7 ms·

Regenerating Jordan’s native forests

202 points by zeristor 4y ago

Gys 4y ago
I have some background knowledge on the subject but never heard of The Miyawaki Method. Thank you for posting.
- steanne 4y ago
  https://www.scribd.com/document/415337338/Miyawaki-English-Book https://www.scribd.com/document/415337338/Miyawaki-English-B...
fractallyte 4y ago
Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation. (That's why deforestation in the Amazon will possibly lead to desertification in the region.) Afforestation is far better than cloud-seeding to produce short-term rain. It's self-sustaining, takes carbon from the atmosphere, and creates new ecosystems (or rather, revives old ecosystems, hopefully with native wildlife). Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid.
- myshpa 4y ago
  > Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump > Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. Perhaps even Sahel, Sahara and large parts of USA and Asia as well.
  - sampo 4y ago
    > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump I don't think that Wikipedia page makes a good job in communicating how controversial and outside of mainstream that theory is. Here is a 2020 Science article which – while very sympathetic to the possibility of the theory being correct – makes a better job in describing how controversial it is. https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russia... The mainstream view can probably be described with some quotes from the review process of one their early (submitted 2010, published 2013) papers: NOAA's Isaac Held: "The authors make an extraordinary claim that a term that is traditionally considered to be small, to the point that it is sometimes neglected in atmospheric models and, even when not neglected, rarely commented on, is in fact dominant in driving atmospheric circulations. The effect concerned is that of the mass sink associated with condensation. This term is of first-order importance in some planetary atmospheres, such as Mars, where the total mass of the atmosphere has a substantial seasonal cycle, but for Earth the standard perspective is that the heat release associated with condensation dominates over the effect of the mass loss." Editor's decision: "The authors have presented an entirely new view of what may be driving dynamics in the atmosphere. This new theory has been subject to considerable criticism which any reader can see in the public review and interactive discussion of the manuscript in ACPD. Normally, the negative reviewer comments would not lead to final acceptance and publication of a manuscript in ACP. After extensive deliberation however, the editor concluded that the revised manuscript still should be published – despite the strong criticism from the esteemed reviewers – to promote continuation of the scientific dialogue on the controversial theory." https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013-discussion.html https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039...
    - myshpa 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump "The theory predicts two different types of coast to contentinental rainfall patterns, first in a forested area one can expect no decrease in rainfall as one moves inland in contrast to a deforested region where one observes an exponential decrease in annual rainfall." https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 "Life depends on Earth's hydrological cycle, especially the processes that carry moisture from oceans to land. The role of vegetation remains controversial. Local people in many partially forested regions believe that forests “attract” rain, whereas most modern climate experts would disagree. But a new hypothesis suggests that local people may be correct." Mainstream or not ... people are right, and recent droughts seem to confirm this. The theory may not be right or wrong entirely, however continuing with discounting the role of vegetation will be done at our peril.
  - user070223 4y ago
    Currently they're fighting desertification in africa(and china) with the "Great Green Wall".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)
    - baq 4y ago
      $8B. This is like, a couple days of Pentagon spending? Sometimes politics just make no sense whatsoever.
      - ccooffee 4y ago
        I am regularly surprised at how "cheap" mega-engineering projects are compared to the things we (USA) already spend money on. Here's some examples of expensive things: * USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier: $13.3 billion [0] * F-35 jet program (covering expected lifetimes of all aircraft through 2070): $1.5 trillion (> $150 million per aircraft) [1] * TARP funds during 2007-2010 crisis: $431 billion [2] * PPP loan forgiveness (during covid): $742 billion [3] It's very tempting to declare these other expenses an exorbitant waste of potential when mega-projects come in so much cheaper: greening Africa ($8bn), using desalination and up-gradient pumping to re-hydrate the Colorado River ($15bn)[4], the large hadron collider ($5bn - $13bn)[5], and James Webb Space Telescope ($9.7bn)[6] to name a few. Sources: [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircraft-carrier-2021-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircra... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thenation.com/article/f35-fighter-jet-pentagon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thena... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program [3] https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ [4] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-w... [5] https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large-hadron-collider-cost-to-build-and-who-paid-for-it-n/ https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large... [6] https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst
