Tag Archive for: Paris 2015

Interview: Author, Advocate Courtney White Unites Groups at Odds through Regenerative Agriculture

Finding Common Ground

“Courtney, the Berlin Wall fell down up here.” These were the words of a Forest Service District Ranger back in 1998. He was talking about the wall between ranchers and environmentalists in the region, and people passing out the hammers and helping with the teardown were, and still are, called the Quivira Coalition. Courtney White, the subject of this month’s interview, co-founded Quivira in 1997 because he was dismayed and disheartened by the nasty, unceasing legal and ideological dogfighting over the disposition of Western lands. He thought it might be a good idea, for example, if environmentalists heard from scientists about the importance of fire to restoring grass. Or if ranchers and farmers heard from a peer about the advantages of moving livestock around, and heard it while conservationists and environmentalists were in the room. As the ranger indicated, the simple idea of bringing people together to relax the grip around each other’s throats and learn a few things, turned out to be terrifically well-timed and apt. After 17 years as director of Quivira, White decided to concentrate full-time on writing books, of which the eminently useful Two Percent Solutions for the Planet is only the latest example. Reached at home in Santa Fe, he graciously agreed to reflect on the past two decades of building coalitions and opening eyes.

ACRES U.S.A. Could you think back to your time in the Sierra Club and some of the frustrations or ambitions that led you to found the Quivira Coalition?

COURTNEY WHITE. You bet. I’m glad we’re doing this because it feels a little bit like the exit interview that nobody did. I’m an urban boy; I grew up in Phoenix not involved in agriculture in any way. I was a classic environmentalist worried about wilderness and wildlife, things like that. I was active in college as what you would call a checkbook environmentalist, meaning I wrote my check to the Sierra Club, wrote letters to the editor, that kind of stuff. It wasn’t until 1994 and the mid-term elections in Congress, when Newt Gingrich and his friends stormed the capital and threatened a whole bunch of environmental legislation, that I actually became active in the environmental movement. I became a foot soldier in the pushback against that effort to wipe out a whole bunch of important environmental legislation. I went to meetings; I joined the local executive committee of the Sierra Club and organized workshops on water, wilderness and so on. As I put in that volunteer time for the Sierra Club, two things happened. One, I grew a little discouraged about environmentalists’ attitudes toward rural people. It was pretty antagonistic, and there was an effort in the national Sierra Club at the time to end logging on public lands. It was called Zero-Cut. There was a national referendum, meaning every member could vote on whether to direct the leadership to take a policy position opposing all logging in National Forests. This was a big step, a reaction to some things going on nationally. A small group within the organization wanted to take this extreme position rather than work with local communities or work on anything like sustainable logging practices. It was an all-or-nothing position regarding logging in National Forests. It was understandable on one level. There was a lot of frustration in the environmental movement about lack of progress and corporate behavior toward natural resources and the way the federal government dragged its heels on reform. I sympathized, but their prescription was like dropping a 100-pound anchor directly on rural people. It ended jobs. It ended businesses. It ended incomes. Not surprisingly, when this policy passed and the club made a big deal about it, here in northern New Mexico where I live, the traditional 400-year-old Hispanic villages were outraged. There’s a long tradition of sustainable, family-scale wood gathering, wood-cutting, logging that would have been shut down by this policy if the Forest Service had actually adopted it. So the Hispanic community here was extremely upset at the Sierra Club, and I thought for good reason. This is not how we solve problems. A couple of environmentalists were hung in effigy at the capital in Santa Fe. I was very unhappy and discouraged by the fighting that went on. Everybody just pitted themselves against each other. It was a take-no-prisoners approach to both environmental issues and to the jobs issue. I began to wonder why environmental prescriptions always seem to come down hardest on rural people. There was never any looking for sustainable solutions, common ground, or problem-solving. It was just everybody rolled up their sleeves and went into the boxing ring to see who could win.

