John D Liu & Chris Henggeler on Kachana, China & A Blueprint For Restoring Earth

A line of turbulence marks the edge of a burn scar, and the plane starts to buck. That jolt becomes a metaphor for the entire conversation: when we strip biology, we disrupt wind, heat, and water. Restore it, and everything changes. We link Perth to the wet season Kimberley and a bright winter’s day in Beijing to ask a practical question with planetary stakes: how do we turn knowledge into actual regeneration?

Filmmaker and restoration catalyst John D. Liu joins Kachana Station’s Chris Henggeler to map a path from storytelling to soil building. John lays out a simple physics of living systems—grow organic matter, raise canopy height, and infiltrate every drop to repair the lower hydrological cycle and cool the land. Chris brings the Kimberley into focus: lightning seasons, split-second fire calls, and the creation of microclimates through tight management. Together they propose Kachana as a living laboratory and virtual university—open to researchers, engineers, and restoration communities.

We update you on the donkey controversy and opportunity still alive, and hear the call for evidence-based policy that aligns regulation with how soft systems self-regulate. We explore the remarkable rise (and unexpected beginning) of Ecosystem Restoration Communities, why peer-to-peer learning scales faster than conferences, and how true wealth should be tied to functional ecosystems and healthy watersheds. From canopy height to hydrological function, from policy design to ethical investment, from daily fieldwork to music and shared meals, this is a blueprint for turning concern into coordinated action.

Note: the Australian Story episode on Kachana has now eclipsed 1.5m views. And this episode celebrates the International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists. 

Chapter markers & transcript.
 
Recorded 12 February 2026.

Join us at Grounded Festival (10% discount for paid subscribers).

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Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

And John on guitar.

Transcript

Setting The Scene Across Continents

AJ 0:04

G'day there, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration with the stories that are changing the story towards the regeneration of life on this unlikely miracle of a planet. Brought to you by listeners like you. Do subscribe if you can and help keep the show on the road. Today we're connecting from here in Perth over to the Kimberley in the tropical wet season of far northwestern Australia, and across the seas to a dry wintry Beijing, China. That's because we've got two legends in ecological restoration on the line. Chris Henggeler from Kachana Station needs no introduction to listeners of this podcast. Aside from perhaps letting you know that the ABC TV Australian story episode on Chris and his family has now eclipsed one and a half million views. And yes, we talk about the distressing tribunal judgment passed recently on Kachana, and the opportunity still alive on that front. And probably also needing no introduction, a man Chris described as the David Attenborough of the Regenerative Movement. Speaking to us from his long-term residence in Beijing, made with wood they milled on site nearly four decades ago, and full of old footage from those decades and more in film, is John D. Liu. Perhaps best known in recent times for his film on the extraordinary transformation of the lowest plateau in China at the scale of France, called Green Gold, and his pioneering work with what have come to be known as ecological restoration communities, now numbering almost a hundred in dozens of countries around the world. We hear a heck of a story about how that started too. Chris and John spoke for the first time a week or so ago for a lazy six hours. And apparently there was plenty to go on with. So I suggested we do it here. There are some big ideas floating about and a proposal or two for Kachana. And John takes us out with a bit of guitar. Hey Chris, how you going? Good, good. How's John?

Chris 2:12

John's alive. Just a bit of logistics there, Anthony. Unlike John, I have 37 degrees in the office. Um, and I've got a fan going. Is that interrupting? Is that can I keep that going as is?

AJ 2:25

Oh Chris, under those circumstances, I'm not gonna tell you not to. Thank you.

Chris 2:33

Because otherwise it wouldn't be me crying, it'd just be the sweat coming up my head. That's right.

John 2:37

Well, I'm gonna try to look like less like I'm in the Arctic.

AJ 2:42

That one it had good effect. Chris Chris in the sweltering tropics, and me down here in a sort of a Mediterranean 30 degrees, and and you dressed for the snow.

John 2:51

It's it's actually I I could try to do it outside. It's quite lovely today.

AJ 2:58

I was actually going to start by getting you both to bring us into the ambience of where you are. So if you if you want to, you could do a live cross.

John 3:06

It's it's harder to go to take it off the power and to you know, but otherwise.

AJ 3:15

But tell us about it.

John 3:16

It's a good day to do it in a way, if but I'm lazy, let's face it. And I'm very messy too, so that's another problem. But um, it's it's sunny today, and the temperature feels like 14 degrees, but it's probably more like 11 or 12, and there's no wind, and the sun is shining, and it's blue, there's not a cloud in the sky, so it's it's it's quite quite lovely. And you know, it's it's it's interesting because it reveals because I've been here now, it I came to China in 1979, and so this is this is 46 years or 47 years coming up that since I I first came. Actually, that was in February, so yeah, 47 years. And um what's interesting to see is at that time there was very little vegetation anywhere. It was like the people had rushed over, and you know, it was like locusts or something. People, there were so many people that the Chinese at the end of World War II and uh at the beginning of the when the communists took over in China in 1949, I think there were 400 million Chinese. And now it's like three times, more than three times that population. And when I it seemed like, and they had they had some periods where they went through some disruptions, you know, these political pogroms and things, they would uh arrest people and run around, and it didn't make any sense. I mean, at the end of that, you know, everybody's everybody's all the Chinese people are Chinese people, and they all have the right to be here, and you know, so so so it all kind of went through these phases, but they ended, you know, like they would persecute one group and then persecute persecute another group, and then you know, and then finally they went, eh, you know, like that didn't really work, you know, so let's stop it. Which I thought was, you know, that's kind of progress, you know. I mean, it's somehow progress. And then what but during one of those periods, they had what they called the great leap forward, and it was not based on science, it was based on I don't know, whim. You know, if it's it's sort of like what you're seeing maybe now in the United States, where it's not really a rational or logical or consensus building or compassionate. It's just like, oh, let's do this, you know, and let's do that. And of course, it it only lasts a day or two because there's the you know, that'll be forgotten, and and it'll also remind me of like in the in Mongolia, they had something called the the hural. And it was just that they it landed where all the people went, they didn't really talk to each other, but they they kind of had some kind of telepathy, and then it somebody would stand up and present, and and it took a lot of courage to say anything because everybody's silent, and then everybody kind of looks at each other, and you there's like a feeling that goes through the crowd that goes like, no, maybe not, you know, and the and the and the person goes, oh, you know, and sits down, you know, it's like it's clear, you know, nobody has to say, well, that's silly, you know, don't do that, and then then the next person stands up and kind of pronounces something, and and the whole the whole group goes, okay, yeah, you but much better idea, you know, and so suddenly it just lands and everybody knows that's it. And then it's like okay, and then they walk away, they don't even have really it's not too much ceremony around that, it's just kind of like we know, and it's it's amazing, and I think I think that kind of consensus or that kind of collective intelligence, that's really what we need at this time. If we don't get there, we it's very difficult to have a uh a uh collective intention. And and what we need now is to have a very clear view of what's taking place, what's happening now, what is true. We have eight plus billion people on the earth, we've got climate change, biodiversity loss, we've got the hydrological dysfunction, we've got the soil issues of living soils and regenerating soil, and we have

