To stop the wild fires emerging from hot conditions and dry fuel is to reforest the desert. The way to start this process is to plant salt bush all over the desert with pockets of permaculture forests. This will attract precipitation, enrich the soils and create shade. Furthermore, it will release more oxygen into the atmosphere, sequester CO2 into trees, revive river systems.
Many may not know that the inner interior of Australia was tropical forest approximately 12,000 years ago. I actually saw the water fans carved into rocks at Kings Canyon (Northern Territory). I saw the Garden of Eden (yes it is called that) which was tropical remnants of ancient forests, really beautiful.
I watch the double decker house go up nextdoor as the old house is demolished to make way for a units based development. I watch as the builders erect lots of wood beams, I think of climate, I think of deforestation to make the timber for construction. I question the design methods, I question the loss of land (once large backyards for children), I contemplate the greed that has to put two housing units on the one land and I see our disconnect from nature.
Until the builder sees his connection to nature, he continues to build only focused on the fool’s gold that is never real. As I discussed in my last video on Tony Abbott the real gold is top soil for growing food. Yet we will be facing famine as the profit motive makes foods that have minor health or nutritional value, produced with preservatives, chemicals and flavourings – again disconnecting from natural foods, natural seasons and natural health. We are so far removed from nature it is no wonder wild fires are out of control along the eastern seaboard of Australia.
The Israeli’s had the right idea when they created Kibbutz communities and greened the desert. I recall in Egypt on the train from Alexandra to Cairo noting the agricultural strips of food crops. In fact, after I juggled on a platform in Alexandra one of the Egyptians who admired my juggling joined me on the train back to Cairo. He happened to be an agricultural engineer. We discussed the greening of the desert.
Here is some information on this subject.
Desert Greening
Permaculture is the key process. It is about permanent culture. Bill Mollison the CSIRO scientist who spent a long time sitting in the forest observing. He was the one who created permaculture which was exported to countries like India. It creates companion planting, chicken factories, herb spirals and low maintenance food forests.
The geening (Green Revolution) cannot be biotech or agricultural monocultures, they are not selected for natural selection by nature. We must learn to plant in harmony with natural systems or we are simply replacing business as usual with fossil fuels with business as usual with chemicals, same processes same outcome. Wild fires, drought, flooding, high winds, unstable weather, impact on the gulf stream, melting ice caps and increased knock on tipping points. We all get to choose.
This is just one example of how permaculture can transform the environment, and, in so doing, dramatically change lives. By evidencing the dramatic transformation possible in the world’s worst agricultural scenarios, we hope to make people stand up and listen.
Greening the Desert – the original. Duration: 5 minutes
Also watch Greening the Desert II: Greening the Middle East
Big Agribusiness would convince us that continuing with fossil fuel dependent monocrop systems and genetically modified crops is the way of the future, but with fuel, transport and fertiliser costs skyrocketing, and growing evidence that genetic tinkering is causing far more harm than good, we, instead, advocate tried and tested methods of working with nature for the benefit of man.
Update: Watch Greening the Desert II: Greening the Middle East, where you’ll learn about the current state of the original Greening the Desert site, and learn more about the work in Jordan and the new PRI project site there.