Seeding

Positive Change

We know in our hearts that we need to restore our planet to its original beauty and bounty. Now is the time and there is no greater ally than nature herself.

Radical New Insights

After a long and passionate engagement with reforestation and climate science since the early 1990’s,
a growing urge to explore the deeper causes of climate change, sparked in 2015.
This began a comprehensive appraisal of leading-edge scientific thinking in the fields of climate science,
land-use change, reforestation, the physics of nature, archaeology, history and indigenous wisdom.

First Insight

Agriculture as we know it is not Sustainable

In the beginning of the Neolithic period, 12,500 years ago, settlers cleared forests to create agricultural land.
This accelerated greatly during colonial times and later during the industrial revolution
as the world population grew from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.5 billion in 2017.

Second Insight

Deforestation reduced rainfall over the landmass of the earth by 50 percent

Intact forests play a major role in local and global climate regulation. When the forest cover is intact at the coast, the forests pull moist air from the sea to the land. As long as the forest cover stretches over the land this transport of water continues over the landmass. Forests act as a natural ‘biotic pump’ of water.
The reverse is also true. When the coastline is deforested, the sea draws the moist air from the land, causing it to dry out.
A secondary effect of removing forests is the massive loss of low-level clouds, which reflect the sun’s radiation out into space. This way, intact forests provide significant local and global cooling. Scientists say that the extensive deforestation degraded the world’s water cycle over the landmass by 50% – 80%.
As water is beginning to become less plentiful in many places in the world, agriculture has to resort to artificial irrigation. This is unsustainable as the world now uses ground water at 3 times its renewal rate. This will eventually impact the availability of fertile land, water and food, thereby causing massive migration.
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Third Insight

Forests store water in the soil and prevent floods and landslides

Trees create an underground ecosystem which functions as a powerful sponge for storing water.
When the forest is removed the water eventually ends up in the sea, thereby causing sea level rise.
As the capacity to store water is removed heavy rainfall now causes rivers to overflow.
Mountain slopes where forest is removed are now vulnerable to land slides causing much human suffering.  
To address all these challenges local reforestation is the only answer.

Fourth Insight

Industrial farming must be transformed

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have researched global population and land use over time. For 12,500 years we cut and burned half the trees to make agricultural land, mostly for animal farming. This has led to the fall of many civilisations, the desertification of 40% of our agricultural land and to widespread food and water scarcity all over the globe. 
A third of the remaining agricultural land is deemed ‘good’ as more intensive farming is already depleting the last available soil. As the world population rises to almost 10 billion people in the next 30-40 years humanity will soon run out of options to feed itself sustainably.
The standars approach is to increase the intensity of current industrial farming which assumes no regeneration potential is available.

Fifth Insight

Deforestation caused many civilisations to fall before us

By unconsciously removing trees we have triggered the loss of our basic conditions for life.
Historians tell us the following about almost every fallen civilisation: 

First they clear the trees, then in time the soil degrades, then as the rains begin to fail, irrigation is required.
Lastly crops begin to fail as they are hit by disease. It all ends with famine, conflict, war and migration.
This time there is nowhere left to go.

Today’s Global Farmland Use

Sixth Insight

Over 80% of all Farmland is for Animal Use

Globally, only 18% of available agricultural land is cropland for human use.
Animal agriculture uses and pollutes 70% of all global fresh water resources

Let’s Plant the Seeds of Change

Much of our food is produced abroad and often in countries from the Southern hemisphere. Most of these countries experience water scarcity and have dried up lakes and rivers due to over irrigation. Our food is grown using water drawn from their shrinking reserves.
Africa’s population is projected to double from 1.25 Bn to 2.5 Bn by 2050. Their soil  reserves are degrading annually as deserts expand. 
Their lakes, rivers and fresh water supplies are decreasing. Each of us is unconsciously placing a huge burden on this one continent alone.
The simple power to reverse all of this is easily actionable by each of us.
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”We did not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children” – Chief Seattle