Collective Intelligence And Earth Systems

John 8:20

toxicity, and we've got these political problems and financial collapse. It's just a poly crisis, really. And if we understood that and we just sort of sat down and said, well, maybe it's not the best thing to think that going shopping is going to fix this. It really is that we need to process and come to a collective understanding. And when we have a collective understanding, we can have a collective intention. We can say, look, we know how to recharge the lower hydrological cycle. It's connected to biology. And let's restore the biology and it will restore the hydrological cycle. And when we restore the biology and the hydrological cycle, it will change the physics on the planet. It'll change the temperature and the wind speed, the wind direction, it will lower the vortex activity, and it will stop the solar radiation from directly hitting the surface of the earth. And when we all kind of grasp, like, well, if you if you don't understand that, let's sit down, let's repeat that again. And again, and again, and at some point it's gonna land because that's it. You know, it's not like it's like what are you talking about? You know, that's your opinion. You know, no, it's not an opinion.

AJ 9:45

John, that's funny you should say uh repeat and repeat. I I was almost gonna say uh you've you've probably hit all the marks there in five minutes. We could just stop it here and and put on rotation. But uh we're gonna loop back to some of those threads for sure, because yeah, easier said than done, huh? But but there are these cultural examples nonetheless. But yeah, let's bring Chris in. Chris, welcome. And first, hey, I gather you've got some things in your mind, but but I mean you've got a backdrop and that I remembered very fondly of the gorge behind you, which which actually is uh usually actually behind you, but you're you're you're in the office at the moment. It's figuratively behind you. But bring us into the the feel of where you're at now in your day at at one o'clock in the afternoon.

Chris 10:28

Alright, yeah, so that's um the catalyst standards lying in the shade, which is the best place to be. It's actually we've got cloud cover, high humidity. Here in the office, I've got 37 to 38 degrees, which is actually cool. I mean, if there wasn't cloud cover, it'd be up to the 40s. So it's office is not a place to be in summer, not during the day. Trying to do office work early in the morning. But you do what you do. And um we've had a very good we're in the middle of a very good wet season. We've actually uh had over six hundred millimeters, which is the the the lower end of the scala is sort of somewhere between four hundred and um six hundred millimeters for a whole season. So we've already beat the the lower end of the scala, and um yeah, we've it's Jen February or March tend to be the wettest months. So we'll see where we go.

AJ 11:20

So the land looks good.

Chris 11:22

Yeah, it's looking good, we can't complain. Ideally we don't get two big still bigger storms and it sort of keeps on going the way it is. The fact that it's sort of started off slow, I'd like to hope it keeps going slowly. But each each season's been different, and this is probably the third year in a row where I can say this is the best season I've ever experienced.

AJ 11:40

Wow.

Chris 11:40

And it's and it's just in the areas where which we should have impacted, where we created a microclimate. I can I'm pretty sure I don't have to go very far across the range into the areas where we haven't got an impact where it's yeah, you've either got a flood of flood or gets very, very hot.

AJ 11:58

And the rain and uh sorry, the the fire season you emerged from, how was that in comparison to We were we were very lucky.

Chris 12:07

Um there was there were quite a few dry uh sort of light uh dry storms with lightning strikes and uh yeah, there were a lot of there were a lot of um conflagrations due to lightning. We had we had to respond to three of them. But um luck was on our side and um yeah we so so so we pull through again it's it's it's amazing, it's amazing like there's this these probably two two months of the year where really you're just sitting on edge, you just know you're only one lightning strike away from a total wipeout, and then you have these lightning strikes hit, and then you've got a you've got half an hour to make five thousand dollars decisions if you make they may be for nothing, and if you get it wrong and they turn into $150,000 or more decisions. It's a we're hoping that we can sort of reduce that sort of adrenaline um loaded anticipation every year by being able to get funding to actually put in more fire breaks early in the year. You know, it's it's that and that's probably what's been made it so hard all these years. We've never we've always sensed what we should be doing early in the year because prevention is a lot better than responding. But um we've never had the the budget to to do what we think needs doing. But that's given us more time to sort of make up our mind what needs doing and then then scoop now. The young fella's there's like he's he's in his mid-30s now and and we we actually agree on a whole lot of things, and that's that's that's a good start.

AJ 13:46

Sure is. Yep. I guess too there's there's just expanding the model area.

Chris 13:51

Well at this stage we're just we're just we're just in a in a holding service, a holding pattern for the last eight years.

AJ 13:56

Yeah, with the donkeys.

Chris 13:57

And and trying a whole lot of new things and learning, like seeing how forgiving the country is or the area is that that that we've took up to a certain level. And um with set stopping or leaving animals in longer just just testing some of the theories and and unfortunately confirming that you know, poor management is not going to get the same results as tight management. You know, we really have to be in these landscapes. We have to be there, we have a plot hard to play until they self-regulate. We're a long way from that. But there are there are a lot of indications that we can get. I think self-regulation is absolutely achievable, but it's it's it's it's having to do the groundwork and consolidate what we've done. But back to what John was talking about, I literally experienced one scientist, John. You're talking about the penny dropping. I was flying a guy in who's a carbon specialist, and we're flying low. I wanted to I wanted to appreciate the countryside. So we're flying low level at 1500 AGL, uh 1500 feet above the ground, and we're flying over a range, and as we got over the range, the aircraft just started pumping it around, and he sort of looked at me and I said, That's the burnt country. And so just by crossing that line, crossing that range from unburnt to burnt, just it's like with with within within half a minute, just the difference in turbulence, simply because we'd taken away all the vegetation, and every little hill was had a different little vortex of hot air coming up off it, and and you could that that plane was jumping around, and yeah, it you could just you really could see he's got it.

AJ 15:41

Yeah. Jeez, it's interesting that it gives you and and that guy the visceral experience of what otherwise we don't get to perceive. Well, you know, many of us, you do because you're there to the to your point. But uh, I remember you said um Nathan Dyer, the filmmaker and and journo that you had out there recently, and he said, for all I've heard about your place, I never really got it until I was here.