  - ggm 4y ago
    It has smaller persistently arid regions than people think, and the corollary is that there are huge intermittently arid regions which spring into visble productive green life. It also has a giant water system which runs almost the length of the eastern side, far inland from Queensland Channel country to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia, with many tributary rivers feeding in and being fed. It has a giant aquifer. The thing is that we're looking a 50,000 years of fire driven deforestation and arguing to restore some belief in past verdency ignores what might be the lived reality of these landscapes which are feast and famine and have been for thousands of years. Modern ag is much less kind, and has caused some massive destruction and topsoil loss and biodiversity loss. But, the goal in Australia wouldn't necessarily be a permanently verdent inland, it would be (I think) to work with what we've got. Getting rid of millions of feral camels would break some people's hearts, judging by how they romanticise the feral brumbies in the victorian and nsw high country, despite the damage they're doing. Getting rid of the dingo fence would be a good start: there's more growth outside it than inside.
- eecc 4y ago
  Well, reforestation of the Australian Outback would be such an awesome geo-engineering monument! Though I wonder about the ethical implications of the destruction of the current desert ecosystem
- MrVandemar 4y ago
  >Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. One limiting factor is that the soils are pretty gutless in many areas - as the settlers discovered when they arrived and found that the bushland was highly evolved to survive in those conditions (we have a great diversity of carniverous plants because of this), and farming wound up being much, much more challenging than they thought.
  - FridayoLeary 4y ago
    Another issue that would only be discovered later was that the trees in Australia kept the water table low. A couple of years after the deforestation and farming of a plot, the water level would rise, bringing with it salt from deep underground and depositing it on the surface. Effectively this permanently destroys the soil. Not only that, but i believe that the water also disappears a while after wreaking all this havoc. This is just something from a vaguely remembered lesson so i might have forgotten some detail.
  - hgomersall 4y ago
    Apparently a big part of the solution is introducing a bit of organic matter into the desert soil which is one of the factors to kick start the process. I don't know much about it, but that's my understanding.
aaron695 4y ago
> Greening the desert: the architect regenerating Jordan’s native forests This article is just a lie. These forests are the size of a average house in the US Better article explaining what they are doing - https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/in-jordan-the-middle-easts-first-miyawaki-style-baby-forests-take-root/ https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/in-jordan-the-middle-easts... What they are doing is important, it's about mental health in cities. If you truly care about large scale native forests comments by Elon Musk when discussing his CO2 sequestration moonshot are more relevant.
- uoaei 4y ago
  What "moonshot"? He announced he was funding an XPRIZE for such technology, but I haven't seen anything develop from that. If Musk ever said anything about carbon sequestration, it was as an uncited reference to others' ideas. He is the human incarnation of clickbait blogspam. It occurred to me though while attempting to research this that such grandiose and incredulous statements about Musk drive "organic" viral search patterns (as it drove me to do) which could reinforce his standing as knower of things despite him not actually knowing a lot of things.
- 11235813213455 4y ago
  Musk isn't relevant for anything related to environment, and things get solved from small scale, like a sand heap
luckylion 4y ago
