Applying Rock Dust to Croplands Could Absorb up to 2 Billion Tonnes of CO2 from the Atmosphere, Research Shows

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  • Major new study shows adding rock dust to farmland could remove carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent to more than the current total emissions from global aviation and shipping combined – or around half of Europe’s current total emissions
  • Research identifies the nation-by-nation potential for CO2 drawdown, as well as the costs and the engineering challenges involved
  • Findings reveal the world’s highest emitters (China, India and the US) also have the greatest potential to remove CO2 from the atmosphere using this method
  • Scientists suggest unused materials from mining and the construction industry could be used to help soils remove CO2 from the atmosphere

Adding crushed rock dust to farmland could draw down up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air per year and help meet key global climate targets, according to a major new study led by the University of Sheffield.

The technique, known as enhanced rock weathering, involves spreading finely crushed basalt, a natural volcanic rock, on fields to boost the soil’s ability to extract CO2 from the air.

In the first nation-by-nation assessment, published in Nature, scientists have demonstrated the method’s potential for carbon drawdown by major economies, and identified the costs and engineering challenges of scaling up the approach to help meet ambitious global CO2 removal targets. The research was led by experts at the University of Sheffield’s Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation, and the University’s Energy Institute.

Meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global heating to below 2C above pre-industrial levels requires drastic cuts in emissions, as well as the active removal of between two and 10 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This new research provides a detailed initial assessment of enhanced rock weathering, a large-scale CO2 removal strategy that could make a major contribution to this effort. 

The authors’ detailed analysis captures some of the uncertainties in enhanced weathering CO2 drawdown calculations and, at the same time, identifies the additional areas of uncertainty that future work needs to address specifically through large-scale field trials.

The study showed that China, the United States and India – the highest fossil fuel CO2 emitters – have the highest potential for CO2 drawdown using rock dust on croplands. Together, these countries have the potential to remove approximately 1 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, at a cost comparable to that of other proposed carbon dioxide removal strategies (US$80-180 per tonne of CO2).

Indonesia and Brazil, whose CO2 emissions are 10-20 times lower than the US and China, were also found to have relatively high CO2 removal potential due to their extensive agricultural lands, and climates accelerating the efficiency of rock weathering.

The scientists suggest that meeting the demand for rock dust to undertake large-scale CO2 drawdown might be achieved by using stockpiles of silicate rock dust left over from the mining industry, and are calling for governments to develop national inventories of these materials.

Calcium-rich silicate by-products of iron and steel manufacturing, as well as waste cement from construction and demolition, could also be processed and used in this way, improving the sustainability of these industries. These materials are usually recycled as low value aggregate, stockpiled at production sites or disposed of in landfills. China and India could supply the rock dust necessary for large-scale CO2 drawdown with their croplands using entirely recycled materials in the coming decades.

The technique would be straightforward to implement for farmers, who already tend to add agricultural lime to their soils. The researchers are calling for policy innovation that could support multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals using this technology. Government incentives to encourage agricultural application of rock dust could improve soil and farm livelihoods, as well as reduce CO2, potentially benefiting the world’s 2.5 billion smallholders and reducing poverty and hunger.

Professor David Beerling, Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation at the University of Sheffield and lead author of the study, said: “Carbon dioxide drawdown strategies that can scale up and are compatible with existing land uses are urgently required to combat climate change, alongside deep and sustained emissions cuts. 

“Spreading rock dust on agricultural land is a straightforward, practical CO2 drawdown approach with the potential to boost soil health and food production. Our analyses reveal the big emitting nations – China, the US, India – have the greatest potential to do this, emphasising their need to step up to the challenge. Large-scale Research Development and Demonstration programmes, similar to those being pioneered by our Leverhulme Centre, are needed to evaluate the efficacy of this technology in the field.”

Professor Steven Banwart, a partner in the study and Director of the Global Food and Environment Institute, said: “The practice of spreading crushed rock to improve soil pH is commonplace in many agricultural regions worldwide. The technology and infrastructure already exist to adapt these practices to utilise basalt rock dust. This offers a potentially rapid transition in agricultural practices to help capture CO2 at large scale.”

Professor James Hansen, a partner in the study and Director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, said: “We have passed the safe level of greenhouse gases. Cutting fossil fuel emissions is crucial, but we must also extract atmospheric CO2 with safe, secure and scalable carbon dioxide removal strategies to bend the global CO2 curve and limit future climate change. The advantage of CO2 removal with crushed silicate rocks is that it could restore deteriorating top-soils, which underpin food security for billions of people, thereby incentivising deployment.”

Professor Nick Pidgeon, a partner in the study and Director of the Understanding Risk Group at Cardiff University, said: “Greenhouse gas removal may well become necessary as we approach 2050, but we should not forget that it also raises profound ethical questions regarding our relationship with the natural environment. Its development should therefore be accompanied by the widest possible public debate as to potential risks and benefits.”

Ends

Contact

Sophie Armour, Media & PR Officer at the University of Sheffield: 07751 400 287 / 0114 222 3687 / sophie.armour@sheffield.ac.uk 

Notes

Embargoed study available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m2zUuQMTd_KeJwH9wcNT8jHukHDOKKAs/view?usp=sharing 

FAQs on carbon drawdown with enhanced weathering developed by the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation are available here: https://lc3m.org/faqs/

The University of Sheffield

With almost 29,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the world’s leading universities.

A member of the UK’s prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2018 and for the last eight years has been ranked in the top five UK universities for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Glaxo SmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.

About the Leverhulme Trust

The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 the Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education.

Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, currently distributing £100 million each year. The Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation at the University of Sheffield is part of a network of seven Leverhulme Trust research centres based in universities throughout the UK.

For more information about the Trust, please visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk  and follow the Trust on Twitter @LeverhulmeTrust

Perspectivas de Chad, África: COVID-19, cambio climático y conocimiento indígena

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REPÚBLICA DEL CHAD, África – Si bien el COVID-19 ha forzado a la mayor parte del mundo al confinamiento, tenemos la suerte de informar que nuestra serie de videos “Caminos de Regeneración” continúa viva y con buena salud. En los últimos meses nos hemos centrado en informar acerca de los efectos que la pandemia ha tenido sobre los agricultores, ganaderos y pueblos indígenas de todo el mundo.