Chris 16:04

Yeah, he actually he he came after, he did one story on us, and and he absolutely got our situation, but he wasn't when I was trying to communicate about the donkeys in the hillside, it was only when I actually physically got it in that hillside and filming that's that's when he realized I didn't know what you're talking about.

AJ 16:22

Yeah.

Chris 16:23

And this is someone who actually understands what we were on about and is trying to understand. Yeah, it's and and I don't think it's just my um lack of communication skills. I think it's it's we we need people to be able to apply more than two senses when they're in the landscape. We really want them to connect and use all their senses, and I think that puts them in a position where they can actually intuit as well. Because when you hear something and you've you've you've you've spent a bit of time in a landscape, and then something gets said, and you've had your sensory um experiences, well, all of a sudden you can intuit, yes, that sounds right, or no, that sounds wrong. You can take it on board. It's it's what John was alluding to there, you know, all of a sudden information can drop into place because you've got the context where it can land.

John 17:12

If I were to add to that, as I started to learn about these things as a journalist, as a documentarian, I realized that actually often in academics we're abstracting what's going on, and we're then talking about it conceptually. But the reality is this isn't a conceptual problem. This is a physical problem of dysfunction to earth systems. And so the interesting thing is if you study this, then you really have to apply what you've learned immediately. It's it's not like it it doesn't do anything if we write another paper or we we go and talk about it in parliament or whatever, because it doesn't change the reality. So if the solar radiation is directly hitting the surface of the earth, causing the changes in wind speed, wind direction, and and and vortex activity, and of course, that's caused by the temperature differentials. So when you have the temperature differentials happening, and and when I started to realize this, I thought I was crap at school. My father told me I was terrible and would have to just take over the family businesses because I was not able to grasp things. And the the thing that I realized later was they didn't tell me why we were doing this, they had abstracted everything. It's like, well, so that so you can get a job. I don't want a job, I want to know what's going on. So education, it turns out, can be socialization or vocational training. But it really, when you get to education, it's about your ability to observe and to measure and to make make a judgment, make, make an understanding, understand the processes which you're observing and then what it means. So if then, so I think we've we've kind of lost logic somewhere. Some we have to talk about logic and we have to talk about ethics because it's not it's not like, well, the law says this, so let's do it. Well, who wrote the law? What did they know? When was the law written? What are we talking about? And if we're talking about the hydrological cycle, I don't think the law knows very much about this. Or the idea that people are saying, well, we have to add more money or tax this or do that for this. What are you talking about? The hydrological cycle is disrupted. You know, the the flow of money is not going to change the hydrological cycle. What's going to change the hydrological cycle is when you understand that the moisture in the upper atmosphere and the moisture in the lower hydrological cycle are kind of two symbiotic systems. So it's sort of the same system in hyper-local context or on a planetary context. So, well, regional,

Kimberley Conditions, Fire, And Microclimates

John 20:40

sub-regional, all that. But so you've got you've got to look at it in this kind of massive way. And I have the feeling most people are not really, you know, it's it seems that the only way to think about that is conceptually, but it's not. The way to really do it is to walk between the the edges. Yeah. So as soon as you walk out of the area that's been completely degraded as the solar radiation directly hits the the surface, and then you walk under the canopy, well, the temperature is going to be massively changed. Well, what do you think happens when the temperature is massively changed? So then you have to play the logic, and you play the logic again and again and again, and then it's like absolutely crystal clear, and it's not an opinion. And it and when you look at the soils in the truly functional soils, the organic layer is enormous. You sink, it's like like the best carpet you've ever walked on. You know, you you're really sinking. And and I was in I was in the Netherlands during COVID. I had I was trapped outside of China for a while in different places. So part of the time I was in the Netherlands, and in this one biodynamic place, they had a hundred and some years now of protecting it with Steiner, Rudolf Steiner, biodynamic agriculture and uh just stewardship. And what was interesting was they had a drought. They're underwater. How can you have a drought in the Netherlands? That's kind of like what? And so they're having a drought, and you'd go outside and oh, it's miserably hot, and everybody's kind of stripping down to nothing, and you know, walking around. I don't even understand them in the Netherlands because I'm freezing in the Netherlands in the winter, and they're all walking around in t-shirts. I'm like, what is with you people? But but at that point they're melting, and and I'm living in this atelier, an artist's atelier, in the middle of a this biodynamic garden, and it's dripping all the time. And when you step into the ground, you go down like a couple of inches at least, you know, as you go down, and there's moss all over everything, there's things hang, you know, it's wild. And people would come and see me. I just said, I don't want to go to Amsterdam, I don't want to go out of here, you know, I'm just gonna stay here. And people would come to see me and they go, huh, you know, it's really like different. I go, yeah, you know, of course. Look at this. You know, if you grow this organic layer, it then all the moisture that you have during the year, whether it you have a six-month dry period or whatever, it's gonna absorb into the ground because everything is porous. And then that whole thing is a sponge and it's gonna soak up everything that you can, and it's gonna give you a really functional lower hydrological cycle. And then the other part of it is that the solar radiation is interrupted by the canopy. So the height of this canopy is critically important. How high is it? Is it one, you know, is it? I mean, if you have a grass canopy that's three inches or five inches or six inches, or if you have a a canopy that's a grass canopy in a in a savannah or or steppe or grasslands area, it's a meter and a half or two meters high. Well, that's completely different. And if you have a a six-meter or a ten-meter or a fifteen-meter, or how about a hundred and sixty-meter high high canopy? That's what that's what climax equilibrium looks like. And when I started to understand these things, I started asking about it. They said, Oh, we we don't we don't talk about climax equilibrium except in the past. Because that's what we had in the past. But they can never see, well, you can have it in the future if you just understand it and you protect it and you value it. But if you value going shopping more than you value the functional ecosystems, and then you cut it all down.

AJ 25:16

John, could I keep going with you for the minute? Because I the other walking between the edges thing I think about as I speak with you is that you had this have this extraordinary experience with making film from being a correspondent, making it for international news, through to Green Gold and beyond all these extraordinary stories of regeneration. And of course, what became the ERCs, the ecological restoration camps and now communities.

John 25:46

I never use acronyms, just to be clear. Ecosystem restoration camps and communities. Or ecosystem restoration communities. You bet you are.

AJ 25:57

So you've got these experiences that w that were entirely the practical on the ground and have exploded. Now it's a movement, a global movement, more than a hundred communities, as I understand.

John 26:07

Almost.

AJ 26:08

Almost. Okay. I imagine you'd also say the films had their impact too, hey? So there's like this between the edges of conceptualization and story, perhaps, and on the ground, that both affect us and both are necessary, perhaps. What would you say?

