Greening the Desert
At a time when the broadcast and print media are full of bad news, especially on the environmental front, it’s really great to hear some good, positive news for a change.
The YouTube video below shows how a project took on 10 acres of flat, hyper-arid desert on the border of Jordan and Israel. The area was 400m below sea level (one of the lowest points on earth), 2km from the Dead Sea and completely salted. With very low rainfall and August temperatures over 50 degrees, the mainstream thought was that the only way to farm was under plastic and with loads of inorganic fertiliser.
They started the project by digging swales that followed the contours of the landscape and enabled water capture over winter, and built up organic debris (mulch) on the banks of the swales. Certain trees were grown on the upper side of the swales that fixed nitrogen, and provided shade from the sun and the wind. The results were amazing and dumbfounded the experts because in the end, they grew things that simply shouldn’t have survived or occured there and managed to reduce the salt levels.
Inspirational!