En nuestro último episodio de “Caminos de Regeneración”, “Perspectivas de Chad, África: Covid-19, cambio climático y conocimiento indígena”, presentamos con orgullo a Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, una activista ambientalista galardonada y mujer indígena de la comunidad pastoral de Mbororo en Chad, que practica el pastoreo nómada de ganado.

Ibrahim es una experta en adaptación y mitigación de los pueblos indígenas y las mujeres en relación con el cambio climático, los conocimientos tradicionales y la adaptación de los pastores en África. Es fundadora y coordinadora de la Asociación de Mujeres y Pueblos Indígenas de Chad (AFPAT), que trabaja para empoderar las voces indígenas y mejorar la calidad de vida mediante la creación de oportunidades económicas y la protección de los recursos naturales de los que dependen las comunidades de pastores.

Recientemente Ibrahim fue nombrada  Explorador Emergente 2017 por National Geographic. Ha trabajado por  los derechos de los pueblos indígenas y la protección del medio ambiente a través de las tres Convenciones de Río, sobre Biodiversidad, Cambio Climático y Desertificación, que se originaron en la Cumbre de la Tierra de 1992.

La comunidad pastoral de Mbororo reside cerca del lago Chad, ubicado en el extremo oeste del Chad y el noreste de Nigeria. Alguna vez fue la reserva de agua más grande de África en la región del Sahel, abarcando 26,000 kilómetros. Sin embargo, se estima que con el tiempo el tamaño del lago ha ido disminuyendo hasta llegar a una quinta parte de su tamaño original.

Los expertos dicen que el culpable es el cambio climático, el crecimiento de la población y los sistemas ineficientes de represas y riego. La pérdida de agua en el lago Chad está teniendo serios efectos adversos en las comunidades, como el pueblo Mbororo, que se ve obligado a desplazarse mayores distancias en busca de agua y pastos verdes.

En una entrevista de Zoom con Regeneration International, Ibrahim explicó que en un año, la gente de Mbororo puede viajar hasta mil kilómetros o más, confiando únicamente en la naturaleza y la lluvia. Ibrahim nos dijo:

“La naturaleza es nuestro principal sistema de salud, alimentación y educación. Representa todo para nosotros. En nuestra cultura, los hombres y las mujeres dependen igualmente de la naturaleza en sus actividades diarias. Los hombres conducen el ganado hacia el agua y los pastos, mientras que las mujeres recolectan leña, comida y agua potable para la comunidad. Esto le da a nuestra comunidad un equilibrio de género socialmente fuerte”.

Sin embargo, la degradación de los recursos naturales está amenazando estas tradiciones, lo que lleva a conflictos humanos, particularmente entre agricultores y pastores cuyo ganado a veces deambula por tierras de cultivo cercanas y causa daños. Estos conflictos han obligado a los hombres e Mbororo a desplazarse a zonas urbanas en busca de un nuevo trabajo. A veces no regresan, y las mujeres, niños y ancianos se quedan atrás obligados a valerse por sí mismos, comparte  Ibrahim.

En un esfuerzo por preservar la forma de vida nómada de los Mbororo y ayudar a resolver los conflictos entre agricultores y pastores, Ibrahim estableció un proyecto en 2012 con el Comité Coordinador de los Pueblos Indígenas de África, la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura, y la Organización Meteorológica Mundial. El proyecto utiliza conocimiento indígena y tecnología de mapeo 3D para mapear la región Sagel de Chad, hogar de 250,000 personas Mbororo.

A través de sus mapas 3D, el proyecto reúne a agricultores y pastores que compiten por los recursos para, de manera colectiva, trazar líneas de propiedad de la tierra y llegar a acuerdos sobre caminos y corredores de pastoreo. El trabajo ha ayudado a los agricultores y pastores a ponerse de acuerdo sobre los límites de la tierra, así como a establecer un sistema de calendario para coordinar los patrones de pastoreo con la cosecha de cultivos.

El resultado es una solución beneficiosa para todos donde el ganado fertiliza y enriquece la tierra mediante el pastoreo planificado. Esto evita el daño a los cultivos y ayuda a mitigar el cambio climático. Según Ibrahim:

“Cuando experimentamos el cambio climático, utilizamos nuestra forma de vida nómada como solución. Cuando vamos de un lugar a otro, descansando dos o tres días en cada lugar, el estiércol de nuestro ganado fertiliza la tierra y ayuda a que el ecosistema se regenere naturalmente.

“Nuestro conocimiento tradicional se basa en la observación de la naturaleza, que es el denominador común de todos los conocimientos indígenas tradicionales en todo el mundo. Vivimos en armonía con la biodiversidad porque observamos insectos que nos brindan información sobre la salud de un ecosistema.

“Observamos los patrones de migración de aves para predecir el clima y aprendemos del comportamiento de nuestros animales, que nos dan mucha información. Nos fijamos en el viento. Cuando el viento transporta muchas partículas de la naturaleza durante la estación seca, sabemos que vamos a tener una buena temporada de lluvias. Esta es información gratuita que utilizamos para ayudar a equilibrar la salud de la comunidad y el ecosistema y adaptarnos al cambio climático ”.

Ibrahim cree que eventos extremos como el cambio climático y la pandemia de COVID-19 son la manera que tiene la naturaleza de hacernos saber que está enojada porque la estamos maltratando. Para sanar el planeta, debemos escuchar nuestra sabiduría y respetar la naturaleza, dice ella.

 

Oliver Gardiner es el productor y coordinador de medios de Regeneration International en Asia y Europa. Para mantenerse al día con las noticias de Regeneration International, suscríbase a nuestro boletín.

 

Seeds of Change in Times of Crisis

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In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations in the U.S. and Latin America that save, produce and sell seeds have seen a significant increase in the demand for native seeds. This new interest in seeds comes with great opportunities, but also some challenges.