These articles always seem strange to me. There was another story a few years ago, also from Jordan if I recall correctly, where some member of the royal family did some permaculture thing with some Western group. Great success, look at all the plants, amazing, greening the desert and all that, fancy YT videos, and they were celebrating some anniversary. Now here's another one, and they're creating a forest on 250sqm. It feels like they're starting over and over, but either there's other successful projects "next door" which the articles never really mention, or the other projects were shut down or failed some time before. Did they? If so, why? The same thing happens in Saudi Arabia where they had some amazing results by (oversimplified, yes), digging some swales and putting some rocks on steep hills. The grass was coming back, trees were growing. And that's it, cut, no more info. You'd think that this would be naturally adopted by each neighboring community immediately, and the whole desert would be greened in no time. But somehow it isn't. Why? These countries are fairly autocratic, and obviously these projects have the blessing of the rulers, or they wouldn't happen, and surely the rulers would love to have the forests restored and the desertification stopped and all that, and it makes for great photo ops, too. Why then, don't they decree these projects to happen at scale? I'm not saying it's all bullshit, maybe it's just journalists who need a new story every other years, but these are, to me, obvious questions, that I'd answer if I was writing an article about these things, and it's suspicious that they aren't being answered, ever.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  After the PR piece is done, actual work is just superfluos steps. It can only bring unneccesary risks to everyone involved. If it fails, heads must roll, and nobody is interested in that for its own sake.
- zeristor 4y ago
  There’s Geoff Lawton’s work mentioned. The idea being that referencing a desert being a real test of permaculture: https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/about-us/ https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/about-us/ I think it isn’t a trivial thing to scale, people need skills. Geoff Lawton himself was inspired by the 2000 year old Green valleys in Morocco which alas appear to be threatened: https://youtu.be/wd-b_C7a_es https://youtu.be/wd-b_C7a_es
PicassoCTs 4y ago
I love these projects. But i find they do not often communicate of the fragility of the endeavor or outcome. Human society is like a ablative sandstorm that wither the outcome down to zero in the long run. Same goes for wildlife parks. One economic downturn and donations drying up and poachers. One drought and the nomadic tribes drive there cattle/goat into newly planted, already struggling green. The project leading person dies and the whole tribe/idea vanishes, the very structure ground to the traditional society, which is basically embracing ecological catastrophe to spread the individuals genes. My longterm hope for ecological preservation is actually on genetic engineering. Make treewood give off a awful smell, so its lumber and fireworth goes to zero. Make it grow strands of kevlar that blunt saws. Make bushes grow leaves that are poisonous for goats. Pre spread the bananna fungi, to make burning it down for plantations unviable. Make djungle-mosquitos reservoirs for bovine diseases. To touch a nature preserve must be something similar to wishing for death. Its horrific, but the only way.
timellis-smith 4y ago
How much of the global greening is occurring naturally due to increased co2? https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
HN discussed desertification about a week ago here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100771.
FridayoLeary 4y ago
For a success story take a look at Jordans neighbour, Israel. The pioneers there planted millions of trees in the semi arid wasteland and it is today the only country in the world where desertification is happening in the reverse. What was 120 years ago rocky hills and barren wastelands are now covered in forests and fields.
- youngtaff 4y ago
  Doesn’t Israel tend to drip water it’s trees using from the river Jordan for this?
  - myth_drannon 4y ago
    Not initially, drip water is a modern invention.
  - ars 4y ago
    Actually they use reclaimed gray water. They don't waste any water in Israel. They also desalinate a lot of water and are actually refilling the Jordan River with desalinated water.
carvink 4y ago
Some have ambitions to green the Sinai Desert: https://www.greenthesinai.com/back-to-the-garden-john-d-liu https://www.greenthesinai.com/back-to-the-garden-john-d-liu https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-biggest-challenge-lack-of-imagination-the-scientists-turning-the-desert-green https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-bigg...
dbingham 4y ago
This is permaculture done right, focusing on recreating native conditions using native species and rooting it firmly in the science.
- briantakita 4y ago
  My PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) instructor was of the opinion that Permaculture focuses on designing ecosystems for the benefit of people. While he had a preference for native organisms, he was against using chemicals or efforts to eradicate so-called invasive species. He instead promoted us to find the beneficial properties of the invasive species. For example, in the US North East, Japanese Knotweed is an invasive species, yet has incredible healing properties such as being rich in Resveratrol. A principle of Permaculture systems design is that organisms act to benefit the ecosystem. So called weeds, like dandelions, remediate the soil & also have strong nutritional properties. A good 2 volume set is "Edible Forest Gardens" by Dave Jacke. He details the lifecycle of an ecosystem from grasslands all the way to mature forest from growth back to a cycle from a "growing forest" to "mature forest" as disruptions such as fire occur.
