What plant can also be used as a soap, but without a certain insect, simply could not cope? 

What’s usually purple, but sometimes pink, and in the summer you might want it in a drink?

Healing Our Land & Our Climate! July 9 – September 24, 2024 Tuesdays: 12 noon -or- 7 pm ET What if we could deal with the causes of climate change and at the same time deal with its effects? What if we could prevent flooding, drought and wildfires and at the same time cool our…

What creature has a venomous bite and is uniquely adapted to survive harsh desert terrain? The Gila monster!

Most of what you hear climate activists talk about when it comes to beef or cows is methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas and cows emit methane as part of their digestion process. What you don't hear is that this is primarily a problem of the commercial cattle industry and that nature has an ingenious way of balancing this methane production. Learn about this natural system and how cattle can be managed as part of eco-restoration and climate mitigation.

A New Climate Story Nov 13 – Dec 18, 2023 Register “If you want to make small changes, you can change the way you DO things.If you want to make MAJOR changes, you have to change the way you SEE things.” Gabe Brown-attributed to Don Campbell Course Format This online course will consist of 6…

What is the heaviest, oldest and one of the largest creatures on the planet?

Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels A series of virtual and in-person community events in 6 locations in the U.S. and Canada Fourth Event: CLEVELAND • on Zoom Saturday, March 25, 2023 1:00 – 4:30 pm EST  •  on Zoom Agenda Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is partnering with the Post Carbon Institute and…

Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels A series of virtual and in-person community events in 6 locations in the U.S. and Canada Third Event: LOS ANGELES • on Zoom Saturday, January 21, 2023 1:00 – 4:30 pm PST  •  on Zoom Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is partnering with the Post Carbon Institute and…

Heat Planet: Restore Ecosystems – Restore Climate May 4 – June 8, 2022 Register “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller Course Format This online course will consist of 6 classes and be held live on Zoom. Classes…

Many large herbivores may have important roles in dryland ecosystems. Equids such as donkeys and horses, as well as elephants, have been reported to dig wells of a maximum depth of two meters, enhancing water availability for a variety of animals and plants. Noting that this subject has received limited research attention, the authors carried…

Animals contribute vitally to Earth’s water, carbon, and nutrient cycles. Every ecosystem is supported by uncountable animal species, ranging from birds to insects and mammals to fish, as well as microscopic organisms. The devastating news is that the Earth is losing about 150 animal, plant and microbial species every day, mostly due to human activities.[8] Understanding…

Can large herbivores enhance ecosystem carbon persistence? Kristensen et al. 2021 This article considers the overlooked role of grasslands and large herbivores in carbon storage. The principal question the authors pose is: what is the impact of large wild and domestic herbivores on the ability of ecosystems to absorb and store carbon over the long…

Restoring Water Cycles – Speakers – Home   Program    Sponsors/Partners Home   Program   Sponsors/Partners

Listening to the Voices of Nature– Speakers – November 17-18, 2018 Conference Home    Speakers    Program    Sponsors and Partners Conference Home    Speakers    Program    Sponsors and Partners

Jon Griggs is the ranch manager for Maggie Creek Ranch in Elko, Nevada. Maggie Creek is a beef-cattle operation running on both public and private lands in the high desert of Northeastern Nevada. Public lands in the west and the endangered species that inhabit them are hot button topics, but Jon and the folks at Maggie Creek…

Charles C. Chester loves bats! He teaches global environmental politics at Brandeis University and at the Fletcher School of Tufts University. He serves on the board of Bat Conservation International and is Chair of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Council. He is currently building the website, GEP-guide.net, an online guide to global environmental politics. He co-edited the volume Conservation &…

The UN’s Decade of Ecosystem Restoration declaration aims to “prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide,” stating that “there has never been a more urgent need to restore damaged ecosystems than now” [UNEP/FAO Factsheet 2020]. Estimates of global land degradation range from 25% to 75% of Earth’s land surface. The uncertainty is due…

By Christopher A. Haines, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate Christopher Haines is a seasoned architect licensed in both MA and NY who applies expertise in regenerative architectural design, healthy materials, preservation, renovation and specification writing to small commercial and urban projects. He has spoken for years at US and international forums as well as formally…

When Australian authorities removed indigenous Martu people from their traditional lands in the desertic center of the continent in the mid-1900s, endemic species there declined or went extinct. Researchers observed that the Martu’s hunting regime of small burning patches of land reduced the size of wildfires while also boosting populations of native species such as…