Motivated to learn more about this phenomenon, Valeria García López, a researcher in agroecology in Colombia and Mexico, and David Greenwood-Sánchez, a political scientist specializing in GMO regulation in Latin America, set out to do some research.

Both López and Greenwood-Sánchez are independent researchers who in recent years have been part of different movements in defense of seeds in Latin America and the U.S. Both believe that this new interest in seeds, in the context of the current economic, food and health crisis, highlights the challenges local seed systems are facing in a post-pandemic scenario.

We recently spoke with López and Greenwood-Sánchez to learn more about their work, their love for seeds and biocultural diversity, as well as the motivations for their research.

Seeds and biocultural diversity: a love story

Greenwood-Sánchez is a native of Minnesota but his mother is Peruvian. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy. During his studies, he had to do an internship and decided to do it in Peru, looking for his roots.

Over the course of his research, Greenwood-Sánchez found out that Cusco, a city in the Peruvian Andes, had declared itself a GMO-free region, thanks to a push by potato growers and the existing moratorium on GMOs in Peru. Curious to know more, Greenwood-Sánchez ended up doing an internship at the Parque de la Papa (Potatoe’s Park), an association of five indigenous communities that manages more than 1000 varieties of potatoes and works on issues related to biodiversity, intellectual property and biocultural records. There, he discovered agrobiodiversity and its link to culture and traditions, and how people can promote agrobiodiversity through their culture and day-to-day life. He then decided to pursue a Doctorate in Public Policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

David Greenwood-Sánchez planting potatoes in Minnesota

Greenwood-Sánchez’s research has focused on the construction of systems that regulate GMOs in Latin America, using Mexico and Peru as case studies. In Mexico, certain GM crops can be planted, while in Peru, there is a moratorium on GMOs. His research focuses on the different groups that come together for the defense of biodiversity, on how the state, society and global markets join their efforts to demand policies that regulate the use of GMOs. This is closely related to the identity of each country, its people and how that identity is connected to their biodiversity, for example corn in Mexico, or potatoes in Peru.

García López is Colombian, but has been living in Mexico for five years. For the past six years she’s worked with networks of seed keepers, mainly in Antioquia, where she is originally from. She studied biology and then did her internship on agrobiodiversity and orchards in southern Colombia, near the border with Ecuador. There she discovered the wonders of agrobiodiversity. Being in love with the High Andean region, she went to Ecuador, where she did a Master’s Degree in conservation of the páramo ecosystem and its relationship with climate change.

Back in Colombia, García López discovered the Colombian Free Seeds Network (RSLC). But in Antioquia, her native region, there was no local seed network, so she and other people were assigned to work to create a division of the network RSLC. Since the end of 2014, she worked to support the creation of community seed houses that would represent the first steps to create a Participatory Seed Guarantee System (GSP). That system would allow a certification of agroecological seeds under criteria internally established by the territories themselves, by indigenous and small farmers’ organizations—not by external entities, whether private or public.

This process has also allowed for progress toward the declaration of GMO-free territories. By taking advantage of protected indigenous reserves, which are exempt from complying with the Free Treaties Trade, García López and others were able to ban GMOs from the indigenouse reserves, and create a program to promote the conservation of native seeds.

García López recently completed her PhD in Ecology and Rural Development at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), Mexico. The topic of her research was how seed guardian networks use different strategies to defend seeds. She studied cases both in Mexico and Colombia after observing that in both countries, the defense of native and creole seeds has intensified and how seed networks have come together to face threats. In fact, seed initiatives that had already existed but worked in isolation are now joining forces around a common goal.

Valeria García López holding a huge and beautiful squash she just harvested.

COVID-19 as catalyst for the agroecological movement

The pandemic of 2020 has exposed the fragility of the conventional food system, with its agribusiness corporations and long supply chains. Food supply problems, especially in urban centers, as well as an increase in prices and speculation have only been symptoms of this fragility.

Today, it is the small farmers who in many places keep local supplies going. In Brazil, for example, farmers from the Landless Workers Movement (MST for its Portuguese acronym) are donating food to people living in the cities. Organized movements in the countryside are mobilizing a lot of food, showing the capacity of alternative movements to respond.

The relationship between food and health is another topic spotlighted by the pandemic. People with chronic diseases linked to bad eating habits—diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol caused by bad eating habits—are more vulnerable to the virus. In fact, the strength or weakness of the immune system is greatly determined by our diet.

Hippocrates, father of modern medicine, said it more than 2,500 years ago: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” This is why many people today are paying more attention to the food on their plates, its origin, how it was cultivated. People are more interested than ever in healthy eating, planting and having home gardens, and buying local food directly from the producers.

The pandemic has been shown the need to promote local agro-ecological food systems, which have proven to be more resilient than agribusiness systems. In this context, local and resilient seed systems become especially relevant, as they are the foundation upon which food sovereignty is built.

Pandemic times: Panic or hope? Looking for the seeds of change

García López and Greenwood-Sánchez are motivated to show there is hope despite the current global health and economic crisis. They decided to look beyond the mass media’s panic-inducing narrative about food insecurity, and investigate for themselves what was happening with producers. In particular, they wanted to know more about the initiatives related to the defense, reproduction, exchange and commercialization of native seeds, with the aim of learning and preserving traditional knowledge and practices in times where resilient and regenerative systems are much needed.

 To carry on their research, they followed up on the news, and they conducted a series of surveys and personal interviews (though not face-to-face, to comply with current social distancing). More than 25 initiatives from six countries in the Americas participated in the research: U.S., Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Peru. Medium-sized and family owned companies and individual, community, rural and urban initiatives gave their insights.

