Desert Transformation Through Ecosystem Restoration with John D. Liu

Learn how Ecosystem Restoration Camp SEKEM Wahat transformed the desert into a green oasis with special guest John D. Liu!
✅ The Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration Course starts Nov. 14! Learn more 👉 www.sfw.one/IER
Camp SEKEM Wahat is a social innovation project that integrates ecological, economic, cultural, and community life to restore arid land in the Bahariya oasis of the Egyptian Western Desert. Camp SEKEM Wahat is part of The SEKEM Group, the umbrella initiative of a group of sustainability-minded companies and non-governmental organizations.
Kseniia Popova, Sustainable Development Project Manager at The SEKEM Group, will speak during the webinar about how Camp SEKEM Wahat was founded and developed based on the SEKEM initiative’s vision.
Ashleigh Brown, Education Coordinator of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, will also join the webinar panel. She will speak about the new partnership between the global Ecosystem Restoration Camps Foundation & The Soil Food Web School.
John D. Liu, creator of the Ecosystem Restoration Camps concept, and Dr. Elaine Ingham, founder of The Soil Food Web School, will be there to answer your questions with our panelists.
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The Soil Food Web School’s mission is to empower individuals and organizations to regenerate the soils in their communities. The Soil Food Web Approach can dramatically accelerate soil regeneration projects by focussing on the soil biome. This can boost the productivity of farms, provide super-nutritious foods, protect and purify waterways, and reduce the effects of Climate Change. No background in farming or biology is required for our Foundation Courses. Classes are online & self-paced, and students are supported by highly-trained Soil Food Web School mentors.
Over the last four decades, Dr. Elaine Ingham has advanced our knowledge of the Soil Food Web. An internationally-recognized leader in soil microbiology, Dr. Ingham has collaborated with other scientists and with farmers around the world to further our understanding of how soil organisms work together and with plants. Dr. Ingham is an author of the USDA's Soil Biology Primer and a founder of the Soil Food Web School.
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00:00 Introducing to panelists
09:37 Kseniia Popova - WAHAT Greening the Desert
42:35 Ashleigh Brown Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration
01:06:46 Q&A
#ecosystemrestoration #JohnDLiu #ecosystemrestorationcamps

[@soilfoodwebschool]

✅ Learn about the Introduction to Ecosystem Restoration Course here 👉 www.sfw.one/IER

[@wendyhusband4048]

Huge thanks to the panel especially John for speaking engagingly always. Great results to see so many camps in the program and look forward to updates in the future. During 2020 I was working on a site in Saudi Arabia (degraded and degraded hyper desert) and discovered 92 native plant species in my vegetation study of 1 year. There were atleast 25-30 more grass sp. that I observed but not identified during that time. I lean towards understanding the vegetation types where possible in all and surrounding ecosystems and create this as a base for starting a restoration project. I was totally surprised by the number of species on that land that I saw through a micro lens versus my first impression of what appeared to be a barren landscape. I look forward to more sessions and your course sounds really interesting. I have some contacts working in Jordan currently that I would like to connect with you Ashley for teacher possibilities 🙂💚 Thanks again.

[@redmonkey3556]

Please come help us in the south-west of France, our Ecosystem is falling appart!

[@CSGOPROS]

Im from tunisia we need help and adopt those knowledge to help the ecosystem

[@jorgemendieta5121]

Hola saludos desde Panamá no hablo inglés pero ví un programa Besa el suelo donde salió y vi lo que pudo lograr me impresionó mucho buen trabajo que siga teniendo mucho éxito en sus funciones y quede contagié si forma de trabajar y pensar saludos

[@savesoil3133]

#SaveSoil #ConsciousPlanet 😊💚

[@jeffreybischof315]

I am in Farmington New Mexico. Doing 4x8x1’ boxes. Doing everything. Lots of self done soils

[@mathewruck1447]

How do you determine how to restore an area if you do not know what it had been before humans altered the ecosystem?

[@ashleighbrown7260]

Excellent question. If you want to restore an ecosystem back to full health and functionality using native species, you need to find a nearby ecosystem that is intact and use that as a reference. This is where you will get the seeds you need to propagate and plant out the species needed to kick start natural regeneration.

[@sandponics]

Just leave it untouched for a few thousand, or possibly a million years and it will recover.

[@debraholden45]

im form the UK

[@bountybreaks]

How do we collaborate on restoration community to community? Are there grants or financial assistance available to help start up community based programs? For example most demonstration gardens are literally aesthetic in purpose. I want to start restoration projects within communities that help feed and educate! I feel if every community was to embrace their own natural diversity and sustainability… we could eliminate the bulk of distribution and agricultural waste! How do I get started if not a millionaire myself?

[@ashleighbrown7260]

Good question :) it’s this conundrum that we’re seeking to help people with at the camps movement. Any interactions with our offerings will help you get there. If you don’t have land and don’t have funding, the best thing to do is to get involved with someone else’s project, until you’ve built up the team and experience to do it yourself.

[@bountybreaks]

@@ashleighbrown7260 Are these restoration research camps available to brilliant minds who lack finance?

[@ya3ny]

@@bountybreaks , around the 41:00 mark she mentions the opportunity to volunteer

[@antoniomendez2881]

You have your hand out waiting for free assistance. Good luck with that.