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The World In a State of Extreme Transition: Moving from Sustainability to Regenerative Design

Author: Daniel Pinchbeck and Schuyler Brown

Communication is the tool we use to navigate change in this perishable, impermanent world. We talk about what’s happening and what’s coming. We use words to rally and activate citizens; to inform and educate people; to alleviate or aggravate fears, depending on our intentions. Humans use language to make sense of things — even those things that are happening at a scale beyond our grasp. As Wittgenstein said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” And so, while it may seem like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (let’s hope not!), reevaluating the language of climate change can offer a fresh perspective on where we are and where we’re headed.

In our view, the current language around climate change and its solutions is inadequate and even counterproductive. Specifically, we question whether sustainability, the default name for most current efforts towards preservation of life on the planet, keeps us locked into the assumption that whatever we do, we must also sustain the system that is currently in place. Perhaps, this limits us before we even start pursuing these goals in earnest. “Regenerative” — regenerative design, regenerative society, regenerative economics — appeals to us as a more ambitious and dynamic term commensurate with the type of ambitious and dynamic actions that are required for the survival of humanity now.

All successful movements have understood the use and power of language, this one is no different. If it is to succeed, we must be moved by the call-to-action we are being issued. Sustainability, to date, just has not achieved any such effect.

Sustainability, the ability to sustain life to a set of standards, needs to be eclipsed by a new paradigm. As a call-to-action, what sustainability seeks to sustain, above all, is some version of our current way of life, even though the evidence is totally overwhelming that it cannot continue. Living processes, generally, don’t just endure or persevere. Life either flourishes and blooms, evolves and transforms, or it stagnates and dies. The rhetoric of sustainability tends to support the belief that our current form of post-industrial capitalism can be reformed — that it can persist, in something close to its present order.

We propose the new paradigm emerge from the ideals of regenerative culture. We can look at our current institutions and ideologies as a substrate, a foundation, providing the conditions for another level of transformation, just as modern bourgeois society emerged from monarchy. According to chaos theory, the nonlinear dynamics of living organisms allow for the emergence of new orders of complexity, when a system reaches a high level of instability. As the mono-cultural, technocratic approach of post-industrial capitalism crumbles, a new worldview — a new way of being — is crystallizing.

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Soil4Climate and Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute Release Earth Day Climate Policy Brief – Emphasize Soil

THETFORD, Vermont — April 22, 2016 — Soil4Climate today announced that an Earth Day climate policy brief prepared jointly with the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE), has been released.

To summarize, the policy brief states that cutting fossil fuel emissions, on its own, will not suffice to meet the temperature goals set by the agreement reached during the Paris climate negotiations in December 2015, to be signed today by participating nations in New York. In addition to decreased emissions, active removal, or drawdown, of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, through the implementation of innovative agricultural practices, will also be required.

As noted in the policy brief, “While reducing energy and industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases is essential, reducing emissions from forests, grasslands, wetlands, and soils, and enhancing their capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offers a crucial pathway for success in meeting the Paris temperature goals.”

Seth Itzkan, cofounder of Soil4Climate and contributor to the brief, said, “Soil4Climate is pleased to have collaborated with the team at the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute on this climate policy brief. Expanding awareness of soil as a climate solution is core to our mission.”

The GDAE/Soil4Climate policy brief is available at https://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/climate/ClimatePolicyBrief3.pdf.

The GDAE homepage is at https://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/.

Join the Soil4Climate Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/.

Smallholder farmers and the Paris Agreement

As 60 million people around the world face severe hunger because of El Niño and millions more because of climate change, world leaders will meet in New York this week to sign the Paris Agreement on Earth Day.

This historic pact, formed during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21), is the first universal climate agreement of its kind.

On 22 April, more than 130 countries are planning to sign and implement the Paris Agreement, including the United States, China, and numerous countries in Africa and the European Union.

These efforts come at a critical time as projections show climate change is only going to become more problematic.

[…]

The role of agriculture

According to Laganda, incorporating agriculture into climate discussions has always been a contentious issue.

