>> today on "earth focus"... restoring thehe earth, shaping the future. john liu on solutions from c china, ethiopia and rwan. coming up on "earth focus."" [drumming] >> this is chihina's loess plateau. until recently, this was one of the poorest regions in the country.y. a land renowned for floods, mudslides and famine. but with the fanfare comes the hope of change for the better. my name is john d. liu.

i've been documenting the changes on the plateau for 15 years. i first came here in 1995 to film an ambitious project where local people were constructing a new landscscape on a vast sca. transforming a barren land into a green and fertile one. the projecect certainly changed my life, convincing me to become a soil scientist. the lessons i've learned in the last few years have made me realize that t many of the human trageds that we regularly witness around the world, the floods, mudslides, droughts and famines, are e not inevitable. here on the loess plalateau i've witnessed that people can lift themselves out of poverty. ththey can radically improve their environment.

and by doing so, reduce the threat of climate change. >> > [singing] >> when i first came to the loess plateau, i was astounded by the degree of poverty and degradation. and i w wondered, "how could the chinese people, the largrgest ethnic group oon the planet, and my fatather, and my o own ancestors come f from a place that was this barren?" china's loess plateau is a region that stretches for 640,000 square kilometers across nororth central china. unspoiled valleys in neighboring sichuanan show us how it might once e have looked. iit's the sort of natural abundance that is necessary to support an emerging civilization.

how could a landscape with such potential havave been reduced to this?s? when chinese scientists and civil engineers began to survey the area, they realized that several thousand years of agricultural exploitation had denuded the hills and valleys of vegetation. the relentless grazing of domestic animals on the slopes meant that there was no chance for young trees and shrubs to grow. the rainfall no longer seeped into t the earth, but simply washed down the hillsides, taking the soil with it. over millennia, this progreressively destroyed the region's fertrtility.

when this happens over an area as extensive as the plateau, millions of tons of silt arare swept down into the yellow r river, which gets its name from the color of the fine loess soil. the mounting quantities of silt clog up the river, impeding its flow, contributing to the floods that give the river another name: chinana's sorrow.w. in sosome areas, creating floloating mud mattttresses that attract passing tourists, aa local p problem becomes a national problem.m. in the drdry season, the light unprotected soil is swept up in the wiwis, causing the dust stmsms th a are blo over china's cits and beyond its borders.. on the plateau, the researchers realized

that progressive degradation of the environment trapped the local population into a life of subsistence fafarming. it's a process that has occurred throughout the world where poor agricultural communities find themselves overusing their land in order to survive, depleting its fertility and further impoverishing themselves. one thing that became apparent early on is the connection between damaged environmentss and human povtyty. in many parts of the world, there''s been a vicious cycycle. conntinuous use of the landd hhas led to subsistence agricultuture. and generation by genereration, thihis has further degraded the soilils. the vital question e have to ask is, can this destructive process be reversed? [[distinct a announcementsts] 15 years ago, chinese and internationalal experts were coconfident it could be.

they decided that to prevent further erosion, it was necessary to cease farming on certain key areas to allow the trees and d shrubs toto grow back. but this could not happen without the consent of the farmers themselves. >> > [speaking in chinese] >> they took some persuading. what eventutually convinced the local people was the assurance that they would have tenure of their land, that they would directly benefit from the effort they invested in the new project. >> [speaking in chinese] the goal was to give a hat to the hilltops, give a belt to the hills, as well as shoes at the base. the hat meant that the t top of these e hills had to be replanted with trees.

ththe belt meant that terraces had toto be built to be used for crop planting, and also for trees. the shoes were the dams which we had to build so that the hills could grow back to life, and our economy, as well as our lives, could impmprove. >> hills and gullies were designated as ecological zones to be protected. farmers were given financial compensation for not farming on them, and keeping their livestock pinned up. whenen i first filmed mr. t ta fuyan and his colleagu baback in 191995, i had no ideda this initiative cocould achieve such h dramatic results.

the effort that people p put into convnverting their slopes into t terraces has resulted in a marked increase in agricultural productivity. the higher yields are directly related to the return of natural vegetation in the surrounding ecological land. now when it rains, the water no longer runs straight off the slopes. trapppped by the vegetation,n, it s sinks into the ground, whee it is retained in the soil, taking weeks and months to gentlyly seep down

and irrigigate the fields and terraceses below. restoraration has occurred over a an area of 35,000 sqsquare kilometers. the impacact of such an enormous addition of vegetation goes far beyond the plateau itself. there's been a significant reduction in the soil rurushing down into the y yellow river. as i've been traveling around the loess plateau, i've seen extensive changes. the vegetation cover on the hillslsides, on the tops of the hihills, and down in the valley, everything has changed. it's changed the lives of the people, and in fact, the people themselves have done this because they were thehe ones wh- who o changed their behaviors,s, terraced the fielelds,

improved the soils,s, learned to protect the marginal areas. the c changes are not simply on the hillsides. on the plains, you can see greenhouses that are filled with vegetables. this extends the growing season. it's a very high value produce. the abundance and variety of new produce can be seen in the local markets. follow-up studies have shown that incomes have risen threefold. and scientists p point to a m more global benefit. plants, through photosynthesis,, remove carbon from m the air, countering the effect of human greenhouse gas emissions on the climate.

