Program, Videos, Slides – Tufts 2015

Restoring Water Cycles

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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 afternoon there were ad hoc workshops presented by attendees and speakers, an activity that was very popular during our 2014 conference at Tufts.

We are telling the story of water.  

Today’s story is grim.

desertification-david_suzukiWithout water there is no life, and today the earth’s water cycles have been disrupted and damaged by human activity.  Billions of acres worldwide have already been turned to deserts by mismanagement, and more are on their way. Thirst and drought prevail, paradoxically   interspersed with devastating floods.   We face massive loss of food along with the loss of water, and the loss of life that inevitably follows.


And yet . . . therwater cascade - web DSCN1375e’s another story to tell,  one of abundance of water, food – and hope!

We know how to turn the water story around – and quickly – restoring drylands, dried wetlands and the biodiverse living abundance that water brings.  Even the driest state in the U.S., Nevada, is turning wet again with proper management that reintroduces and supports key species such as beaver. Simultaneously such eco-restoration can pull gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soils, to return greenhouse gases to pre-industrial levels, quite possibly in a matter of a couple of decades or less.

Our approaches are broadly applicable, inexpensive and low- or no-tech. We promote ways that nature has been developing for millions of years, ways that created once gloriously life-rich habitats across the globe.  If this all sounds too good to be true – well, the natural world is like that when we give it a chance!

Join us as we tell this new water story, covering the science, the land management practices and the activism that will make it all come to pass.  And check out Michal Kravcik’s Global Action Plan for the Restoration of Natural Water Cycles and Climate!

Friday evening
Welcome to a Water Story Untold

Introduction

6:00 Biodiversity for a Livable Climate Executive Director Adam Sacks welcomes attendees and sets the agenda for the weekend: conveying the power and potential of water cycles to transform the biosphere and the climate.

Video [15:10]

Water and Climate: An Overview

6:15  Journalist Judy Schwartz, author of the groundbreaking book, Cows Save the Planet, gives the perspective of a concerned citizen seeking to understand how water fits into the complex workings of climate change.

Video  [15:33]   Slides

Civilization and Water: Scarcity, Abundance, and the Road Less Traveled

6:35 Maude Barlow, longtime Canadian global activist for water rights, describes the current crisis of global communities whose access to clean water is threatened by ecological damage and corporate exploitation.

Video [18:55]

Maude then introduces Michal Kravcik, and explains how his vision of a New Water Paradigm adds the dimension of restoration to empower regions for water self-sufficiency.

The New Water Reality

6:55 Innovative Slovakian hydrologist Michal Kravčík gives an introduction to his New Water Paradigm and the critical importance of regional or “small” rainwater cycles. The result is a set of empowering ecological concepts that enable people everywhere to secure clean and adequate water, prevent floods and drought and moderate local climate, simply by harvesting rainfall. Since the 1990s he has demonstrated these concepts in his native Slovakia.

Video [23:30]  (closed captioning available – Click the “CC” icon at the bottom of the YouTube video screen to activate)

Slides

From Gray to Green Infrastructure

7:30 Hydrologist Scott Horsley discusses green infrastructure as the new tool of water harvesting in urban areas and other settled landscapes.

Video [20:46]      Slides 

Emulating Nature

7:50 Steve Apfelbaum tells us how restoring biodiverse landscapes can be the most effective way to manage stormwater, as demonstrated in projects such as Seneca Meadows in New York state.

Video [21:21]   Slides 

Closing the Nutrient Loop: Creating Abundant Clean Water

8:10 Jim Laurie talks about using natural biological processes to turn some of the most toxic and polluted effluent around – both sewage and industrial waste – into clean, clear water.

Video [21:42]   Slides

8:30 – Q&A

Saturday Morning
The Remarkable Science of Water in the Biosphere

9:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

9:00 The Bio4Climate team introduces itself and gives some logistical info, including how to initiate and sign up for the ad hoc workshops on Sunday afternoon.

Video [2:12]

The Natural History of Water on Earth

9:10 Australian soil and climate scientist Walter Jehne discusses how the five kingdoms of life have created water cycles, moving water through sea, soil and air, navigating tumultuous changes through geological ages to the present, and how the human presence has brought earth’s systems into a crisis in which water is also the potential vehicle for stabilization and renewal.

