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Can we revive our rivers and landscapes? Can we bring water back to regions that have been desertified? Yes we can, and this example shows us how.


Drought and water scarcity are now issues all around the world. Cities are running out of water, landscapes are engulfed in flames, and every year drought, flood and fire become more common and severe. Despite the huge amount of energy and money that has been put into developing elaborate water systems, the distribution and availability of water seems to continue getting worse. The engineered solutions that nations around the world have pursued, while solving our immediate needs, have made the long term outlook even more bleak. The best solutions we’ve found have come from people living close to their landscape, dependent on the health of their land for their own survival.  


In the driest region of India, Doctor Rajendra Singh was up against these enormous challenges. The farmland in his region had turned to desert, water sources had gone dry, and all of the young people from the villages had migrated to the cities for work. While he was treating the remaining elderly villagers for night blindness (due to malnutrition), one village elder showed Rajendra a more powerful way to help the community. He told Rajendra that what the community needed to be healthy was not medicine, but water - Rajendra had to shift his focus to treating the Earth.


“Don’t do the treatment of humankind, treat the Earth, because this Earth nobody has treated today.  If Earth is sick, then nobody is healthy.  If you treat the earth, the Earth will treat us and make us healthy.”

With that Rajendra’s education on the traditional water structures of Rajasthan began. The village elder lowered Rajendra into various wells, showing him the differences in the geological layers. They saw how in vertically fractured geology the trees grew bigger and stronger, as they were able to access the groundwater. In the areas with horizontally fractured geology they saw how the trees grew short and squat, growing more like shrubs than trees. Then the elder took Rajendra to a specific place within the landscape, and told him to start building a water body there.


As the monsoon season came, so did the rains to fill the waterbody. Rajendra’s first Johad (water body) worked, providing water to both the landscape and the life on the landscape. But something even more miraculous happened. Downstream of the water body a well that had gone dry was full to the top with water. Not only had the water body brought life to the landscape, it also had recharged the underground aquifer.


“When I completed the first water body and saw the water downstream in the well, that is a great memory for me.”


Community Driven Decentralized Water Retention

As people in the surrounding communities saw and heard of the results, interest in the work started to spread. As more villages brought water back to their landscapes, health, prosperity, and enjoyment returned to the region. Instead of just one crop per year, villagers were now able to grow 2, 3 or even 4 crops each year. Young people who had migrated to the cities for work started to return. Working with water delivers results after the first rainy season. As people helped infiltrate the seasonal rains into the ground, the health of their communities returned. Rajendra’s work became a movement, spreading throughout the region.


“First I learn from the community, old people, and after that I give the training to the young people.”

As the groundwater in the region returned, so did the flow of the rivers. Seasonal rivers started to flow year round. Rivers like the Arvari that had been dry for decades started to flow year round once again. 250,000 wells were recharged, benefiting more than a million people and even causing reverse migration. 7 rivers were revived. The temperature in the region was reduced by 2 degrees Celsius. 


“When I started the work my Earth was fevered, sick - now my Earth is healthy, because the temperature has gone down 2 degrees.”

Water is life. All life has equal rights to water, it’s not just for companies and wealthy water barons. In a water abundant world, with water freely available, no one has to buy it. But in a water scarce world, the business of selling water is extremely profitable. The companies that privatize water make a profit while destroying ecosystems and keeping water supplies scarce. This is the real threat for our future, and something we must stand united against.


“Today this education system destroys the love and respect of nature. This education system creates control - flood control, drought control. Nature is not for control, nature’s for love and respect.  This way of controlling is creating a disaster.”


“When we can flow with nature, nature gives us the flow of peace and enjoyment.”

Even in the driest and harshest conditions, the water cycle can be recharged and become healthy once again. If the poorest villages in the driest part of India can restore the health of their landscape, then why can’t this work be done around the world? Community Driven Decentralized Water Retention provides a clear and proven pathway towards a better common future. Decades of environmental damage can be reversed in a few years and our planet can be rejuvenated by working with water, soil, and vegetation.  


“The water is really the mother of peace, and the forest is the father of peace. If there is no water, a lot of tension starts. When the water comes, people have peace.”


