The natural grasslands in the US were once grazed by large herds of buffalo. These hefty bovines stomped vegetation and activated the seeds within the soil while depositing manure, urine, and saliva, providing organic matter and nutrients for both plants and soils. The buffalo are long gone, hunted to extinction by Buffalo Bill and his ilk for their horns and hides. However their process of natural, cyclical soil restoration that the buffaloes produce has inspired a new generation of cattle farmers: the soil carbon cowboys.

These sustainable cattle farmers fence their livestock into small paddocks, allowing the stock to graze intensely. By moving them quickly through multiple paddocks, they keep the grasses growing by grazing then give the forage time to rest and regrow. The growing plants and expanding root systems take carbon from the air and place it in soil,  building soil and capturing carbon.

Peter Byck, filmmaker and professor of practice at Arizona State University, calls this adaptive multi-paddock grazing (AMP). He has directed a series of ten documentaries, filmed across the U.S. and Canada, that highlight the practice of regenerative grazing, which helps ranchers to raise healthy livestock while also providing one solution to climate change.

The first documentary, in a series of ten, “Soil Carbon Cowboys,” profiles three ranchers that changed from traditional ranching using significant amounts of high-cost synthetic products to manage weeds and insects and fertilizers to grow forages to a managed grazing system that improves their land and the health of their animals while decreasing their feed and input costs, helping them become economically sustainable.

The world beneath our feet is incredibly complex, containing more life than above ground. This underground life, the soil microbes, repackages nutrients utilized by plants, builds organic matter, stores unused nutrients, and maintains the porous structure of soil.  

To maintain healthy soils rich in organic matter, store large quantities of carbon, hold lots of water to combat both drought and storms, and stay in place without erosion, thriving diverse plants that cover and cool the soil are needed as is the addition of natural nutrients. The grazing action of livestock trims plants and deposits manure before they move on and livestock recycle plants they graze into organic material providing the energy for both plants and soil microbes to produce healthy soils that store more carbon. 

In a sense, these carbon farmers and ranchers are focused more on building healthy soils than raising crops and livestock, says Byck. “Using the natural interactions between cattle, plants, and soil, we can revolutionize the agriculture industry,” says Byck. “This can provide more nutritious food and provide a comfortable income for farming and ranching families while offering one significant solution to climate change, storing carbon in the soil.”

Byck’s films are also spreading a message: educating and inspiring agriculture producers to follow the AMP grazing method on their farms as the project supports research into the benefits of AMP grazing and soil carbon sequestration.

The research is providing data that supports what the ranchers are seeing: grazing livestock in the AMP method builds soil health and provides a sustainable process to store large amounts of carbon in the soil, improving the health of the livestock, us, and the planet. For more information – www.carboncowboys.org

Author: Denice Rackley, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Denice Rackley

The post Meet the Soil Carbon Cowboys! appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

The tiny ice crystals on the dark green leaves sparkle in the winter sun. Wolfgang Palme breaks one leaf off the palm cabbage to eat. “It tastes nutty, elegant and sweet”, he says, smiling. An icy wind blows over the fields. Wolfgang Palme pulls up the zip of his weather jacket. The agronomist and head of the Austrian Research Institute of Horticulture has come to enjoy the taste of winter. The cold does not seem to harm the vegetables in his field. Chard, spinach, purslane, radish, turnips, leek, herbs and many species of cabbage are surviving undamaged despite temperatures falling far below zero on the day we meet. Nearby, in unheated soft-plastic tunnels, salads, carrots, celery or pea sprouts are thriving. Wolfgang Palme and his team planted them in late summer last year. Now it is the end of winter. There is still snow on the mountains around the Zinsenhof, an experimental farm between Linz and Vienna. But the vegetables are ready to eat.

It is a boon for his community, where in winter, fresh vegetable consumption entails buying produce grown in faraway, warmer climates. In fact, this is how most of Central Europe sources vegetables in winter. These, however, come with hidden costs. According to WWF Switzerland, a kilogram of asparagus flown in from Peru results in 15 kilograms of carbon emissions, compared to less than one kilogram had it been locally cultivated in the field. Green beans arriving from Morocco emit more than 30 times carbon than those that are locally grown. And what is available in winter locally is typically grown in heated greenhouses. “On a cold winter night, a heated greenhouse of 1.5 acres emits as much carbon as a detached house in a whole year,” says Palme, adding, “mankind can no longer afford this”. His innovative farming techniques balance the need to save the environment with meeting the consumer demand for fresh produce.

Palme has identified and published nearly 80 varieties of veggies which stand the Austrian frost. The idea of growing them in sub-zero temperatures came to him by chance. In an experiment, Asian salad greens were surprised by frost. But in spite of minus 11 degrees they remained undamaged. The technical literature had stated that they could withstand frost of only minus three to five degrees. “Fortunately, the lettuce had not read the literature,” he quips. This experience made him realise that often the growing conditions listed on seed packets, especially about how much frost they can bear, is not wholly accurate. So he redefined it.