  - dbingham 4y ago
    Hey Briantakita, I spent quite a bit of time embedded in the Permaculture movement and have heard all these arguments before. I have read all the key Permaculture texts (both volumes of Edible Forest Gardens, Mollison's original Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, and many more). They do not mesh with ecological science. The problem with Permacultrure is that if you pay attention to the design system, it's effectively a return to pre-science individualistic naturalism. It's entirely based on individual personal observation, and removes a lot of the checks against personal bias that science introduced to improve upon individual naturalism. Thus it's entirely possible for a Permaculturist to observe invasive species doing useful things for their ecosystem and completely miss all the damage they're doing. It's easy to see the the squirrels who use the Honeysuckle for cover and the birds eating its berries and completely miss all the Lepidoptera species that would be eating the plants the Honeysuckle displaces, and all the birds that depends on those species for protein. This is what Permaculturists consistently miss, but the ecological science is very clear about. Invasive species do far more harm to their biospheres than good. So when Permaculturists discount controlling those species they are failing to do the very thing they claim to be attempting to do: build healthy ecosystems. All too often with Permaculture it's much worse than just writing off the need to control invasives. I have seen Permaculturists become so obsessed with designing novel ecosystems that they even introduce invasive species. The goals of the Permaculture movement - building a society that exists in harmony with the natural world and is thus not only sustainable, but regenerative - are sound. Many of the ideas - building agricultural systems that act like ecosystems - are good and worth exploring. But the methods and approaches taught by Permaculturists in PDC courses are deeply problematic.
briantakita 4y ago
John D Liu made a documentary which covers Jordan's efforts among others titled "Regreening the Desert". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI&ab_channel=vprodocumentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI&ab_channel=vprod...
tariksbl 4y ago
they will incur the wrath of Shai Hulud!!
eitland 4y ago
Possibly more interesting should be the country next to Jordan that has gone from desert, barely producing enough for itself to net exporter of agricultural products.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  It is unclear which country you're talking about. Saudi Arabia?
  - somecommit 4y ago
    No, the other one over the "green line", which can be seen from space, thanks to decades of reforestation
    - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
      Still unclear because Israel is not a net food exporter while Saudi Arabia is. Unless we're talking about some other way to slice it (which I was unable to find any data on).
      - wahern 4y ago
        I don't think either country is a net food exporter. The few sources seemingly suggesting Saudi Arabia as a net food exporter are misleading, and lack numbers for a net exporter claim. See, e.g., https://www.foodexport.org/export-insights/market-and-country-profiles/saudi-arabia-country-profile https://www.foodexport.org/export-insights/market-and-countr... (I initially misconstrued this Google hit because of the context), or the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Saudi_Arabia ("In regards to self-sufficiency, the kingdom produced a limited surplus, sufficient to export some quantities of food.") By contrast, there are many sources with numbers (primarily by value, but much of that seems to be for inputs like grain, etc) showing Saudi Arabia to be a net importer. See, e.g. https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/foodstuffs/reporter/sau https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/foodstuffs/re... That said, it does seem Saudi Arabia's balance of food trade seems very similar to Israeli's. And Saudi Arabia has extensive policies to promote domestic food production.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
Surprised to see no mention of the book Greening the Desert by Rakesh Hooja, given they appropriated the title for this article. The book is a deep look into a successful permaculture endeavor in India. It talks about all the hard parts related to permaculture. That is, not the planting, not the irrigating, not the carefully lunar-timed execution of the pagan cow-horn-manure fertility ritual, but the social and political factors involved in getting a lot of different people on board with a long-term, large-scale, and risky agricultural project. A dry, kind of boring read, but useful.
- rpep 4y ago
  Completely different landscape but “Rewilding” by Isabella Tree goes into quite a bit of detail about similar challenges in the U.K., for e.g. neighbouring farms being unhappy about them letting grow plants they consider weeds, having to remove carcasses of large animals due to agricultural regulations etc.