“Water conservation and soil conservation is a real revolution. The conservation of water stopped the soil erosion, and that work stopped the drought in that village.”


“If we’re not thinking about the common future, if we’re not giving equal respect to the community and nature, we can’t make prosperity and peace. This change came in my region, due to the community involvement.”

Tarun Bharat Sangh seeks to bring dignity and prosperity to the life of a destitute section of the nation through sustainable development measures. TBS aims for the holistic development of men, women, and children, regardless of economic situation, caste or religion. TBS promotes the community-driven-decentralized-management of the natural resources.

This is Rajendra's organization - the team of people that has been guiding villages through this transformation.  Here you can learn more about their work, help support their efforts, and learn more about their educational offerings.

Reviving Rivers

What do you want to become of the Earth?  


We see how around the world each year more landscapes are impacted by drought and fire, only to be flooded when the rains do come.  


That was abundantly clear in the Australian bushfires of 2020.  The fires burned 12 million hectares, killing more than 1 billion animals.  And when the rains came the landscape flooded. There was no chance for the parched earth to absorb the rapidly draining rain…




But amidst this disaster, in an especially horrific year of heat and fire, there were also examples of places that were cool and moist, that had no problem weathering the fires. One of these places was the Canberra Botanical Gardens, a Rainforest created by Humans in New South Wales, Australia.  The rainforest acts as a green lifeboat. Keeping temperatures cool with photosynthesis throughout the year.  


“Every gram of water that is taken up from these soils by this vegetation, needs 590 calories of heat energy to get transformed from liquid to gas, so it has a profound global cooling effect.”

Working with nature, using natural processes, they created this rainforest in a rapidly desertifying landscape.  Storing water in the earth was a first critical step, and enhancing the cycling of that water through a misting system.  Planting pioneer species was also essential, as they sheltered the ground and created a microclimate.  The pioneer trees also produced leaf litter and organic matter.  The misting system facilitated the growth of fungi, who converted this organic matter into rich sponge-like soil.  This sponge-like soil infiltrates more water and holds it longer into the dry times.


“This rainforest was created not by adding more water, but it was certainly done by enhancing the water cycling.”


“It doesn’t use more water per se, it just conserves and cycles it’s water much more efficiently, and in that way sustains a much, much more productive biosystem.”

The control site for the project shows what the valley was like previously.  The rainforest is not only much more productive but it is also a cooler environment that is more buffered against extremes.  While the surrounding landscape was unbearably hot and dry, the rainforest was still cool and moist.  


Ground temperatures in the Rainforest rarely exceed 25c 77f.

Ground temperatures in the control site regularly exceed 40c 104f


“We’ve got this very interesting paradox between the same forest type, on the same soil, on the same climate. And it can either go into a wet sclerophyll environment, if it’s fungi can get active to break down the litter, to build the hydrology to keep moisture in the system; or if the fungi can’t get active, and then it just accumulates fuel, accumulates and intensifies fire risks, and turns it ever drier, sclerophyll arid zones, rangelands and eventually desert.”

The fungi play a key role in this story, partnering with this kingdom was essential to the project's success.  Because the moisture levels were maintained at the forest floor, the fungi were able to break down the organic material.  This process produced rich sponge-like soil that also holds moisture much longer into the dry times.  When the fungi can’t get active, all of that material dries out and builds up as fuel, leading to the extreme and catastrophic wildfires we have been experiencing.


“Lots of dry litter, it’s just waiting for a wildfire… it is just fuel that is accumulating... which then becomes the basis of an inferno, taking these biosystems ever, ever more into degraded, desertified, aridified, landscapes.”

70 to 95 percent of the global heat dynamics of Earth are regulated by the water cycle.  Over the last 10,000 years humans have desertified ⅓ of Earth’s land.  This is the root cause behind the drought, flood, and fire we have been experiencing with increasing regularity and severity.  Water Cycle Disturbance is directly leading to the worst impacts of climate change.  By working with water and nature we can create a prosperous future.  


“95% of that 342 watts is regulated through hydrology, through a whole sequence of hydrological processes, about 4%, less than 4% is driven by the co2 component of the greenhouse effect.”  


“Instead, there’s 95% of the heat dynamics, that is actually managed through hydrology, which we can actually use naturally and safely to cool the planet.” 


