>> today on "earth focus"... restoringng the earth, shaping the future. john liu on solutions from china, ethiopia andnd rwan. coming up p on "earth focus." [drumming] >> this s is china's loess plateau. until recently, this was one of the poorest regions in the cocountry. 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 w landscape on a vast sca. transforming a barren land into a green and fertile one. the p project 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 many of the human tragedies that we regularly witness around the world, the floods, mudslides, droughts and famines, are not inevitable. here on the loeoess plateau i've witnessed that people can lift themselves out of poverty. they 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. anand i wondered, "how could the chinese peopl thehelargest e ethnic grou on the planet, and my fathers,, anand my own ancestors come from a place that was this barren?" china's loess plateau is a region that stretches for 640,000 square kilometers across north cenentral china. unspoiled valleys in neighboring s sichuan show us how it mightht once have looked. it's the sort of natural abundance that is necessary to support an emerging civilization.

how could a landscape with such potentitial have been reduced toto this? when chinese scientists and civil engineers began to survey the area, they realized that several thousand yeyears 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 d into the earth, but simply washed down the hillsides, taking the soil with it. over millenennia, this s progressively destroyedd the region's fertility.

when this happens over an area as extensive as the plateau, millions of tons of silt are swept down into the yeyellow river, which gets its n 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: china's sorrow. in some areas, creaeating ffloating mud mattresssses that attract passing tourists, a local problem becomes a national prproblem. in n the dry season, the light unprotected soil is swept up in the winds, causing the dust t storms that are blown over chinana's cities and beyond its bororders. on the plateau, the researchers realized

that progressive degradation of the environment trapped the local population into a life of subsistence farming.g. it's a a process s that hasas od throughout t the world where poor agricultural communities find themselves overusing their land in order to survive, depleting its fertility and further imimpoverishing ththemselves. one thing that became apparent early on is the connection between damaged environonments and hum p poverty. in many pararts of the world, tthere's been a vicicious cycle. continuous use of the land has leded to subsistence agrriculture.. and generation byby generation, this has further degraded ththe soils. the vital question we have to ask is, can this destctive prococs be reversed? [indiststinct announcncements] 15 years ago, chinese and internanational experts were confidenent it could be.

they decided that to prevent further erosion, it was necessary to cease farming on certain key areas to allow the treeees and shrubs to grow back. but this could not happen without the consent of the farmers themselves. >> [speaking in chininese] >> they took some persuading. what eventually convivinced 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 hatat meant thatat the top of these hills had to be replanted with trees.

the belt meant ththat terraces s had to be buit 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 ouour lives, could improve.. >> hills and gullies were designated as ecological zones to be protected. farmers were gigiven financial compensation for not farming on them, and keeping their livestock pinned up. when i first filmed mr. ta fuyan and his colleagues back in 1995, i had d no idea this initiatative could achieve such dramatic results.

the efeffort that people put into convertingng their slopes into terraces has resultlted 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. trapped by the vegetation, it s sinks into ththe ground, we it is retained in the soil, taking weeks and momonths to o gently seep down

andd irrigate the fields and teterraces below. rrestoration has occurredd over an area of 35,5,000 square kilometers. thehe impact of such an enormous addition of vegetation goes far beyond the plateau itself. there's been a significant reduction in the s soil rushing down intoto the yellow river. as i've been traveling around the loess plateau, i've seen extensive changes. the vegetation cover on thehe hillsides, on the tops of f the hills, 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 the ones who-- who changed their behahaviors, terraced ththe fields,

improved the soils, learned to protect the marginal areas. the changeses 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 point to a more global benefitit. plants, through photosynththesi, remove carbonon from 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 in less centrally controlled societies, with fewer resources and d different soils? ethiopopia, perhaps more than any other r country, has come to symbolizee the vulnlnerability of humankind to environmental catastrophe. this is a country whose problems have been increased by war and civil conflict. and now human-induced climate changnge is predicted to make matters worse. as on the loess p plateau, centuries o of subsistence farmg practices have stripppped the ld of natural vegegetation. the dry gullies bearar the s scars of flash floods..

these gullies are evidence of the enormous power of run-off dururing the rainy season. without v vegetation cover on thee hillsides when the rains come, the water doesn't t soak into the ground but flows away in a flood, hen it's not available ffor agriculture during the rest of f the year. this leadsds to drought, andnd famously f for ethiopia, famine. but just as i witnessed in china, there is hope that the situation here can be reversed.d. in just six years, professor legesse negash and local villagers have transformed a severely eroded terrain by planting indigenous trees and plants. almostst miraculously, a clear flowing streamam has emerged where oncece there wawas a muddy trickle. how is it that iit's possible r you to g get the stream to flolow throughout the year?r?

