Environment Articles

Reforestation.me:

Articles about reforestation, forest fires, bushfires, fire shields, fuel reduction browsing, overseas aid, agroforestry, environment, environmental restoration, conservation, improving soils, agriculture, food production, food security, climate change – environment articles.

*

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,

it is time to pause and reflect”

Mark Twain.

*

Ecotherapy – article on ecotherapy (about the therapeutic mental health benefits of contact with nature, including, for example, planting trees) – print@cairnscopy.com.au_20141007_093401

And the article below:

Research article about exposure to nature and the benefits for mental health (Cox et al: Bioscience Feb 2017). Click here: biw173

Forest bathing research:

039463200802100113

039463200902200410Li2009Phytoncides

*

Reconstructing Grassy Communities – includes modified seeder, topsoil removal, etc. – print@cairnscopy.com.au_20141007_093512

*

Reforestation, livestock management, food production, Arborloos, Terra preta:

hol mgt Holistic management, planned grazing, kindly supplied by Beach Codevilla, of the Savory Institute.

AgNotes. FMNR3[1] Farmer managed natural regeneration, also known as Assisted natural regeneration. Amazing results in the Sahel region of West Africa. See also links, and photos 1. Kindly supplied by Tony Rinaudo, World Vision Australia.

Direct seeding Faidherbia albida in the Sahel  Suggestions for direct seeding Faidherbia albida trees (previously known as Acacia albida) which occur through much of tropical Africa. The techniques presented in this article could also be modified to suit other plants in other places. The article is a result of an excellent seminar presented by Dr. Dennis Garrity on evergreen agriculture at James Cook University in October 2011. During a coversation, he pointed out that there is a great need to be able to cheaply and effectively establish more Faidherbia trees, often between existing trees.

At the climate change conference in Durban (2011), Ethiopia announced that it plans to establish 100 million Faidherbia albida trees over the next three years. If this tremendous feat is achieved, it should make a huge difference in preventing acute famine and improving food security in the future in Ethiopia, and potentially in the Sahel region through to Senegal, and other parts of Africa.

The Arborloo may prove to be an effective way of establishing Faidherbia trees (see the “Arborloo” page).

aid-savory-3rd  The AID plus seeds treatment (Animal Improved Dung plus seeds system) An innovative and synergistic system using livestock and animals such as dung beetles and earth worms to disperse soil improvers and seeds for reforestation, soil improvement and climate amelioration. For example, livestock could be used to disperse seeds of nitrogen-fixing plants, grasses etc. and soil improvers such as deficient nutrients, clay in sandy soils, beneficial soil life such as Rhizobium bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, etc, all in one operation.

shortaid A summary of the AID treatment emphasising the use of livestock, but missing a great deal of important information.

charborloo 090212 The arborloo (tree toilet – where a tree is planted on top of a pit toilet, or trees/plants are grown around a pit toilet while it is still in use), and the charborloo.

making terra preta 090212 About the use of biochar and a possible technique for making Terra preta today.

vegsand Techniques for increasing vegetable production in sandy soil. Written for Stellenbosch University, near Cape Town, South Africa, in an attempt to increase food production for poverty-stricken people on the Cape Flats, but with application elsewhere.

*

Research papers by Getachew Jenberu, a scientist from Ethiopia. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Getachew who is doing his doctoral thesis at James Cook University in Cairns Australia. Most of these papers are to do with increasing productivity in cropping in Ethiopia:

Fertilizer and weed mgt. on FB, Fertilizer & weed mgt. on FP, Ethiopia soil & fertlizer diagnostic – July 2010, Drainage, sowing date & variety effects on chickpea, Crop residue EJAS _46-62. You can read more of his papers, about combining Faba beans (broad beans Vicia faba) and cereals on the “Complementary Plants” page. Thank you Getachew for kindly supplying these papers.

*

Fire – protecting people, livestock and property from bush/forest fires.

Ffire shield 131211  “Fire shields for protecting people, livestock and property”. Includes fire-retardant plant list. Some information here which is not in the “Small Farms” magazine article below.

Fire shields for protecting people, livestock and property. Article published in “Small Farms” magazine, May 2009 which includes many inventive and practical suggestions using fire shields to protect people, livestock and property from bush/forest fires. Some information here which is not in the article above.