John 26:25

Yeah, I I would say that if we don't understand it, then the storytelling is urgently needed. And and and basically it's it's to achieve the concept of collective intelligence. So if we don't have collective intelligence, we can't have a collective intention. In pedagogic theory, let's say, you you want to look at it from the point of view, okay, I'm trying to educate people. Well, I kind of came to the conclusion that you can't educ, you can't teach anybody anything. You can only help them to get to the point where they can learn. So if they're ready to learn, then if that's how they encounter it, and so kind of it's like Easter eggs, you know, you both you need to hide the Easter eggs all over the place, you know. And if if if somebody will open the Easter eggs and go, oh, I found an egg, you know, like, and then they they really realize what it means. And so, but pedagogically, in theory, you have to tell them what you're going to tell them, then you have to tell them, and then you have to tell them what you told them. And that's your task. And then as the educator or the storyteller, but their task is to run that logic about 17 times until it's in there and then test it. You know, don't believe it. Don't just go like, oh, carbon, you know. Well, what are you talking about? Carbon's not a poison, carbon's not, you know, stop it. You know, be be be smart about this. What does it mean? You're going to have to, if you look at the scale of the measurements in the IPCC reports or something, you know, get a grip. You know, you're going to really understand what's happening here, you're you're going to have to really understand some very large. I mean, you're going to have to get to the point where you can't really understand it because it's infinite, but you can't understand the concept of infinity. And then you realize, well, that's a really long time. Or, you know, that's a, you know, that that's a so that's what you can know. That's true for sure. Infinite, you know, I, you know, what is it? Actually, you know, uh, you know, you know, heart, we know, we're gonna die. I'm thinking about mortality more and more as I age, you know. So the the main thing we have to understand is we're not the end all be all. We're just passing through, and we should get a get a grip, you know, understand that we're here now, and we can see what happened before. That's that's we have a superpower, we can look and analyze, and we have another superpower, we can speak, and we can, and we also have this incredible technology. Now you're in Australia and I'm in China, and we're talking to each other like this.

AJ 29:41

Right.

John 29:42

So we have the ability to communicate across large distances and from generation to generation. So after we're gone, people could be watching this conversation and going, Well, what were they thinking about? What were they, you know, and that's good because we're here now, we have the the advantage of looking and measuring and realizing what happened in the past, and from that we can say, let's do this, because this is going to determine the quality of life for all life in the future, right? And that's where we're at. And I katana is such a beautiful opportunity to focus attention, the the the courage and the determination and the scale of the vision that Chris and his family are are showing is what the rest of us need to do, and so you know, enormous gratitude, and with the ability to participate in this

Sensing Landscapes And Logic Over Abstraction

John 31:00

to reach the next level of understanding. And when when we all and we have to realize it is not Chris's understanding or my understanding, or anybody else's understanding that's going to turn the tide, it's going to be when we have a collective intelligence and create a kind of critical mass of humanity says, let's do this together. And then I've watched this in China because China was the poorest country I'd ever been to, and I've been to more than a hundred countries. So when I when when I got here in 1979, it was desperately poor. And they've transformed in in just this period. It's now 46, 47 years. And it's it's incredible what has taken place. But it also has to do, you have to look at, well, it's not all perfect, you know. Look at the toxicity, look at the kind of idea of more materialism, but it is it is it is uh revealing the the mistakes on a planetary scale. Like, okay, you have 8 billion people, you want to have 9, 10 billion people, maybe before the the peak, and then you kind of go down. Because we know if if if we have women's rights, family planning, and access to contraception, then every country, every civilization that has that, the it levels off and goes down. So get ready. You know, that's what can happen. But that creates a whole other core set of problems that you have to analyze. But but in this case, we have to kind of bring the population into some kind of equilibrium. And we know that if we do this with that type of system of family planning and women's rights and contraception, it's going to work. And then then we can then plan out what happens. But whatever we do, we have to restore the soils, we have to restore the hydrological cycle, and we have to restore the biodiversity because that's the basis of everything. So and if we get this collective intelligence about that, then projects like Kachana are the front line.

AJ 33:44

Yeah.

John 33:45

This is this is the highest level of service to humanity and to the earth that could possibly happen. And we we need to bring as many people as possible, like, I mean, not too many people, but let's say we bring 150 people to Kachana, and they're the right people, and they're not staying there forever necessarily, but some of them are. Some of them are setting up the processes that are needed to have continuous research. Rothamsted Research Institute, the carbon, the Roth C Carbon models, they come because they had 150 years of measuring carbon in the same spot. You see everything in their ek in their experimentation, because you can see pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl because it's in the soil. Everything is there. And so basically, if we set up a research center and and a uh experimental uh living laboratory, we can show exactly how how to grow soils at I mean you could you can make soils really quickly if you know what you're doing. And if we change the soil uh conditions in a microcosm in that climate, we will then know what is possible. There's technology that can lower the temperatures using passive or evaporation rates. And if you have 600 to 900 millimeters of water annually, you can infiltrate every drop.

AJ 35:34

Well, it's why you went there, wasn't it, Chris, that that the one of the fundamentals there was going to be water, and you've just had to find a way to harness it. Chris, I'm conscious that you guys, I can see how would have easily spoken for six hours when you first got together a couple of weeks ago or last week, even I don't know what it was. But this is some of what came out of it, no, is what is the potential for you guys to collaborate to to effect? And I guess are we talking a kind of ecological restoration community prospect at Kachana? Film too. I can unmute, but then you'll you'll you'll you'll you can hear the sound there. No, it's no, it's good. It's pretty good.

Chris 36:14

So the rain doesn't bother bother you?

AJ 36:16

No, you keep going. I'll tell you.