“Agriculture on the one hand contributes to global warming, and on the other hand is suffering from its impacts,” Laganda said. “Plus, different countries have different agricultural strategies, with some being more carbon-intensive than others. This makes it difficult to have an over-arching agreement that works for everyone. Agriculture was always an ambivalent topic in these negotiations.”

The Paris Agreement overcomes this problem with the use of intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs). INDCs communicate to the international community the steps governments are taking to address climate change gas emissions within their own countries.

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, countries are reporting their intentions to reform their transportation systems and to increase their use of energy-efficient and renewable energy. A majority of these nations are talking about agriculture as well.

“Through the INDCs, the Paris Agreement manages to establish a link with agriculture which has been missing so far,” Laganda said. “Around 80 per cent of INDCs include agriculture, which means that many countries have now recognized that agriculture is part of the solution to global warming.”

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Carbon farming is a zero-risk strategy for curbing climate change

Author: David Wolfe

Now that 195 nations, including the U.S., have agreed to ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions to slow the pace of climate change, the question everyone is asking is: How will we actually meet our targets set for 2035?

Given past performance, many don’t think we will get there without so-called “geoengineering” solutions, such as blasting sulfur dioxide or other particles into the atmosphere to shade the planet and compensate for the warming effect of greenhouse gases. Clever, eh? Maybe not. Some recent modeling studies show these seemingly easy fixes could backfire in catastrophic ways, such as disrupting the Indian monsoon season and completely drying out the Sahel of Africa. Another risk is atmospheric chemical reactions that deplete the ozone layer. Do we really want to run global-scale experiments for 20 or 30 years and see what happens?

There is another way, one that is zero-risk and builds on something farmers around the world are already motivated to do: manage soils so that a maximum amount of the carbon dioxide plants pull out of the air via photosynthesis remains on the farm as carbon-rich soil organic matter. “Carbon farming,” as it is sometimes called, is Mother Nature’s own geoengineering, relying on fundamental biological processes to capture carbon and sequester it in the soil, carbon that would otherwise be in the air as the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

Over the past century soils worldwide have been degraded due to expansion of agriculture and poor soil management. Today, there is a revolution in agriculture that recognizes the importance of building “healthy” soils by replacing the organic matter that has been lost over time. One way to do this is to use carbon- and nutrient-rich organic sources of fertilizers such as manure or compost rather than synthetic chemical fertilizers. Another is to include carbon- and nutrient-rich crops like legumes (e.g., peas, beans) in rotations, and plant winter cover crops that contribute additional organic matter in the off-season. We’ve also discovered that reducing the amount of plowing and tilling of the soil (“conservation tillage”) slows the microbial breakdown of organic matter that leads to carbon dioxide emissions from soils.

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A Great Day: Saving the World from Catastrophic Climate Change

[ English | Español ]

Author: Courtney White

“Dec 1, 2015, will be one of the most important days in human history. It will be seen as the tipping point when the world was saved from catastrophic climate change.” – André Leu, President of the IFOAM (Organics International)

One of the most significant events at the recent UN climate summit in Paris went largely unnoticed.

We know the headlines: In an effort to slow dangerous climate change, representatives from 197 nations concluded a two-week marathon of negotiations by signing a breakthrough agreement that commits governments to targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2020.

This was justifiably big news. After 20 years of failed attempts to craft an international consensus on climate action, most spectacularly in Copenhagen in 2009, the world simply had to get its act together. It did so, to well-earned applause, on December 12, 2015.

So what happened on December 1?

That’s the day the French government launched the 4 per 1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate, a plan to fight climate change with soil carbon. The initiative’s goal is this: to increase global soil carbon stocks by 0.4 percent per year by drawing down atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) via the increased photosynthesis of regenerative farming and land use.

On the surface, that may not sound like a lot of carbon, (it amounts to 10 billion tons of carbon per year sequestered in global soils), but French scientists say it’s enough to halt human-induced annual increases in CO2 globally.

That sounds like a front page headline to me!