Here are some of the conclusions they drew from their research:

  • People are going back to appreciating what’s essential, the common goods, what sustains life. The crisis highlights the need to know where our food comes from, the importance of soil, water, and food justice.
  • More people are realizing the importance of growing their own food. Many people and organizations are now more aware of the importance of growing food for self-consumption. Many are starting their own gardens for the first time.
  • There’s a greater appreciation for the work seedkeepers do. The pandemic has generated greater awareness regarding the importance of food and farmers, as well as the role of seedkeepers who have preserved agrobiodiversity in a traditional way and who also have the knowledge on how to cultivate and care for seeds.
  • There’s renewed interest in seeds and food exchanges. Many traditional practices from indigenous people, such as Ayni in the Andean region, are becoming even more valuable today and inspire new forms of collaboration through networks of trust, support and solidarity.
  • People are realizing the need to be more creative to meet the rising demand for seeds. Many seed initiatives and ventures have been overwhelmed by the growing demand, exceeding their capacity to respond, and have had to creatively restructure their work in order to cope with the explosion of orders.

Collective planting. Photograph by Valeria García López.

 Who is behind the growing demand for seeds?

García López and Greenwood-Sánchez have found that it is not so much the institutions, companies or the government but the people and the communities who have been organizing themselves to acquire seeds and plant them. People are very interested in finding solutions and helping other people, out of pure solidarity.

Greenwood-Sánchez mentions, for example, an initiative that he promoted together with a group of friends, which today brings together about 700 people. The “Twin Cities Front Yard Organic Gardeners Club” encourages people to grow food on their front yard. Traditionally, in U.S. cities, people would have their vegetable gardens in the backyard, a custom that was especially adopted after the Second World War (Victory Gardens). In general, in the front yard there is just grass. But this is changing with the growing movement to replace grass with food. 

Front yard being turned into a vegetable garden. Photo by David Greenwood-Sánchez

Another example in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where Greenwood-Sánchez lives, is the “Outplant the Outbreak” campaign, which consists of making seed packets and putting them inside boxes where books are normally put, for public use and for free.

Envelopes with seeds for free. Photo by David Greenwood-Sánchez

In Peru, the government has started a campaign called “Hay que papear” to address the crisis by promoting potato consumption, as a complete, nutritious and cheap local food, and also to counter the general tendency to devalue this crop and to make its producers more invisible.

With growing interest come new challenges

While interest in seeds and growing food has spiked during the pandemic, the uptick in  interest has revealed new challenges. As part of their research, García López and Greenwood-Sánchez identified some of these challenges and potential solutions, including:

  • The greater demand for open-pollinated seeds requires a necessary increase in supply, which poses challenges in the organizational, technical, training, economic and legislative areas. Structural changes are needed to facilitate the growth and development of this sector.
  • Current seed laws and international treaties favor transnational seed companies and the promotion of GMOs. These laws threaten local seed systems, which are the basis of food sovereignty. Some examples are UPOV 91, the Seed Production, Certification and Commercialization Law or the Reforms to the Federal Law of Plant Varieties, in Mexico. To strengthen people’s food sovereignty, the first step should be to curb these treaties and laws and promote those that strengthen local seed systems, which have proven to be much more resilient against supply chain outages and the climate crisis. Fortunately, the greater awareness of the importance of agriculture and food, as well as the greater interest in growing your own food, is also bringing to the table the importance of these seed laws and treaties.
  • There need to be efforts to create public policies and laws that stimulate and strengthen local seed systems, including structural reforms at the market level to allow commercialization and seed exchange initiatives that cannot be subject to the same certification criteria as large transnational corporations.
  • One of the main arguments against the creation of seed laws that regulate and control the production of native and creole seeds is that the production of these seeds is not stable, unique or homogeneous. The main value of native and creole open-pollinated seeds is their genetic diversity, which gives them enormous capacity to respond and adapt to new geographic and climatic conditions. In Colombia, over a period of three years, several workshops and forums were held at the local and national level in order to identify the most important principles for seed guardians. The Participatory Guarantee Systems (SPG) has put together its own criteria, based on seven principles. It should be noted that one of the criteria of the Network of Free Seeds of Colombia regarding the sale of seeds specifies that in fact seeds themselves are not sold. What is sold is all the work behind the seeds, and what makes their existence possible. This is great progress, since it recognizes seeds as a common good which cannot be commercialized.
  • It is necessary to promote and protect the autonomy of the communities that have been practicing agriculture and that have cared for, selected and multiplied seeds for thousands of years. They do not need external validation, because these are practices that they have done for a long time. The challenge, rather than imposing external rules, is to ask ourselves how we can support them, how we can be useful for their work to prosper.
  • As more and more people start to grow their own food for the first time, it is essential to generate and promote educational spaces or gardens where these people can learn how to plant and maintain their gardens. It is important to understand the seeds should be planted, not saved and accumulated. Using them, multiplying them, exchanging them, donating them is the way to go.

 Next steps

Once García López and Greenwood-Sánchez complete the analysis of their research, they will share the results with all those who participated. They will also create a report, using plain language so it is suitable for the general public, to highlight the challenges that local seed systems face with this growing interest for native and native seeds.

Would you like to know more about the work Valeria and David do?

Write them a message: vagarcialopez@gmail.com, davidgreenwoodsanchez@gmail.com

Claudia Flisfisch Cortés is an agroecology specialist who is part of the commission of seeds and the articulating commission of RIHE (Chilean Network of Educational Gardens).To keep up with Regeneration International news, sign up for our newsletter.

Living Off the Fat of the Land—Not the Fat of the Lab

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All of my life I have heard, and used, the expression “Living off of the Fat of the Land.”

To me, that expression means doing well from the excesses that come from what you have. It is kind of like living on the interest that is paid on your savings account.

The definition of the idiomatic phrase supports that meaning:

To live off the fat of the land means to live well, to live off the surrounding abundance. The term live off the fat of the land was first used in the King James Version of the Bible, translated 1611, Genesis 45:18: “And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.”

An ecosystem that is operating optimally results in an abundance, which is true wealth. This abundance occurs only when the carbon cycle, water cycle, mineral cycle, energy cycle, microbial cycle, and all of the myriad of other cycles are operating properly.

Food that is produced naturally in a good working ecosystem is good for you. It is what nature produces, and what we evolved to eat. It is the true Fat of the Land.