Chris 36:18

Right. Um I'm I'm very new to this. Um I'm new to John's um description of things, and it really resonates with me. I I've I've for years I've been inviting third-party rigorous scientific analysis because I'm convinced at this point in time at least, I'm convinced by our own results and our own research. But I wouldn't want to tell other Australians, hey, this is what you're gonna do. I want I want I I want our hypothesis to be tested by rigorous science. So let's apply the scientific method, let's get people here who've got no dog in the race, just actually having a look and making up their minds and looking at it from different different angles. The beauty that I see about Kachana is if we can get it, if we get it wrong, we can still correct. It's not it's not like say somewhere in in China or closer to Sydney in the water catchments where if you get it wrong, all of a sudden thousands of people or millions of people are affected downstream. Um we are in the fortunate position that at this stage no one's affected downstream except of course if a bridge gets washed out, which is that's happening. But um it's still I mean, obviously we don't want to be cool-hardy, but we we can try new things, we can get to different minds from around the planet saying, well, what would happen, you know, and we could we could test and we can afford small mistakes without having enormous consequences, which is something you can't do in a catchment, say in the Ryan Basin or you know, on the Danube in in Austria or the Yangtze. And I think there's so many different ways we've got to look at it as well. I think it's it's it's it's as John said, we've got to act, but we've we've also got to be able to um measure what's happening and respond if we get things wrong. So it's it's the old it's well, it's not only the scientific, it's also how evolution works, you know, try enough of things, and then nature will then select what's viable, and then in different contexts, something else may be viable here and that wasn't viable over there. But you know, we we need to be testing, throwing out variants, testing for viability. And um, I'm I'm very excited about the prospects that that John's been talking about. I I I obviously Anthony, you've been out here a number of times, and as as John said, you know, 150 people, that doesn't mean they've all got to be here in one straight away and all at one time. You know, what I'm saying is you've got you've got a hundred or more minds scrutinizing the data and everybody coming from their side, and yeah, so so obviously there'll look there'll be logistic challenges, but John used the word um a virtual university. You know, you don't actually have a campus that houses everybody, you have a sort of a small functional unit where researchers can come and do their research, evaluate it, and put it out for other people to see and comment on. But um, yeah, I'm only learning because this conversation is only new, and and John certainly um is he's given me a lot of um hope that we can maybe source the sort of young people who would give them the chance, make it a career to to do land doctoring. And um, because I mean, you know, history shows us that people have made a career, you know, they've invested you know, five years of hard study to become to join the medical industry and then healing and that and then ru reward only comes much later. And it's the same with the military, you know, career in the military to survive. It's only after about five years and you get you into stripes that you actually get rewarded. But it's something that society rewards and that's looked up. And and if we want young people to commit, you know, five years of really hard work with very little payoff, and and well, there needs to be a reward at the end, and and certainly it needs to be honored by society. And I think that's where the communication that John was talking about is so important.

John 40:16

I I think that um really we it's the the storytelling, the theoretical study, the measurements, they're all critical. But what we're really looking at is the difference between these analog kind of thoughts, like this is what we're talking about, or this is what we're arguing, you know, this is what we're researching, or you know, we're reading the data, or we're, you know, whatever, we're measuring this and that, we're modeling it, or we're whatever. That's an analog. We're telling the story, that's an analog. We're talking about it in the podcast, or we're writing an article, or we're doing this. That's all analogous. The reality is the hydrological cycle is just is dysfunctional. The soil is disrupted, which is what disrupts, and and the and the biodiversity is disrupted, and the height of the canopy is disrupted, and that's what causes the disruption to the hydrological cycle. And it's you know, so when we abstract it to say things like it's carbon, like it's global warming and it's carbon, but we actually don't know it's its uh human impact on climate systems, is what it is, and we don't know what that impact will be. It could just as well be another ice age. So it doesn't necessarily have to be cons it's not linear, it's the non-linear outcomes that you really need to be afraid of, kind of. So, I mean, the linear ones, well, you know, here it comes, get ready, you know. Do you need a sign? You know, like here's a sign, you know. Well, well, God, you know, and you could look at it from the point of view of spirituality, you know, like we need a sign. Is is humanity doing the wrong thing? And then, you know, here's a city destroyed, you know, and then here's an island destroyed, here's another island destroyed, here's the same island destroyed another time. You know, how many signs do you need? You know, like it's it's like, all right, look, how many bridges you ask for a sign, you got another sign. You got you know, how many signs do you need? And what does it take? Because it doesn't take, in a sense, the storytelling has to stop in in some, you know, it so this is what happened to me. I'm a journalist, and I'm thinking every time I got to know what was going on in the stories, I'd be reassigned to some other story, you know. So it was obvious that the people who were directing me to do my job didn't think we were supposed to solve the problem. We were just supposed to, you know, report on it and then get out of there. And, you know, that that as a young, curious person and a bit obsessive, I would say there are certain people who are obsessive. They start to follow something and they're not going to stop. That is a trait that we might want to consider is sort of important in in these things. So if someone shows that that proclivity, you know, we might want to say, well, you know, yeah, why don't you take a look at this? You know, because that means as soon as that person goes down that path, they're gonna go as far as they can down that path and they're gonna learn. Exactly what we need to do. So all these young people who are ready to do this, we need to say, Come on, you know, and so that's that's what I see for the ecosystem restoration communities. That yeah, it's in Nepal, you've got every river coming out of the Himalayas that you can imagine. You know, all the the Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Megna, the Yangtze, the Yellow River, you know, they're all coming fly out of there. And so that's the highest water tower in the world. Is it disrupted? Absolutely. They call it the third pole. The people who are studying it, it's like there's the pole, the south pole, and the third pole is is this is Everest. And so when you think about this, and you you look at the situation, obviously, in the news, we're talking about the political situations, we're talking about the economics of it, we're talking about the social issues, you have anthropologists, you have all of this kind of study.

Soil, Canopies, And Cooling Physics

John 45:10

But really, what's going to determine all of those things, the the politics, the economics, the anthropology, the sociology, the psychology, everything is going to be determined by the ecological systems. Because if you don't have water, the the we're we're we're causing the disruptions to the glaciers.

Chris 45:38

We could actually say it's it's it's it's um dominated by function. The the issue is that we are part of that function. We somehow think we're just observing it, but we've got to understand we are part of that function, and we can be beneficial, or we can be inert, or we can actually have a negative function, and that's that's that's the awakening. And then what you were saying earlier on John um about all these reports and all this reporting and all this dialogue happening. If that's happening and people are not connected to the subject matter, and they aren't realizing that they're actually talking about their own life and and the function that they're part of, it's it's just it's it's disconnected, you know, it's it's just not it's not real. And and for us just to make it real, uh people have to be reconnected, and um yeah, we have to reconnect.

AJ 46:31

Well, this is I'll continue with you, Chris. So you've got some research happening, you've got a young person researching there, at least one, hey, on a PhD, and and of course the supervisor Ariane Wallach, who's been involved longer term. So that's building. How's that going? And of course, you know, everyone listening's waiting for an update on the donkeys and so forth to to which this is related. What's the update on on that front for us?