“We can turn that greenhouse effect down from ultra high to simmer, without actually having to change the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere.”


“Both the formation of clouds and the formation of raindrops again is governed biologically, to a large extent, by the production of what we call precipitation nuclei.  Water can’t come out of the air just by itself, it needs to be nucleated and precipitate around a droplet that’s big enough and heavy enough to fall out under gravity.  And these hygroscopic precipitation nuclei are then critical in creating these clouds, and rain.  And guess what - Over half of the earth’s rainfall and clouds are driven biologically by precipitation nuclei produced by vegetation.”


“It has a profound effect, these forests, in actually cooling the climate.  And of course this is what we have to do globally.”



“Unless we find ways of rapidly cooling the climate through natural biosystems like this, we risk just getting warmer and warmer, drier and drier, and losing water security, food security, habitat, biodiversity, and the whole ecological life support systems we depend on.”


“What’s critically important isn’t how much rain we get, but what happens to every raindrop that we do get.”


“Instead of wasting this water, losing this water and having all of these negative consequences we can make this water an extremely valuable ecosystem service asset, and we do that simply by regenerating the earth’s soil carbon sponge.”


“Regenerating landscapes, re-greening landscapes we can naturally and safely cool the planet.”


“Through respecting, understanding and restoring, regenerating nature we can rapidly turn things around.”


“Very practical, extremely profitable, simple things that everybody can do at an individual, community, grassroots level.”

Facilitate the growth of the soil carbon sponge

Plant a tree, or even better plant a forest

Discuss water stewardship with your network

Champion the importance of the water cycle

Desert or Rainforest

Water is the unifying force supporting life on earth. If we want to restore the health of our environment, we must begin with water. To do so, we must observe its cycles wholly.

This film, Unidos por el Agua (United for Water), is an incredible account of three water warriors in Veracruz, Mexico, where we get to observe the whole water cycle system, from glaciated peak to ocean, all within a short distance.

Visit a local mountain guide, a family discovering traditional cultivation methods on a river bound mesa, and a local fisherman in the mangroves. These are their water stories.

Unidos por el Agua

Most of us have been taught an over simplified story of the water cycle. The full water cycle is much more complicated and interconnected than what we learned in school. Here, we tell the whole story.

The sun’s energy turns liquid water into vapor. Water vapor can make up 4% of the volume of air; 40,000ppm. This water vapor drifts inland from the coasts. For this water vapor to condense into droplets, forming clouds and then rain, it needs nuclei to form around. What does that mean? It needs a particle that the water vapor can start to condense upon, then it can gather mass and volume in order to form a droplet. Precipitation nuclei can be ice crystals, salts, or microorganisms. Hygroscopic (attracts water) microorganisms can account for 50-80% of the precipitation received. Where do these microorganisms grow? Within the leaves (stomatal cavities) of trees, using the surplus sugars from photosynthesis as a food source.

Phase changes of water involve a tremendous amount of heat and energy. As water vapor condenses from gas to liquid it releases 590 calories of heat per gram. This heat is released into the upper atmosphere and largely dissipates into space. Clouds, once formed, reflect the sun’s radiation, further cooling the climate.  

The phase change from gas (large) to vapor (small) also creates a big change in volume, resulting in a drop in pressure. This acts like a vacuum, drawing in more humid air from the coast. This process of droplet formation and rain, by nature of the physical properties of water, draws in moist, low pressure air from the coast. Through this mechanism, the biotic pump, water is delivered from the coasts through Earth’s land masses.  

As vegetation transpires water (part of photosynthesis), the water absorbs a tremendous amount of heat energy (590 calories/gram) as it is converted from liquid to gas. This heat is carried away from the surface of the Earth, into the atmosphere, by the stream of rising water vapor. This contributes a very significant amount of water to the atmosphere, accounting for roughly half of the precipitation received. As the vapor condenses back into liquid, it releases the heat/energy that was absorbed at the surface. These biological and physical processes cool the planet by carrying heat away from the Earth’s surface, and dissipating it into space.

