“You should not overlook the guidelines of your culture.
Life is short, and you don’t have time to figure everything out on your own. The wisdom of the past was hard-earned, and your dead ancestors may have something useful to tell you.”
Jordan B. Peterson
Dear Friends,
This month we thank especially the Team at Rangelands NRM WA who amplified the Kachana message!
(New readers may not be aware that since 2018 much environmental work on Kachana has been forced to be put on hold. Via the State Administrative Tribunal process we are working towards a ‘win win win’ resolution.)
Our continued focus on ‘regeneration’ is a given fact and the associated message is simple enough:
When we agree on a desired direction and trim the ecological sails accordingly, mother-nature readily fills them for us! - Often in ways we do not expect and far beyond our expectations!
Thus, time and coordinated effort allow us to rebuild lost wealth on this beautiful planet of ours!
We merely need to reinstate and foster nature’s existing wealth-building processes. I.e. those very processes that built the wealth that we humans have been tapping into for millennia, and that all too often are taken for granted.
At a conference in York, efforts of the last 30 years on Kachana were honoured with an award.
The team at Rangelands NRM WA kindly put together a short film for the occasion:
A HUGE THANKYOU to the Team at Rangelands NRM WA!
Gladly we accept this honour, but we do so foremost in the name of three giants in particular, on whose shoulders we stand:
- Allan Savory who draws attention to the importance of managing holistically and to the critical role that managed large herbivores will play in the reversal of desertification and the rebuilding of biodiversity.
- Elaine Ingham who so eloquently shares her learning about the power and nature of invisible micro-herds whose roles include the building and maintenance of productive soils.
- Fred Provenza who inspires us to further explore not only the potential of intra- and inter-species behavioral dynamics, but also the self-regulatory capacities for healing to occur: i.e. the healing and the building of resilience from cellular levels, through to landscape levels and beyond.
We accept this honour also on behalf of the ‘too many to be named here’ mentors, supporters and team-members who have contributed to our efforts over the years.
Perhaps not always honourable, but certainly noteworthy is the role played by our detractors!
As with adverse weather and other storms in life, it is such individuals that help keep us on our toes and force us to regularly reassess premises that underpin our decisionmaking.
In our case criticism is not unwarranted: Sadly, even after thirty years of applied learning, Kachana (at a ‘whole of station level’) remains a net exporter of soil!
It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a ‘first step’.
And that, at least (I feel), we have demonstrated. I can now confidently say that there is a way forward. A path that brings with it challenge, excitement and pain, but also reward.
Within a context of broader custodianship of our ecological heritage, we hope that as a family we have played a small part in demonstrating the value of restorative pastoral practices. This has not come without a steep learning curve and a huge emotional cost for Jacqueline and the children. Whilst over the years, I was able to justify my inputs in time and energy by observing and learning how nature responded, the family primarily felt the brunt of social criticism and financial constraints.
Events like the one in York will hopefully incentivise more young people to understand that, (at least until ‘regeneration’ becomes the default impact that we humans collectively exert on the planet,) wealth-building is by far a more meaningful goal than solely a focus on increased cash-flow.
More than having all the right answers, we require willing and able young people to confidently pick up the ball and to run with it. It is growing levels of networking and support that allow us to contain and share learning-curves whilst also finding inspiration and strength to explore new options in an ever-changing world.
Whilst ’Soil Health Champions’ in agricultural settings are setting the bar, I see the need for a new generation of ‘land-doctors’ to take proven methodologies beyond agricultural production sites, and out into rangeland settings to heal broken ecological processes. With this come increased options for meaningful lively hoods to replace what many may classify as "Bullsh*t Jobs"!
Warm regards from Kachana
Photos of the Month
News & Views
At the conference in York, key-note speaker Andre Leu informed participants that as little as twenty years ago, the term “soil-health” was a dirty word.
We herewith propose three new dirty words that people need to pick up on:
- Soilbuilding
- Rainfallmanagement
- Climatebuilding
We look at them in the following context:
- Our Point of influence is Stockmanship: This is how we influence all herbivore behaviour.
- The key is Grassfarming: a rapid increase in photosynthesis can draw down carbon and begin to put it back to where it will work for everybody.
- The area of maximum impact is Soilbuilding: we rebuild and fill up carbon-accounts in and on our soils as we rehydrate and aerate continental land masses.
- These three processes reward us with what I call ‘Rainfallmanagement’.
Rainfallmanagement is the result of blending Stockmanship and Grassfarming, with Soilbuilding!
Rainfallmanagement allows us to rehydrate soils, and to replenish ground water and aquifers.
(Each of us gets to personally experience the interaction of these four simple, but complex processes in the form of “climate”.) -
“Climatebuilding” is what now needs to happen at scale!
This will be achieved by rebuilding the buffering capacity of biology, in the face of physical forces that otherwise align and thereby determine our extinction as a species.
Basic skill-sets that such land-doctors will require already exist. They have been tested and are already being embraced in numerous agricultural settings.
As the regenerative paradigm begins to nurture second- and even third-generation practitioners, there will be those who will step up to the challenge. Competent young people who look beyond cashflow, towards rebuilding the natural wealth that underpins the security of any nation.
It is heartening to see themes of this conversation being picked up by more and more caring people.
We leave you with a recent example: ‘Nature Is Not for Sale,’ Vandana Shiva Tells RFK Jr.