January - February 2021 Newsletter

Inevitably, I would fail these expectations and grow frustrated that however long a new good habit might have lasted, it was impossible to be my best self all the time. People are not machines, nor should we aspire to be. And although I’ve struggled with this as a perfectionist, I’m realizing that it’s not so bad for us to be imperfect creatures. In flawed moments, I need compassion and empathy, and experiencing it grows my capacity to offer compassion and empathy to others in return.

The saying goes that “to err is human, to forgive is divine”. But perhaps that very divinity is built into the human condition as much as our stumbles. Because really, in order to live with our own errors, to reckon with them and remediate them, we must forgive ourselves, or at least accept. 

This principle informs how I see ecosystem restoration. For all of the incredibly hopeful promise it holds for the health of the planet and people, we cannot deny that there is deep damage. At 24 years old, I’m growing to understand that there is no going back to the Earth that existed when my parents were growing up, or when humans first started practicing agriculture. But in going forward and meeting the consequences we face, I can make a future worth having. 

This year, my resolutions are a bit gentler, and they are grounded in the gratitude I feel for what I have. I am determined to step outside each day, to speak to my grandmother on a weekly basis, and to focus on being present. I will accept what is, in order to move more quickly to what could be. Onwards and upwards!

With bright and warm wishes,

Events: 

• Mike Hands and Rattan Lal on Inga Alley Cropping - Monday, February 22, at 11:30 a.m. ET

In this issue:

• Announcing the eighth issue of our Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming
• Merging with Voices of Water for Climate
• Featured Talk: Counting Down to Restoring Earth: How Do We Get There? - Ecosystem Restoration Camps

• Reminder: the third installment of staff scientist Jim Laurie's class, Biodiversity 3: Mastering the Water Cycle, begins February 3, 2021

• Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming talk now available
• Call Story: Hannah Lewis
• Featured Article: Civil Eats, "Grassland 2.0 Aims to Replace Soy and Corn Farming with Perennial Pasture in the Upper Midwest"
• Compendium Notes: Fence ecology: frameworks for understanding the ecological effects of fences, McInturff et al. 2020

Volume 4, No. 2 of the Compendium: Out Now

We are pleased to present the eighth issue of our Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming, released this past week. In this issue we explore wildfires and their causes, as well as technical and policy approaches to wildfire management.  We also investigate the importance of ecological corridors and connected landscapes in conservation efforts to support biodiversity and offer some examples of such ecological networks from around the world. Download, read and share this issue here!

Save the Date: February 22, 2021, 11:30 a.m. ET

An Amazing Agroforestry Story: the Inga Model in Central America with Mike Hands and Rattan Lal

We are excited to announce the next event in our Life Saves the Planet lecture series with GBH Forum Network. Mike Hands and Rattan Lal will be joining us to discuss Inga Alley Cropping, an agroecology technique that works as an alternative to slash-and-burn, providing biological weed control and natural nitrogen-fixing that maintains soil health over planting seasons.

Mike Hands is a lifelong naturalist and tropical ecologist specializing in the ecology of Tropical Rain Forest, and especially in the ecology of slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture. He began the studies that have led to the present Land for Life Program in the mid 1980's. He spent 14 years as a Senior Research Associate in the University of Cambridge, working almost entirely in Central America, and he has directed a series of four research projects in Costa Rica and Honduras. He serves as Secretary and Founder-Trustee of the Inga Foundation, which has been established to continue and expand this pioneering work in the world's rain forests. The Inga Alley Cropping method has proved resilient even through hurricanes and droughts, and Hands' work has enabled farmers to maintain reliable harvests and experience food security while regenerating the soil. In 2020 the World Economic Forum selected the Inga Model as one of the three most promising projects for restoring forests.

Rattan Lal is a renowned professor of soil science at Ohio State University, where he is the Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center. He has focused on regenerative agriculture and its potential to alleviate climate change, food insecurity, and problems with water quality. He has been awarded many prizes for his work, including the 2019 Japan Prize for "sustainable soil management for global food security and mitigation of climate change," and the 2020 World Food Prize. 

Registration will be available soon.

