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Soil Short Film

Nature Is Speaking – Edward Norton is The Soil | Conservation International (CI)

A very clear and concise short video about Soil, made by Nature is Speaking. Please check out there website for more great short films

The Permaculture Research Insitute

PRI Zaytuna Farm functions as a model farm (in development) and permaculture training facility. Geoff and Nadia Lawton, world-renowned permaculture educators and consultants, lead the project. Much of Geoff and Nadia’s time over the last few years has been spent away from the Institute, consulting and helping set up projects in diverse locales around the world. Seeing the worldwide demand for knowledgeable permaculture consultants and teachers increase exponentially, as fuel and fertiliser prices skyrocket and the effects of climate change, soil depletion and water shortages begin to hit hard, priority and focus is now shifting back to the Institute, where growing the training program will increase the output of quality teachers to help fill the growing need for them.

11 Comments

  1. Monsanto and Conservation International Partner to Conserve Biodiversity.

    Conservation International (CI) and Monsanto established this partnership because both organizations believe by working together, they will encourage positive changes for biodiversity and natural habitats by:
    1. Influencing the implementation of best practices along Monsanto’s supply chain, which is directly in contact with farmers in the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado of Brazil
    2. Implementing concrete conservation actions in two biodiversity corridors in the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes https://www.monsanto.com/improvingagriculture/pages/conserving-biodiversity-with-conservation-international.aspx

  2. Soil is NOT nonrenewable! There are large soil generation processes available to us, and causing trouble. Aquatic weeds generate silt in huge quantities That silt clogs and ruins lakes. If we harvest both the weeds and silt, we can restore large quantities of soil.

  3. I find the film grossly misleading. We are taught in permaculture and restoration agriculture that nature and the soil does need humans to interact and restore/replenish that which both we and nature have depleted and/or damaged.

  4. Actually the silt you refer to is finely ground up rock which is not soil. The soil is a multi functional mix of thousands of different ingredients which combined in the right proportions makes fertile soil. The silt and the weeds combined would only make up a small proportion of the fertile soil we need. By reapplying this to the land we would create a mix of soil that is poor draining and only one step up from pure clay. It may become a part constituent of some soil types where the soil is sandy or very coarse but it would need to be mixed sensibly to ensure the final product is suitable for growing. Don’t forget that silt also contains the chemical toxins that have been used on the land and will also possibly contain loads of heavy metals which you really don’t want in your food so think carefully before using silt from lakes. Be certain the lake is not being fed with toxic waste as the silt will be its last resting place. As for the lakes becoming silted up in the first place that is because every time we plough or dig soil we break it down into ever finer particulates and these get washed away easily or blow on the wind and ultimately they cause problems far greater than we can imagine.
    Simple solution. Restore wetlands, restore soils by resting them and planting trees and inoculating the soil with mycorrhizal fungi so that we can re-establish the soil networks.
    Great lecture by Paul Stamets at the Bioneers Conference which is well worth watching along with many other videos by him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAw_Zzge49c

  5. Nature needs people like the ones here who recognize themselves as nature and work to defend themselves on a wider ecological-self scale. The very statement that nature doesn’t need humans broadcasts a message that humans are not nature, which is the core belief that is supporting the destructive and detrimental cycles demonized here. Humans are nature, and if we destroy this place we will be committing suicide.

  6. Methinks some of the folks above missed the point entirely. Without us, nature will just carry on. In fact many ecosystems will recover and start thriving again because natural systems build and replenish soil. Without Nature, however, we die. End of story.

    1. Couldn’t agree more that nature is capable of surviving without us.. We are a part of nature, not separate or superior to nature. Nature can well survive without us. Probably do it a lot better than at present because of our polluting and destructive behaviour. And to those above who think permaculture is about humans being something that nature cannot survive without forget it. Your wrong. Totally. As for Monsanto playing the green-wash game well that is an entirely different story. One small pocket handkerchief of land restoration or ecological management does not compensate for the millions of hectares of land they have poisoned on an industrial scale.

    2. I respectfully disagree. While it is true that some ecosystems are able to recover, others are not. The side by side comparisons of where keyline plowing has been used compared to areas that have been left alone to recover without human intervention following soil and environmental degradation (see Owen Hablutzel’s work) or managed grazing influences upon soil in areas suffering desertification from poor farming/ranching practices (see: Alan Savory’s Holistic Management) are but a couple of examples. Additionally, see John Liu and Geoff Lawton’s works on Greening the Desert. Nature would not have accomplished that alone.

      Nature does not automatically undo the damage of mans’ poor land management practices by simply removing man from the equation. What we have seen is that Nature amplifies the damage instead of restoring the systems. The top predators in systems are an essential part of the maintenance of natural systems. The removal of top predators leads to an imbalance all the way down the food chain ( see wolves in Yellowstone National Park). Mankind is one of those top predators.

      . We are part of nature, not separate from it. And, in many areas we have eradicated the animals, plants, and micro-organisms required for the restoration of healthy ecosystems. As such, mankind, his improved knowledge, tools, and collaborative applications are needed in the equation of the restoration of these damaged ecosystems.

      Just my opinion…….

  7. Got to critically question the intent of this piece of propaganda. gmo´s-transênicos and this Planet which includes all non-gmo´s-sem transênicos living creatures do not mix, period. End of story.

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