Ethiopia: How They Transformed Desert Into Fertile Farmland & Forests
Reaforestation without planting trees: FMNR (Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration) which is based on pruning and protecting shrubs because they re already growing on the landscape, as they have already
Ron: FMNR is based on pruning and protecting shrubs because they are arleady growing on the landscape; have already developed root systems and are adapted to the climate. Tony Rinaudo found out in Niger that they can grow into healthy trees a lot faster than it would take to plant new trees from seed or saplings. The leaf litter from pruning cools the soil, retains moisture and provides a food source for micro organisms and microorganisms like termites. So you’re really kick starting the whole ecosystem. If you give nature a chance it will heal itself.
Tony Rinudo: “The solutions to today’s complex problems are embarrassingly simple. FMNR is embarrassingly simple”.
Ron: I agree with Tony Rinaudo. For instance, the solution to global poverty, scarcity and want is to simply to eliminate the right given to privately owned banks to pretend to create money by typing book keeping digits into bank loan accounts. The complex and difficult task is, as always, realising the nature of the problem and its actual solution; and then doing it.
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479,198 views Jan 22, 2024
This country is has been making some large scale incredible transformations, restoring forests and farmland, turning a community from food aid dependent into food producers. It's an amazing achievement considering the fact this countries geography makes it very venerable to desertification due to its proximity to several deserts, such as the Sahara and Great Arabian Deserts. This country also has a desert known as the hottest driest and most inhospitable place on earth known as the Danakil desert. Several factors have led to the population forgetting how to manage their landscapes sustainably causing an unprecedented crisis in the 1980's with famine that continued to make the community food aid dependent, the landscape was eroded and degraded, causing devastating landslides and floods during the rainy season, and prolonged, crippling drought in the dry season.
Over the last decade they have managed to turn this around working with Tony Rinaudo and WorldVison they have been able to restore hundred and thousands of hectares of land, that have help to restore the water-shed, holding water during the wet season and letting it soak into the aquifers, instead of being washed away, as a result there is still water flowing in the dry season and farmers have been able to not only be self-reliant but also food producers, selling their surplus crops.
Watch this exclusive interview with Tony Rinaudo to learn more about the success of the project:
