water, abundance of food. So, we've just missed defined,
these very fundamental aspects and we need to get that, right?
Well, I don't know that we're going to crack this nut today.
John. Although there's a lot, they're
worth talking about much of which has come up on the show
previously. Yeah, isolating carbon with,
from within a complex system and Mising for its removal or
storage or however, you'd like to frame it carries its risks.
There are semiotic problems of seeing the world as a set of
ecosystem services, that should, at the very least, make any
listener. Feel a bit weird in.
Trying to understand why we've partitioned it that way.
We read a lot of authors who are critical of this way of valuing
to like Kate raworth or Paul Kings North Wendell Berry also,
Frequent references on the show, so you're in good company, John.
I just don't know that we're going to solve that one to show
you in a future episode, but at the risk of cutting that
discussion a bit short, maybe we could go on and get some more
nuts and bolts of what you're working on here, specifically.
I'm curious about the project Finance who can you believe I
just said that phrase right after your broadside project,
Finance of this. Are you working with government
donors and Esters, how exactly does your work do people make
money from this is, is that the wrong Paradigm for doing this or
do you just work with what you've got?
They're definitely three major efforts that I'm working on.
And we've started a fourth one here, in California, because of
the, the economic collapse surrounding this covid,
isolation and the collapse of small businesses.
But the the first one that got started was the common land
Foundation. My friend and colleague vilom,
Farrah de who was the country director of the international
Union for the conservation of nature in the Netherlands.
This and I began to work with him quite a long time ago.
And that has two million hectares in Restoration in
private land Holdings, using private investment mainly from
family fortunes or family foundation's.
This is going pretty well, it is a business case, it's the common
land Foundation Works to make sustainable.
Business cases, using a framework called the four
returns, which is returning inspiration, and meaning to
life, and returning, social value to society and returning
natural Capital to the Landscapes.
And because of these other three providing a return on
investment. So it's a little bit like impact
investing or its maybe people planet and profit.
With inspiration. That's one.
And then the second one is something that we created called
the ecosystem restoration camps movement, which now has started
four years ago was an idea with just an idea which actually, I
was dreaming about and I had these dreams and I rejected them
because I couldn't believe that people would actually listen to
me because I that wasn't my experience.
I Sometimes people say, well, John, you're a thought leader,
and I thought well what are you talking about?
If I were a thought leader, there'd be people who were
following me, but now it's not really true.
So, when I, when I had these dreams, I thought, oh, that's
not going to happen. But I kept having these dreams,
I would wake up in the morning and people were getting out of
their tents and they were happy. Getting breakfast in there
laughing and talking and then they would go and restore water.
Ed's and grow fertile, soils, and propagate and plant out
indigenous, and endemic plants, and everybody was busy and happy
and collaborating. And and I just rejected that
thinking that's not happening, but I kept having the dream.
So, I started writing about it in journals and magazines and,
and on the social media, and then hundreds and thousands.
And then tens of thousands of people started to agree, and
say, let's do that. We should do that.
That and so we created a foundation in Europe.
And now there's a second foundation in the United States.
And the first year, we had one Camp the second year, two camps,
the third year, 21 camps, and the fourth year 37 camps, and
they're in six continents, and they're happening all over the
world. So, by all means, everybody
should join the ecosystem restoration camps movement.
And you can go to ecosystem restoration camps, dot-org and
become a supporting member and look at all.
All the different camps are you can go camping or you can
encourage people to restore Landscapes all over the world,
we have camps in Egypt, and Morocco, and Somalia.
Actually the United Nations is asking us to participate in a
project in Syria and we have a number of camps in California.
We have camps in India and Australia Kenya Guatemala.
Leah all over the world. And there are many many more
forming. So what we really need is more
people to join as supporting members.
We also have some larger donors, but I kind of prefer if it can
be a participatory, Grassroots movement, led by people.
So most of us share about 10 euros per month, which is two
cups of coffee at Starbucks apparently.
But if you have a million members, That's 120 million
Euros. So you can do a lot of
restoration when you have all these voluntary, autonomous self
organizing and self-governing camps around the world.
