096 – The Man Who Stopped the Desert

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Paul reviews “The Man Who Stopped the Desert” with Caleb and Krista. The film is about Yacuba, in the Sahel, just south of the Sahara Desert. He practiced zai, which is similar to permaculture. It involves making pits for water harvesting before the rains came. Yacuba was great at observation. They did something similar to swales, using small stones. He saw that wealth was more about food than it was about money. Someone burned down his forest, and he realized that he was on the right path since people were getting so upset at him. They used termites like worms. Caleb mentions that Bill Mollison had aerial maps of African oases started by termite mounds. It was an inspiring story of persistence though adversity, and successfully deviating from the norm. He couldn’t read or write, but really understood nature. He had a dry compost pit.

Discussing the podcast.

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