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desertification in the Sudan |
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Greening the desert can be done very easily, very quickly, very effectively, and at little or no cost. Anyone can easily grasp the immense wealth that will be created by lush green vegetation in former deserts. And this won't be only monetary wealth, but also a rich, vibrant and teeming fabric of economic, cultural, social and national, even planetary wealth. The financiers of the world would be well advised to cross their eyes and start drooling already.
Greening the deserts will also quickly and effectively end climate change, and re-establish the stable tempered climates in which we and all Life on the Earth evolved.
There are 4 ways of greening the deserts. The first three are well proven, successful projects; the fourth one is a closely related proposal.
1) Permaculture In The Desert
The Permaculture Research Institute - http://permaculture.org.au/ - has taken a 10 acre plot of salty, super-arid stony desert near the Dead Sea and turned it into a lush green oasis in 3 years, which now permanently provides continuing harvests of dates, figs, pomegranates, guavas, mulberries, and citrus fruit [see their YouTube video
Behind Greening The Desert ].
'Soil' of 10 acre plot of Behind Re-greening the Desert [image is from video]
This is extremely remarkable since a 10 acre plot in the middle of many thousands of acres of the Dead Sea desert amounts to less than a micro-miniscule speck in a vast desert.
And they have done this in a desert area which gets about 3.9 inches of rain per year - with temperatures in excess of 120 degrees F. or 50 C. - with hardly anything more than what little rain there is, and with less than 1/5 of the water used by nearby traditional under-cover growing methods. Moreover, the ecological system put in place now continues to generate deep, rich soil which grows more and more fertile every year.
3 years later [image is from video]
Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute says: "We can re-green any desert". The global wealth that can be created at negligible cost is incalculable.
1) Intensive Rotational Grazing
This system employs intensive high density grazing in one area while resting other areas. In managed high density grazing the animal's hooves churn and break up the soil, while fertilizing the land with both their liquid and solid manures. It can be used with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs [1], chickens, ducks and other grazing animals. Co-grazing or follow-up grazing with another species, say cattle with chickens, is often particularly beneficial as the chicken's forage includes insect pests and parasites, while also adding high potency fertilizer.
And while this system can be used profitably anywhere, it is particularly beneficial in the world's vast dry land areas, as it stops desertification and generates progressively more fertile and more productive land, despite persistent and increasing droughts.
Zimbabwe degraded and 'capped' range in 2004
In this documented example in Zimbabwe, 100 acres of severely degraded and "capped" soil - with hardened surface which repels rain - and barely sustained 100 goats, Intensive Rotational Grazing turned it into rich pasture in 2 years, which now sustains 300 head of cattle and goats, and "desperately" needs another 500 cattle and goats to keep pace with the abundant grass.
same range in 2006
Elephant proofing was accomplished by surrounding fields with a steep ditch which elephants can't cross, and lion proofing was achieved by corralling the livestock in lion proof kraals at night. Turning the world's dry land into highly productive range lands, as these people have done, will generate incalculable monetary, social and existential wealth. For the whole story see
Zimbabwe Range Regeneration.
3) Planting Kudzu Vine
Although the Kudzu vine is a bit of biological dynamite - it can grow 100 shoots, each 100 feet long in one season, and overwhelm sheds and buildings - this fully edible (roots, leaves, blossoms) and supremely rampant vine is ideally suited to rapidly re-green degraded and semi-arid lands, while providing - simultaneously - plenty of food, fodder, fiber, hay, green manure. It has been successfully used in the south-eastern US to stop soil erosion and to re-green and revitalize farmed-out land.
The Kudzu is evergreen in all but the coldest areas of the world, captures its own nitrogen with ping-pong ball sized nodules, and gets along with as little as 4 inches of rain in a year. It is also completely edible, its roots which can attain 800 lbs. consist of edible starch like potato, and its leaves and blossoms can be used like grape leaves in cooking and salads. It is an excellent fodder for all kinds of live stock from cattle to chickens, without causing bloat, and makes abundant hay, mulch or, plowed under, 'green manure'. As if all this were not enough, its blossom are also the source of a deliciously fragrant honey.
Kudzu farther than the eye can see
While vilified in the US for its rampant growth, the Kudzu is revered in Japan and China for providing food, fodder, fibre, hay, mulch, and green manure in abundance. Here in the US too, a more sober approach is now being taken, and the Kudzu is now being studied as cheap, or no cost, abundant forage for goats, and for its immense potential for ethanol production. See "The Kudzu Connection", and Purdue University's sober assessment of the Kudzu's value, in these pages.