Video [22:55]

The New Water Paradigm

9:30 Michal Kravčík guides us through the concepts of the New Water Paradigm in greater detail, showing how water cycles can be supported to enhance local climates and biodiversity, and how this understanding can broaden and enhance our strategies for addressing climate change.

Video [20:38]  (closed captioning available – Click the “CC” icon at the bottom of the YouTube video screen to activate)   

Slides

9:50 Q&A for Walter Jehne & Michal Kravcik

Video [13:40]

10:10 break

Nature Wants to Be Wet

10:30  Restoration ecologist Jim Laurie illuminates the vital connections between water cycles and biodiversity, describing numerous keystone species – from microbes and worms to beavers, burrowing animals and ruminants – which increase water infiltration and retention in landscapes. By partnering with these species we can jumpstart the restoration of stable local water cycles.

Jim also introduces students from his Homeschool Advanced Placement Biology / Restoration Ecology course who perform a short play called “Symbiosis”, including sketches on “Making Holes to Improve the Small Water Cycle” and “Stopping Flash Floods and Cleaning Water.”  Jim  finishes with a brief description of a new initiative in state government: since 2009 the Mass. Division of Ecological Restoration has helped partners remove 40 dams and restore approximately 2,000 acres of coastal wetland.

Video [34:51]

New Climate Leaders

11:05 Emaline Conkey, Senior, Mascoma Valley Regional High School in NH and Brianna Klauer, Sophomore, Hartford High School in VT

These two student leaders are in the “Climate, Water, Soil and Hope” program developed by Didi Pershouse of the Soil Carbon Coalition.  Students, teachers, and community members participate in a hands-on exploration of the role of soil aggregates in water flows and filtration, as well as role of plants and soil microorganisms in the carbon cycle.  Emaline and Brianna  share their experiences in the program and their goals for further involvement in the soil restoration movement.

Video [19:05]

Telling the Water Story to the People

11:20 Foster Brown, Amazonian ecologist, gives an introduction to the interactive methods he uses to teach forest ecology in the Peruvian communities he works with.     

Video [12:12]      

11:45 Lunch

Saturday Afternoon
Where the Water Hits the Riverbed

12:30 Fiddlin’ Quinn and His Big Folks Band welcome us back.  Foot-stompin’ music not to be missed!

Miracle in the Nevada Desert – Carol Evans and Jon Griggs

1:00 The restoration of ground water in the driest landscape of North America, the Great Basin of Nevada, has been a dramatic success story. Beavers have begun returning to the American West, representing a powerful step in restoring the land and transforming water cycles.

Fisheries biologist Carol Evans has worked with ranchers in Nevada since the 1970s to support beaver habitat on grazing lands, with dramatic results replenishing groundwater levels and restoring surface brooks and ponds – even in areas with only 10 inches annual rainfall (by contrast, temperate Massachusetts receives 45 inches of rainfall a year).  Carol tells us about the changes she has seen on the land she manages when innovative land management practices are put into place.

Adding the perspective of a rancher, Jon Griggs of Maggie Creek Ranch tells us about the history, wildlife, and return of long lost biodiverse species.  If we can do it in Nevada, we can do it anywhere. California, listen up!

A Q&A for Jim Laurie, Carol Evans, and Jon Griggs is included at the end of the video.

Video [1:09:38]      Carol’s Slides      Jon’s Slides

Retain the Rain, No More Down the Drain!

2:05 Jan Lambert introduces, by way of photos and illustrations, the richly varied ways in which rainwater is now being successfully restored into landscapes. Holistic green pastures in America and green roofs in Scotland. Using beaver dams as models for water retention and jumpstarting new forests by curbing erosion. Huge strides are being made in forest, farm, desert, and city to renew the water cycle, reduce floods and drought and renew hope for nature and humanity.

Video [27:57]     Slides

River Regeneration in Rajasthan

2:25 We are honored to present Rajendra Singh, the “Waterman of India”,  winner of the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize. Rajendra tells us of the importance of water to personal and social identities and stability, and about some methods he used to restore stable water flows to the state of Rajasthan, India.  He has led a decades-long successful campaign to reclaim degraded and mine-scarred landscapes using the traditional water harvesting methods such as the johad earthen dam. Local people have mobilized around these methods to restore water abundance in the driest state of India.