as a result of its success, the lessons learnt from the loess plateau rehabilitation are now being applied all over china. but could such projects work elsewhere inin less centrally controlled societies, with fewer resources and different soils? ethiopia, peperhaps more than any other countrtry, has s come to symbolize the vulnerabilility of humankind to environmental catastrophe. this is a country whose problems have been increased by war and civil conflict. and now human-induced cliimate change is p predicted toto make matters worse. as on the loess plateauau, centuries of subsbsistence farmg praactices have stripped thehe d of natural vegetatioion. the e dry gullies bear the scars s of flash floods.

these gullies aree evidence of the enormous power of run-off during ththe rainy season. without vegetatation cover on the hilllsides when the rains come, the water doesn't soakk into the ground but flows away in a flood, then it's nnot available for agrgriculture during the e rest of the yeyear. this leads to drdrought, and famously for eththiopia, famine. but just as i witnessed in china, there is hope that the situation here can be reversed. in just six years, professor legesse negash and local villagers have transformed a severely eroded terrain by planting indigenous trees and plants. almost miracaculously, a clclear flowing stream hahas emerged where once there was a mumuddy trickle. how is it that it's possible for you to get thehe stream to flow throroughout the year?

>> it is becausse of f the vegetation cover, which has been n regenerating on n this mountain. this water is maintataining the landscape because as soon as rain falls on the canopy, on this vegetation, that rain then infiltrates gradudually to the ground, ending upup with this steady flw of this river. water is life. without water, nobody can do anythihing. i'm amamazed as short as five years--six years, you get clean n water like this provided you work k hard for restoring this degraded landndscape. >> about a a 1,000 kilometers further nonorth in the village of abraha atsbeha, anothther near miraculous phenomenon is occurring. farmers are finding water at the bottom of their wells, despite the poor rains

this year. the famine of 1984 struck the people of this valley very hard. many migrated, many died. now the people are retururning. the village chairman, gabre giday, remembers well how life used to be. >> [speaking in foreign language] ten years ago i'd say, even five years ago, i'll tell you what the situation was: it was absolutelterrible.. the sun, , the drought, the win, it was all dry like the desert. there e was a refugee program fr ouour village, so we had a a ch, leave the valley or do something. >> with government support, they applied the same principles as the e chinese:e: setting land aside for natural vegetation to return. in the ravines, they built

small dams which are now fed by underground springs. and like e professor legesse's stream,m, rain thatat fell weeks ago now slowowly seeps through thehe subsoil, replenishing the supply of water. >> [speaking in foreign language] the e eroded land hasas become fertile, it's changed for thehe better. in the droughtht, our fruit trees dried up. now they are coming back, and we're growing even more varieties. these are the real l benefitsts we've seen. we have food security, and our children canan go to school. our liveves have improved. >> these villagers are now better able to withstand the impact of climate change.

with international assistance, theieiachievement coululd be repeated across the country. the b benefits, as professosor legesse points o, would spread far beyond ethiopia's borders. >> the most important issue forr aica, and i c consider this africa''s 21st burning i issue, is rerestoration. no matatter what we e do, we might be g good at rocket, uh, rocket uh, rocket science, i mean, nucleaear science. but the e environment, restoring this h huge vast landsdscape, you know, degraded landscape is critical for africa, particulalarly for etethiopia. you knknow, half of ethiopia is mountains, and this mountainin system is degraded, and this degradation of this huge landscape, huge mountain chain of ethiopia is critical not only for ethiopia, but also for the entire region. consider egypt, look at the sudan,

where six percent of the nile flows to these countries. how can you support life in e egypt without restoring ethiopia's mountaiains? so this isis regional, national, and international.l. >> environmental degradation is not only a problem for the dry regions of ethiopia. it can be just as devastating for countries like e rwanda, wheere rainfall is plentiful. this tiny country is grappling with the problem of a growing populatition trying to eke out a living on a finite amount of land. as in china and ethiopopia, over-farming on the hillsides caused serious erosion and a decline in fertility, forcining poor farmers to move into protected areas, such as the rugezi wetlands, a wildlife site of international importance. when n farmers drained this marh

to try to groww more f food, they not only damaged an important wetland ecosystem, they also hahad a sisignificant impact three houours drive away in kigali, thehe capital city. the water that pours from the marshlands is a vital source of hydro power for rwanda's capital. as the wetetlands began to dry o out, power stations below couldn't generate enough electricity. the rwandanan government rented diesel-powered generators to make up the shortfall. doctor rose mukankomeje took me to see them. >> so what is happening here is that those generators... we are renting them from this company, and we are being obliged to rent them, especially, when we degraded the wetlands and we lost 20 megawatts of electricity, and to run

those machines we are paying 65,000 u.s. dollars a day. >> $65,000 a day, that's multimillions of dollars per yeyear. >> yes, , it millions of dollars and, as you m must--might know, rwanda is not a ricich country. some of that money has b been borrowed from the ba, as from taxpayers. >> how does this affect the climate? >> o of course, those machines, they run on diesesel, and when you're burning diesel, you are producing greenhouse gases. >> environmenentally damaging and morere expensive, locals had to pay three times as much for their electricity. so government p policy makers focusesed on how toto restore the e rugezi wetlands. if people w were the problem, they could also be the solution.