Chris 46:55

Well, she's uh I think it's it's about all up, it'll be about five years. She's she's in in her third year, and she's now she's collected a whole lot of data. Now she's I think she's gonna put out her first paper to the public shortly, but um she's now the the the next the next few months are gonna be just number crunching and analyzing. And obviously, there's only so much you can do, and the the PhD student has to choose their own area of speciality, so it'll be interesting. So this um RN Wallach is the person to talk to. But I say at the moment there's nothing public yet, but it's it's at least there's one one bit of research going. There's there's some of this, and it's interesting, it's it's it's very interesting for me to watch the whole process. You sort of they ask a lot of questions and they get camera traps and there's there's a lot and photographs and whatever, and you sort of ask, Well, I look at it from a practical standpoint and say, well, hang on, what what's all this about? But Arian's uh told me, well, you've got to start somewhere and um and get to the baselines and whatever. So you know, it's probably a while before we get all this well, the sort of research that that us pastors want, and but you know there's always more that we don't know than what we ever will know. So let's start finding out more about an area where things obviously aren't working well, and then with as we start building a bit of a pool of knowledge, we we can start asking better questions and then direct more targeted research from say, for example, the partial point of view, fire management point of view, once once once we have something to work yeah, once once we start identifying trends and have that data, well then it allows us to go about it in a in a in a better way. It's it's I've just got I printed out this morning um the goals of the International Year of the Rangelands and Pasturelists.

AJ 48:56

That's this let's make it clear for listeners that that's this year.

Chris 49:00

That's this year. And there's four goals here that are very close to my heart. So these four, it's it's increase the public awareness of the societal value derived from the rangelands and pastureless. Well, even us living out here, we've we hardly know what these societal values are. You know, let's let's find out about it. You know, I mean it's it's like we're like the fish in water. What's water? You know, if you've if you've got enough water fish, who cares about water? But it's it's when you realize that there's fish in other parts of the planet that are running out of water, then you realize, hang on, maybe we should understand this area. So it's the same with the rangelands. You know, there's rangelands that are being threatened. And John sent me a film of in Mongolia and then about what's happening there, and then I realized, hang on, they have the same issues that the Maasai have, you know, in the in the edge of the Serengeti. So we've you know, we've had some major issues in the areas in these areas that are still considered to be pristine. So, you know, it's it's high time. So that was a point one, increase the public awareness of the societal value derived from the rangelands and the pastoralists. But the other one is promote pastoraless knowledge, innovation, and coalition building to meet content the needs, you know. You know, just just even at a local level, just you know, what's my neighbor doing? Why is he doing it? And and what's the histories, you know, let alone what is something someone in my latitude doing in Africa or somewhere else. You know, it's there's there's so much um time with this technology we have today. You know, we could be talking to peers on the other side of the planet and comparing those without actually having to experiment everything on site and reinventing wheels. And then number three is the one that's probably closest to my heart, and that is advocate for evidence-based policy and legislation that supports sustainable rangeland stewardship and pastoral livelihoods, which is you know this whole donkey desaga that we've been going on for the past eight years. You know, if we can have evidence-based policy, wow, and legislation that supports sustainable rangelands and stewardship and pastoral livelihoods, it tells me that there's actually an opportunity for everybody to come to the table at eye level and we can compare notes, we can be working with each other. So, like, I I don't have a problem with the need for regulation. And regulation by nature is top-down and will always remain top-down. But the pastoral uh the growth and the healing and and regeneration is bottom up, it begins at a cellular level, and and we need to be we need to have legislation and regulation that is in line with how natural systems work. And if we have new information, well, that needs to be taken aboard. And if we if we actually believe in evolution, well, then we actually are ourselves involved in the evolving systems, so it only makes sense that our regulators keep tap of the evolu of of the changes. So, you know, we regulation needs to to stay relevant, it needs to stay aligned with uh with with with the evolution or the changes that are happening in an environment. If we talk about climate change, you know, these things are changing, animals are gonna respond, birds and vegetation are gonna respond, management applications are gonna have to be respond. And I I read a real quick beauty the other day, and I don't know if I get it right. Someone said um if if a sauce if a soft system starts going wrong and your response is linear, the fallout's gonna be exponential. And I think that's what we're seeing.

AJ 52:31

Nice one.

Chris 52:32

And then just um number four is to foster ethical investment to address challenges confronting the rangelands in the past in the 21st century, which is once again another area where, thanks to someone we met last year, um, we've become aware that they are you know, they're at the corporate level, people are talking about putting environmental health on the balance sheet balance sheets, you know, that that it doesn't make sense for a huge corporation to have all their factories and and and not understand that they are uh at risk of having everything washed out. Maybe to to maintain their bottom line, they actually have to be take an interest in what's happening upstream in the catchments and maybe do part of that and and and certainly the insurance assessors might be interested as well. So, yes, there's there's a whole lot of very interesting things happening. And um as I said to a conversation with John the other day, you know, where I stand is as long as water drops out of the sky and and the sun shines every day, it's it's too early to give up hope. Yeah, but John is John has dropped out there for a while and he's back with us. So, Anthony, back to you.

AJ 53:33

Yeah. Before we leave you, given we got started on that train while you dropped out for a bit, John. Before we leave you, Chris, that we we've alluded to it enough to without giving the the update on the donkey situation. Can you uh just briefly encapsulate where that's at and uh including, of course, the uh section 214 that you're sort of pinning a bit of hope on?

Chris 53:55

All right, well, we've we've updated it from our side on the on our on our website and on Facebook. People can read up the late our latest commentary. But to um put it bluntly, we were very disappointed uh with the SAT um decision, and that is after eight years of eight years of a h of holding a holding pattern. Then the last four years were we had the hats or five years with the SAT process, and yes, the ruling was a disappointment. I actually believe it sets a dangerous dangerous precedent, but I don't want to go into that. On the positive side, is that there isn't there is a window open that suggests that we could collaborate with or the departments could collaborate with us and we can actually analyze what's actually going on in these landscapes because that wasn't the apparently that wasn't people weren't interested in what the donkeys were actually doing, it was just whether or not the donkeys were a pest or not. But but so so my practical approach there is as long as we still have a viable population that's functional and out there in the landscape, and as long there's still a window open to collaborate, let's be optimistic. Let's work on creating collaboration, let's let's let's try and make decisions as informed as possible. The D-Day is gonna well, middle of this year is I guess when when we'll know, you know, is the is that slaughter going to be take place? And are we gonna lose a hundred years of locally selected genetics and and 30 years home team advantage where we've been experimenting with them with a rangeland management tool which we believe is absolutely is going to be critical if we want to maintain these landscapes where pastoralism, conventional pastoralism is not viable. But as I say, we Kachana's not no longer in the debate. Um the the SAT ruling ruled on the side of the regulators saying they're entitled to uh proceed with that's with with demanding that slaughter, and we're saying and but the slaughter has been postponed by a year, August at the latest. And and and we're saying is well we've done our part for society. Um say we've we've delivered 30 years of of stuff there that can be scientifically analyzed and whatever, let's let the science prevail, I guess, and then let um integrity and common good sense prevail. And and and and I certainly um uh what John was saying earlier on, you know, that that we need these discussions to be grounded in reality is crucial because I I you know I still remember sixty-eight thousand dollars, uh sorry, sixty-eight million dollars to replace the Dunning Bridge, $200 million to rebuild Turkey Creek, a half a billion dollars for for the

Storytelling To Movement: ERC Origins

Chris 56:45

Fitzroy disaster. You know, I'm saying we we're getting these escalating costs just all because directly relatable to um deteriorating rangeland function. Perhaps not only that, perhaps there are other things as well. This is once again, we we know we we we need we need to find out. But there's certainly a direct correlation between um the the dehydration of the landscapes and the flooding.