A Timely Merger

Voices of Water for Climate, an organization that formed after Bio4Climate’s 2015 Restoring Water Cycles conference, is becoming an official part of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate. Jan Lambert, director of VoW, was already working with Slovakian hydrologist Michal Kravčík who spoke at the conference, and we jointly sponsored his 2017 tour of the US and Canada. VoW’s library and other resources are available through the Bio4Climate website. At this time when rehydrating and regreening the planet is so essential, we welcome the resources from VoW’s work. Its vision and mission are totally aligned with ours and we will move forward as a stronger voice for ecorestoration. 

The vision: Rehydrating the continents to restore natural water cycles and climate.

The mission: Educating globally to empower people to act locally, to renew natural small water cycles to aid climate recovery. 

Photos courtesy of Cuenca Los Ojos (Arizona / Mexico Border area)

Global restoration of natural water cycles is absolutely essential for climate restoration.

Counting Down to Restoring Earth:

How Do We Get There?

Ecosystem Restoration Camps Symposium

Last week we participated in our first symposium with our partners at Ecosystem Restoration Camps, “Counting Down to Restoring Earth: How Do We Get There?”

Featuring speakers John D. Liu, Jim Laurie, Precious Phiri, and Daniel Christian Wahl, the symposium focused on the steps we need to take as a global community to restore the planet and combat the threat of climate change and biodiversity loss, along with the food insecurity and political instability that emerge when degradation causes scarcity. 

One of my favorite moments came in Tim Christophersen’s opening statement: he called ecosystem restoration “an idea whose time has come,” and quoted the UN Secretary General’s statement that “making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century.” Another was Daniel Wahl urging us to “Work from potential, not problem,” and to “Scale out, not up.” It was also inspiring to hear the interludes by poets and musical artists that showcased the wide range of talent and calls to action involved in this movement.

2021 marks the beginning of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, and what better way to start this new decade than by hearing these remarkable speakers formulate goals for transforming our ways of life and restoring our Earth?

If you didn’t have a chance to join us on Thursday, you can still enjoy the recording here!

The Remarkable Success of the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming Movement

with Vijay Kumar and Didi Pershouse 

Our Life Saves the Planet lecture with Vijay Kumar and Didi Pershouse, on the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming movement, is now available online. Kumar told the story of how regenerative agriculture has caught on in Andhra Pradesh, India, in large part due to women's self-help groups and bolstered by government support, bringing participation up to over 800,000 farmers and inspiring programs in other states. If you didn't have a chance to catch this talk in January, you can view the recording online here!

Photo: Wendy Corniquet from Pixabay

Spring Session of Jim Laurie's Class

Biodiversity 3: Mastering the Water Cycle

On February 3rd, staff scientist and restoration ecologist Jim Laurie will begin teaching Biodiversity 3: Mastering the Water Cycle. We hope you will join us as we examine water’s role in restoring ecosystems and cooling the planet.

Check out what some students had to say about past installments of the Biodiversity and Symbiosis course:

"It was an interesting and engaging experience that knit together many topics that I hadn't thought of as necessarily related. It was an interactive, informative, thoughtful, friendly and relaxed learning experience. I have been focused on combating climate change through legislative action but working on restoring natural systems and its contribution to planetary repair is so much closer to what actually interests me and gives me hope." 

    - Marcia Hart

"It was fascinating to learn about worlds out of our usual realms of awareness. It was also great to have such thoughtful and knowledgeable people in the class, which made both Jim's presentations and the ensuing discussions highly educative."

    - Jerald Katch

The excitement and inspiration of science for the curious to the serious and everyone in-between.  A fully interactive online adventure with discussions, experiments and explorations for independent thinkers of any age, suitable for high school and college students, as well as inquiring minds of all levels, from beginner to PhD!

More information here.

Call Story: Hannah Lewis

Hannah Lewis is the editor of our Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming. In this call story, she shares her reasons for engaging in climate activism and environmental justice, and her vision for a healthy earth that can be built one pocket forest and one community at a time.

Featured Article: Grassland 2.0 Aims to Replace

Soy and Corn Farming with Perennial Pasture

in the Upper Midwest - CivilEats

Bert Paris at his farm outside Belleville, Wisconsin. (Photo by Finn Ryan, Grassland 2.0)

A new initiative from the University of Madison-Wisconsin, engaging local farmers, sets its sights on the goal of returning the soy-dominated dairy farming of the Midwest to a grasslands ecosystem, where small farmers, the animals they tend, and the biodiversity and health of the ecosystems they inhabit all win out. The number of farms in the region has been declining for years--along with the health of the soil.

