John D. Liu
Activities:Landscape restoration
Founder:John D. Liu
Launched:2017
Location:Everywhere around the world
Introductie
For over 30 years, ecologist and filmmaker John D. Liu has been restoring degraded landscapes around the world, proving that no individual is too small to make a difference. John: “As soon as you put a stop to ecological depletion, the forests come back.”
John D. Liu. Photographer: Diane van der Marel
All natural systems have been perfected through an evolutionary process since the Earth was created 4,6 billion years ago. If we scale this back to 46 years, human beings have only existed for four hours… “Yet we think we know it all and we can dominate nature”, says ecologist, filmmaker and landscape restoration expert John D. Liu. “Fortunately, nature has the ability to regenerate itself. So as soon as you stop depleting a landscape, for example by discontinuing intensive livestock farming, an area will restore within a few years. Then the water cycle returns, soil becomes fertile again, toxins are filtered out of the ecosystem and biodiversity increases.”
Uitgelichte quote
Once you put a stop to ecological depletion, the forests come back
Forever grasping
“The chance that you end up on a planet with a highly oxygenated atmosphere, a freshwater system, fertile soils and plenty of biodiversity is incredibly small. We truly live in paradise”, John says. Nevertheless, we keep prioritising materialistic desires over the natural systems that sustain life on earth. “This is a fundamental flaw in our economic system, which has turned humanity into an ecological weapon of mass destruction.” Moreover, because we continuously keep grasping for more, we are making ourselves fundamentally unhappy. “We have created this gaping hole of desire that we will never be able to fill. Therefore, landscape restoration is not just a way to restore the earth. It also heals our soul.”
“Landscape restoration is not just a way to restore the earth. It also heals our soul”, says John D. Liu. Photographer: Diane van der Marel
Photographer: Diane van der Marel
The Loess Plateau
In the early 1990s, John works as a journalist in China, his father’s homeland. Shocked by the environmental pollution around him, he trades in his successful career as a reporter and starts making nature documentaries. “This is how I ended up at the Loess Plateau in 1995, an area the size of Belgium”, John says. “Back in the day, it was one of the most severely degraded landscapes in the world. Everywhere you looked, you saw these barren valleys, like little Grand Canyons, which had been shaped by the heavy rains. But not a drop of water had remained behind, because the area was bone dry.”
This makes him realise that even landscapes with sufficient rainfall can turn into deserts, if we deplete the soils long enough. “In a healthy ecosystem, the roots of plants and trees work as sponges: they absorb and capture water”, John explains. “But when the soil is left completely barren, for example after deforestation, this sponge effect vanishes and the fertile top layer of the soil washes away with every subsequent rainfall, leaving the area increasingly eroded and degraded.”
No landscape is doomed to degrade
After 20 years of restoration works, the Loess Plateau is now green, fertile and bountiful, as we can see in John’s documentary The Lessons of the Loess Plateau. But also in Ethiopia, Jordan and many other countries John has proven that large-scale landscape restoration is possible. “It’s actually very simple”, he says, “no landscape is doomed to degrade, because that’s not how nature designs ecosystems. Therefore, degradation is almost always caused by human depletion. Once you put a stop to that, you can pretty much restore any area.”
Uitgelichte quote
We need to restore our landscapes on exactly the same scale as we are destroying them
John D. Liu: “No landscape is doomed to degrade.” Photographer: Diane van der Marel
How it works
Although the exact approach to landscape restoration depends on the local context, such as the soil type, natural vegetation and climate, a few components are always needed. Namely: a sufficient amount of biodiversity, biomass (plants and trees) and organic matter in the soil (humus, plant roots and soil life). “These determine the amount of carbon, nutrients and moisture any given soil can retain”, John explains, “and are therefore crucial for a landscape’s ability to regulate the water cycle, provide plants and trees with sufficient nutrients and allow forests to develop.”
In addition, landscape restoration will only be successful in the long run if it improves the quality of life of the local people and provides them with sustainable sources of income, John adds. “Otherwise, the chances an area will still thrive in 20, 40 or 100 years are pretty slim.”
Ecosystem Restoration Communities
“We need to restore our landscapes on exactly the same scale as we’re now destroying them”, John emphasises. This is why in 2017, he founded Ecosystem Restoration Communities: a global movement that’s currently active on six different continents. “We started with one restoration project in the Southeast of Spain, but at the moment there are 57 different projects where over 20,000 people have restored 9,000 hectares of land and planted over 2,7 million plants and trees”, John says proudly. “By 2030, we’re aiming for 100 projects and 3,1 million hectares of land.”
Anyone who wants to learn how to restore soil fertility, biodiversity and watersheds can volunteer at an Ecosystem Restoration Community, for a week or longer, and no previous ecological experience is required. And in case you catch the bug, you can use these guidelines the movement has created to help you start your own project.
“We need to simplify our lives, build houses with natural materials and consume less. Ecosystem Restoration Communities can help with that too”, John continues. “Back to basics, back to nature. So that in a thousand years from now, archaeologists won’t think: toxic materials, industrial agriculture, what were they doing…?”
Depleted soil prior to restoration works in Spain. Photo by: Ecosystem Restoration Community Altiplano
Ecosystem Restoration Community Altiplano in September 2022. Photo by: Ecosystem Restoration Community Altiplano
Uitgelichte quote
Do you want to accumulate material possessions and exercise power over people and other beings? Or do you want to die knowing you contributed to the future of the planet?
Life force
“One of my earliest memories is marvelling at the leaves and grasses changing colour in the autumn. Since I do what I do now, I realise that as a three-year old I already got the essence”, John says. “That overwhelming wonder for the natural beauty of the earth is what we are made for.”
“All human beings are equal. All living beings are equal. And one day, we are all going to die. So, what do you want to do with your life?”, John wonders out loud. “Do you want to accumulate material possessions and exercise power over people and other beings? Or do you want to live in integrity with all life on earth and die knowing you contributed to the future of the planet? It’s not about who has the highest income, but about creating the best outcomes. That is what we should all be focusing our chi, our life force, on.”
Originally published on the 25th of January 2023. Translated on the 20th of June 2024 by Nadine Maarhuis.
