Dear , 

Last month we were thrilled to have Walter Jehne, world-renowned soil and climate scientist, come speak to us in Cambridge about the immense potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change. And what an incredible talk it was! If you weren't able to join us or had to miss parts of the talk, we've got you covered. Please enjoy Walter's talk here, and feel free to share with one and all!

A growing movement has emerged in opposition to the burning of wood (biomass) as an alternative to the use of fossil fuels. Logging rates are now the highest they've ever been, and communities of color are being disrupted by logging activities and air pollution. Yet trees are being converted to wood pellets here in the U.S. to be exported and burnt in the E.U.!

So, why is this problematic? The burning of wood for electricity expels large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Though this carbon is eventually sequestered by trees, these trees take years to grow back. In the meantime, the destruction of forest ecosystems causes immense loss of biodiversity. And these living systems are essential for the regulation of soil health, water, and climate. 

On September 24, Massachusetts will have the opportunity to pass a bill that protects and recognizes the carbon sequestration potential of the state's forests. More information and how you can help can be found in this newsletter.

Speaking of the importance of forest ecosystems... check out Afforestt, an Indian-based organization that carries out projects related to the creation and preservation of native forests all over the world! Is this the Blessed Unrest we've been hearing of?

It certainly is! Check out more examples of this on our Facebook and Twitter pages - we can hardly keep up with all the inspirational work that goes unnoticed in different corners of the world.

Replenish. Rejuvenate. Restore.

Manjulika Das, Curator and Editor

The "Ungardening" Movement has Taken Root in American Homes

Anna Burger (L) and Earl Gohl (R) walk in Takoma Park, Maryland, in their "rewilded" garden which aims to restore and protect natural processes.

Rewilding is taking root in back yards (and front yards) in America, albeit with some resistance. Rewilding efforts, though typically frowned upon because of their "messy" and "unkempt" appearance, offer ecological, social, and psychological benefits. Many of these benefits are being recognized, as the rewilding effort is slowly taking over the well-manicured lawns of suburban and urban areas. 

The success is demonstrated well in two homes in Washington D.C. In 1990, retired union organizer Anna Burger and her husband bought a house on a busy road not far from the Metro. Despite the urban surroundings the backyard now welcomes a host of biodiversity ranging from birds, to butterflies to the occasional deer. "We knew that putting chemicals on grass to try to keep it green seemed to be a futile process that wasn't good for kids playing or for the environment," Burger says. "We've tried to make it friendly, making sure that we have water sources, making sure that there are food sources so these trees aren't the most colorful but have great berries."

Jim Nichols who lives a few blocks away from Burger's house shows off a "Certified Wildlife Habitat" sign that was awarded to him by a local non-profit. "We have a lot of insects and I try to work with the insects," he says. He is particularly proud of the honey bees that come to water. 

Chris Swan, an ecologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County undertook an ambitious urban project in Baltimore where decades of population decline had left vacant buildings and lots. Through planting of native species in this area, he was able to transform the dead area to prospering urban meadows.

The social and psychological benefits of greening urban areas have been cited by a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found a 30% drop in gun violence around re-greened areas in Philadelphia. Community well-being and mental health was also reported to improve following the re-greening of urban areas.

Read more here.

 Meet Judy Schwartz, Journalist and Author

Judith D. Schwartz is a free-lance writer and journalist who has written for a number of publications such as The Guardian, Scientific American, Conservation, Time, and Pacific Standard. More recently, she has authored books like Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth, and Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World. After publishing Cows Save the Planet, she joined Bio4Climate’s advisory board in 2015.

Judy first began thinking about ecological issues through the lens of economics. She became interested in writing about the distortions of current economic models, and quickly realized how many of our problems and challenges could be attributed to these models. "Nature has no value in our economic models. And there's really no wealth without nature", she says. She eventually landed on the ecology of soil, and her exploration in this domain revealed to her the incredible loss of carbon from bare ground. 

"Excess atmospheric carbon dioxide is not merely the result of overuse of fossil fuels. It is more due to loss of carbon from the soil because of desertification. I started to feel that global problems can be addressed through the soil, and I got deeper into that."