How will the initiative succeed? The key is regenerative agriculture. France, for example, intends to hit its 4/1000 target by employing agro-ecological practices on 50 percent of its farms by 2020.

Agro-ecological practices restore damaged land and build biologically healthy soil through the use of cover crops, perennial plants, no-till farming, and livestock grazing patterns that mimic nature. If managed properly, these nature-based practices not only increase carbon stocks in soil, they also can dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the use of fossil fuel in industrial agriculture, one of the biggest polluters on the planet.

Agro-ecological practices also increase resilience to climate change. In an op-ed published days after the French announcement in Paris, Michael Pollan and Deborah Barker wrote:

Regenerative farming would also increase the fertility of the land, making it more productive and better able to absorb and hold water, a critical function especially in times of climate-related floods and droughts. Carbon-rich fields require less synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and generate more productive crops, cutting farmer expenses.

Those are bold, but as we’ll see later, realistic claims. But here’s the best news: Regenerative agriculture is a shovel-ready solution to climate change.

Agro-ecological practices are practical, profitable and have been ground-tested by farmers and ranchers around the world for decades. In fact, shovel-readiness is a big reason why more than 100 nations, international NGOs and farmers’ organizations signed onto the 4/1000 Initiative–and why many more have signed on since then.

After years of neglect, soil carbon is now viewed as key to how the world manages climate change. “[It] has become a global initiative,” said French Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll. “We need to mobilize even more stakeholders in a transition to achieve both food security and climate mitigation thanks to agriculture.”

“The time for talking is finished,” said IFOAM’s André Leu. “Now is the time for doing. The technology is available to everyone. It is up to us to mobilize in time. Let’s start working to get this done and give our world a better future.”

Paying for regeneration

A critical step will be creating a viable carbon economy where regenerative farmers and ranchers can be paid to build soil carbon. This has been a difficult challenge so far, but thanks to the Paris Agreement, 197 nations now have a huge incentive to draw down their emissions to meet official targets. And regenerative agriculture can help get them there.

From the carbon emitter’s perspective, offsetting carbon dioxide emissions with verifiable increases in soil carbon, validated now by the French government’s 4/1000 Initiative, will likely stimulate other nations to create market-based mechanisms which, in turn, will encourage farmers and ranchers to adopt regenerative practices, round and round. From society’s perspective, all this is great news!

Creating carbon markets isn’t a new idea. Over the past twenty years, a variety of efforts have been made to energize a voluntary carbon credit trading system, including programs in Europe, Australia, New England, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, each with varying degrees of success. In New Mexico, where I live, the state legislature considered a bill in 2015 that would have created a policy framework for enacting a carbon credit system–a first for the state.

New Mexico attempted to established a carbon credit as a contract right and to create a five-member board to review and audit the credits as potential offsets for carbon emitters. The board specifically identified the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and its accumulation within plants, soils and geologic formations as a legitimate means by which a credit can be created–also a first (specifically, one carbon credit equaled one metric ton of CO2 or its equivalent).

Unfortunately, the bill didn’t become law, and it’s not the only model for paying for regeneration. But the bill represents an important step toward stimulating market-based responses to climate change.

Serious concerns about the shortcomings of carbon offset markets (sometimes called cap-and-trade) have been raised. This is especially true for organic, regenerative and family-scale agriculture, which could easily be pushed aside by large industrial producers. Here’s a useful primer on how climate-friendly agriculture can be treated fairly in a carbon economy.

The bottom line is this: We need state and federal policies that make the polluters pay, create publicly-controlled pools of money, and pay regenerative farmers and ranchers for building carbon stocks in their soils.

Science is on our side

Markets and their regulators will require sound science and hard numbers–credible and verifiable–to work effectively. This is a challenge, however, because understanding soil carbon involves chemistry, biology, ecology, hydrology, and agronomy—which means the science can get complex quickly, for researchers and laypeople alike. Fortunately, there has been a veritable explosion of soil carbon science recently, creating a clearer portrait of carbon’s potentials.