AJ 57:12

Is there an opportunity to invite some of the people that hold the uh metaphorical trigger to Kachana to see, to be there, to have Nathan's experience?

Chris 57:25

We've done that right from the start, and you know that the metaphorical triggers held down two and a half thousand kilometers away. Yeah, the people who actually held the trigger up here, we've been working with them, we worked very well with them for 16 years because they understood it's just upline, no one's come to have a look at it. And this is the point that um Nathan Dyer said, you know, it's it's only when he was physically there filming it and looking at it and listening that he actually realized, oh, right, now I see what you're saying, and so hopefully um with the medium of film, maybe we we can get people out there. But but no, the invitation's definitely out there, so come and have a look at the evidence. We didn't choose this position, it just so happens that we've got uh prime seating, we're in perched in the top of five river catchments, and um we've had rainy seasons from anywhere between 400 millimeters, 440 millimeters to 1600 millimeters, depending, yeah. So every season's different. So you you see all sorts of things, and we're just saying, hey, come and have a look and see if what the landscape is telling us, if that's true, and and what's it telling you?

AJ 58:33

Yeah, and uh relevant to say that there are many folk rallying now to get ahead, best case, of that would-be slaughter with anything they can bring, be it story or research or participation in other things.

Chris 58:49

Well, actually, apart from the research, probably the the most important thing would be to actually conduct full risk assessment. We need a collaborative risk assessment where everybody's at the table, where we look at all the risks, all the four advan advantages, so we can actually make informed decisions. Because uh so far the decision making has either been made based on beliefs or the extrapolation of data, which was pre collected pre-2016 uh 2016, or just a one-off impression by someone who's stepped on the ground for the first time on Kachana. It's it's we we we we do need to we if we want to make informed decisions, I think uh the uh a good place would be to start with with with the with the risk assessment. But that's certainly something that that we're that kachana is still, you know, people ask us what what what what is needed, that's what we're push, that's what we're suggesting is whoever can plead for a collaborative risk assessment with different departments, because even at the even in within the departments, people aren't agreeing, you know, and and there's some people on our side or who are batting for us or at least listening to us, and and some people who bring very valid counter-arguments. So, yes, let's let's argue this out. I mean, that's what science is about, is is you know you don't defend your hypothesis and your theory, you challenge it.

AJ 1:00:12

Yes, which is partly why uh people like Ariane are so enthused to continue this and to not have it circumvented by the slaughter. Yeah, we're just opening the door now. And and that's consistent too with other people who've been working at it for 30 years that I know too, Chris, in different parts of the country that the a lot of things are breaking through now. And uh yeah, it's not the time to circumvent these efforts. John, could I come to you with obviously there's a prospect of you indeed coming to Kachana, but also I'm I'm so curious that the the learning you have had over the journey with the ecological restoration communities where you've seen an extraordinary takeoff? I believe, to go back to the outset, I believe it was another case now that I I hear quite often from other people too, that you never expected this would happen the way it has. But having started it, you've got this nearly a hundred communities. What is it that does attract young, because a lot of them are young, as I understand it, young people to give their lives into this in such a way?

John 1:01:19

Well, I think I think it's all ages, actually. And there are cases where large numbers of older people are terrified by the the situation that that that's happening, and they feel some responsibility. I mean, I I'm a I'm a baby boomer, you know, and I think the young people are saying it's all your fault kind of sometimes. That's kind of like, yeah, I don't think you can say that about me, but you know, you you know, that's you're gonna have a hard time making that stick, I I would say. But but um the the one thing that I would say is it's a roller coaster in a way, you know, when you when you start to understand that oh, this changes everything. This is this is the understanding that makes you realize we are part of nature, we're assigned a role, we were called to to to do something about this, and then the majority of people have been socialized or or conditioned to believe and go in another way, so that there's this abiotic response. Like we have buildings, we have computers, we have airplanes, we have telephones. Well, think rationally about that. You know, in a hundred years, where are the airplanes that we have now going to be? Where are the telephones that we have going to be? Where are the computers and the houses that we're gonna we have? You know, are we building them? I mean, I go back to Europe and I find 700-year-old buildings which are made of straw, mud, stone, and wood. And they're beautiful. They're kind of like, oh, that's kind of cute. And then I come back, if I go to the United States or I look in some of these other places, China too, we don't know how long. I mean, I I remember buildings that were built here in the 60s or in the 80s, they're already being torn down for other buildings, you know. So how long do these things last? And when we we we think about evolution, then we have to think about well, 3.8 billion years since the beginning of cell division, apparently. You know, I mean, I'm I'm not there, and I don't, that's not my area of study, but you know, kind of sounds like that's as far as I know, you know, I can't I can't uh say that that's not true. I I can see the later parts of evolution are true, and and you know, it we learn more about stem cells or you know, DNA and so on. But but uh another thing about that is I was asked by the um congressional conservative climate caucus, these are congressmen in the conservative, so basically Republicans mainly, and they asked me to go speak to them, and I th and the the speaker's

