Tony Rinaudo had been attempting to reforest degraded land in Niger in the 1980s at a rate of 6,000 trees a year, but most of them died. While driving to a village hosting one such project, he caught sight of what he initially thought was a bush. Upon closer inspection, though, it turned out to be the inspiration he was looking for. “In that instant, everything changed because I realized it’s not a bush, it’s not even a weed. That’s a tree,” he says, growing out of an old stump. The degraded land he was attempting to reforest in fact contained “millions and millions” of them, which, if protected from browsing animals and encouraged to grow, would sprout trees to rebuild the region’s depleted soil and water tables, and provide nutrients and partial shade that farmers’ crops could grow better in, via a system called agroforestry. Thus began his journey promoting what is now known as farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR), which has reforested 6 million hectares (15 million acres) in Niger — an area twice the size of Belgium — and even more globally. Rinaudo joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss with co-host Rachel Donald the potential for this technique to reforest a meaningful portion of the world’s degraded land, while boosting farmers’ livelihoods and food security through increased resiliency via agroforestry in the face of growing climate impacts, and creating habitat for wildlife. Listen here: Rinaudo details the positive benefits FMNR has had on land restoration efforts and people’s lives,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
This post was originally published on this site
