Allan Savory's TED Talk: How to green the desert and reverse climate change

Allan Savory

http://www.greenbiz.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/wide_large/savory.jpg

This presentation has been going around the "Permaculture World" for the last month. It is amazing. This is a must watch video if you have any interest in repairing our broken ecosystems.

From the TED website:

“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And it's happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert. 

Allan Savory works to promote holistic management in the grasslands of the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

Deforestation in the U.S.

Loss of Primary or "Old Growth" Forests in the U.S.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html

Primary Forests, sometimes called Old Growth Forests, are simply areas of forest that have never been logged. The map above is a sad statement on our management of these forests. I am not against logging. I am not against using the natural resources of the Earth; however, we must do so wisely. The Primary Forests are full of species of plant and animal that, if lost, will never exist again. But that is only part of what we have lost and stand to lose through deforestation.

Permaculture teaches about the use of Zones (you can read more about that in this article).  Zone 5 is a permanently "wild" area. It is vital to have these areas so that we can observe how nature functions without our interference. It is the model for the systems we are trying to emulate. If we lose this, we lose our teacher... not in some esoteric way, but in a very real, tangible way. We need to make sure we protect these areas, so we can observe the systems of nature. These forests are the prime example of a functioning sustainable ecosystem, and without them we lose thousands of years of information to guide us in creation of our own sustainable systems.

Finally, we need these places to experience God's creation untarnished by man. That alone should be enough reason.

With all that said, take a look at this map:

http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/hotspotdeforestationmap.jpg

This map does give me hope. I have not been able to find a date for this map or any information on the creation of it, but it is quite interesting. While there are places in the world that are really doing poorly, there are others (especially in the U.S.) that have allowed new forests to develop.

I get rather tired of politicians, celebrities, and even some scientists, who get all worked up about some small aspect of environmentalism and forget about the very large, tangible ways to protect the environment... they are worried about a speck of dust right next to the elephant in the room, so to speak.

If you truly care about the environment, please put your energy into something that has a tangible result.