This initiative aims to reverse that trend, while setting up the infrastructure and policy that will support a gradual transition to a grasslands ecosystem. The plans rely on managed grazing, a practice popularized by Allan Savory, which promotes soil health, water retention, erosion prevention, and humane livestock raising. But the Grassland 2.0 team is not only concerned with the quality of the land; it also aims to improve the livelihood of small farmers, by serving and widening the market for grass-fed dairy products. 

Scott Mericka, co-owner of Grass Dairy and Uplands Cheese in southwest Wisconsin, has been using grazing in his farming system to work in accordance with his cattle’s natural instinct to graze, and to contribute to the positive environmental effects of grazing. He envisions the possibilities of expanding grazing pasture and its market in the Midwest: “If we can create a collaborative of small to mid-size farms like mine that can sell farming as an environmental service” that offers “carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, water quality, soil erosion, etc.” then “family farm operations will be helped tremendously.” He intends “to put my whole heart into this movement.”

The program team hopes that by offering greater incentives for regeneration than for extractive farming systems, Grassland 2.0 can not only transform the Upper Midwest, but also provide a model for change across the nation. Read the full article here.

Compendium Notes

We are pleased to announce the next issue of the Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming, out this week. In this, our eighth issue, we focused on the topics of wildfires and their management, and ecological corridors. Access it here. 

The following is an excerpt from the ecological corridors section:

Fence ecology: Frameworks for understanding the ecological effects of fences, McInturff et al. 2020

Conceptually the inverse of wildlife corridors, fences aim to disconnect. They are built to separate people across national borders, to keep livestock from predators, to delineate property lines, and even to protect wildlife conservation reserves. Globally, fences are ubiquitous, more prevalent even than roads, and proliferating. Yet their ecological impact is relatively unstudied.

Fences are often framed as a management tool rather than a globally significant ecological feature, and they are a notable omission from efforts to map global infrastructure, including the human footprint [McInturff 2020: 971].

This analysis reviews 446 studies, starting from 1948, on various types of fencing, in order to assess their impacts. Most of the studies, however, focus on the effect of fencing on particular species--those the fencing is meant to protect--rather than on multiple species, communities or ecosystems.

Conservation and restoration fences, for example, have support within the literature for their beneficial effects for wildlife and sensitive plant species for which they are built, making such species “winners” in the fencing game. On the other hand, there is a critical lack of information on species that are not the targets for which fences are built, and our review shows that only 10.8% (48 of 446) of studies focus on nontarget species [McInturff 2020: 975].

While fences aiming to protect particular species usually achieve that goal, they inevitably hurt other species.

… often the clearest winners because of fencing are the species that humans value most, whereas losers are inevitable but may remain invisible [McInturff 2020: 975]. Broadly speaking, fences favor generalists and disturbance specialists, many of which are invasive, as well as small and small-ranged, nonmigratory species. Fences therefore heavily restrict what makes a species a winner [McInturff 2020: 975].

Fences have several negative effects: they impede migration, reduce gene flow between populations, restructure community composition, and obstruct interspecies interactions, such as those between predators and prey. These community-level changes can have ripple effects in the ecosystem. For example, in Australia, livestock fences that effectively excluded dingoes led to the eradication of this large predator. “Without dingoes, researchers have tracked a continental-scale” release of mid-level predators “that has altered biodiversity and habitats over enormous areas of Australia” [McInturff 2020: 979]. 

While fences limit certain interspecies interactions, they concentrate others:

Even where conservation or restoration fences seemingly protect whole habitats, research still points to differential outcomes for constituent species. In addition, pathogens and parasites may spread more rapidly where species interactions are concentrated within reserves. In central Kenya, for example, smaller fenced reserves produced higher gastrointestinal parasite infection rates among impala [McInturff 2020: 977].

The authors recommend that more research focus on the cumulative ecological effects of fencing, and on policies that limit fence building and encourage people to remove fences or use designs more friendly to wildlife. They caution that fencing is among the major drivers of anthropogenic change.

As fencing continues to rapidly proliferate, there is potential for a dangerous future in which fences simultaneously alter ecological processes at multiple scales, likely producing more losers than winners, and potentially resulting in ecosystem state shift or collapse [McInturff 2020: 977]. 

McInturff et al. Fence ecology: frameworks for understanding the ecological effects of fences. BioScience 70(11), https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/11/971/5908036.

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