Sitio Semente– From Garden to Forest
Adapting agriculture to the local environment by mimicking natural processes is common to traditional agriculture communities around the world, yet it has only recently re-emerged in the Americas. After decades of land degradation and resource misuse, sustainable food systems are gaining popularity. Increasingly, a great emphasis is being placed on creating systems and practices that work in tandem with nature. One well-known practice is the ‘Three Sisters’ adopted from the Native Americans, in which corn, bean and squash are planted together. The three crops provide ...
Fertilização da Terra pela Terra | Earth Fertilizing Itself
Take a look at this exciting new video (with subtitles in English!) that has been released about the trajectory of remineralization/Rochagem in Brazil.
The narration of Othon Leonardos in the beginning captures beautiful footage of the geological processes that show how rock minerals have fertilized soils since antiquity.
Suzi Huff Theodoro shows how forests recycle nutrients and the importance of organic matter, particularly in the Amazon. She takes us on a tour to Sitio Semente, an agroforestry farm just outside of Brasilia in the midst of degraded lands, a virtual ...
Geotherapy on a Fast Track?
This is adapted from the blog of Benoit Lambert. Click here for the original version in French and English.
According to Prof. Rattan Lal of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at Ohio State University, the world’s cultivated soils have lost 50-70% of their original carbon stock, much of which has oxidized upon exposure to air, to become CO2. Yet the issues of land use, agriculture and forestry remain little discussed by international bodies on climate issues. Nonetheless science has been telling us for a while there is no coming out of the climate-wa...
The Ethics of Climate Change: Geoengineering and Geotherapy
Geoengineering strategies, from the extreme to the sustainable. Photo by University of Leeds
Climate change is an unprecedented human-made disaster that raises unprecedented questions about what we humans should do. The status quo is not a viable option, but there are several different ways we could approach the problem of climate change. One style of approach, known as geotherapy, identifies the root cause of the problem as a failure to understand the balances that naturally keep the climate stable, or that kept it stable before the industrial revolution. Industry ...
Othon Leonardos Receives Prestigious Brazilian Award
Othon Leonardos
RTE would like to congratulate Professor Othon Henry Leonardos, for his recognition as a researcher and pioneer of remineralization in Brazil. Through Othon’s pioneering research and projects with Suzi Huff Theodoro in the Quilombola communities and his work with indigenous communities, he has been dedicated to sustainability for many decades.
Professor Suzi Huff Theodoro and Embrapa lead researcher Eder De Souza Martins who also continue to lead remineralization research and projects in Brazil, were his students.
For myself, it has been a wonder...
RTE Makes Advances at Cuba Agroecology Conference
In November of 2015, Remineralize the Earth (RTE) was invited to the 5th International Conference of Agroecology and Cooperatives, November 22-27, 2015, by Greg Watson who led the Cuban-U.S. Agroecology Network (CUSAN) delegation of the Schumacher Center for New Economics. CUSAN was launched in 2014 as an initiative for exchanging and promoting agroecology-related knowledge. While primarily focused on the information exchange between the United States and Cuba, it welcomes partners from other international communities as well.[1]
The network is being established at ...
Bill Holmberg’s profound impact on those who knew him (1928 – 2016)
Bill Holmberg with intern Laura Brenner Kimes at an ACORE event
We were incredibly privileged to have Bill Holmberg on our board of directors from the very beginning in 1995 until his passing on September 8, 2016. Bill was a major advocate and pioneer for renewable energy in Washington, D.C. In honor of Bill’s extraordinary career and contribution from war hero to environmental advocate, we would like to share reflections from those who knew and worked with him.
From former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle:
I have known Bill Holmberg ever since I came to ...
Remembering Bill Holmberg – RTE Board Director (1995-2016)
Photo portrait of Bill Holmberg.
I have been reflecting this Thanksgiving on the opportunity to express my profound gratitude for the contribution of our dear friend Bill Holmberg as a board director of Remineralize the Earth. He supported this mission and this work long before we became a nonprofit organization, already beginning in the 1980s.
Bill passed away on September 8 at the venerable age of 88. As I prepared for our next board meeting I was nevertheless stunned and shocked to know that I would not hear his inspiring voice again on the telephone. ...
Book Review – Rocks for Crops
In the book Rocks for Crops, agrogeology is defined as the “study of geological processes that influence the distribution and formation of soils and the application of geological materials in farming and forestry systems as means of maintaining and enhancing soil productivity for increased social, economic and environmental benefits,” or as Professor Peter Van Straaten aptly puts it: geology in the service of agriculture.
Professor van Straaten has been one of the leading figures in agrogeology for more than 30 years. He has carried out numerous geological studies ...
World Soil Day: December 5, 2016
Tom Goreau: Dr. Tom Goreau, keynote speaker at Tufts University's Biodiversity for a Livable Climate conference: “Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming,” November 22nd, 2014.
In November 2016, the Commonwealth Secretariat held a conference about its Initiative on Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. At that conference, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland asserted that “our priority is to move from agreement to action,” and called for "pioneering approaches" to climate ...