Sadly, industrial, centralized, commodity farming practices are very effective at breaking these natural cycles. Much of the food that we now eat is manufactured in a laboratory. I think of it as the Fat of the Lab.

We now make meat in laboratories through methods that come from reductionist science. We are told that this fat [and protein] of the lab are better for us than the fat [and protein] of the land.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Impossible Foods CEO Patrick Brown expressed how he thinks the meat market will be obsolete in 20 years.

“From a nutritional standpoint our products match the protein quality and content of the animal products that they replace” and “ours is a clear winner from a health and nutrition standpoint,” [Brown] said in a “Mad Money” interview.

“This is why I think people are increasingly aware plant-based products are going to completely replace the animal-based products in the food world within the next 15 years. That’s our mission. That transformation is inevitable,” he told host Jim Cramer.

What could possibly go wrong in these laboratories? Many scientific processes and technologies are invented through reductionist science. These scientific methods almost always have unintended consequences that go unnoticed, often, for decades.

Of course, there can be good consequences (like penicillin for example). But more often than not, what we may call a “scientific breakthrough” at the time can later be recognized and recalled for dangerous unintended consequences.

Think about the number of modifications that we tried to impose on natural cycles, only to find out the unintended consequences later: using chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a refrigerant or in aerosol sprays that depleted the ozone, adding antibiotics in poultry and livestock feed that are growing antibiotic-resistant diseases, eliminating wolves from national parks that led to overpopulation and starvation.

Brown says that the transformation from meat to to plant-based products made in a lab is “inevitable”. To that I say:

• There is no natural cycle that creates fake meat.

• There is no regeneration of land when meat is made in a lab.

• Nor is there any reversal of the impoverishment of rural America that was caused by industrialized agriculture.

• There is nothing inevitable or permanent about creating a new manufacturing process, unknown to nature.

The Fat of the Lab is very new. The Fat of the Land has been under testing for a really long time. In our family, we’ve been living and eating The Fat of our Land since 1866. I trust cows and hogs a Helluva lot more than I trust chemists and marketers.

Wall Street and Silicon Valley will lie to you. Livestock don’t lie. CEO’S are self-serving. Cows are sincere.

Will Harris, owner of White Oaks Pastures Farm in Bluffton, Georgia, is a fifth-generation farmer and rancher. Harris is a co-chair of the national coalition of U.S. Farmers & Ranchers for a Green New Deal.

Organización comunitaria y solidaridad para la conservación de un ecosistema estratégico en Colombia

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Por Ana Prada

A Mario Bonilla lo conocí en 2013, cuando realizaba una investigación sobre modelos de economía campesina y solidaria en Iberoamérica, de entrada, me llamó la atención su contundencia al hablar y su arraigo por los saberes y prácticas campesinas. Desde 2017, Mario ha enfocado su experiencia y conocimiento en el proyecto autónomo “Conservación de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana”, por medio de la autogestión, la solidaridad y la educación ambiental busca proteger un ecosistema estratégico.

El proyecto busca conservar los 271 kilómetros que ocupa la Cuenca desde su nacimiento en el páramo de Siscunsí, municipio de Sogamoso, hasta que se encuentra con el río Meta en municipio de Maní, Casanare. Se ha convertido en una iniciativa esperanzadora de mitigación y adaptar el cambio climático y conservación de nuestra biodiversidad pese a los esfuerzos del gobierno vigente de centrarse en la explotación de recursos naturales.

Mario, es un activista colombiano que ha dedicado su vida a la defensa de los derechos campesinos y de los territorios, es también, el director de la Confederación Agrosolidaria, una organización social que articula procesos locales de soberanía alimentaria y conservación de los ecosistemas, promoviendo el diálogo solidario entre campesinos y citadinos.

La Cuenca del Río Cusiana, un paraíso de biodiversidad

La Cuenca del Río Cusiana se conecta con la Gran Cuenca del Río Orinoco, la segunda más importante en el Sur América, después del Río Amazonas. Dos departamentos y diez municipios tienen lugar en la Cuenca. Por el departamento de Casanare están Recetor, Chameza, Tauramena, Yopal, Maní y Agua Azul; Por el departamento de Boyacá los municipios de Aquitania, Labranza Grande, Pajarito y Sogamoso.

Fuente: La cobertura de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana Página web del proyecto. https://www.agrosolidaria.org/

Los alrededores de la Cuenca son el hogar de aproximadamente 600.000 personas y de 5 ecosistemas estratégicos, como son el bosque alto andino, bosque de niebla, pie de monte llanero, sabana inundable y sabana no indudable.

Recordemos que Colombia es uno de los países más biodiversos del mundo, pues contiene el 10% de la biodiversidad del planeta.

Las prácticas que tienen en riesgo la existencia de la Cuenca 

Es reciente el poblamiento de los alrededores de la Cuenca, hace tan solo 100 años comenzaron a llegar colonos que descendían desde la porción boyacense de las montañas andinas hacia los llanos del Casanare.

Como ha sucedido en gran parte del territorio colombiano, la concentración de tierras por parte de latifundistas ha motivado la apertura de la frontera agrícola liderada por familias campesinas, que han traído consigo sus saberes y formas de relacionamiento con la tierra y la naturaleza, construyendo nuevas formas de habitar y de territorializar los territorios, algunos de ellos con prácticas sustentables, otras no tanto.

Para el caso de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana, las primeras familias en llegar desarrollaron prácticas poco sustentables, como la ganadería extensiva y la potrerización de los suelos, especialmente en zonas de ladera, sumada a la deforestación causando serios daños a los suelos.

Actualmente, en alrededor de la Cuenca habita la tercera generación de pobladores qué pese a su arraigo por el territorio, continúan implementando prácticas que contribuyen a la degradación de los suelos y el daño de los ecosistemas. Sin embargo, el principal riesgo socioambiental para el territorio lo representan los grandes proyectos hidroeléctricos y la costumbre de conductores de tractomulas de parar a las orillas del río a limpiar sus vehículos con el agua del río.