One researcher whose work has shed exciting light on regenerative agriculture is Dr. David Johnson, a molecular biologist at New Mexico State University. Johnson believes that “getting the biology right” is critical to creating significant increases in soil carbon stocks.

It’s essentially a two-step process, according to Johnson: (1) get life back into soils that have been stripped of their biological fertility by industrial agriculture; and (2) employ practices that bring about a shift in the soil from bacteria-dominated to fungi-dominated communities. The latter is important because fungi are the “carbon brokers” between plant roots and soil microbes. This process also improves soil structure which improves its ability to resist erosion–equally crucial to long-term carbon storage.

Of course, all of this soil rebuilding can be undone by the plow, which exposes microbes to the killing effect of heat and light. That’s why not turning the soil over is a key component of regenerative agriculture.

Johnson’s research also shows that “getting the biology right” reduces the amount of carbon that is “burped” back into the atmosphere (as CO2) by microbes as a waste product. This is important because the viability of long-term carbon storage in soils–and thus the size of monetary payments to farmers and ranchers from markets–depend on there being more carbon flowing into the soil system than flowing back out.

It’s not just about money. Additional carbon improves plant productivity, improves water infiltration and soil water-holding capacity, reduces the use of synthetic amendments, and promotes a healthy environment for pollinators and other beneficial insects.

A win-win for the land and ourselves!

Johnson notes that nature is three to four times more productive than any agricultural system yet devised by humans. And nature achieves that productivity without pesticides, synthetic amendments, irrigation or monocropping.

“Shouldn’t we be asking what we’re doing wrong?” Johnson said in an interview. “Plus, nature had the capacity to increase soil carbon in the past. Our task is to find out how it was done and mimic it in our current practices.”

Improved soil fertility, better food, more efficient use of water, reduced pollution, fewer energy requirements, better animal health, increased biodiversity, and keeping global warming in check–all possible for as little as 4 per 1000 a year!

For more information see:

Carbon Sequestration Potential on Agricultural Land by Daniel Kane, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Soil Carbon Restoration: Can Biology Do the Job? by Jack Kittredge, Northeast Organic Farming Association

***

Courtney White, co-founder and former executive director of the Quivira Coalition, is the author of multiple essays and books, including “Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey Through Carbon Country” and “The Age of Consequences.”  

On World Soil Day, OCA, IFOAM Laud French Government’s Initiative to Address Climate Change via Carbon Sequestration in Organic Soil

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 5, 2015

CONTACT:  Organic Consumers Association, Katherine Paul, 207-653-3090, katherine@organicconsumers.org

On World Soil Day, OCA, IFOAM Laud French Government’s Initiative to Address Climate Change via Carbon Sequestration in Organic Soil

December 5 marks end of International Year of the Soils, beginning of work to replace degenerative industrial ag with organic regenerative strategies that can reverse global warming

PARIS – As the International Year of the Soils officially ended on December 5, World Soil Day, Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and IFOAM Organics International (IFOAM) praised the French Government’s 4 per 1000 Initiative as the most important climate strategy to come out of the COP21 Paris Climate Talks.

“This is the most exciting news to come out of COP21,” said Andre Leu, president of IFOAM Organics International. “By launching this Initiative, the French Government has validated the work of scientists and farmers and ranchers who have demonstrated the power of organic regenerative agriculture to restore the soil’s natural ability to draw down and sequester carbon.

“It is imperative that world the decarbonizes the atmosphere from 400 ppm to far less than 350 ppm to stop catastrophic climate change. The combination of renewable energy to stop further emissions and drawing down excess CO2 into the soil is most achievable way to do this and it is readily available to us now.”

“What better way to celebrate World Soil Day than to recognize that healthy soil is our most available, most promising solution to global warming,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s international director. “As we celebrate this important Initiative and also mark the end of the International Year of the Soils, we look forward to what is arguably the most important work our organizations and our governments face—reversing global warming before it’s too late.”