202 points by zeristor 4y ago

Gys 4y ago

I have some background knowledge on the subject but never heard of The Miyawaki Method. Thank you for posting.

steanne 4y ago
https://www.scribd.com/document/415337338/Miyawaki-English-Book https://www.scribd.com/document/415337338/Miyawaki-English-B...

fractallyte 4y ago

Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation. (That's why deforestation in the Amazon will possibly lead to desertification in the region.) Afforestation is far better than cloud-seeding to produce short-term rain. It's self-sustaining, takes carbon from the atmosphere, and creates new ecosystems (or rather, revives old ecosystems, hopefully with native wildlife). Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid.

myshpa 4y ago
> Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump > Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. Perhaps even Sahel, Sahara and large parts of USA and Asia as well.
- sampo 4y ago
  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump I don't think that Wikipedia page makes a good job in communicating how controversial and outside of mainstream that theory is. Here is a 2020 Science article which – while very sympathetic to the possibility of the theory being correct – makes a better job in describing how controversial it is. https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russia... The mainstream view can probably be described with some quotes from the review process of one their early (submitted 2010, published 2013) papers: NOAA's Isaac Held: "The authors make an extraordinary claim that a term that is traditionally considered to be small, to the point that it is sometimes neglected in atmospheric models and, even when not neglected, rarely commented on, is in fact dominant in driving atmospheric circulations. The effect concerned is that of the mass sink associated with condensation. This term is of first-order importance in some planetary atmospheres, such as Mars, where the total mass of the atmosphere has a substantial seasonal cycle, but for Earth the standard perspective is that the heat release associated with condensation dominates over the effect of the mass loss." Editor's decision: "The authors have presented an entirely new view of what may be driving dynamics in the atmosphere. This new theory has been subject to considerable criticism which any reader can see in the public review and interactive discussion of the manuscript in ACPD. Normally, the negative reviewer comments would not lead to final acceptance and publication of a manuscript in ACP. After extensive deliberation however, the editor concluded that the revised manuscript still should be published – despite the strong criticism from the esteemed reviewers – to promote continuation of the scientific dialogue on the controversial theory." https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013-discussion.html https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039...
  - myshpa 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump "The theory predicts two different types of coast to contentinental rainfall patterns, first in a forested area one can expect no decrease in rainfall as one moves inland in contrast to a deforested region where one observes an exponential decrease in annual rainfall." https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 "Life depends on Earth's hydrological cycle, especially the processes that carry moisture from oceans to land. The role of vegetation remains controversial. Local people in many partially forested regions believe that forests “attract” rain, whereas most modern climate experts would disagree. But a new hypothesis suggests that local people may be correct." Mainstream or not ... people are right, and recent droughts seem to confirm this. The theory may not be right or wrong entirely, however continuing with discounting the role of vegetation will be done at our peril.
- user070223 4y ago
  Currently they're fighting desertification in africa(and china) with the "Great Green Wall".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)
  - baq 4y ago
    $8B. This is like, a couple days of Pentagon spending? Sometimes politics just make no sense whatsoever.
    - ccooffee 4y ago
      I am regularly surprised at how "cheap" mega-engineering projects are compared to the things we (USA) already spend money on. Here's some examples of expensive things: * USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier: $13.3 billion [0] * F-35 jet program (covering expected lifetimes of all aircraft through 2070): $1.5 trillion (> $150 million per aircraft) [1] * TARP funds during 2007-2010 crisis: $431 billion [2] * PPP loan forgiveness (during covid): $742 billion [3] It's very tempting to declare these other expenses an exorbitant waste of potential when mega-projects come in so much cheaper: greening Africa ($8bn), using desalination and up-gradient pumping to re-hydrate the Colorado River ($15bn)[4], the large hadron collider ($5bn - $13bn)[5], and James Webb Space Telescope ($9.7bn)[6] to name a few. Sources: [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircraft-carrier-2021-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircra... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thenation.com/article/f35-fighter-jet-pentagon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thena... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program [3] https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ [4] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-w... [5] https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large-hadron-collider-cost-to-build-and-who-paid-for-it-n/ https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large... [6] https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst
- ggm 4y ago
  It has smaller persistently arid regions than people think, and the corollary is that there are huge intermittently arid regions which spring into visble productive green life. It also has a giant water system which runs almost the length of the eastern side, far inland from Queensland Channel country to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia, with many tributary rivers feeding in and being fed. It has a giant aquifer. The thing is that we're looking a 50,000 years of fire driven deforestation and arguing to restore some belief in past verdency ignores what might be the lived reality of these landscapes which are feast and famine and have been for thousands of years. Modern ag is much less kind, and has caused some massive destruction and topsoil loss and biodiversity loss. But, the goal in Australia wouldn't necessarily be a permanently verdent inland, it would be (I think) to work with what we've got. Getting rid of millions of feral camels would break some people's hearts, judging by how they romanticise the feral brumbies in the victorian and nsw high country, despite the damage they're doing. Getting rid of the dingo fence would be a good start: there's more growth outside it than inside.
eecc 4y ago
Well, reforestation of the Australian Outback would be such an awesome geo-engineering monument! Though I wonder about the ethical implications of the destruction of the current desert ecosystem
MrVandemar 4y ago
>Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. One limiting factor is that the soils are pretty gutless in many areas - as the settlers discovered when they arrived and found that the bushland was highly evolved to survive in those conditions (we have a great diversity of carniverous plants because of this), and farming wound up being much, much more challenging than they thought.
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  Another issue that would only be discovered later was that the trees in Australia kept the water table low. A couple of years after the deforestation and farming of a plot, the water level would rise, bringing with it salt from deep underground and depositing it on the surface. Effectively this permanently destroys the soil. Not only that, but i believe that the water also disappears a while after wreaking all this havoc. This is just something from a vaguely remembered lesson so i might have forgotten some detail.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  Apparently a big part of the solution is introducing a bit of organic matter into the desert soil which is one of the factors to kick start the process. I don't know much about it, but that's my understanding.