Video [19:17] (closed captioning available – Click the “CC” icon at the bottom of the YouTube video screen to activate)

The Tijuca Story: Reforestation and the Biotic Pump

3:05 Tom Goreau tells of the successful reforestation centuries ago of the mountains surrounding Rio de Janeiro, and describes the workings of the “biotic pump” by which forest transpiration supports healthy precipitation across wide areas.

Video [22:55]     Slides

Community Grazing for Community Abundance

3:25 Precious Phiri of Zimbabwe discusses the managed grazing of ruminants from the perspective of how it opens soils for water – and raises water tables and brings back surface water for crops, domestic animals and wildlife, along with a surge of biodiversity and productivity for humans and many other species.

Video [18:44]      Slides 

Permaculture, Perma-Water

4:00 Glenn Gall will take us through the groundbreaking work done by many permaculture practitioners, and the central part which water plays in permaculture design.  Discussion will include methods such as keyline, subsoiling and grazing, where water has become the focus of land management.

Slides

4:20 Boston-area community gardener and permaculture teacher Allison Houghton will give an appreciation of the pyramid of species that support soil life and biodiversity, and the ways in which water retention can be supported for ecosystem health.

Slides

4:40 permaculture Q&A

Video of both speakers and Q&A [34:39]

5:00 Close

Sunday Morning
Merging Activism with Restoration

9:00: Policy panel: Building Water Cycles into the International Climate Debate

Walter Jehne, Tom Goreau and Jan Lambert with Michal Kravčík each speak on the opportunities for broadening the debate over climate before COP21 in Paris. How do we take it beyond the current global focus on carbon dioxide reduction to deploying methods for hydrological cooling that directly relieve climate extremes?

Walter Jehne describes his strategic vision for expanding the awareness of water cycles in global climate policy.  Jehne was trained as a microbiologist and over decades has worked in Australian business and government settings. He has led initiatives to recognize the climate value of the “in-soil reservoir”, the potential of carbon-rich soil to buffer climate extremes.

Jan Lambert speaks as co-author with Michal Kravcik of the Global Action Plan, included in her new book Water, Land and Climate – the Critical Connection.

Tom Goreau describes the policy landscape for advancing ecological restoration, both inside and outside those official organizations. Goreau has long and patient experience in consulting and advising small nations in UN climate bodies.

A Q&A for all three speakers is at the end of the video.

Video [56:51]

Maintaining Forest Cover and Biodiversity in Amazonia 

10:00 Foster Brown is a senior scientist for Woods Hole Research Institute, based in the State of Acre in the western Amazon. Brown illustrates the challenges of protecting Amazonia especially from fire, and of mobilizing local populations for ecological awareness.

Video includes Q&A session with Brown.

Video [43:10]      Slides 

11:00 Activist panel: Empowering water restoration

Moderated by Adam Sacks, our three panelists will speak of success in mobilizing people to work for water restoration in widely varied settings.

11:00 Maude Barlow  will speak on how water supply and water rights are at the heart of many conflict and crisis zones throughout the world. On the positive side, this means that the empowerment that comes from the New Water Paradigm can reach a massive web of people positioned to repair local environmental problems locally, as well as participate in healing the planet.

11:15 Rajendra Singh will give us the story of regeneration and hope from Rajasthan, and how the restoration of river watersheds has built community and livelihoods for its people.

11:30 Precious Phiri has been part of the Zimbabwean community grazing culture throughout her life. She has an inspiring vision of community strength and security coming from the collective village-based methods of holistic management.

Video for the panel includes Q&A session for all three panelists.

Video [54:20]

Sunday Afternoon
Our Collective Water Genius

Ad hoc workshops, 1:15 – 5:00 p.m.

The Ad Hoc Workshop feature was very popular in 2014; and we welcomed again the initiative of attendees and speakers alike to spend the afternoon in breakout workshops. Participants planned and posted their own workshop topics to our sign-up board during the weekend, and we had time for several workshops during three 1-hour sessions.