With the surface of the earth sheltered and protected from the sun, the soil stays cool and moist.  It is therefore able to quickly absorb the warmer falling rain. The water infiltrates deep into the earth along the roots of vegetation, recharging aquifers. This water then returns purified, mineralized, and energized as springs. This provides for ample water for photosynthesis throughout the year, with the cooling effect of transpiration buffering against temperature extremes. The water flowing through the Earth keeps rivers and lakes cool and clean, providing for a healthy aquatic system and water abundance.  



This is a feedback loop of productivity and abundance, leading to a balanced and stable climate; the natural state of Earth. The Full Water Cycle is increasingly disrupted, disturbed, and contaminated; this is called The Watershed Death Spiral.

The Full Water Cycle

Human activity has disturbed the Full Water Cycle, resulting in the increasingly common and severe Flood, Drought, and Fire we are experiencing; as well as rising global temperatures and extreme climate.  This is how we got here...

The desecration of Earth’s organs was not intentional, but rather the product of unintended consequences as civilization advanced. Forests were clear-cut, wetlands drained, and vast landscapes plowed. Rivers and waterways were dredged to make passage for boats and transport; in the process lowering the water level of the whole landscape. Levies were built and waterways disconnected from their floodplains, no longer able to deliver moisture and fertility seasonally to the surrounding lands. Hard surfaces (roads and buildings) and degraded, exposed soils severely reduced infiltration, creating even more runoff. Then, as water sources went dry, extracting groundwater - the last remaining reserves of fresh water.  Earth’s landscapes were transformed from rich forests and expansive wetlands to the wastelands and deserts we see today.  

Without space to go, the water rushes quickly downstream, resulting in flooding and erosion.  Even more tragically, the life-giving force of water never has a chance to infiltrate into the earth.  The landscape now quickly runs out of water, photosynthetic cooling stops, and droughts become severe. Columns of hot air rise off the bare earth, resulting in rising temperatures and high pressure heat domes. The heat domes resist the inflow of cool moist air from the coast and cause the pressure to build. Eventually the storm is powerful enough to overcome, and its force is destructive. The parched landscape is unable to absorb the intense downpour. Crops begin to fail, stress and competition increase, and wildlife populations dwindle.  Eventually desert is all that remains from once fertile land. 

The resulting impact on Earth’s climate is catastrophic; stronger, more severe storms, with longer periods of drought in between. The water vapor in the atmosphere, that would have previously fallen in the evening as rain, instead forms a warming haze, preventing heat from dissipating into the night sky. Temperatures rise as the impacts intensify, leading to long term drought and water scarcity. Under the stress of the extended drought, the landscapes are unable to resist fire. There is nothing “natural” about the disasters we are experiencing, they are the direct result of previous water management.

What is the result for the health of our planet? The water tables sink, making water increasingly scarce and reducing quality. Springs and creeks go dry, and the rivers and waterways begin to die. Huge landscapes burn, as rich land is transformed to desert. Temperatures rise and the climate becomes increasingly extreme and erratic.  

The Watershed Death Spiral is a feedback loop, the drier landscapes become, the less life they support.  The lifeless landscapes are unable to effectively regulate temperature and humidity. As a result the biome desertifies - making life harder for all of Earth’s inhabitants.


These effects and impacts build on one another, the further down the spiral we go the harder it becomes to reverse.  But there is another feedback loop, working to rehydrate the lands and restore the waters, that we can move towards -The Revived Water Cycle.





The Watershed Death Spiral

Humans can also be a creative, constructive force within Earth’s ecosystems. By creating decentralized water retention landscapes we act as keystone species, reviving the health of our land and water.  

This shift takes place by transforming the water-sheds that have been created, back into water-catchments. Community driven, decentralized water retention projects rehydrate landscapes and restore the health and vitality of ecosystems and communities. When we act for water, it creates positive ripple effects through the web of life.

It starts with a newfound respect for water and nature - changing our relationship from one of control, to one of cooperation and symbiosis. Reforesting, revegetating, terracing landscapes, and creating water bodies, all helps the land receive the seasonal rains. Decentralized Water Retention Landscapes help distribute and balance the availability of this vital resource.  Reconnecting waterways with their floodplains, and providing space for water to gather and infiltrate during flood events, further increases the seasonal recharge. Treating the catchment area by reestablishing forests, diverse vegetation and consistent groundcover improves the health of the soil, and the infiltration and retention of rains.   