aaron695 4y ago

> Greening the desert: the architect regenerating Jordan’s native forests This article is just a lie. These forests are the size of a average house in the US Better article explaining what they are doing - https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/in-jordan-the-middle-easts-first-miyawaki-style-baby-forests-take-root/ https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/in-jordan-the-middle-easts... What they are doing is important, it's about mental health in cities. If you truly care about large scale native forests comments by Elon Musk when discussing his CO2 sequestration moonshot are more relevant.

uoaei 4y ago
What "moonshot"? He announced he was funding an XPRIZE for such technology, but I haven't seen anything develop from that. If Musk ever said anything about carbon sequestration, it was as an uncited reference to others' ideas. He is the human incarnation of clickbait blogspam. It occurred to me though while attempting to research this that such grandiose and incredulous statements about Musk drive "organic" viral search patterns (as it drove me to do) which could reinforce his standing as knower of things despite him not actually knowing a lot of things.
11235813213455 4y ago
Musk isn't relevant for anything related to environment, and things get solved from small scale, like a sand heap

luckylion 4y ago

These articles always seem strange to me. There was another story a few years ago, also from Jordan if I recall correctly, where some member of the royal family did some permaculture thing with some Western group. Great success, look at all the plants, amazing, greening the desert and all that, fancy YT videos, and they were celebrating some anniversary. Now here's another one, and they're creating a forest on 250sqm. It feels like they're starting over and over, but either there's other successful projects "next door" which the articles never really mention, or the other projects were shut down or failed some time before. Did they? If so, why? The same thing happens in Saudi Arabia where they had some amazing results by (oversimplified, yes), digging some swales and putting some rocks on steep hills. The grass was coming back, trees were growing. And that's it, cut, no more info. You'd think that this would be naturally adopted by each neighboring community immediately, and the whole desert would be greened in no time. But somehow it isn't. Why? These countries are fairly autocratic, and obviously these projects have the blessing of the rulers, or they wouldn't happen, and surely the rulers would love to have the forests restored and the desertification stopped and all that, and it makes for great photo ops, too. Why then, don't they decree these projects to happen at scale? I'm not saying it's all bullshit, maybe it's just journalists who need a new story every other years, but these are, to me, obvious questions, that I'd answer if I was writing an article about these things, and it's suspicious that they aren't being answered, ever.