A couple of articles by David Mason-Jones on grazing to reduce the risk of fire:

Article by David Mason-Jones

Article by David Mason-Jones.

Article by David Mason-Jones.

To read this article by David Mason-Jones, click on Proper Grazing 1 and 2 below:

Proper Grazing 1

Proper Grazing 2

*

Laya Ross – Bushfire counselling report with introduction: laya final

My sister is a counsellor, with extensive experience, including counselling people who have been traumatised by bushfires. She came up with the idea of a book on bushfires, and was the driving force behind its creation. This is her contribution to the book, “Baked Apples on the Tree Ash Wednesday Reflections”. Cockatoo Neighbourhood House. ISBN 978-0-5612-2. (2011).

A quote from the back cover of the book:

“Many people owe their lives to the ‘safe shelter’ provided by Cockatoo Kindergarten. One of the men up on the roof of the kindergarten, hosing it down during the night, says:

‘They called us heroes but we weren’t heroes; it wasn’t going to burn down.’

‘Did you know at the time that it wasn’t going to burn down?’

‘No.’

‘You put your life on the line to protect the women and children inside?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘That’s heroic.'”

*

jnf-lett Letter written to the Jewish National Fund after the fires on Mount Carmel (the Jewish National Fund achieve amazing results growing forests in very difficult sites).

*

*

*

Climate change, Politics

http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=271 Fiona Kobusingye does some straight talking.

Letter to Australian politicians offering solutions to climate change through reforestation – click here: top6lett24511 This letter was sent in good faith to the Prime Minister of Australia (The Hon. Julia Gillard, at the time), and five other relevant Federal politicians, including the department supposed to be solving the problem of climate change, which is comprised of numerous staff, working around forty hours a week, and all for very good pay and conditions, funded by the tax payers of Australia. Australian politicians recently had a gross pay rise of $45 000 p.a., (followed shortly afterward by an additional $5 000 a year, and more recently the State politicians are at the trough, trying to keep up). Their pay rises are more than most people I know earn in a year. A politician’s annual baseline gross pay is now $190 000, or considerably more.

Two departments did not reply (including the Prime Minister), one passed the buck and suggested other sources of funding, none stated that they would act on any of the recommendations (I would like to have at least had the satisfaction of  knowing that they were going to do something, for the benefit of Australia and Australians, and for people around the world, and overseas aid), one (the Office of the Leader of the Opposition) thanked me, however none offered any funding for the work done, nor any funding to continue the work.

It is reasonable to assume that if someone developed, or was developing a better and cheaper treatment for a real problem such as cancer or AIDS for example, that funding, support and publicisation would be forthcoming. Apparently innovations and solutions to the problems of deforestation, land degradation, abject poverty in the developing world and climate change do not warrant funding. This strongly suggests that the problem of climate change is grossly overstated, and that the real agendas are political and economic, and that they don’t actually want solutions to climate change, or at least not solutions that don’t fit the real agendas. The real agenda has been admitted, as early as 1992, by Maurice Strong, then Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The real agenda includes collapsing industrial civilisation, reducing resource consumption, driving most of the world population into abject poverty, and last but not least, reducing the world population. This is not just some paranoid delusion, as the following quotes by Strong prove: “We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilisation to collapse”, and “deliberate quest of poverty… reduced resource consumption… and set levels of mortality control” (Jaworowski). I suggest that one means of achieving this (the collapse of industrialised civilisation, which is largely based on cheap, reliable energy from fossil fuels, reduction of resource consumption, and mass impoverishment) is to brainwash the people into believing that emission controls are the only and essential solution, and then stridently demand reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, cloaked under a pseudoscientific veil of imminent catastrophic climate change blamed on anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.

None of this comes as a surprise to me, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to do my bit, with my own very limited time and money, and gave them a fair chance to act with integrity; to do what is right.

It seems that “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” (Upton Sinclair).

*

*

“Do what is right because it is right”

Chiune Sugihara

*

“The basis of all excellence is truth…”

Samuel Johnson

*

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”

Lord Acton

*

References/resources

Jaworowski, Zbigniew. “The Global Warming Folly”. Pg. 3. www.mitosyfraudes.org/Warming.html

*

“There is always a way to do it better…  find it”

 Thomas Edison.

*

***

Reforestation.me