1:15 Workshop # 1

2:15 Break

2:30 Workshop # 2

3:30 Break

3:45 Workshop # 3

4:45 Closing Remarks – Workshop attendees can optionally present brief remarks to describe highlights and foster continued networking after the conference.

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Program, Videos, Slides – Tufts 2014 Restore Eco, Reverse GW

Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming
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You can watch the videos individually or by the day by clicking on that day’s playlist. Some slideshows are also available

vec-webVideos made possible by a generous donation from the Virgin Earth Challenge.

Playlists:    Friday     Saturday     Sunday

Friday Evening , November 21, 2014
An Overview of the New Climate Paradigm

Playlist:    Friday   

5:00   Registration, Snacks, Music

6:00   Purpose of Conference: Opening A World of Possibilities

Video

Antje Danielson, Tufts Institute of the Environment
Bill Moomaw, Center for International Environment and Resource Policy
Adam Sacks, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Meet the organizers and co-sponsors of the conference, with an overview of the weekend, what to expect and what we hope will happen next in the soil carbon and climate saga. This conference is just the first step on an urgent yet remarkable and rewarding journey. You are all a central part of this as-yet unwritten story.

Session 1: The Power of Biodiversity

6:20 Carbon Farming

Video

Ethan Roland, The Carbon Farming Course

Ethan Roland is an international expert on regenerative agriculture and permaculture design. He will introduce us to how carbon farming enhances productivity, increases profitability and combats climate change. Drawing from the best practices from holistic management, keyline design, agroforestry, living soils, biochar, permaculture design and restoration agriculture, carbon farming offers a whole toolkit for agricultural earth regeneration.

6:45 Nutrition and Health from the Ground Up

Video

Dan Kittredge, Bionutrient Food Association

Everything we eat depends on the health of the soil. When essential minerals are missing from the soil, they’re missing from the plants and animals that feed us.   Our health suffers and disease can run rampant, common consequences of industrial agricultural practices. Dan Kittredge, lifelong farmer and nutrition expert, explains how it works and how we can bring new life to our soils, to biodiversity on planet earth, and to ourselves.

7:05             Q&A

Video

Audience members are encouraged to participate with questions or statements.  There is a time limit at the microphone of two minutes.

7:20             Break                                                                               

7:35             Panel: Success Stories          

Video
Slides – Tom Goreau
Slides – Judith Schwartz

Tom Goreau, Global Coral Reef Alliance
Seth Itzkan, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, Planet-TECH Associates
Judith Schwartz, Author of Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth (Chelsea Green)

There are eco-restoration successes all over the world, in many different ecosystems.  Here are some examples from three of our speakers who have seen it first-hand.

8:05              Messages from the Second Front: Bringing the Power of Biology
                      into the Climate Conversation  

Video

Larry Kopald, Co-Founder and President of The Carbon Underground      

Advertising professional and environmentalist Larry Kopald views the nature of the paradigm shift that global warming forces us to face.  He will review the issues that give us the best leverage moving forward, and will address the human social phenomenon of marketplaces.  Stripped to its basics, a marketplace is people having relationships with other people.  How can we optimize our use of the marketplace for messages about climate and soils, and move to action on reversing the course of climate.

8:25               We Are the Future: The Change Climate-Change Generation 

Gabrielle Bastien, Social Media Director,  Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Video
Slides 

Gabrielle Bastien, a master’s student in sustainability, has some words for the young people of today, what their challenges are, the new/old promises of genuine stewardship of Planet Earth – and how to fulfill them.

8:35             Q&A

8:50             Music      

Video                    

Jerry Gregoire

Guitarist-songwriter Jerry Gregoire offers a couple of songs to send us home raring to go in the morning!

Saturday Morning, November 22, 2014
How It All Works 

Playlist:    Saturday     

Session 2: Soil Carbon and Climate

9:00               Introduction

Video
Slides

Seth Itzkan, Biodiversity for a LIvable Climate, Planet-TECH Associates

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 is also the Advisory Board Chair of Biodiveristy for a Livable Climate.

9:10               The Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming:
                       How Soil Carbon Sequestration Works  

Video
Slides

Tom Goreau, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Biogeochemist, restoration ecologist, climate scientist, and reef restoration expert Tom Goreau is passionate about soils as the primary way to address global warming at this late date, given that reducing emissions alone cannot prevent dangerous climate change unless natural carbon sinks are significantly increased.   He’ll explain the basics of soil carbon and how healthy water cycles can cool the earth.