actionfromafar 4y ago
After the PR piece is done, actual work is just superfluos steps. It can only bring unneccesary risks to everyone involved. If it fails, heads must roll, and nobody is interested in that for its own sake.
zeristor 4y ago
There’s Geoff Lawton’s work mentioned. The idea being that referencing a desert being a real test of permaculture: https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/about-us/ https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/about-us/ I think it isn’t a trivial thing to scale, people need skills. Geoff Lawton himself was inspired by the 2000 year old Green valleys in Morocco which alas appear to be threatened: https://youtu.be/wd-b_C7a_es https://youtu.be/wd-b_C7a_es

PicassoCTs 4y ago

I love these projects. But i find they do not often communicate of the fragility of the endeavor or outcome. Human society is like a ablative sandstorm that wither the outcome down to zero in the long run. Same goes for wildlife parks. One economic downturn and donations drying up and poachers. One drought and the nomadic tribes drive there cattle/goat into newly planted, already struggling green. The project leading person dies and the whole tribe/idea vanishes, the very structure ground to the traditional society, which is basically embracing ecological catastrophe to spread the individuals genes. My longterm hope for ecological preservation is actually on genetic engineering. Make treewood give off a awful smell, so its lumber and fireworth goes to zero. Make it grow strands of kevlar that blunt saws. Make bushes grow leaves that are poisonous for goats. Pre spread the bananna fungi, to make burning it down for plantations unviable. Make djungle-mosquitos reservoirs for bovine diseases. To touch a nature preserve must be something similar to wishing for death. Its horrific, but the only way.

timellis-smith 4y ago

How much of the global greening is occurring naturally due to increased co2? https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

HN discussed desertification about a week ago here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35100771.

FridayoLeary 4y ago

For a success story take a look at Jordans neighbour, Israel. The pioneers there planted millions of trees in the semi arid wasteland and it is today the only country in the world where desertification is happening in the reverse. What was 120 years ago rocky hills and barren wastelands are now covered in forests and fields.

youngtaff 4y ago
Doesn’t Israel tend to drip water it’s trees using from the river Jordan for this?
- myth_drannon 4y ago
  Not initially, drip water is a modern invention.
- ars 4y ago
  Actually they use reclaimed gray water. They don't waste any water in Israel. They also desalinate a lot of water and are actually refilling the Jordan River with desalinated water.

carvink 4y ago

Some have ambitions to green the Sinai Desert: https://www.greenthesinai.com/back-to-the-garden-john-d-liu https://www.greenthesinai.com/back-to-the-garden-john-d-liu https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-biggest-challenge-lack-of-imagination-the-scientists-turning-the-desert-green https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/our-bigg...

dbingham 4y ago

This is permaculture done right, focusing on recreating native conditions using native species and rooting it firmly in the science.