Storing the seasonal rains within the earth-body ensures abundant and healthy water supplies throughout the year, and into the future. Rehydrating the landscape gives ecosystems the change to rebound to a state of health. Fresh water from the oceans is recharged back into the earth, replenishing groundwater and aquifers. Springs come back to life, and the streams and rivers become full of fish and wildlife once again. With abundant water, vegetation photosynthesizes for longer throughout the year, cooling the air and regulating the temperature - the heat dissipates. Hygroscopic microorganisms growing within the forests drift into the atmosphere, again seeding water vapor into clouds and then rain. The forests trap heat as they convert water from a liquid to a gas, for that heat to then be released higher in the atmosphere when the gas re-condenses back into a liquid. The low pressure systems created by this process draw in more humidity from the coast. This forms a feedback loop. In this way The Full Water Cycle can be restored, and with it a balanced and productive climate.

When working with water, people see the results of their efforts after the first rainy season. Year after year the landscape stays green for longer and is more productive. As the ecosystem develops interconnectedness and complexity, productivity continues to increase. These actions make sense for a human time scale as they provide us feedback with each passing rain. Huge transformations are possible within a decade, and people clearly see the results of their actions quickly, empowering them to gain confidence and community to expand their work.  

Participate here! Join the discussions, watch our videos, and share with your friends, family, and community. Without people around the world implementing these solutions, the potential impact cannot be realized. This revolution is by the people, and for the people and  planet.


Watch Reviving Rivers, A Renatured Life, or Desert or Rainforest to see real life examples. Join the Core Course to learn how to do this for yourself and to become a Water Restoration Practitioner. 


Together we can restore the health of our planet!

The Revivied Water Cycle

Water is the Blood of Earth. If you draw the analogy between water and blood, the Earth and your own body, you can quickly understand a lot about the water cycle. You can see how the springs, creeks, and rivers mirror our own veins. But it’s not just the water in and on the ground but also in the air, the atmospheric rivers of water vapor that function as the arteries, with the forests as the lungs. Water moves through the Earth’s circulatory system, bringing life to land. Much like our own body, when this system is disrupted, damage and loss is inevitable. When the water cycle is fully functioning we have a healthy environment. This is theFull Water Cycle.



If we look at some of these veins of the Earth, we quickly see how catastrophic recent human impact has been. River systems that used to flow year round now only flow in the rainy season. The Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of agriculture, is now a desert. Without the condensation nuclei the rains have been lost, and humid deserts created. This is theWatershed Death Spiral.The most concerning part is that we’re getting better at it, we’re doing it bigger, better, and faster than ever before.

As civilization arose, with poor sanitation and high concentrations, disease became a greater concern. Open water often meant disease, so the landscapes were altered to drain all of the water away. Waterways were dredged for transportation and with the then lower levels the banks were levied. The floodplains were developed making most of the world’s arable soils and cities. 


These actions have hardened the landscape and disconnected waters from their floodplains. They have forced the flow to happen all at once, leading to massive flooding. Then because the water wasn’t able to infiltrate into the land, the flood is then followed by massive drought and fire. There are tremendous costs and consequences associated with these actions. We are now seeing these results first hand with catastrophic flood, drought, and fire all around the world leading to famine, refugees, and war.  


How extensive has this change been? Human activity has desertified ⅓ of Earth’s land in the past 10,000 years. What have been the consequences? Single trees have within their lifetime witnessed whole continents go from drinkable water everywhere, to entire watersheds that aren’t even fishable or swimmable. They’ve seen stewardship of the land by humans go from a relationship of symbiosis to one of extraction, from creation to destruction. And that’s one thing for the humans, who can then fight over the little remaining clean water, but it’s another for the fish. They don’t have an option and end up living (or dying) with the toxicity humans created.

If we plot the waterflow over time on a graph (a hydrograph) comparing the vegetated landscape with the concreted one, the issues and results quickly become clear.  



The Vegetated Landscape

In the vegetated landscape the rain quickly infiltrates into the loose and cool soil. The land remains hydrated long after the last rain.  Plants access the groundwater, continuing to cool the air 590 calories per gram of water transpired. This results in stable temperatures and a balanced climate.