With his work, the scientist wants to provide practical knowledge to other farmers. He is presently working with seven vegetable farms all over Austria. “Winter vegetables are good for small and medium-sized farmers,” says Palme. “They can be grown on land and soft-plastic tunnels all year round and save energy. Even in winter, they can offer fresh produce from their own cultivation.” The all-important question is how these vegetables manage to survive the frost. Palme plucks a lettuce leaf and takes a nibble. “Many vegetables form a kind of frost protection in their cells, which is made of sugar.. ” he says, through happy chews. “This is the reason they taste so good…”

Author: Klaus Sieg, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Wolfgang Palme

The post There’s No Food Like Snow Food appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

When Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear power plant shut down, the electricity went out in Tsuchiyu Onsen [hot spring resort]: the first of many blackouts resulting from the March 2011 nuclear meltdown.

The disaster had catastrophic effects on the small hot spring (onsen) town, some 70km away in the Azuma mountains. “Five ryokan inns had to close,” explains Kazuya Ikeda, Executive Director and Secretary General of Tsuchiyu Onsen tourism, “and we saw a simultaneous exodus of residents. The rates of people aged over 65 exceeded 50 per cent of the population… maintaining sustainable living conditions started to become more and more difficult.”

At the heart of Tsuchiyu’s tourism and population crisis was its energy crisis. With renewed concerns about nuclear power, residents decided to establish a town-led geothermal energy project. Their goal was to harness the same seismic energy that had devastated the region and use it to create jobs, profit, and sustainability.

Now, a decade later, the generator – hidden just upriver in Japan’s picturesque mountain scenery – not only provides power for Tsuchiyu Onsen but pays off the original loan by selling energy back to the grid. Ikeda describes the project as “a series of very hard fought battles”, yet the enterprise was so successful that residents are now finding ways to further harness its geothermal resources.

Tsuchiyu Onsen uses a binary generator, which relies on a secondary liquid in a closed-loop system. This liquid has a lower boiling point than water, so it vaporises when hot spring water passes through a heat exchanger. The resulting gas drives the turbines and thereby the generator, and the all-important closed-loop system means atmospheric emissions are negligible. The vapour is then condensed back to liquid and the process starts again.

”We also began work on sub-projects within the town itself, like shrimp cultivation and local sake production,” Ikeda explains “but we’re still new to it and started in a fumbling sort of way.” These smaller endeavours have been key to Tsuchiyu’s revitalisation, repurposing vacant buildings in the town centre and creating jobs.

The shrimp, farmed in warm water pumped through the generator, are enough to supply the town’s hotels, but Tsuchiyu isn’t aiming at a wider market. Instead, the tourism board is creating more local businesses around it, such as shrimp-fishing cafes.

Overall, the last decade has proven remarkably positive, but the next five years are crucial to its long term success: the original loan must be repaid just as ageing facilities start to need maintenance and investment. Beyond this, Tsuchiyu Onsen is aiming to eventually go entirely off-grid and to pass on its legacy within and beyond its snow-capped borders.

Tsuchiyu’s story has garnered national attention. Its residents’ ingenuity has inspired others, having achieved their aims through state funding and without hiring external consultants. The renewable set-up also disproves long-standing Japanese concerns around geothermal energy: onsen towns having been historically reluctant to use generators for fear of damaging water quality.

Visitors and tourists certainly haven’t been deterred. Domestic and international researchers have flocked to the town, with around 2,000 arriving annually. Before Covid-19, Tsuchiyu reached 370,000 annual visitors and they aim to reach 500,000 within five years.

This ongoing revitalisation of town and tourism has promoted renewable energy as a sustainable way of life, making Tsuchiyu Onsen a symbol of resilience and hope in the face of Fukushima’s nuclear energy fallout.

Author: Jo Davey, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Fukushima Tourist Board

The post Meet the Fukushima locals taking their town off-grid appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

In 2005, when Dhammalangkaro moved to Bangkok to teach Buddhism and manage Chak Daeng’s temple grounds, he found it full of garbage. Back then, plastic waste there was either burnt or thrown in River Chao Phraya. Sadly, this resulted in severe pollution in the river, contributing to the loss of marine life, poisoning of aquifers and the uncontrolled growth of algae. Burning plastic also resulted in severe air pollution. About eleven years ago, he visited Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan to study plastic recycling and saw how they were able to make shirts, trousers, bags and more from recycled plastic. Thus, the idea of making monastic robes from recycled plastic was born.

Today, he and other monks in the monastery sift through all the plastic waste they receive from neighbouring areas. This plastic is compressed into bales and shipped to the factory where it is converted into fibre and eventually woven into monastic robes.