>> it is because of the vevegetation cover, which hasas been regenerating on this m mountain. thisis water is maintainingng ththe landscape because as s son as rain n falls on the canopy, on this vegetation, that rain then ininfiltrates gradudually to the groundnd, endnding up with this steady flw of this river. water is life. without water, nobody can do o anything. i'm amazed asas short as five years--six years, you get t clean water like thihs provided youou work hard for restoring this degradeded landscape. >> a about a 1,000 kilometerss furtrther north in the villagege of abraha atsbeha,a, another 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 arere returning. the village chairman, gabre giday, remembers well how life used to be. >> [speaking in foreign language] ten years ago i'd say,y, even five years ago, i'll tell you what the situation was: it was absolutely terrrrible. the sun, the drdrought, the win, it was all dry like the desert. there was a a refugee program fr our village, so we e had a choi, leave the valley or do something. >> with government support, they applied the same principips asas the chchinese: setting land aside for natural vegetation to return. in the ravines, they built

small dams which are now fed by underground springs. andd like professor legesse's sstream, raiain that fell weeks ago nonow slowly seeps throuough the subsoil, replenishing the supply of water. >> [speaking in foreign language] the eroded land has become fertile,, it's changed f for the better. in the drdrought, our fruit trees dried up. now they are coming back, and we're growing even more varieties. these are thehe real benefits we've seen. we have food security, and our childldren can go to school. ouour lives have improved. >> these villagers are now better able to withstand the impact of climate change.

with international assistance, their achievemenent could be repeated across the country. he benefits, as prprofessor legesse points o, would spread far beyond ethiopia's borders. >> the most important issue r africa, a and i consider this afafrica's 21st burnrning issue, is restoration. no matter whwhat we do, we might be gooood at rocket, uh, rocket uh, rocket sciencnce, i mean, , nuclear science. but the envnvironment, rerestorg this huge vastst landscape,, you know, degraded landscacape is critical for africa, particularly y for ethiopia. you know, half of ethiopia is mountains, and this momountain 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 egypt without restotoring ethiopia's mmountains? so t this is regional, nationan, and internatational. >> environmental degradation is not only a problem for the dry regions of ethiopia. it can be just a as devastating for countrieses like rwanda, where rainfall is plentiful. this tiny country is grappling with the problem of growing popopulation trying to eke out a living on a finite amount of land. as in china and ethiopia, over-farming on the hillsides caused serious erosion and a decline in fertility, forcing pooror farmers to move into protected areas, such as the rugezi wetlands, a wwildlife e site of intntnational importance. when farmers drained thiis marsh

to try toto grow m more food, they not only damaged an important wetland ecosystem, they also had a significant impact thrree hours drive away in kigalali, the capital city. the water that pours from the marshlands is a vital source of hydro power for rwanda'ss capital. as t the wetlands began to dry out, power stations below couldn't generate enough electricity. the r rwandan government rentedd 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 year. >> yes, it milillions of dollars and, asas you must--might know, rwanda is notot a rich country. ssome of that money has been borrowed from m the ba, as from taxpayers. >> how does this affect the climate? >> of course, those machines, they run on diesel, and when you're burning diesel, you are producing greenhouse gases. >> envivironmentally damaging anand more expensive, locals had to pay three times as much for their electricity. so governrnment policy y makers ffocused on n how to restotore the rugezizi wetlands. if pepeople were the problem, they could also be the solution.

the government decided toto help the farmers leave the wetlands, d to restore the degraded d slopes above the, improving their croplands and encouraging trees d shrubs to grow baback, capturing the rain. >> we have been supporting them by doing traces, specifically therere on the hils where they can increase and imprprove the productivity. tthe most important thing is to have people with you, on n your side. >> the wetlands are now recovering. great volumes of water once again cascade down to power the hydro stations. carbrb-free elecectricity is replacing t the diesel generato. electricity prices have stabilized. restoring and preserving

natural ecosystems like the rugezi wetlands, benefits everyone, and so much more couould be achieve. >> we had momore involvement by different institutions coming in to help, we'd have better resources, rwanda could do o more, much mo, and benefit mumuch more, but so would other coununtries if such partnerships and support were provided. >> > what the rwandans recogngnd is that t the marshlands aare far more valuable as a naturural system providing water for enenergy than as farmland. this principle is the same for the remaining hillsides andnd ravines. what we arare seeing here is very intereresting because it't's a line between human activity and natural systems. and in the human activity, we've been ablele to value the productivity

from agagriculture and give it a monetary y value, but in the naturaral systems, we haven't een able to value the trees, the biodiversity, the w water that's absorbeded into the biomass and into the soils. and there's another vital service that trees and plants provide: photosynththesis. vegetation reduceces the grgreenhouse effect by takaking carbon 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 this other stuff, thisis is organic material. and d this organic materiaal is mixing together wiwith the loess,, the geologic soils h here, and 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. what's interestingng about this, theyey made this field, ththis is new, so they're helpining tto sequester carbon. living 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 e planet

where we humans hahave degraded the soils,, just think what an impact we would have in t 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'vve only just begun to recognize the real value of natural c capital. surely,y, invtiting in t the recovery oof damageged enviroronments is a cost-effective way of solving many of the pblems we face today. >> why do we not invest an equalal amount,t, if not t m, into a shovel-ready techchnolog, so t to speak, whwhich is nature's s way of sequesteriring and storing c carbon? it is a actually by investing in our ecolological infrastructe anand ecosystems, and expanding ththe ability of n nature to sesequester and storore carb, tthat we have the grgreatest opportunitity to do somomething, andnd the wonderful thi is s it's notot only carbon sequestrationon,

wwe are also faced with loss o of ecosystems that will afaffect our food security, our water security, we arare losing species on an unprecedentnt rate. so maintaining, restoringng, prprotecting, expxpanding, natural ecosystetems hass multiple 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 around the world is thahat it's possible to rehabilitate large-e-scale damaged ecosystems. if we can transfer the capital, the technonogy and empower the e local people to restotore their own environment, it'll have enormouous benefits. restoratation cacan sequester carbon, reduce biodiversity lossss, mimitigate againsnst floodingng, drought a and famine. it can ensurere food security

for people e who are now chronicallyly hungry. why d don't we e do this on a global scale?