La aprobación de proyectos extractivistas en el territorio sería un genocidio ambiental, causando perdidas de biodiversidad irrecuperables.

El majestuoso Río Cusiana Fuente: Página web del proyecto. https://www.agrosolidaria.org/

La autogestión y la solidaridad para la conservación

El proyecto Conservación de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana involucra a actores locales, nacionales e internacionales para adquirir áreas de conservación, 3000 hectáreas cercanas a la Cuenca para la consolidación de una Reserva Natural de la Sociedad Civil (RNSC) administrados por familias y comunidades locales, con planes de manejo para la conservación del bosque.

En Colombia, las Reservas Naturales de la Sociedad Civil se reconocen con la ley 99 de 1993, se entiende como el área que conserva un ecosistema natural, bajo principios de sustentabilidad en el uso de los recursos naturales, las RNSC se gestionan por organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro.

El proyecto contempla la compra común de fincas para la conservación para el desarrollo de RNSC y se complementa con un plan de educación ambiental con poblaciones locales, especialmente pensado para que los jóvenes desarrollen prácticas ambientales sustentables en el territorio.

Asimismo, el proyecto busca realizar incidencia con tomadores de decisiones locales como las Corporaciones Autónomas Regionales, para invitarlos a apoyar la conservación de los ecosistemas locales, en lugar de otorgar licencias a proyectos que generan daños irreparables en el largo plazo, al fragmentar el tejido social y destruir los ecosistemas con la promesa de desarrollo.

Actualmente, están vinculados al proyecto 133 asociados, 7 de ellos hacen como colectivos y organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro y 126 personas naturales. La proyección en el futuro es que el proyecto se convierta en un modelo de autogestión comunitaria de conservación de ecosistemas estratégicos, en el que familias y comunidades locales planean conjuntamente y actúan para el cuidado del territorio.

 

Cómo puedes vincularte al proyecto.

Desde cualquier lugar del mundo puedes apoyar el proyecto Conservación de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana, mediante de inversiones Ecosolidarias, con una donación de $105.000 pesos colombianos o 32 dólares puedes contribuir a la conservación de 300mts2, por cada $35.000 pesos colombianos donados o $12 dólares es posible conservar 100 metros2.

Para obtener más información sobre el proyecto te puedes poner en contacto con Mario escribiendo a contacto@agrosolidaria.org también puedes visitar la página web del proyecto:  https://www.agrosolidaria.org/index.php/cusiana

También, puedes compartir esta historia con tu comunidad, tu familia, tus amigos, este es el momento de la tierra y del territorio, los cambios estructurales que necesitamos comienzan con pequeñas acciones locales conectadas, con personas que como Mario son capaces de soñar y unirse con otros para materializar formas de vida más sustentables y solidarias.

En 3Colibrís estamos abiertos a escuchar, compartir y acompañar experiencias como el proyecto Conservación de la Cuenca del Río Cusiana que contribuyen a garantizar el derecho a la alimentación desde la perspectiva de la seguridad, soberanía y autonomía alimentaria a la vez que contribuyen a la conservación de los ecosistemas.

¡Todos podemos ser actores de cambio, las acciones locales cuentan mucho!

Ana Prada es la fundadora de 3Colibrís y administradora de empresas y socióloga de la Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, Becaria del Entrenamiento Internacional en Diálogo y Mediación de la Universidad de Uppsala y el Curso Internacional de Sistemas Alimentarios de la Universidad de Wageningen. Trabajó para Caritas Colombiana en relación con la implementación del “artículo uno” de los Acuerdos de Paz. Ha trabajado en proyectos para PNUD, UNFAO, UE y la Fundación Suyusama.

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Perspectives from Chad, Africa: COVID-19, Climate Change and Indigenous Knowledge

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REPUBLIC OF CHAD, Africa – While COVID-19 has forced most of the world into lockdown, we are fortunate to report that our “Trails of Regeneration” video series is alive and well. Over the last few months we’ve focused on reporting the effects of the pandemic on farmers and ranchers and indigenous peoples from around the world. 

In our latest “Trails of Regeneration” episode, “Perspectives from Chad, Africa: Covid-19, Climate Change and Indigenous Knowledge,” we proudly feature Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an award-winning environmental activist and indigenous woman from the Mbororo pastoralist community in Chad, which practices nomadic cattle herding.

Ibrahim is an expert in adaptation and mitigation of indigenous peoples and women in relation to climate change, traditional knowledge and the adaptation of pastoralists in Africa. She is founder and coordinator of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), which works to empower indigenous voices and improve quality of life by creating economic opportunities and protecting the natural resources to which pastoralist communities depend on.

Ibrahim was recently named Emerging Explorer 2017 by National Geographic. She has worked on the rights of indigenous peoples and the protection of the environment through the three Rio Conventions—on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification—which originated out of the 1992 Earth Summit. 

The Mbororo pastoralist community reside near Lake Chad, located in the far west of Chad and the northeast of Nigeria. It was once Africa’s largest water reservoir in the Sahel region, spanning 26,000 kilometers. However, the lake has continued to shrink over time and is now thought to be one-fifth of its original size. 

Experts say climate change, population growth and inefficient damming and irrigation systems are to blame. The loss of water in Lake Chad is having serious adverse effects on communities, such as the Mbororo people, who are forced to migrate greater distances in search of water and green pastures. 

In a Zoom interview with Regeneration International, Ibrahim explained that in one year, the Mbororo people can travel up to a thousand kilometers and beyond, relying solely on nature and rainfall. Ibrahim told us:

“Nature is our main health, food and education system. It represents everything for us. In our culture, men and women depend equally on nature in their daily activities. The men herd the cattle towards water and pastures, while the women collect firewood, food and drinking water for the community. This provides a socially strong gender balance to our community.”

However, the degradation of natural resources is threatening these traditions, leading to human conflicts, particularly between farmers and pastoralists whose cattle sometimes roam onto nearby cropland and cause damage. These conflicts have forced Mbororo men to urban areas in search of a new line of work. Sometimes they don’t return, and the women, children and elderly are left behind to fend for themselves, Ibrahim told us.