Monks attest that the fabric is easy to wash, doesn’t smell or crease and is light on skin. Their novel recycling enterprise has employed over 30 local villagers, including some that are differently abled. Most of all, it is keeping some plastic from being thrown in the Chao Phraya river, one of the most polluted water sources in Thailand. For the monks of course, their clean up and recycling project has a spiritual aspect: “We need to clean material waste out, as well as cleaning the waste in the brain, and then, we will find true happiness,” the abbot says.

Image Story

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Luke Duggleby

The post The Monk With a Mission appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

Apart from coastal bathers who’ve gingerly waded through its tickling stems or sailors who snared their anchors in its undergrowth, few of us are aware of the 60-plus species of marine flowering plants that constitute seagrass. Fewer of us still appreciate that, like their submarine cousin coral, seagrass orchards are under threat. “The problem with seagrass is that it’s not a charismatic habitat like your coral reef or tropical mangrove,” says Project Seagrass’ Leanne Cullen-Unsworth of the family marine plants that grow in shallow and sheltered coastal waters across the globe.

Seagrass provides a range of services to terrestrial ecosystems: food and habitat for marine organisms, maintaining water quality and stabilising the seabed. Most importantly, seagrass meadows are the hidden stars of carbon sequestration; absorbing atmospheric carbon at quicker and higher rates than ecosystems such as tropical forests, one hectare of seagrass can store around 400 kg of carbon dioxide per year, up to 40 times more than a hectare of dry-land forest. (Making it second only to arctic tundra in its capacity as a carbon sink.)

Partly this is down to seagrass’ marine habitat, where oxygen-free sediment traps the carbon in plant material which then remains buried for hundreds of years after the plant dies (unlike the carbon in forests, which can readily be released by burning for fuel).

So seagrass’ loss is a problem for all of us. And sadly, in most global contexts these hard-working marine flora are receding. It is estimated that 92 percent of seagrass in British coasts has been lost in the last century, much of this erosion having occurred by the mid 20th century, when poor water quality borne of rapid industrialisation led to a wasting disease that scientists believe decimated seagrass meadows. Sediments and turbidity have also played their part in seagrass’ demise, as has physical damage from anchors and fishing nets, commercial seaweed production and the tourist industry, where aesthetics of pristine sands and transparent seas reign supreme.

“In tourist spots in the Indo-Pacific it’s common for seagrass to be torn up so a beach looks like the picture postcards,” Cullen-Unsworth says, who is however at pains to point out that seagrass conservation is not simply pitted against human activity – it provides a nursery habitat for commercial fish stocks such as tiger prawn, conch, Atlantic cod and white-spotted spinefoot. Cullen-Unsworth is one of the founders of Project Seagrass, a nonprofit that’s working to raise awareness of this underrated habitat and is undertaking pilot projects to explore how to best regrow eroded seagrass orchards.

Project Seagrass’ first large-scale project, Seagrass Ocean Rescue, is a partnership between Project Seagrass, Cardiff and Swansea universities and Pembrokeshire Coastal forum that aims to reestablish 20,000 square metre seagrass meadow in Dale, West Wales to demonstrate its environmental and biodiversity benefits, and serve as a model that could be replicated anywhere in the world where seagrass meadows are under threat. Costing GB£40,000 [US$52,000], the project is funded by charitable donations and the first of three ocean sites in Wales and England where Project Seagrass plan to restore native seagrasses in coming years.

The project involved volunteer divers harvesting two million donor wild seagrass seeds from extant meadows around the coast of the United Kingdom. The seeds were then planted in biodegradable hessian bags, by volunteers including Welsh schoolchildren, and these bags were launched into the sea at ideal sites off the Pembrokeshire coast. The chief limitation of the project is that native seagrasses take years to reach maturity, making data-gathering on best methods for replanting a slow process. The final seed bags were deployed in December 2020, says Cullen-Unsworth and though it’s early days she’s hopeful.

“We’re already seeing signs of germination,” she says. “It might be five to 10 years before we can absolutely demonstrate evidence of benefits in terms of carbon sequestration and biodiversity support, but still it’s all very exciting.”

Seagrass Ocean Rescue is one of a handful of global projects seeking to reseed lost seagrass meadows, including a 20-year project to restore native eelgrass meadows at Chesapeake Bay in the US and a University of Gothenburg-led project to restore seagrass meadows along Sweden’s West Coast. Cullen-Unsworth believes that this underwater climate hero will soon get the attention it deserves.

“Britons used to be maritime people who were fully aware of marine habits like seagrass and their role in helping ecosystems to thrive. My hope is that seagrass will once again be as appreciated as grasslands and forests.”

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves

The post Saving a Sub-Marine Climate Star appeared first on The Sacred Groves.