Join Us at the Global Earth Repair Conference

Restoration efforts in the world are already substantial and there is a lot of experience and knowledge to draw on. The Global Earth Repair Conference is an exchange of information between earth repair practitioners. The conference addresses both the technical and social aspects of planetary regeneration.

—Global Earth Repair

Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, keynote speaker (Click to enlarge.)

Our hope is for the world community to act immediately in order to minimize the costs and damage that will result from past and ongoing maladapted practices. Only a truly global solution can work. Our best chance is to grow our way out of the mess we have made by growing more plants to restore soil fertility and biodiversity, regreening the wastelands we have created, and replenishing the natural integrated planetary-scale biogeochemical processes we have eviscerated.

We cannot count on governments to address issues they simply cannot grasp, what is needed is a real grass-roots, bottom-up, locally-managed restoration mass underground movement of informed people, a groundswell of popular opinion driven by a green ethos, to regreen our planet and recarbonize our soil.

Action cannot wait any more!

–Dr. Thomas J. Goreau in Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

The Global Earth Repair Conference will take place in Port Townsend, Washington from May 3 – 5, 2019. Dr. Thomas J. Goreau and John D. Liu are among the 5 keynote speakers. As of now there are over 100 presenters organized into over 40 tracks. Some of the tracks include: ecosystem restoration, permaculture, reforestation and agroforestry, Earth repair after hurricanes and wildfires, regenerative farming​, holistic management and grazing, biochar, and soil remineralization.

According to the organizers: “The conference will weave together a blend of restoration ecology, permaculture, ethno-ecology, forestry, agroforestry, myco-remediation, erosion control, bioengineering, horticulture and the Global Earth Repair Conference’s many other tracks. We will look at how to apply earth repair to urban areas, farmland, forests, rangeland, shrub steppes, deserts, streams, rivers, coral reefs, oceans and other ecosystems. Seed collecting, earthworks, swales, nurseries, native plants, plant establishment, hoedads, live staking, sprigging, and much else will be on the menu.”

Remineralization pioneers presenting at the conference include: RTE’s Joanna Campe, Dr. Goreau, David Yarrow of TERRA, and Dan Kittredge of the Bionutrient Food Association.

Joanna Campe will give two presentations, the first titled, “History and Overview of the Global Remineralization Movement and Future Directions,” and the second titled, “Mounting a Campaign to Remineralize Forests on a Vast Scale.”

History and Overview of the Global Remineralization Movement and Future Directions

Her first presentation will discuss an innovative agroforestry system developed by Ernst Gotsch. This system has the potential to produce a tremendous diversity of fruits, vegetables, coffee and cacao in one food system. One initial application of rock dust, jumpstarts the agroforestry project with no outside inputs thereafter. RTE would like to develop similar projects in the post hurricane-Caribbean, Haiti, Puerto Rico as well as Africa. We can also take a look at biodiverse nut farms developing in New England and the temperate latitudes.

We will explore how remineralization fits into regenerative agriculture and how to align ourselves as a community that integrates with other techniques and solutions for restoring the optimum biological activity in soils and forests.

Mounting a Campaign to Remineralize Forests on a Vast Scale

Forest fire in Los Angeles County. Photo by the LA Times. (Click to enlarge.)

The widespread fires this year have magnified concerns that we are locked in a worldwide pattern of conflagration that is both persistent and catastrophic.

The Earth Ablaze
By Don J. Melnick, Mary C. Pearl and Mark A. Cochrane.
The New York Times, August, 8 2018

In her second presentation, she will present Research, Outreach, and Policy Making – Remineralizing forests will increase resistance to insects, disease, frost, and drought. will present the advocate for mounting a campaign to remineralize forests from the air, mobilizing local, state, federal, National Guard, or other means.

Remineralized forest in Europe. (Click to enlarge.)

We will look at the research data for remineralizing forests and how it makes forests healthier, more resilient to drought, diseases and weather extremes. We will come together to explore, organize and consider the best strategy for mounting a campaign.

The conference promises to increase understanding of repairing the Earth. As the organizers put it here: “The Global Earth Repair Conference will bring 500 or more people together to talk about earth repair (ecosystem restoration) at local, regional, state, national and international levels. The Global Earth Repair Conference facilitates the exchange of information between earth repair practitioners. The Global Earth Repair Conference will contribute to, and draw attention to, the worldwide, earth repair movement. Restoration efforts in the world are already substantial and there is a lot of experience and knowledge to draw on. The Global Earth Repair Conference is also about techniques for building broad-based, social movements. How can many more people become involved, including the youth? What are the mechanisms of local funding? The Global Earth Repair Conference aims to address both the technical and social aspects of planetary regeneration.”