OCA and IFOAM Organics International are among the 100 partners who were signed on at the launch of the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Partners include developed and developing states, international organizations, private foundations, international funds, NGOs and farmers’ organizations.

The partners have agreed to reinforce their actions on appropriate soil management, recognizing the importance of soil health for the transition towards productive, highly resilient agriculture.

The “4/1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate” aims to protect and increase carbon stocks in soils.  According to the French Agriculture Ministry, a 0.4-percent annual growth rate in soil carbon content would make it possible to stop the present increase in atmospheric CO2 and achieve the long-term objective of limiting the average global temperature increase to the 1.5°C to 2°C threshold beyond which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says would lead to a climate disaster.

The initiative consists of a voluntary action plan under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), backed by an ambitious research program.

The United Nations officially declared 2015 the International Year of the Soils, beginning on December 5, 2014, and ending on World Soil Day, December 5, 2015. The official closure took place at FAO headquarters on December 4.

IFOAM – Organics International is the worldwide umbrella organization for the organic agriculture movement, which represents close to 800 member organizations  in about 125 countries.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots non-profit 501(c)(3) public interest organization representing 2 million U.S. consumers campaigning for health, justice, and sustainability. The Organic Consumers Fund is a 501(c)4 allied organization of the Organic Consumers Association, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action.

IFOAM – Organics International Joins “4 per 1000” Initiative: Soils for food security and climate

IFOAM – Organics International has joined the “4 per 1000” Initiative (link is external), which aims to improve the organic matter content and promote carbon sequestration in soils through the application of agricultural practices adapted to local situations both economically, environmentally and socially, such as agro-ecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture and landscape management.

The official launch of the initiative took place 01 December 2015 at the COP21 Climate Conference with keynote speeches given by Tabaré  Aguerre,  Minister for livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries of Uruguay as well as Christian Schmidt, Minister for Food and Agriculture of Germany.

Both José Graziano Da Silva, Director-general of FAO and Stéphane  Le Foll, Minister for Agriculture, Food Processing Industry and Forestry of France agreed that farmers need more access to knowledge in order to farm successfully with better soil management practices.

Commenting on the event, Gábor Figeczky, Advocacy Manager at IFOAM – Organics International was pleased to note that Agroecology is at the heart of the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Read more about the initiative.

View the Original Article on IFOAM Organics International

A Message of Hope: Regeneration International at COP21 in Paris

When we invited activists, authors, farmers, filmmakers and scientists from 16 countries to camp out with us at a hostel in Paris for the 2015 COP21 Climate Summit, we weren’t sure who would show up, or how things would go.

It turned out even better than we imagined. About 80 people, from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, Spain, the U.S, and Zimbabwe joined us, for all or part of the two-week COP21, at St. Christopher’s Inn Canal, sister hostel of the Place to B. The hostel, and a nearby rented apartment, turned out to be great venues for formal, organized workshops, plus a lot of informal networking and ad hoc meetings.

We went to Paris with a message of hope: Regenerative food, farming and land use can cool the planet and feed the world. Our intention was to change the climate conversation because to date, the conversation has focused almost exclusively on emissions reduction. We absolutely must reduce fossil fuel emissions. But emissions reduction is only a 50-percent solution. Even if we were to cut all human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions today, the globe would continue to warm for decades or even centuries to come.

However, there is hope. There is growing scientific evidence that regenerative agriculture can reverse climate change by drawing carbon into the soil through the natural process of photosynthesis, while at the same time delivering other essential ecological, economic and health benefits.

Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association and Via Organica, and a member of the RI Steering Committee, told one gathering:soil story eiffel

“A growing number of us here in Paris are determined to change the prevailing gloom and doom conversation on climate, and instead focus on practical solutions, Global regeneration requires a revolution, not only in our thinking, but in our heretofore tunnel vision. We need to move beyond mere mitigation or sustainability concepts that simply depress or demobilize people to a bold new global strategy of regeneration,” he added.