briantakita 4y ago
My PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) instructor was of the opinion that Permaculture focuses on designing ecosystems for the benefit of people. While he had a preference for native organisms, he was against using chemicals or efforts to eradicate so-called invasive species. He instead promoted us to find the beneficial properties of the invasive species. For example, in the US North East, Japanese Knotweed is an invasive species, yet has incredible healing properties such as being rich in Resveratrol. A principle of Permaculture systems design is that organisms act to benefit the ecosystem. So called weeds, like dandelions, remediate the soil & also have strong nutritional properties. A good 2 volume set is "Edible Forest Gardens" by Dave Jacke. He details the lifecycle of an ecosystem from grasslands all the way to mature forest from growth back to a cycle from a "growing forest" to "mature forest" as disruptions such as fire occur.
- dbingham 4y ago
  Hey Briantakita, I spent quite a bit of time embedded in the Permaculture movement and have heard all these arguments before. I have read all the key Permaculture texts (both volumes of Edible Forest Gardens, Mollison's original Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, and many more). They do not mesh with ecological science. The problem with Permacultrure is that if you pay attention to the design system, it's effectively a return to pre-science individualistic naturalism. It's entirely based on individual personal observation, and removes a lot of the checks against personal bias that science introduced to improve upon individual naturalism. Thus it's entirely possible for a Permaculturist to observe invasive species doing useful things for their ecosystem and completely miss all the damage they're doing. It's easy to see the the squirrels who use the Honeysuckle for cover and the birds eating its berries and completely miss all the Lepidoptera species that would be eating the plants the Honeysuckle displaces, and all the birds that depends on those species for protein. This is what Permaculturists consistently miss, but the ecological science is very clear about. Invasive species do far more harm to their biospheres than good. So when Permaculturists discount controlling those species they are failing to do the very thing they claim to be attempting to do: build healthy ecosystems. All too often with Permaculture it's much worse than just writing off the need to control invasives. I have seen Permaculturists become so obsessed with designing novel ecosystems that they even introduce invasive species. The goals of the Permaculture movement - building a society that exists in harmony with the natural world and is thus not only sustainable, but regenerative - are sound. Many of the ideas - building agricultural systems that act like ecosystems - are good and worth exploring. But the methods and approaches taught by Permaculturists in PDC courses are deeply problematic.

briantakita 4y ago

John D Liu made a documentary which covers Jordan's efforts among others titled "Regreening the Desert". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI&ab_channel=vprodocumentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI&ab_channel=vprod...

tariksbl 4y ago

they will incur the wrath of Shai Hulud!!

eitland 4y ago

Possibly more interesting should be the country next to Jordan that has gone from desert, barely producing enough for itself to net exporter of agricultural products.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
It is unclear which country you're talking about. Saudi Arabia?
- somecommit 4y ago
  No, the other one over the "green line", which can be seen from space, thanks to decades of reforestation
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    Still unclear because Israel is not a net food exporter while Saudi Arabia is. Unless we're talking about some other way to slice it (which I was unable to find any data on).
    - wahern 4y ago
      I don't think either country is a net food exporter. The few sources seemingly suggesting Saudi Arabia as a net food exporter are misleading, and lack numbers for a net exporter claim. See, e.g., https://www.foodexport.org/export-insights/market-and-country-profiles/saudi-arabia-country-profile https://www.foodexport.org/export-insights/market-and-countr... (I initially misconstrued this Google hit because of the context), or the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Saudi_Arabia ("In regards to self-sufficiency, the kingdom produced a limited surplus, sufficient to export some quantities of food.") By contrast, there are many sources with numbers (primarily by value, but much of that seems to be for inputs like grain, etc) showing Saudi Arabia to be a net importer. See, e.g. https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/foodstuffs/reporter/sau https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/foodstuffs/re... That said, it does seem Saudi Arabia's balance of food trade seems very similar to Israeli's. And Saudi Arabia has extensive policies to promote domestic food production.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

Surprised to see no mention of the book Greening the Desert by Rakesh Hooja, given they appropriated the title for this article. The book is a deep look into a successful permaculture endeavor in India. It talks about all the hard parts related to permaculture. That is, not the planting, not the irrigating, not the carefully lunar-timed execution of the pagan cow-horn-manure fertility ritual, but the social and political factors involved in getting a lot of different people on board with a long-term, large-scale, and risky agricultural project. A dry, kind of boring read, but useful.

rpep 4y ago
Completely different landscape but “Rewilding” by Isabella Tree goes into quite a bit of detail about similar challenges in the U.K., for e.g. neighbouring farms being unhappy about them letting grow plants they consider weeds, having to remove carcasses of large animals due to agricultural regulations etc.