What Massive Land Rehabilitation Project Teaches Us About Ecological Health, Poverty and Our Prospects for the Future
Author: Dr. Mercola
The featured film, “The Lessons of the Loess Plateau” by John D. Liu reveals the pitfalls of agriculture. Yet it gives hope for the future — if we take the correct route. Man has done great damage to the environment with our short-sighted vision for food security and the production of goods.
Yet projects such as the regeneration of the Loess Plateau in China show that when we make the right corrections, we can reestablish a thriving environment once more, and much quicker than expected.
The Loess Plateau was until recently one of the poorest regions of China where centuries of agriculture had taken its toll. Erosion turned once fertile soils in this mountainous region into a desert-like landscape, unable to support plant growth. Similar situations exist all over the world.
In fact, according to Maria-Helena Semedo, Ph.D., of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), if the current rate of land degradation continues, all of the topsoil around the world will be gone in 60 years.1 There is hope though — provided we DON’T continue the way we’re currently going.
Soil scientist Liu of the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) has followed the Loess Plateau regeneration project for the past 15 years, and today, the once barren landscape is again filled with thriving forests, and farmers are again able to produce abundant amounts of food.
The film documents this truly historic project, and how lessons learned at the Loess Plateau might help restore fertility to barren lands around the globe.