Indigenous hunters have positive impacts on food webs in desert Australia, Penn State 2019 When Australian authorities removed indigenous Martu people from their traditional lands in the desertic center of the continent in the mid-1900s, endemic species there declined or went extinct. Researchers observed that the Martu’s hunting regime of small burning patches of land…

The Gaia hypothesis invites us to imagine Earth as an integral living system in order to explore the mechanisms by which life helps create and maintain the conditions for life, such as an oxygenated atmosphere. “The Gaia theory proposes that organisms contribute to self-regulating feedback mechanisms that have kept the Earth’s surface environment stable and…

Understanding what makes forests thrive is important in light of mounting calls for reforestation and forest conservation as antidotes both to species loss and climate breakdown. Moreover, distinguishing between natural forest regeneration and timber plantations is critical to achieving intended goals. Intact forests, and especially tropical forests, sequester twice as much carbon as planted monocultures.…

While previous issues of the Compendium have addressed ecosystem strategies to reverse global warming, here we discuss ecosystem restoration to adapt to the consequences of climate change. From drought in Cape Town and wildfire in California and Greece to flooding in Beijing, Paris, Houston and North Carolina, each new report of catastrophe makes climate change…

We know how to enhance resilience to extreme weather where we live and work. Communities throughout the world are utilizing these approaches, and here we highlight several initiatives in a variety of habitats to illustrate potential paths forward. More information is included just below each project description. Following this section is a collection of summaries…

Managing rainwater within a landscape so that neither heavy storms nor long dry spells devastate human endeavors and constructions is referred by Yu Kongjian as the “art of survival” [Yu 2012]. This Chinese landscape architect with an ecological mindset learned the art of survival by studying the ways of ancient peasant farmers. He contrasts the wisdom…

China’s Loess Plateau, roughly the size of France, lies between Tibet and Beijing just south of Mongolia, and is traversed by the Yellow River. Once covered in forest and grassland and the center of Chinese power and wealth, this area eventually became severely degraded by agriculture and unmanaged grazing. The fragile loess soils, composed of…

Given competing interests for floodplain property, some have argued for strategic partial reconnection of floodplains to the river by allowing portions of floodplain to flood, so that pressure elsewhere along the river during a flood may be alleviated [Opperman 2009]. For example, California’s Yolo Bypass was created in the early 1900s after the Sacramento River…

This climate model simulation illustrates how the biosphere affects the climate system. With “maximum vegetation,” more water is absorbed in the ground, allowing for evaporation to cool the land surface while also recycling more rain. This simulation resulted in an average temperature reduction over land of 1.2C. The authors describe their approach: We quantify the maximum…

Evapotranspiration – A Driving Force in Landscape Sustainability, Eiseltová 2012 Vegetation cover cools Earth when it intercepts the sun’s energy. This is not just by providing shade, but also through evapotranspiration, which is how plants regulate their own internal temperatures. For a plant … transpiration[5] is a necessity by which a plant maintains its inner environment…

Water and vegetation are climate heroes, co-starring in a story about as old as terrestrial life on Earth yet under-recognized in mainstream climate politics. Not only does the vegetation embedded in ecosystems act as a giant CO2-absorption machine, constantly removing the greenhouse gas from the air and storing much of it in soil and biomass,…

Vegetation cover cools Earth when it intercepts the sun’s energy. This is not just by providing shade, but also through evapotranspiration, which is how plants regulate their own internal temperatures. For a plant … transpiration[5] is a necessity by which a plant maintains its inner environment within the limit of optimal temperatures. And at the level…

​The authors examine ecological and geophysical principles to explain how land far inland away from the ocean can remain moist, given that gravity continuously pulls surface and groundwater into the ocean over time. All freshwater on land originates in the ocean from which it has evaporated, is carried on air flux, and precipitates over the…

Agrochemical companies argue that crops can’t be grown without their products. And in a sense, they are right, as long as we accept as inevitable a dysfunctional soil food web [LSP 2018: 16]. The importance of synthetic fertilizer for global crop production and the environmental consequences of its excessive use is often presented as a…

In this second issue of the Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming by Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (“Bio4Climate”), we focus on the pivotal roles of biodiversity and regenerative agriculture in stabilizing ecosystems and the climate. We review a selection of a large and growing trove of research demonstrating…

This is one of the most comprehensive mainstream studies to date of a broad spectrum of natural climate solutions by thirty-two co-authors and supported by The Nature Conservancy. The report examines “20 conservation, restoration, and/or improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural…