[@bountybreaks]

@@antoniomendez2881 Actually I don’t have my hand out. Did I specifically say I’m the brilliant mind?? I was pointing out that they are not in it for change! They are profiteers! All of what you need to educate yourself on restoration and regeneration is already available for FREE!!! I am pointing out the Narcissistic Histrionic behavior that is required to run a program that supposedly saves earth while only making the educational materials available to the wealthy! This is a sign of weak inferiority trying to gain prestige while and possibly an incomplete program. Intelligence is evenly spread out through social class. Any institution who denies the asset of acquiring intelligence is not an institution of moral change…they are simply unproductive wealth hoarders under the guise of Nobel intent! The hand need not be held out to those of true generosity and compassion✌️💗

[@mathewruck1447]

I want to help work with the Native American reservations, are there any camps planned for theses areas?

[@jasontucker3295]

get the buffalo and antelopue back on the land.

[@marlyjung4102]

The Dep. of Defense is concerned about the loss of bird species and is trying to come up with ways to mitigate this loss on defense lands. With the help of fish and wildlife and resource professionals they came up with dimming the lights. It seems like creating ecosystems that serve as resting places for migrating birds would do much. Especially those in drying areas such as CO, AZ, NM where there has been thousands of birds collapsing from exhaustion/dehydration etc.

[@mathewruck1447]

What about grey water recollection? Do you have examples of success in this area?

[@ashleighbrown7260]

Lots of the restoration camps are doing greywater harvesting yes

[@wendyhusband4048]

Greening the Desert project in Jordan has some great videos on using grey water and reed bed systems 👍

[@James-ol2fr]

Ksenia (after St. Xenia perhaps?) Working a stones throw from St. Katherine's Monastery? Is there any connection with them and this project around Sinai? -Katherine

[@soilfoodwebschool]

thank you for your question. Please send us an email [e-mail]

[@atulvashisth6607]

How the barren land will improve?

[@kevd7664]

In reference to the depth of the water table. Has anyone read viktor schaubergers work on this subject.?

[@timeparticles]

I love your studies on soil biodiversity, and I want you to consider another level of thinking because of something you have said, here. Absolutely, no wood from a carbon based tree turns to stone..... ever! Wood degrades in just a few years. Wood chips degrade for compost, as well as, wood tree branches, trunks and leaves. It will not turn to stone in a thousand years after turning into dust and soil in 5 years. Petrified wood is silicon based wood from silicon based trees. Silicon based trees have been hypothesized for years and scientists consider it as a possibility but no one really pursues the evidence that the trees actually existed thousands of years ago. Such a tree based on silicon instead of carbon, would have the strength to grow huge, hundreds of times larger than the largest carbon based tree. So, how come they are not growing, today? Our earth has lost its ability to sustain such a life form because of degradation. We may never have proof that our earth can grow such silicon based trees because of environmental loss.

[@atulvashisth6607]

What is about desert 🏜?

[@debraholden45]

Ive just found it too

[@debraholden45]

I wanted to know if you could introduce ancient soil microbes into new forest soils?

[@soilfoodwebschool]

Please send your question to [e-mail] so that we can forward it to our Science Team, and they can address your question.

[@karunamayiholisticinc]

do you guys know of organic regenerative farmers we can support? we have a company that promotes online education and will be happy to do webinars of farmers who converted to regenerative Ag and how they did that and how it helped them. Can you connect us to such farmers I'm Canada and US?

[@soilfoodwebschool]

Hi Karunamayi, thank you for your question. Please send us an email [e-mail]

[@karunamayiholisticinc]

​@@soilfoodwebschool will do! thank you

[@debsweetman1867]

No audio ?

[@soilfoodwebschool]

Hey Deb, There is audio on the video. please Check your audio settings.

[@mathewruck1447]

What about invasive weeds that are beneficial to bees. Should we be eliminating non native plants and animals?

[@ashleighbrown7260]

There are many schools of thought on what should be done about invasive species. There’s a difference between non native and invasive. Non native plants if they are proving food or forage to certain generalists could arguably stay in small patches, but invasive species are often called invasive because they subsume native species and in that sense, become problematic. In order to really increase biodiversity, you need food for specialists. And specialist species only feed on native species. However, there is an argument that using non native species/invasive that you carefully manage and control so that they don’t get out of hand is useful because that can survive in degraded conditions and can help create the conditions for more delicate native species to emerge.

[@jasontucker3295]

no,different seeds have been sailing around the world for centuries

[@duanenorris5463]

NO. Nature is an equal opportunity employer. She does not discriminate on the basis of of native or native. That's a human construct. So too, in the concept of invasive 'weeds', another human construct. Nature abhors bare ground. It upsets the water/heat dynamic and Nature wants to get the system back into equilibrium asap. So called 'invasive weeds' are Nature's primary colonisers. Early succession PLANTS to restore ground cover. When they've done their job; they die and return nutrients and carbon to the soil organic matter and along comes the secondary colonisers etc.

[@mathewruck1447]

I don’t know what good is puncture vine!😀

[@hhwippedcream]

Keeping bicyclists out of restoration areas? lol