So I see this as, as a way forward, it's also a compliment
to what's going on in the, in the common land Foundation,
where wealthy people and large landowners also need to do
regenerative agriculture. Also need to understand
ecologically restoration because cuz their impact is is very
large, either positively or negatively, depending on what
they do and the third thing that I'm working is with a group
called the weather makers and this is been designing what I
would call a Naka puncture point on the earth which is the Sinai
Peninsula in Egypt and this program is going forward now so
you can read about that on my Page or on the weather makers
page and see how that goes. There's a an essay I wrote
called the Holy Grail of restoration, you can read that
and I know that the guardian is working on a very large piece on
this right now. And this is looking at what
happened, historically by human impact, what human impact was on
areas, which were once had place names, like the land of milk and
honey. And why they look like deserts
in the sand is blowing across there and we essentially found
that you can sort of see it and understand it through the
evidence. So there's evidence of changes
in wind direction and moisture the arrival of moisture.
Essentially over evolutionary time, the predominant winds were
coming from the south from the Notion and flowing in to across
Mount Sinai, through the Sinai, Peninsula and into North Africa,
the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.
And this is a type of Continental Divide where you
have weather systems, which meet at that point.
So when about approximately 8,000 years ago, the wind seems
to have shifted from the north to the South.
And instead of having moist air coming from the south, you have
a vacuum effect which is Is pulling moisture into the upper
atmosphere where it is a terrible greenhouse gas and this
seems to have been caused by changing surface temperatures on
the Earth by D vegetation. So when you do that, you create
higher surface temperatures which cause thermic drafts,
which push moist air into the upper atmosphere, and doesn't
allow that to recycle in the lower hydrological cycle.
So it creates Desertification, massive desertification.
We see the results now. And we've been looking at that
and we see that there are some big industrial developments,
which could transition now from being like dinosaurs that need
to go extinct and only serving extraction, Industries and and
profit-making for small groups of people, they could be
transformed into The. Huge power that we need in order
to restore vast areas of the planet.
So, we now have a design plan, which we believe will bring the
moisture. Back from the Indian Ocean into
North Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.
And we've been working on that and the project is ongoing with
research, and it's about to start the president of Egypt.
Recently, mentioned it publicly in the news, so it's It's all on
track so I guess they're different ways forward.
One Way. Common land Foundation is a
foundation, which encourages a transitional kind of economic
theory, which helps large landowners and wealthy people to
invest in a future that is survivable and sustainable.
And then the ecosystem restoration camps which now
invite everyone to come, and join as supporting members and
to come to camps and learn how to grow organic, soils, and how
to infiltrate, and retain moisture, and how to propagate,
and plant out, mainly indigenous and endemic trees and plants,
then there's Industrial Development with the weather
makers, which are designing ways in which we can use the power of
it of industrial equipment to Encourage the return of
biological life in other areas. So we're using the abiotic
systems, but we're using them because they exist and if they
go extinct like dinosaurs, we won't have those machines
anymore because they'll probably never be made again.
Since they were made from an analysis that the energy was
free. And, you know, it wasn't And
that the impact was not so high in that was not true either.
So there's, you know, but anyway we have that capability now.
So, what should we do with it? Should we scrap it or should we
use it for restoration? And so, those are the three
things that I'm pretty much involved in.
And then the fourth thing that I've been doing is something
different here in California because there's so many people
who are hungry and who are unemployed.
So we've been Trying to work with a number of people.
And in the last few weeks it's coalescing to create Central
kitchens and Creator, spaces and Central showers and sound has
and laundry systems and clothing banks.
So that we can kind of help the most, the most needy to get off
the street and to have productive lives.
And be healthy if they have psychological or substance abuse
problems. And this is, this is very
satisfying. And I believe that that's part
of the succession because if they get healthy, they have a
lot of time. Maybe they can go to ecosystem
restoration camps and learn how to restore ecosystems.
And there have been huge fires wildfires throughout California,
which have massively devastated. The forests, and these forests
are so important in capturing the water, which comes off the
Ocean. So and it's the highest
expression of evolutionary succession that exists anywhere
on the earth that I've seen. And so, if we can restore these
things and we can use these people, it's kind of.
Well I want to, you know, it's biblical the last shall be first
and the meek will inherit the earth and so their lives can be
massively improved and their efforts and energy can go toward
something which is in the common.
And good for all life, which is good for them as well, and good
for life. And I would mention one more
thing about that, you mentioned Elinor Ostrom.
I would just mention John, Nash. Also got the Nobel Prize for his
understanding that if you pursue individual interest to the point
that it erodes the collective interests.
