Water retention

I’m not talking about what happens when old farts like me have problems discharging their personal water. No, this is about enabling Mother Earth to retain the fresh water that comes down in the form of rain.

The key is intact vegetation with root systems that penetrate deep into the earth and provide a universe for microbial life.

Regrettably, most human practices on the land, achieve exactly the opposite result as land is cleared and used for innumerable reasons.

Overgrazing with livestock does the same thing, as humans sacrifice their future for short term gain.

Here in Canada, we have a great land engineer at our service that can help restore damaged ecosystems: Bertie Beaver, a much maligned rodent that builds dams on water courses, slowing down runoff after storms and so making water available to underground life forms of all kinds.

And that results in above ground life flourishing as well, including ourselves. All Bertie needs are some nice trees to feed on and build his dams from. Something that can readily be provided by us planting trees in desired dam areas over time.

We are finally beginning to learn the lessons from Nature on how to live in harmony with her, by now beginning to construct artificial beaver dams across smaller water courses, both here and in Australia, for example.

As usual, the Asians are way ahead of us with their terraced gardens along steep hillsides. For them, it was “do or die” way back in antiquity due to population pressures. It is all about capturing water before it has an opportunity to form streams that gouge out the hillsides and use it slowly to feed gardens and rice paddies.

We are now at that point here in the West.