 9:30               The Once and Future Global Cooling: Lessons from Prehistory 

Video
Slides

Greg Retallack, University of Oregon

Greg Retallack is an award-winning paleobotanist whose research group is dedicated to soils in the fossil record.  His studies have considered the role of soils in ape and human evolution in Kenya, grassland evolution in North America, and several others. He recently published “Global Cooling by Grassland Soils of the Geological Past and Near Future“ in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

9:50               Grazing Down the Carbon: The Scientific Case for Grassland Restoration  

Video
Slides 

Richard Teague, Professor of Sustainable Rangeland Management at Texas A&M.

Richard Teague addresses how land managers can base decisions for sustainable land use on the principles of ecosystem function. He will describe his studies of adaptive rangeland management, land restoration and carbon storage.

10:10             Q&A/Panel

Video

10:30             Break

Session 3:  Biodiversity IS Eco-Restoration IS a Livable Climate

10:45             Introduction

Video

Sue Harden, Restoration Activist and Environmental Educator, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Sue Harden comes to the climate/soils paradigm from a lifelong fascination with biodiversity. As an environmental educator, she spread what Rachel Carson has called “the sense of awe.” As an activist, she works toward solutions to the climate crisis.

10:55             Water Follows Carbon Follows Water              

Video
Slides – Judith Schwartz
Slides – Thomas Goreau               

Judith Schwartz, Author of Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth (Chelsea Green)
Tom Goreau, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Judith Schwartz will tell stories from around the world about the transformations resulting from different approaches to water management, and the effects on local climate.  With the ongoing drought in California, people are waking up to concerns about water sources – but while there’s discussion over the effects that climate change can have on water, we’re not looking at the flip side: how restoring the water cycle can have a moderating effect on climate. Schwartz offers examples from the field, while Tom Goreau will comment from a scientist’s perspective.

11:15             Forests: A Pivotal Player

Video
Slides

Mark Leighton, Senior Advisor, Sustainability and Environmental Management Program, Harvard Extension School.

The earth’s forests have been decimated by human overuse and development, leading to cascading effects of biodiversity loss, soil erosion and massive emissions of carbon into the atmosphere.  Mark Leighton joined the Harvard faculty in 1983 and has studied topics in rainforest community ecology, vertebrate behavioral ecology, sustainable forestry and land use, and conservation biology. He will give us an overview of how forests function, and their role in addressing global warming.

11:35             Wetlands: Sinking Carbon and Keeping It Out of the Atmosphere 

Video
Slides

Steven Apfelbaum, Founder, Applied Ecological Services

Wetlands are powerful carbon sinks because organic matter under water, with minimal exposure to oxygen, doesn’t release most of its stored carbon to the atmosphere.  But wetlands have been broadly eliminated as a result of global development.  Steve Apfelbaum is an eco-restoration expert and has been at the forefront of ecological remediation for almost forty years.  He’ll explain the importance of wetlands in the climate equation, and how to return them to healthy abundance.

 11:55             BioBamboo: An Example of Eco-Restoration                       

Video
Slides

Charlotte O’Brien, Founder, Carbon Drawdown Solutions

Bamboo is a key species that serves ecosystems and humans in many different ways.  Charlotte O’Brien is an environmentalist and entrepreneur who has extensive experience with bamboo in Asia.  She makes a case for eco-restoration using triple-bottom-line accounting, encompassing social, environmental and financial outcomes. The BioBamboo project demonstrates purpose-grown bamboo with biochar production for climate change reversal, as well as poverty abatement by creation of new local economies. She will give us a tour of restoration and economic opportunities made possible by this remarkable plant.

12:15             Nature Does 90% of the Work  

Video
Slides

Jim Laurie, Restoration Ecologist, Special Advisor to Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Bringing degraded lands back to life may be easier and faster than we generally think.  Mostly it has to do with us humans helping by restoring keystone species that we previously destroyed. We already know how to do this: using low- or no-tech approaches, restoration ecologist Jim Laurie has seen rapid and dramatic restoration unfold more times than he can count – and he’s amazed every single time.  He’s happy to share his insights and inspirations with us.