In the concrete landscape the water flow happens all at once, resulting in flooding and then the land quickly goes dry. There is only a short window for photosynthesis to occur after the last rains. This means drastically less photosynthetic cooling. The hardened bare earth absorbs and re-radiates heat from the sun. Both these impacts result in temperature rise and extreme climate.  


By design of the concrete landscape we have flooding, which comes with heavy costs of erosion, risk, loss, and necessitates additional insurance and finance charges if you can’t afford all of those costs outright. But by nature of creating the flood, this is also creating the drought and eventual fires, with their own set of costs, risk, and loss.  It’s creating a situation that isn’t tenable for anyone except the most wealthy…

You can see how we got here in a single image of Mannahatta (New York City) under Indigenous vs Colonial stewardship.  In the indigenous world view everything is sacred and has purpose, each part of an interconnected whole.  In the colonial world view everything is a resource with energy to exploit. The value of these resources is exported elsewhere, impoverishing the local land but enriching the oligarchs.  




We see this actively happening in the Amazon in the present day.  50 - 80% of the rainfall received in the Amazon is from the hygroscopic microorganisms produced by trees. If the forests are cleared the amount of rain they receive will reduce by 50 - 80%.  And not just for the Amazon basin, the forest acts as the biotic pump pulling water through the rest of the continent.  If the forests disappear, so will the rainfall in the southern parts of the continent. Instead of a cooling system drawing in humidity from the coast, we then have a heating systems creating high pressure heat domes preventing the inflow of coastal humidity.  The storm pressures build, resulting in more catastrophic weather events in other areas.

What we need now is a New Water Paradigm. We need to move from drainage to retention, exploitation to co-creation. This begins by changing our relationship with water and nature to one of love and respect - understanding that water is sacred, and is a common good for all life on this planet. By holding water in the ground, Decentralized Water Retention Landscapes, the vegetation will return and along with it transpiration and cooling. We need to terrace and revegetate the unused or less used lands, in order to infiltrate more water into the earth.  We need to find ways wherever and whenever possible to start offsetting all of the hard surfaces and drainage our ancestors have created.  





Right now the conversation about environmental footprint is all about reducing our environmental footprint. I want to have the biggest possible environmental footprint, because I understand that our footprint can be negative, or it can be positive.  If we are only focused on having a less negative footprint, we will never have a positive one. So we are using the tools and resources available to us today in order to create a better tomorrow. When done well these natural systems last for generations, even till the next ice age.


How do I know this is possible?  Because I have seen it first hand from my mentors and in my own projects.  I am eternally grateful to Sepp Holzer, who rewired my brain and showed me what is possible when humans partner with nature, instead of fighting her. He has led people to create paradise from desert. His farm, the Krameterhof, (now run by his son Josef) is the most incredible example of human potential in partnership with nature that I have ever witnessed. On a barren mountainside farm he created paradise, not just for himself but for all of his co-living beings as well.


Then Rajendra Singh showed me what is possible through community action. Together we truly can quickly turn things around. The movement of Community Driven Decentralized Water Retention that he started has brought water back to 250,000 wells, impacting more than a 1 million people - reversing migration. Their work has Revived 7 Rivers and reduced the local temperature 2 degrees.


One of their projects that I experienced was a community that had run out of water. They drilled 27 borehole wells, all of which were dry. Then for the same cost they created a water retention feature to capture and store the seasonal rains.  In 1 year that community went from 9 hectares of agriculture to 650 hectares. Their increase in agricultural productivity paid for the cost of the dam 4 times over, the very first year. And that work will continue to pay for itself year after year, for generations. Repairing the water cycle leads to an improvement in the quality of life for both human and non-human life on this planet.  It has cascading ripple effects leading to peace and prosperity.


We the people need to reclaim stewardship of our waters and lands. We need to work together to overcome the powerful forces working towards privatization and centralization. 


Nature is a force with endless momentum. When we learn how to work with her, we are partnering with a perpetual motion machine that from that point forward can serve the best interests of ourselves, our children, our communities, and the living world on Planet Earth.  


What do you think? Are you ready to become part of this movement?