Success! The climate conversation evolves!

We accomplished our goal in Paris. We helped change the conversation. For the first time, the international community now recognizes the potential for healthy soils to reverse climate change.

On December 1, 2015, France launched a global initiative endorsed by 100 partners, including 25 countries. The “4 per 1000 Initiative: Soils for Food Security and Climate” consists of a voluntary action plan under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) that aims to show that food security and combating climate change are complementary. The initiative also positions farmers as the pioneering climate heroes of our generation.

Commenting on the French 4 per 1000 Initiative, André Leu, president of IFOAM Organics International, said:

“We know we can put carbon in the soil. The world has accepted it. Now we have to talk about how to scale this up. What we are about to do now is change agriculture forever. It is the biggest paradigm shift in the history of the climate change movement. On December 1-2, agriculture finally made it into the climate talks. It went from being ignored to being central to climate change. This is huge. The time for talking is finished. Now is the time for doing. The technology is available to everyone. It is up to us to mobilize in time. Let’s start working to get this done and give our world a better future.”

The words “agriculture” and “soil carbon” do not explicitly appear in the official UNFCCC agreement. But that’s okay!  Here’s why. Each country is required to provide something called an Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), a document in which they outline their plan for climate mitigation and adaptation. According to an analysis conducted by CGIAR of the first 150 country INDCs submitted ahead of the UN climate talks, 80 percent of commitments included agriculture in mitigation targets, and 64 percent included agriculture in their adaptation strategies.” Under the Lima-Paris Action Agenda, these INDCs will be reviewed every five years and do not begin until 2020.

“It is important to understand that there is plenty of scope to have farming and soil carbon included in the INDCs between now and 2020,” Leu said.

Demonstrations, press conferences, workshops and more!

In addition to attending the formal COP21 negotiations, the RI delegation participated in and hosted a variety of alternative events, workshops and demonstrations.

Here’s a list of some notable events RI members either organized, sponsored or participated in:

  • On November 29, we joined tens of thousands of activists who took to the streets to peacefully defy the French government’s ban on street demonstrations. A delegation of North and Latin American regeneration activists joined the protest, holding hands in a human chain stretching for miles. We lined up at the corner of Boulevard Voltaire and Allée du Philosophe. Our section of the animated chain, designated “solutions,” was punctuated with colorful homemade signs, T-shirts and banners. We were a boisterous group, whose most popular chant, repeated over and over again in Spanish, English and French, drew smiles and thumbs-up reactions from Parisians passing by:“El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido” or “The people united will never be defeated”.
  • On December 3, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, joined by dozens of global food, farming and environmental justice groups, held a press conference to  announce that they will organize a citizens tribunal to hold Monsanto accountable for crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide. The tribunal will take place next year, The Hague, Netherlands, beginning October 12 and ending on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.
  • Also on December 3, 2015, Kiss the Ground, Project Drawdown, and RI hosted a workshop on regenerative agriculture and land use which brought together soil and carbon enthusiasts. Participants exchanged skills and knowledge on regenerative agriculture and land use, soil carbon sequestration, climate change mitigation. Some, like Pedro Diniz, also shared ecosystem restoration success stories. Pedro and his team shared the inspiring story of how they restored Fazenda da Toca. Today, this large-scale family-owned organic farm in Brazil’s São Paulo state is changing the future of ecological agriculture.
  • On World Soil Day, December 5, 2015, which coincided with COP21, artists, environmental and spiritual leaders, seed defenders, community supported agriculture networks, and concerned citizens gathered at La Villette in Paris and planted a ‘Garden of Hope’.  We launched a Pact with the Earth and with each other to defend our commons—our seeds, soil, water, biodiversity, air and climate systemsessential to building climate resilience. We reaffirmed that in regenerative agriculture and local food systems lie the answers to the food, nutrition and health crises, water and climate crises, and the refugee crisis caused by climate instability.
  • On December 6, we hosted a workshop at the People’s Climate Summit where panelists and participants discussed a 2016 action plan for global regeneration. Precious Phiri (EarthWisdom Consulting) highlighted the importance of eating regeneratively. “Education in Southern Africa is key. I get rejection from the educated in Zimbabwe because there is dependency. People think that we need GMOs, we need industrial agriculture to survive,” she said. Laura Lengnick, author of “Resilient Agriculture,” called for the transformation of the food system: “The way we eat has a lot to do with how our communities are organized,” she said.
  • On December 7, over 100 people gathered at La REcyclerie, an urban farm in the heart of Paris and also considered a DESTINATION COP21, to hear a series of short talks and engage in discussions around the theme “Cool the Planet, Feed the World: The Power of Regenerative Food and Farming to Save the Planet.”  La REcyclerie’s mission leading up to COP21 was to educate citizens about the fight against climate change.