12:35             Q&A/Panel

1:00               Lunch

Saturday Afternoon, November 22, 2014
Digging In

Session 4: Food and Farming

2:30               Introduction

Video
Slides

Diana Donlon, Director of the Cool Foods Campaign at the Center for Food Safety.

Diana Donlon works to help the public to make the critical connection between everyday food choices and climate change.  Cool Foods emphasizes the key steps of retiring industrial agriculture and turning to practices which pull carbon and water back into the soils, thereby bringing economic vitaility and human health to communities worldwide.

2:40               Local Food Revolution                

Video

John Carroll, Professor of Environmental Conservation, University of New Hampshire

There are many possibilities for food production and agriculture in New England, leading toward the promise of regional food self-sufficiency.  What might we do to get there?  John Carroll will introduce us to the lay of the land.

3:00               A New Program to Restore Northeast Grasslands: 100% Grass-Fed Beef 

Video
Slides

Ridge Shinn, Rancher, Market Innovator and Health Advocate

Widespread restoration of grasslands depends on economics. Historically beef production has been focused in the Corn Belt and western states. Now Ridge Shinn, a practitioner with experience in all aspects of holistic grazing and marketing, is building the supply of 100% grass-fed beef in the Northeast, involving farms and farmers all over New England and New York. His program offers multiple benefits to the region: revitalized rural economies; healthy soil; local, safe, nutrient-dense food; and carbon sequestration. This model could herald the demise of the corn-based feedlot system.

3:20               Field Trials in Costa Rica and Pennsylvania           

Video
Slides

Tom Newmark, Co-Founder and Chair, The Carbon Underground

Tom Newmark is the founder of Sacred Seeds and Co-Owner of Finca Luna Nueva, an organic farming operation in Costa Rica. He collaborates with the Rodale Institute on carbon sequestration studies, and he will report on the results of ongoing trials of the effects of organic farming methods on soil carbon in both temperate and tropical climates.  Tom is also the former owner of the New Chapter Natural Vitamin company.

3:40               Q&A

Video

3:55               Break

Session 5:  Soil Fertility

4:10               Soil Ecosystem Health: From Fungi & Nematodes to Beetles & Earthworms 

Video
Slides

Jim Laurie, Restoration Ecologist, Special Advisor to Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Mycorrhizal fungi are critical conduits moving photosynthetic energy to underground microbial communities.  In return these microbes find minerals and water for their plant benefactors.  In addtion, nematodes are essential nitrogen pumps in the soil, while dung beetles and earthworms can lock up tons of soil carbon, year after year.  Jim Laurie will illustrate and explain.

4:30               Biochar: A Powerful Tool for Carbon Farming  

Video
Slides – Hugh McLaughlin

Charlotte O’Brien, Founder, Carbon Drawdown Solutions
Hugh McLaughlin, Chemical Engineer, Activated Carbon Expert

Charlotte O’Brien’s company, Carbon DrawDown Solutions, is developing turn-key systems for small- to large-scale biochar production from local materials.  CDS plans to kickstart a broad-scale effort for the exponential drawdown of carbon using biochar and sustainable farming techniques. She joins Hugh McLaughlin, an engineer and expert in biochar and activated carbon. They will discuss the many applications of biochar for environmental improvement and its role in reversing global warming.

4:50               Rock Powders: Nourishing Soils, Biodiversity and People   

Video
Slides

Veronika Miranda Chase, Research Associate, Remineralize the Earth

Soil remineralization is playing a crucial and vital role in improving soil fertility. Remineralize the Earth is a nonprofit that promotes the regeneration of soils and forests with finely ground gravel dust, an economically and ecologically sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  Veronika Miranda Chase will provide us with an overview of the role of rock powders in a comprehensive eco-restoration and climate plan.

5:10               Soil + Silicon: Open Source Tools for Cover Cropping, Grazing and Organic No-Till

Video
Slides

Dorn Cox, Organic Farmer and Appropriate-Tech Technologist

Dorn Cox is a founding member and board president of Farm Hack, an open source community for resilient agriculture. He is also the executive director of GreenStart and manages his family’s 250-acre organic farm in Lee, NH where he has built and documented low and high tech open source systems for environmental monitoring, small-scale grain and oil seeds processing and biofuel production, and no-till and low-till equipment and cover crop methods to reduce energy use and increase soil health.