Water - Earth's Blood

Most of us know about the Water Cycle, but how is rain actually generated? In a world where landscapes have been degraded on a continental scale...what role do plants, forests, and fungi play in restoring rainfall to our ecosystems?


Cindy Morris is a senior scientist at France’s National Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. In this webinar, she shares the science of how microorganisms help create rainfall, and what we can do to restore the water cycle. Learn all about her recent findings on how we can restore the bioprecipitation that sustains our local ecosystems.


For over 30 years Carl Struck has been stewarding a 40 acre Ponderosa Pine forest in Northern New Mexico evolving his management practices in the last 15 years to engage the 5 principals of regenerative agriculture in support of forest soil health and the water cycle. 


If you are interested in learning how we can restore rain and our climate, this webinar will show you how. To give you a hint...it depends on plants, water, air, and microorganisms.

Biology Makes Rain: the Science of Restoring Rainfall

Brad Lancaster believes that Tucson, and other cities around the world, can live off rainwater. This is the story of how he transformed his neighborhood by experimenting with water harvesting, worked with the city of Tucson to legalize those methods, and has become a beacon of hope and possibility for abundance rooted in sustainability. 


Learn More About Brad's Work https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/  
Watch the Film https://youtu.be/iIYoU2PTPLk  
More of David's Work https://www.david-fenster.com/

The Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance

Beavers are incredible at creating water retention and aquatic habitat. They don't just create habitat for themselves, but also a whole host of other species. Thus they are keystone species in many ecosystems, particularly throughout the American west.

The impacts of their removal has been tragic, but we can also begin a new relationship when we start to partner with and reintroduce beavers into our landscapes. Learn about beaver history and ecology and beaver reintroduction and coexistence efforts from the wealth of experience from our panelists:

Ben Goldfarb is the author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. His work has appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Science, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. His next book, on the science of road ecology, will be published by W.W. Norton & Company. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Elise, and his dog, Kit — which is, of course, what you call a baby beaver.

https://bookshop.org/books/eager-the-surprising-secret-life-of-beavers-and-why-they-matter/9781603589086

Brock Dolman co-founded the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (www.oaec.org) in 1994 where he co-directs the WATER Institute’s Bring Back the Beaver Campaign. He is a wildlife biologist & watershed ecologist who has been actively promoting Beaver in California since the early 2000’s. In 2012 & 2013 he co-authored two papers published in the California Fish and Game Journal on the historic range of beaver in California. He was given Salmonid Restoration Federation’s coveted Golden Pipe Award in 2012: “…for his leading role as a proponent of "working with beavers" to restore native habitat”. In 1992 he completed his BA in Agro-Ecology & Conservation Biology, graduating with honors from the University of California Santa Cruz with the Biology Department and Environmental Studies Department. 

Molly Alves is a Wildlife Biologist for the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and manager of the Tulalip Beaver Project, which partners with beavers through relocation to restore and create habitat for imperiled salmon on Tulalip Tribes ancestral lands. In the fall, she will embark on her next adventure as a Masters student at Utah State University, under the guidance of Dr. Emily Fairfax, to produce a scientific manual on beaver relocation and beaver management policies across the globe. 

https://nr.tulaliptribes.com/Programs/Wildlife/Beaver

Charnna Gilmore is the Executive Director for the Scott River Watershed Council, a nonprofit located within the Klamath River Basin. Charnna's work focuses heavily on restoration efforts that support process-based riverine function, in particular the use of beaver and beaver mimicry. Charnna is committed to finding solutions to complex social and ecological issues that relate to water in the West, while working to facilitate adaptive management strategies necessary for these types of restoration tools. Charnna also works on effectiveness monitoring to assess the effects of implemented projects on biological and ecological stream function, in hopes of guiding future restoration actions. 

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Reviving Rivers

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Unidos por el Agua

The Full Water Cycle

The Watershed Death Spiral

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Water - Earth's Blood

Biology Makes Rain: the Science of Restoring Rainfall

The Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance

Beavers as Active Healers

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The Revivied Water Cycle

Water - Earth's Blood

Biology Makes Rain: the Science of Restoring Rainfall

The Water Harvester: An Invitation to Abundance

Beavers as Active Healers