What can you do?

(1) Change the climate conversation in your local community or in your local organization from doom and gloom to one of positive solutions, based upon the regeneration perspective. Join Regeneration International’s Facebook page. Publicize and share strategic articles, videos and best practices. If you need to study up on how soil sequestration works, read and re-read this pamphlet and go through the major articles in our annotated bibliography.

(2) Join or help organize a local or regional regeneration working group. If you’re ready to become a Regeneration International organizer send an email to info@regenerationinternational.org.

(3) Boycott the industrial food system. Regenerate your health and your diet. Get ready to join OCA and Regeneration International’s soon-to-be-announced global campaign and boycott against Monsanto, factory farms, GMO animal feeds, biofuels and so-called “Climate-Smart Agriculture.” One of the most important things you can do today and every day is to buy and consume organic, grass-fed, locally produced, climate friendly foods.

(4) Help organize and plan regeneration conferences and meetings. Make your plans now to attend our Regeneration International global climate and biodiversity summit in Mexico City December. 1-3, 2016.

5 Ways to Reverse Climate Change Right Now

Author: Maria Rodale

The Paris Climate Conference (known as COP21) is finally taking place, bringing with it that strange mix of hope mingled with despair. Everyone seems to have his or her own personal agenda (including me) for how the conference should play out—and how we can save ourselves from a climate disaster.

Organizations from all over the globe are bringing to Paris their diverse messages about what should be done: from renewable energy to nuclear; from eating no meat to eating less meat; from super-high-tech solutions to going back to simpler ways. Unfortunately, many leaders are still thinking 20 years out when it comes to climate change—as if we have all the time in the world. And while each of the solutions proposed at COP21 might be essential in the long run, none of them alone is enough RIGHT NOW to make a difference.

However, there is one thing that we can do RIGHT NOW that can not only reverse climate change, but also let all the players pursue their own agendas in peace. We must and can immediately restore the soil’s ability to store carbon. It’s pretty simple, actually. And it’s proven to work.

Here are 5 ways to make that happen right now:

1. Transition all agriculture to organic regenerative agriculture. Numerous studies have shown that organic agriculture restores the ability of the soil to store carbon. Not only is organic agriculture both productive and profitable, but it’s also healthier for everyone, and it doesn’t use petroleum-based fertilizers and chemicals. Note, keeping the soil covered in plant life at all times is essential to carbon storage. That means cover crops! Oh, and bonus: People around the world are demanding organic, so there’s a giant market for what organic regenerative agriculture produces that is just waiting to be filled. (By the way, that means raising animals organically and using as much high tech as you want.)

2. Protect and preserve all wilderness areas, especially forests. Nature knows what to do—forests naturally store tons of carbon. Forests model what agriculture is learning: that nature knows how to protect itself and us if we protect the patterns enabling plants, trees, insects, fungus, birds, and animals to do the work to store carbon.

3. Plant more trees, forests, and gardens. No space should be left bare. Every open space is an opportunity to store carbon in the form of plants, trees, gardens, and healthy soil. Be it by planting a garden or by letting something go wild and “back to nature,” the important thing is to allow the soil to build and grow and do its work.

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