4) Mulching the Deserts
In "Behind Greening the Desert" (see above), an 18", or .5 meter deep mulch plays a crucially vital, integral role. It shades the soil against the fierce desert heat during the day, preserves moisture to the extent of growing moisture loving mushrooms (previously unknown in that area), keeps the soil warmer against the desert cold of night, and enriches the barren soil with life giving organic content with its decay.
Although I am not aware that it has been tried, in my view, a deep mulch alone, perhaps up to 3 feet or 1 meter deep, will preserve sufficient moisture, and provide sufficient organic material and nutrients with its decay, to begin the re-greening of the deserts.
Sturdy, tenacious and rampant weeds, which can be sheared for mulch over and over again, are the very best source for such a mulch. The Kudzu vine, the Canada Thistle, floating-leafed Lotus, the Black and the Pale Swallow-wort, Mile-a-minute and other rampant weeds would be prime candidates.
stubble mulch - weed mulch is similar
In a closely related instance, spontaneous greening of a few valleys in the Sahara Desert has shown up in recent satellite images. Scientists attribute this to a slight increase in rainfall due to the greater moisture lofted into the atmosphere by global warming. In my view, a mulch would have the same, or perhaps even better results, as it preserves moisture in the soil by shading the soil, preventing evaporation, and reducing soil temperature. Moreover, it does this over a long sustained period, whereas without mulch the rainfall disappears in a flash.
Nothing more than just shading the soil may be sufficient to re-green the Sahara, once home to extensive forests where giraffes, hippopotamuses and a wide variety of other animals roamed. No major geological changes have occurred in the Sahara within the last 6,000 years. The only change has been that formerly abundant rains have moved south.
That the rains would move elsewhere is made inevitable by the massive heat column rising from a hot, unshaded desert. This column of heat warms the upper atmosphere and prevents moisture in the atmosphere from condensing into rain. Prevailing winds then drive the moisture laden air to cooler regions elsewhere.
Since the basic geology of the Sahara has not changed in many millennia, since the reduction in rainfall has been gradual over the last 3,000 years (consistent with deforestation and progressive desertification by bare ground agriculture), and since 3,000 years is like yesterday in geological time, it may well be that just mulching will reduce the hot air column over the Sahara sufficiently to let atmospheric moisture condense into rain again.
The decay products of the mulch, of course, also result in a great improvement of the moisture holding capacity, fertility and friability of the soil.
Conclusions:
Right now, the deserts of the Earth store very little, or no carbon. Along with a carbon-storing cover of vegetation - forests are best, but shrubs will do - also comes a large subterranean biomass which holds and stores much carbon, typically about 3 times a much as in the vegetation above. By greening the drylands, the semi-arid, arid and deserts areas of the Earth, we can end climate change.
Here are the figures; we add about 4 Gigatons of carbon to our atmosphere every year. Net absorption by plant biomass and soil amounts to about 1 Gigaton of carbon per year. If we triple the forest cover of the Earth, the carbon absorbed by the new forests will equal and balance our annual carbon emissions. End of climate change. And if we quadruple the current forest cover, we will draw down the carbon content of our atmosphere.
Global warming will go on for some time as the oceans have become a bit warmer, which will result in continued global warming, until the oceans begin to cool down a bit again.
But we will be safe. Our climates will be stabilized by the forests, and they'll provide plenty of food, water, shelter and a whole host of other life-sustaining essentials. And then we'll have plenty of time to switch to cheap and indefinitely sustainable, carbon free energy.
Is tripling the Earth's forest cover not a bit much? No, it isn't. The Earth used to have 5 times more forests than it has now. We've been deforesting it for about 6,000 years now, and our current extent of forests amounts to only 20% of the original, historic extent of forests. And the Earth's dry lands, semi-arid, arid and desert areas are more than enough to triple, even quadruple our current forest cover.
We will have a future with forests; and then we will have the time and the resources to switch to carbon free and indefinitely renewable sources of energy.
A Guide to Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) - http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/tg/guide_frame.jsp?rd=LU&ds=1
Deforestation: Tropical Forests in Decline - http://www.rcfa-cfan.org/info.tree.html
The long-term impact of global deforestation on climate - http://www.activeremedy.org.uk/pages/files/other/deforestation_and_climate.pdf
Global Deforestation Overestimated - http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=257&language=1
World Population - http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopgraph.php
544 New Coal Fired Power Plants Planned in China - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4330469.stm
hunting elephant, buffalo, antelope and giraffe in the Sahara - http://www.transafrica.biz/en/cou_niger_en.htm
Rescuing a Planet Under Stress - Earth Policy Institute - http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb2/pb2_table_of_contents
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