In an effort to preserve the Mbororo’s nomadic way of life, and to help resolve conflicts between farmers and herders, Ibrahim established a project in 2012 with the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the World Meteorological Organization. The project uses indigenous knowledge and 3D mapping technology to map Chad’s Sagel region, home to 250,000 Mbororo people. 

Through its 3D maps, the project brings together rival farmers and pastoralists to collaboratively draw lines of land ownership and reach agreements on grazing pathways and corridors. The work has helped farmers and pastoralists agree on land boundaries, as well as established a calendaring system to coordinate grazing patterns with the harvesting of crops. 

The result is a win-win solution where cattle fertilize and enrich the land through purposeful grazing. This prevents crop damage and helps to mitigate climate change. According to Ibrahim:

“When we experience climate change, we use our nomadic way of life as a solution. When we go from one place to another, resting two or three days per location, the dung from our cattle fertilizes the land and helps the ecosystem regenerate naturally.

“Our traditional knowledge is based on the observation of nature which is the common denominator of all the traditional indigenous knowledge around the world. We live in harmony with biodiversity because we observe insects that give us information on the health of an ecosystem.

“We look at bird migration patterns to predict the weather and we learn from the behavior of our animals who communicate a lot of information. We look at the wind. When the wind transports a lot of particulates from nature during the dry season, we know that we are going to have a good rainy season. This is free information we use to help balance community and ecosystem health and adapt to climate change.”

Ibrahim believes that events such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, are nature’s way of letting us know she is mad because we are mistreating her. In order to heal the planet, we must listen to our wisdom and respect nature, she says.

Oliver Gardiner is Regeneration International’s media producer and coordinator for Asia and Europe. To keep up with Regeneration International news, sign up for our newsletter.

What Kelp Forests Can Do for the Climate

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Sixty years ago, Tasmania’s coastline was cushioned by a velvety forest of kelp so dense it would ensnare local fishers as they headed out in their boats. “We speak especially to the older generation of fishers, and they say, ‘When I was your age, this bay was so thick with kelp, we actually had to cut a channel though it,’” says Cayne Layton, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. “Now, those bays, which are probably at the scale of 10 or 20 football fields, are completely empty of kelp. There’s not a single plant left.”

Since the 1960s, Tasmania’s once expansive kelp forests have declined by 90% or more. The primary culprit is climate change: These giant algae need to be bathed in cool, nutrient-rich currents to thrive, yet regional warming in recent decades has extended the waters of the warmer East Australian Current into Tasmanian seas to devastating effect, wiping out kelp forests one by one. Warming waters have also boosted populations of predatory urchins, which gnaw on kelp roots and compound the loss.

Tasmania isn’t the only site of destruction. Globally, kelp grow in forests along the coastlines of every continent except Antarctica; most of these are threatened by climate change, coastal development, pollution, fishing, and invasive predators. All of this matters because these ecosystems provide huge benefits: They cushion coastlines against the effect of storm surges and sea level rise; they cleanse water by absorbing excess nutrients; and they also slurp up carbon dioxide, which can help drive down ocean acidity and engineer a healthy environment for surrounding marine life. These forests—which in the case of the giant kelp species that grows in Tasmania, can reach heights of 130 feet—also provide habitat for hundreds of marine species.

Having spent years studying these benefits, Layton is now trying to bring a patch of Tasmania’s struggling kelp forests back to life. Every few weeks, he dives out to inspect three 39-by-39-feet plots he’s created off the coast, each containing fronds of baby kelp, springing from ropes that are tethered to the ocean floor. These kelp nurseries are part of Layton’s project to determine whether climate-resilient “super-kelp” that has been raised in a laboratory will fare better in Tasmania’s changing seas. But his experiment also brings attention to the extraordinary potential of kelp to absorb carbon and help tackle climate change.

Climate-Forward Kelp

The capacity to draw CO2 from the atmosphere has added “climate mitigation” to kelp’s list of benefits. When we talk about ways oceans can sequester carbon, the conversation typically revolves around mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows. But “the magnitude of carbon sequestered by algal forests is comparable to that of all those three habitats together,” says Carlos Duarte, a professor of marine science at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. “Algal forests should not be left behind. They have been hidden for much too long.”

There’s a lot we still don’t understand about how kelp store CO2. But researchers are starting to build a better picture of this giant seaweed and how we might improve its capacity to help tackle climate change.

The dilemma is that kelp itself is also under siege from warming seas—which is the focus of Layton’s work. Of Tasmania’s original forest, only around 5% remains. Researchers think these plants have survived through natural variation and selection.

“There do seem to be individuals that are adapted and capable of living in the modern conditions in Tasmania that we have created through climate change,” Layton explains.

From this remaining pool of wild giant kelp, he and his colleagues have identified what Layton calls “super kelp” that may be more resilient against the effects of warming seas. From these he has harvested spores, embedding them in twine to be wound around the ropes that are rooted into the sea floor. The hope is that these super kelp spores will develop into saplings that will in turn set their own spores adrift on ocean currents, seeding new mini-forests nearby.

“For giant kelp restoration to work at the scale of the coastline, we’ll need to plant many of these seed patches,” Layton explains. “The idea is that, over time, those will self-expand, and eventually coalesce—and there’s your giant kelp forest back.”

Other kelp restoration projects around the world are tackling different threats. In Santa Monica Bay, California, conservationists are trying to save local kelp forests from voracious purple urchins, whose population has exploded since a major predator—the sea otter—dramatically declined decades ago. The urchins’ unchecked appetite has contributed to the loss of three-quarters of the bay’s former kelp forest. But fishers are carefully hand-clearing urchins—the draw being that as kelp is restored, fisheries are too. So far they’ve managed to clear 52 acres (21 hectares), which the kelp forest has reclaimed.

“All we had to do is clear the urchins out of the way,” says Tom Ford, executive director of The Bay Foundation, which is leading the effort.