the government decided to helplp the farmers leavave the wetlands, and t to restore the degraded slopes above them, improving their croplands and encouraging trees and shrubs to grow back, capturing the rain. >> we have been supporting them by doing terraceces, specifically there on ththe hils where they can increase anand improve the productivivit. the mosost important thing is to have people with you, on your side. >> the wetlands are now recovering. great volumes of water once again cascade down to power the hydro stations. carbon-freree electricity is replalacing the diesel generato. electricity prices have stabilized. restoring and preserving

natural ecosystems like the rugezi wetlands, benefits everyone, and so much more could be e hieved. >> if we had more invnvolvement by different institutions coming in to help, we'd have better resources, rwanda could do more, , much mo, and benefit much morore, but so would other coununtries if such partnerships and support were provided. >> what t the rwandans recognizd is that the mamarshlands are farar more valuable as a natural sysystem providing water r for energy than as farmland. this principle is the same for the remaining hillsides and ravines. what we e are seeieing here is very interestingg because it's s a line between human activity and n natural systems. and in the human activity, wewe've been able to value the productivity

from agricultlture and g give it a monetary value,, but in the natural syststems, we haven't been le to value the trees, the biodiversity, the water t that's ababsorbed into the biomass and into the soils. and there's another vital service that trees and plants prprovide: photosynthesis. vegetation reduces the greenhouse effect by taking cacarbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. a measure of what restoring nature can do has been shown here on china's loess plateau, where farmers have continued to prosper despite the worst drought in decades. >> [singing] >> since the beginning of the project, the soil that nurtures their crops

has been accumulating organic material from plants and animals. this holds the moisture and contains carbon. what's interesting about this is all these root materials, all thihis other stuff, this is ororganic material. and this s organic material is m mixing together with thehe loess, ththe geologic soils here, andd is making a living soil. this is where the moisture resides. yesterday it rained and there's still moisture in the soil. this is where the nutrients are recycled so that each generation of life emerges here. and this is where the carbon is. whwhat's interesting aboutut th, they made e this field, this is s new, so they're helping to seququester carbon. livining soils like this retain on average three times more carbon than the foliage above the ground. if we were to restore the vast areas of the planetet

wwhere we humans have degrgraded the soioils, just think what an impact we would have in taking carbon out of the atmosphere. as much as a quarter of the world's land mass has been degraded. and much could be rehabilitated in the way we have seen on the loess plateau. and we've onlyly just begun to recognize the real value of natural capitalal. sururely, invesesting in t the recoveryy of damamaged environmentsts is a cost-effective way of solving many of the problems we face today. >> why do we not invest an equal amoununt, if nonot mor, into a shovel-ready technology, soso to speaeak, which isis nature's way of sesequestering and storing carbon?n? iit is actually by investiting in our ecologicalal infrastructe and ecocosystems, and expanding the abilility of naturee toto sequesteter and store carb, that wewe have the greatestst opportunity to d do somethingng, and the wonderful thing is it's not onlyy carbon sequeststtion,

we are e also faced witith loss of ecososystems thatat will affect our food security, our water security, we are lososing species on an unprecedented ratat so maintaining, restoring, protecting, expandiding, nanatural ecosystems has multitiple benefits. >> my hope is that the developed countries, those most responsible for climate change, will recognize the enormous potential of restoration. what we've seen in china, in africa and d around the world is that it''s possible toto rehabilitate large-scalee dammagedcocosystems. if w we can trasfer the c capit, the technology and empower the local people to restore their ownwn environment, it'll have enormous benenefits. resestoration can seququester carbon, reducece biodiversity loss, mitigate against flflooding, droughtht and famine. it can ensure food d security

for people who arare now chrhronically hungrgry. why don't we do thihis on a global scale? ñ

j.p. harpignies: greetings, fellow creatures. so all we need to do is really to k know a little bit of our history or to turn on the news every day to know that fanatically utopian social movements can be catastrophically destructive. also, the utopian impulse can be embarrassingly silly when it's not grounded. that said, the utopian imagination is crucial to the human enterprise because it's the source of most of the new ideas and visions that human beings come up with, and i suspect that none of you would bbe here at "bioioneers" if yoyu didn't think we needed some new ideas and new visions. the literary realm that has explored the utopian