A huge opportunity that Judy came across in her research was Allan Savory's concept of Holistic Management: farming and ranching practices that reverse desertification by bringing life back into the soil. This includes the strategic management of ruminant behavior, or allowing for conditions and practices that mimic the grazing patterns of wild ruminants on the land. Compelled by the immense possibilities to restore land and address climate, Judy was ultimately inspired to write Cows Save the Planet. 

She is currently writing a book on ecosystem restoration as a grassroots response to the rapidly evolving global crisis. The book discusses different movements that are taking place all over the world ranging from holistic management and permaculture, to more recently, syntropic agriculture which focuses on successional agroforestry. 

"Through the process of writing the book, I’ve changed and the world has changed. Things are picking up. I may have started the book in a mindset of 'I’ll do these things and everything will be fine!' But all of us have had to grapple deeply, if you need to engage with this and have this be your reality. One has to realize that there’s letting go and accepting uncertainty. This book is in that spirit. This is where we are, this is what we don’t know. We understand processes, so how do we think about the opportunities to restore ecosystems, and restore climate regulation?"

Aside from discussing natural systems, the book will also focus on human systems. As Judy mentions, people don’t always act in their own best interests for many reasons. A resistance to absorbing new information may arise from a fear of change. There is a lot of material that emerges through the stories of mindsets - learning from nature, working with hope, and putting anxiety into action.

But the conversation is beginning to shift around climate change. The UN's Biodiversity Report released earlier this year calls into focus the collapse of ecosystems and the urgent need to protect and restore biodiversity. In May of this year, Judy was interviewed by the BBC about this report. She has also been approached by congressmen and senator's offices to further discuss these solutions.  

"More people are listening, more people are sharing, and many communities are being formed around these ideas. Once you start talking to people about it, it’s very intuitive. Presidential candidates are now talking about regenerative agriculture. The language has been set that it has to be all about carbon emissions, but ecological solutions are being slipped in. The conversations are shifting".

Compendium Notes

Here's another excerpt from our Compendium of Scientific and Practical Findings Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming. The article below is from our fifth issue, July 2019, Vol. 3 No. 1 (pp. 18-19):

Restoration of living environment based on vegetation ecology: theory and practice, Miyawaki 2004

Natural environments have been devastated and destroyed worldwide by recent rapid development, urbanization and industrialization. It is no exaggeration to say that the basis of human life is now threatened (Miyawaki 1982a,b).

We ecologists have been giving warnings against the devastation of nature through study results, and have produced some good effects. Besides criticism, however, we should contribute to the wholesome development of human society by active concern for nature restoration and reconstruction (Miyawaki 1975, 1981) [Miyawaki 2004: 83].

Akira Miyawaki is a Japanese ecologist who has dedicated decades of his life to the study and implementation of forest restoration. He emphasizes the importance of restoring barren or degraded land more quickly than the time it takes for natural forest succession to occur, which can be 150-300 years, depending on the regional climate. By contrast, the methods he recommends can yield results within 15-20 years in terms of establishing forests mature enough to protect communities against natural disasters, such as earthquakes and storms. The principles of what has become known as the “Miyawaki Method” are based on mimicking natural forest growth patterns and thus feature: high biodiversity, preference for native species, relatively high planting densities, and healthy soil.

Communities undertaking such restoration efforts must first survey the landscape to determine the “potential vegetation” for the area based on what remains of native tree communities. Next, seeds must be gathered for some 30-50 species of native trees, and then propagated in greenhouses. After a year or two, once the seedlings have strong, well-developed roots, they can be planted. Miyawaki refers to planting events as “festivals” because the community dynamic is important for increasing public understanding of the relevance of ecological restoration and igniting a collective willingness to protect the plantings well into the future.

Miyawaki concludes with these words:

These forests of complex multilayer communities have disaster-mitigation and environmental protection functions in each region. In the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which hit the Kobe district, western Japan in January 1995, there was no damage to trees in Japanese traditional temple forests, the potential natural vegetation, however, huge structures made of non-living materials collapsed, including elevated railways, highways and tall buildings (Miyawaki 1998). On a global scale, natural forests help to avoid global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide. Restoration and regeneration of ecologically diverse forests is inevitable for citizens in every region to survive in the next century, and the next millennium [Miyawaki 2004: 89].

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Miyawaki, Akira, 2004, Restoration of living environment based on vegetation ecology: theory and practice, Ecological Research 19:1, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1111/j.1440-1703.2003.00606.x.