It's no longer in your interest. So if we all would process that
understanding we could easily Really get to the point where we
all join together in ecosystem, restoration camps, in a movement
where we're, it's not like we own it, it's all of ours, and
we're making a shared, we're defining a shared intention that
we have to do. And we're doing it from the
Grassroots, not from, from some sort of hierarchy that where
somebody wants to have power over everyone else.
But we are all equal. Okay.
Thank you, John. Links to all those things are in
the show notes. Thanks for the very brief
reference to Game Theory and John, Nash, another another
time. But we also like stuff like
that. Do I'm happy.
You went there. One very quick question.
John. I hope you are able to give a
short one because we're a bit over time here.
Sure. But one thing I notice in your
filmmaking in particular as it pertains to China and the Loess
Plateau is they clearly has the Stamp of humankind upon it with
the terracing does all of the work that you do does it tend to
be a human functional agricultural, kind of space or
do any of them, mimic a sort of pre-human or space that is
outside of human manipulation or do they tend to be functional
spaces like we saw in China? Well that's a very good
question. Thank you for that.
I think that regenerative agriculture is critical and my
personal. Willing is that food forests
which are a kind of biomimicry for natural systems are more
productive than mono crops and agriculture that we traditional
agriculture. Certainly that's true.
But also, what you might not have understood in China, was
that in the Loess Plateau, they had very bad Agriculture and
very bad animal husbandry and very bad forestry practices.
So they were just devastating to the Natural systems and one of
the first things that the Chinese scientists analyzed was
they said well we can't keep having these kinds of impacts so
we have to limit the impacts and in a kind of counterintuitive
outcome they massively reduced the area in cultivation and they
released land for All regeneration of evolutionary
succession 's, so, where you had a situation, which I've seen
also in Africa, and also in South America and other places
where you have, like 100 percent of the land is in agriculture in
the list plateau, in China that changed to being less than 50%.
And so maybe 30 or Or forty percent of the land is being
farmed and the rest is being turned into forests, and these
forests are the basis than of rivers that flow.
So you start to see perennial flows in the tributaries, to the
Yellow River from this. And that's also true in Africa,
you can see this in Africa where when you begin to restore the
forests, the rivers come back. You can bring back Springs, you
can bring back streams. And we need to understand that
this is what we need, not more stuff, and certainly not more
agriculture where we're pretending that this.
The food that we're growing is a commodity, and that the only
value it has is how much money does it bring?
And if you can't sell it, then you'd rather throw it away, then
feed somebody with it. Well, that means that you have
almost 50 percent waste In this type of system, it's ludicrous
and we don't need chemicals or these sorts of industrial
processes to throw half of it away.
What we need is more people working in agriculture in a more
holistic Manner and in a way, which is sustainable and
survivable, and it's also more fun.
So let's have more fun and less stress.
And less disparity between those who are wealthy and those who
are poor. Let's treat everyone with
respect and dignity and then you have a completely different
outcome. Then you have a place where
everyone's creativity and everyone's capability is used
for the good of all instead of where some people use their
creativity and ability. For selfish gain and ignore the
needs of others. So I think this is what I've
learned by looking at nature. And by looking at how people who
are at the front line of mitigation and adaptation to
climate change are working together with each other and
with all other species to come back.
The some sort of Harmony great. Thanks for sharing that with us.
John and thank you so much for being on the show.
Well, thank you for asking me. Where have you been all my life?
Yeah, it sounds like you're starting to get some more
attention. John, I'm happy to hear it.
And these projects are all very exciting.
If you're listening and you'd like to be involved where he
have Deep Pockets and you'd like to donate or if you have medium
sized pockets and you just want to be a part of it too.
It sounds like something that you're trying to encourage to
John. I think we need to have everyone
joined if the central intention of human civilization is to
restore the Earth. Then nothing can stop us.
If we remain in this area, where we are pretending that things
are more valuable than life itself.
Then I think we're at high risk of going extinct at this time,
and so we don't really need people.
Take out a huge amounts of money.
Although, it's nice. We do have some larger donors,
and so on. But what we really need is for
everyone to come together as partners, so you don't need to
join us. We all need to join together.
And we've created a camps movement, which each of the
camps are autonomous self organizing and self-governing.
But we have a network, which is Is supporting them with
knowledge supporting them with Communications, supporting them
like a mycelial network so that they can all if if there's a new
breakthrough or understanding in one place, it can go throughout
the the network and I think it would be lovely if you're if
your podcast and your company can join as a as a partner.
Why not? Everyone is welcome.
Alright well thank you again. John, thank you.
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