The project’s success has caused others to ponder its carbon sequestration potential, Ford says. The city of Santa Monica recently established a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, and asked The Bay Foundation how kelp restoration could factor into that. A nonprofit called Sustainable Surf has also launched a program enabling people to invest in the kelp restoration project to offset their own carbon footprints.

“These kelp forests grow so fast and suck in tremendous amounts of carbon,” Ford says. In California, there’s a focus on preserving wild lands with carbon credits, he explains. But the uptick in regional wildfires means that land-based forests might no longer seem like the safest bet. “Now, working off the coast is becoming perhaps a more important option.”

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, a plan known as “Help Our Kelp” aims to restore a 70-square-mile tract of historic kelp forest along the country’s southern Sussex Coast. It has attracted the interest of two local councils and a water company, which are intrigued by its potential to provide a new carbon sink. “All three organizations are interested in carbon, but also interested in the wider benefits [of kelp forests],” explains Sean Ashworth, deputy chief fisheries and conservation officer at the Association of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities, a partner on the project.

Captured Carbon?

Yet key questions remain about where all the stored carbon ends up. Trees stay in one place, so we can reasonably estimate how much carbon a forest stores. Kelp, on the other hand, can float off to unknown destinations. If it begins to decompose, its stored carbon may be released back into the atmosphere, explains Jordan Hollarsmith, a marine ecologist at Simon Fraser University and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada. “Truly removing that carbon from the global carbon budget would require that those kelp fronds somehow be buried, or transported to the deep sea,” she says.

In fact, emerging research is beginning to paint a picture of seaweed’s journey through the ocean. A 2016 study estimated that about 11% of global macroalgae is permanently sequestered in the ocean. The bulk of that, about 90%, is deposited in the deep sea, while the rest sinks into coastal marine sediments.

“If the algae reaches below the 1,000-meter horizon, it is locked away from exchange with the atmosphere over extended time scales, and can be considered permanently sequestered,” says Dorte Krause-Jensen, a professor of marine ecology at Aarhus University in Denmark and author on the 2016 study along with Duarte. Still, the challenge of tallying this up remains. Compared with mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes, which deposit carbon directly and reliably into the sediments below, the inherent changeability of a kelp forest makes the sequestration harder to accurately quantify. But this could change, Duarte say, if kelp forests came under strict human management—something that’s already happening with smaller species of seaweed that are being farmed worldwide for food products and fertilizer.

Future Kelp

Could we similarly bring vast kelp forests under human control for the benefit of the planet? Brian Von Herzen, executive director of the nonprofit The Climate Foundation, thinks so. The Climate Foundation is a partner on Cayne Layton’s project for climate-resilient kelp, and Von Herzen is a major player in the field of marine permaculture, a type of open-ocean seaweed farming that mimics wild kelp forests to regenerate marine ecosystems, boost food security and sequester carbon.

Von Herzen is now trying out prototype arrays in the Philippines to help make seaweed farming more resilient to climate change. Central to Von Herzen’s vision is an array on which kelp would grow, hovering about 80 feet below the ocean’s surface. Using solar, wind, and wave energy to drive their motion, hoses fixed beneath the structure would siphon up colder, nutrient-rich water from the depths below. This cool water infusion would re-create an ideal micro-environment for the tethered kelp to thrive; the kelp would then oxygenate the water and create new fish habitat—all while capturing carbon, Von Herzen explains.

While these deepwater kelp forests are only hypothetical, Von Herzen is now testing prototype arrays in the Philippines to help make seaweed farming more resilient to climate change. Seaweed farmers there have suffered major losses because of warm ocean currents that sweep in and decimate their crops. But with the upwelling of cooler water generated by the new arrays, seaweed is starting to flourish again.

This project, and others being developed off the coasts of Europe and the U.S., are laying the groundwork for Von Herzen’s ultimate ambition: To dramatically scale up kelp arrays, eventually spanning great tracts of deep ocean where they could collectively absorb billions of tons of CO2 while also providing food security in the form of shellfish aquaculture and fish habitat and providing what he calls “ecosystem life support.”

Kelp could be buried in the deep sea to sequester carbon or be harvested to produce low-emissions biofuel and fertilizers, he says. “We use the thriving wild kelp forest as the ecosystem model for what we can scale in the oceans,” Von Herzen says.

Current Benefits

On the back of her research, Krause-Jensen is optimistic about the carbon sequestration potential of kelp and the possibility that it could be dramatically enlarged by sustainable farming. But practically speaking, in nations such as Australia and the United States, Duarte says, “it’s harder to get a concession for a seaweed farm than for oil and gas exploration.” And global systems for providing compensation for sequestering carbon are not yet set up to accommodate kelp.

Christophe Jospe, the chief development officer at Nori, a company that is working to make it easier to fund carbon removal initiatives, argues that with such a powerful sequestration tool at our disposal, we should accelerate its acceptance—even if seaweed farmers are only able to guarantee sequestration for, say, 10 years.

“We are throwing ourselves into a heated environmental debate where people say, well, that’s not permanent. But nothing is permanent—and it’s the reservoir of carbon that we need to increase because of the climate crisis that we’re in,” he says. “So actually, it’s a huge environmental value for a program to ensure 10 years of permanence.”

Things might gradually be moving in that direction. Working with Oceans 2050, a global alliance to restore the world’s oceans led by Alexandra Cousteau, Duarte is now helping to develop a carbon credit program that could be applied to seaweed farming. This makes it possible to imagine a world where we might one day invest carbon credits in kelp farms or where wild forest restoration might count as mitigation.

Meanwhile, back in Tasmania, Layton continues to watch over his nurseries of infant kelp, and he urges us to be cognizant of what kelp forests are already doing for us right now.

“They’re exactly like forests on land. There aren’t many people questioning their value,” he says. “Some people might not be interested in seaweed. But they may be interested in fishing, or their beachfront property not getting washed away, or making sure that their coastal waters are clean. All of those things are intimately tied to kelp forests.”

Reposted with permission from Yes Magazine