5:30               Close

Sunday Morning, November 23, 2014
Hitting the Ground Running

Playlist:    Sunday

Session 6: Making It Happen – Activism, Practice and Policy

9:00               Introduction

Video
Slides

Karl  Thidemann, Director of Outreach, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Trained as a chemist, for ten years Karl Thidemann was the Marketing Director for Solectria, an MIT spinoff that became one of the leading early developers of electric cars in the 1990s. He is closely aligned with the climate community, with many personal connections in New England clean tech, climate mitigation, and organic farming communities.

9:10               Climate Advocacy: From Grassroots Activism to International Policy  

Video
Slides

William Moomaw, Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy.

A physical chemist with a PhD from MIT, William Moomaw works to translate science and technology into policy terms. He was a lead author of four IPCC reports, and an author for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  He will give us his vision of how we can translate the pressing needs of the new climate paradigm we are proposing – the essential role of the biosphere – into implementation at the policy level, from local to global.

9:30               Community Development in Zimbabwe via Eco-restoration  

Video
Slides

Precious Phiri, Senior Facilitator at the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe

Precious Phiri directs engagement and training for villages in the Hwange Communal Lands region that are implementing restorative grazing programs using Holistic Land and Livestock Management. This cost-effective, nature-based and highly scalable solution helps rural communities in Africa to reduce poverty, rebuild soils, restore food and water security, and reduce drought and flood risks. Precious was born and raised in one of these communities now implementing restorative grazing.

9:55               Protecting and Restoring Water Resources on Tribal Lands in South Dakota           

Video

Candace Ducheneaux, Hohwoju Lakota Elder and Activist from the Cheyenne River homelands

Grandmother and long-time activist Candace Duchenaux is dedicated to preserving the Lakota way of life and the environmental integrity of our sacred mother earth. She has been at the frontlines in many battles for justice for the Lakota Oyate and against the destructive human forces threatening humanity and nature.  She will tell us of the efforts of Mni, the grassroots water justice organization that she founded, to restore healthy water cycles to Cheyenne River and to all indigenous people worldwide.

10:20             Break

10:35             Messages from the Second Front: Bringing the Power of Biology
                      into the Climate Conversation                         

Video

Larry Kopald, Moderator
Vanessa Rule, Co-Director and Lead Organizer for Mothers Out Front, as well as with
other local and state climate action groups
Gary Rucinski, Director of Committee for a Green Economy and Northeast Coordinator of the
Citizens Climate Lobby
Antje Danielson, Director, Tufts Institute of the Environment, co-founder of Zipcar
Eli Gerzon, MA State Divestment Organizer for the Better Future Project

A window into climate activists’ personal and interpersonal journeys toward understanding, embracing, and implementing biological approaches to addressing the climate crisis.  A discussion of obstacles and opportunities from people on the ground.

11:10             Q&A/Panel

11:30             Building the Movement We Need                                        

Video

Ronnie Cummins, Founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA)

Ronnie Cummins leads the non-profit, U.S.-based network of 850,000 consumers, dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and sustainable system of agriculture and commerce.  He has been active as a writer and activist since the 1960s, with extensive experience in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, labor, consumer, environmental, and sustainable agriculture campaigns. His topic is Climate and Regenerative Organic Agriculture: How to Build a Mass Movement.

12:00             Lunch

Sunday  Afternoon, November 23, 2014

Session 7:  Pulling It All Together

1:30               Preparing for Action: Workshops, Small Group Discussions and Networking
4:00               Closing Plenary and Reports from Small Groups: Next Steps

Video
Slides – List of Workshops
Slides – Hugh McLaughlin Biochar Workshop

Adam Sacks, Executive Director, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate.

Adam Sacks has had careers in education, holistic medicine, computer technology, politics and advocacy.  He has been a climate activist for the past fifteen years and has been studying and writing about Holistic Management since 2007.   On the side he is an artist, writer and student of classical piano.  His primary goal is regeneration of biodiversity and a livable planet.

5:00              Farewell for Now!

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