Agricultural production must produce enough food for almost 10 billion people by 2050 [FAO 2017],[10] and yet a third of all land is degraded [FAO 2015] and nearly all agricultural land has lost significant amounts of SOC (Soil Organic Carbon). So we have a puzzle to solve: how to produce more from less, and in the face…

Natural climate solutions, Griscom 2017 This is one of the most comprehensive mainstream studies to date of a broad spectrum of natural climate solutions by thirty-two co-authors and supported by The Nature Conservancy. The report examines “20 conservation, restoration, and/or improved land management actions that increase carbon storage and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions across global…

Soils This compendium is, if nothing else, a testament to the key role soils must play if we are to preserve life on earth through the anthropocene. Soils, the engine of every terrestrial ecosystem, are themselves wildly diverse subterranean ecosystems providing habitat to countless trillions of micro- and macro-organisms. These organisms themselves create the soil…

Cultivated land covers 1.6 billion hectares globally [FAO 2011]. About 62% of cropland produces food directly for human consumption, while 35% is dedicated to producing animal feed, and 3% to biofuel feedstock, seed and other industrial products [Foley 2011: 338]. Agriculture is a major source of emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous…

Grasslands have been estimated to cover approximately 40% of global land surface area, approximately 5.25 bn ha (~13 bn ac ), except for Greenland and Antarctica [Suttie 2005; White 2000:12].  Their deep soils are rich repositories of nutrients, especially carbon and water.  Many grasslands are anthropogenic, i.e., resulting from various land management techniques to maintain…

Note: As mentioned in the Release notes, we have a small staff, and therefore have had to postpone some important material for the next release, scheduled for January 2018.  This is particularly true of forests and we will include a more thorough examination of their importance in addressing climate moving forward.  Nonetheless, we felt that the…

Jan’s Quick Take: This is a large and lavishly illustrated volume detailing the Slovakian “Landscape Revitalisation and Integrated River Basin Management Programme.”  The book is presented in Slovakian and English languages (in side-by-side panels).  This work is a unique reflection and photo-documentary, of sorts, of the insights and results from the Slovakian Program, while simultaneously…

Restoring Oceans, Restoring Climate– Program – Conference Home    Speakers   Program Program times are Friday, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday,  9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. 6:00 – Our Oceans, Our SelvesAdam Sacks, Biodiversity for a Livable ClimateVideoThe earth is a system and humans are currently a keystone species…

Carol Evans, Nevada Bureau of Land Management fisheries biologist whose work has been featured in the film The Beaver Whisperers, highlighting her deep involvement in monitoring the impact that planned grazing and returning beaver have had on restoring watersheds. Jon Griggs, ranch manager for Maggie Creek Ranch, a beef-cattle operation running on both public and…

Learn more about Biodiversity for a Livable Climate: https://bio4climate.org/ Please donate to our ecosystem restoration work: https://bio4climate.org/donate/ Jan Lambert introduces, by way of photos and illustrations, the richly varied ways in which rainwater is now being successfully restored into landscapes. From holistic green pastures in America to green roofs in Scotland, from using beaver dams…

Restoring Water Cycles – Program – Home     Speakers     Sponsors/Partners   Scroll down to view videos and slideshows! Our program addressed science, land management practices and activism.   There was ample time for Q&A, and attendees and speakers were encouraged to attend the entire conference in order to be available for thought-provoking dialogue and creative networking. On Sunday…

Resources Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and the EcoRestoration Alliance bring forth a dual-document appeal and action blueprint that unveils a groundbreaking perspective and tangible actions for ecosystem restoration as a viable solution to stabilize our climate. A United Call to Cool the Planet! Dive into scientific insights, explore a hopeful pathway, and join a…

Restoring Water Cycles toReverse Global Warming Conference Home   Program   Speakers    Sponsors/Partners Click here for videos and slideshows! Watch interviews with Michal Kravcik, Jon Griggs,Precious Phiri and Adam Sacks on Emerald Planet TV . . . . . . and one with Jim Laurie too! Even with elevated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,water can cool the biosphere and…

Learn more about Biodiversity for a Livable Climate: https://bio4climate.org/ Please donate to our ecosystem restoration work: https://bio4climate.org/donate/ Seth Itzkan is a futurist and advocate for climate action and eco-restoration through the holistic management of grasslands restoration. He has spent months in Africa observing Holistic Management and its extraordinary positive effects on desertified semi-arid grasslands. He…

Solutions – What You Can Do In your Home or Business: Restoring ecosystems stores carbon and reverses climate change. There are a number of approaches applicable to different ecosystems, and all of these methods can show remarkable results. Each of us has only limited time and resources to play our part, but we can also…