A Living Lab Vision For Kachana

John 1:04:30

bureau said, Are you willing to go talk to them? I said, Of course. You know, they they probably I didn't even know that they I thought they didn't believe in climate change, you know, they need to hear this. And so it was very strange when I when I spoke to them, because I told them what I'd seen and what I thought it meant. And then I also said, you know, there's so much evidence when you go when you go looking about evolution, because there's all this fossil evidence and you know, sort of sediment, sedimentary uh evidence. You can go look at core sampling and you see all these different changes that have taken place, eras of of different kinds of life forms and the transformations. And when I said, you know, I grew up and there was sort of a heavy uh doctrine indoctrination or um processing of the of the creation myth. You know, God created the earth in you know, six days, and on the seventh day he rested, you know. And I was kind of thinking like, all the stuff that I see, and then of course, humans arrive in paradise. It's beautiful. He's created paradise, God or she or he or whatever it is. I haven't really at 73 completely understood the whole pronoun idea, but anyway. Um The situation is that human beings arrive in paradise. And I told them, I said, you know, if you consider that potentially you have 4.567 billion years, which is considered Earth time, and 3.8 billion years, which is considered evolutionary time. So if you consider 4.567 billion years in God time, might be seven days, you know, then actually they're not there there's no difference between the creation myth and evolution. So there's not an argument here. There's just this one phenomenon that human beings emerge in paradise. And then and then maybe you need to look at the second half of this cosmology because it says human beings sinned and then are kicked out of the garden. And you know, if you look at the abiotic nature of the cities and of the industrial stuff and all of the material things, and then you look at the ocean and the rivers and the air and the amazing biodiversity and the wildlife and so on, then it's quite clear that yes, paradise was created, and then there was a mistake that took place, and that destroyed paradise. You know, I was like, oh gosh, you know, like, well, that's not such a good thing, you know, let's not do that, you know. I mean, and the fact that we have free will and can choose. So basically, it's our choice, you know, like, are we going to say, oh, I prefer going shopping? I prefer all this abiotic stuff and breathing the toxic fumes and the you know, eating and drinking the toxic chemicals, and you know, what? No, let's not do that. And then we have to come to another issue, which is what is wealth? What is this concept of material wealth? Is it really true? And what are the rights of life? Now, many places are talking about the rights of rivers and so on. And but we're we're so far gone that lots of people have no rights, you know. So it's not like it's not just like the rights, it it should be birthright, it's the right to life. Every living being that exists on the planet is a representation of all life since the beginning of time. It can't be any other way. You just look at the DNA in your own body, and you'll find like photosynthetic DNA. You've got a reptilian brain stem with a cortex, you know, covering it. Well, thank God we have a cortex, you know, then otherwise we you know, we would be reptiles, you know. So, all right, we've we've evolved beyond this, and now we have this this this situation, and we need to realize that we're part of this whole thing, and that it's not all there for us. Like this is I own it, it's mine, you know. That is a kind of sickness that we can see all the all the way back in history. Homer is talking, you know, every every great piece of literature or philosophy, it's all about hubris and power and you know that how corrupting all these things are. Maybe we need to think about that. You know, like if every one of our major things, which are beautiful and and wise and and enlightening, are telling us that, probably you might want to think about that. Now, then you can look at advertising or pornography or and it's like, oh, you know, no, you know, like this is really where we need to go. And and so when we think about that, we see, all right, we know too much to believe in this corrupt, these corrupt systems. And we need to ask, what is true value? Is the pornography and the advertising and the buying and selling and a few individuals hoarding all of this stuff? I mean, if you hoard the material things of the earth, you're you're actually causing a kind of constipation, you know, because it's it's really like the the the circulation of all these things.

AJ 1:11:06

I was thinking heart attack, but run run with constipation. You were thinking what heart attack, cornery blossom, not you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

John 1:11:15

It's true. Yeah, uh all of this is yeah, it's it's just wrong, you know, it's just it's just totally wrong. And we're laughing because otherwise it's heartbreak. Wow, this is so tragic. You're talking about millions of people's lives. I mean, there are millions of people. I I don't know how many you can't even count now anymore, but tonight there will be people who are hungry amongst such incredible abundance, it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous, you know, and and then to say, like, no, they you know, I think I was telling you the other day, you know, like there must have been a moment in time, you know, the the the hunter-gatherers and the semi-nomadic herders, or you know, and then somebody says, I'm sorry, but do you have any money? Because if you don't have any money, you can't you can't eat. And like, like I'm baffled, you know, suddenly, today, now I can't eat, you know, I ate yesterday, I ate, you know, I'm alive, you know, surely that that counts for something, you know. But no, no, no, no. You you have to have money, you know. You if you don't have money, you don't count. Like, what? Who who are you? Who's who who among us is saying that to somebody else, you know, like you know, like, is that creepy or is that my imagination? That looks like that's the, you know, ooh, that's the devil, you know. Like, if you go back to that that cosmology, that's evil, that's wrong. And so we need to kind of like, well, that's not us. I mean, remember when Gandhi, it's kind of kind of a funny pairing, but you know, Churchill and Gandhi, you know, so Churchill is like, yeah, with the the Empire, you know, yay! And Gandhi, and then and then it's like the end of World War II, the and like, uh oh, colonialism, you know, like, well, you really gotta, how about that? You know, what do you think about that? You know, oh, not good, you know, like not so good. And then so they have to bring Gandhi over to negotiate the the end of the of India being part of the British Empire. And Churchill says, uh, you know, we've got to bring Gandhi over. And they and they say, and Gand Gandhi has taken a vow of poverty, and he's wearing a dhotey, and he's he's making wool on a on a thing, and he's just in a sublime state, you know, and Churchill has like got his cigar and his bottle of cognac or something, and and and he's he has to he has to send a ship for for Gandhi. And so Churchill says, um, it certainly takes a lot of money to keep Gandhi in poverty. But he he spends the money, brings the ship over, and Gandhi sits there in his dhoti. So he doesn't like put on a barrister's clothes, because he, but he could, you know, and he doesn't wear a wig, he doesn't, you know, do all that. He he wears the dhoti and he says, You don't even believe in this yourself. You know that going into another country and putting a gun at their head and saying, Well, now your land is my land is not really the right thing to do. You know, it's and you know, there it's like there, there's nothing you can say to that. Wilberforce also did that about slavery. And these kinds of things, we're there now. Yeah, and and the economy's false, it's corrupt. It you couldn't have built uh in individuals with more wealth than several African countries and think that that's okay. It theoretically could be legal because the law serves those who wrote the law, but it can't possibly be right. And so so now we're looking at this. Now think about this. Everybody's talking about the value of carbon or the value of biodiversity and so on. Just realize that functional ecosystems are more valuable than anything that human beings have ever made, and everything that human beings will ever make. And because of that, it has to be the basis of our currency, of our money. This is value, this is true wealth. And when that when that ecological function is recognized as the basis of wealth, we can't degrade, we can't pollute, and everybody's

Evidence, Risk, And Rangeland Policy

John 1:16:20

work can go toward restoration if it's degraded, or conservation if it's still intact. And in doing this, this is the best possible outcome for human beings. This is our choice now. And the real value is to understand that we're all alive for a few decades, and then we're gonna pass away. And we're just we're just passing through, we're borrowing this, we're and we're stewards, we're called to make sure that we we can that the future generations can live in the abundance that is possible on the earth, that is here for us. So this is where we are at this moment. We have to understand this. I would only add one more thing. The story of Kachana should be told in May at the Global Earth Repair Convergence. So, this is where a lot of people who have been thinking about this for a long time. And when when we talk about storytelling, I would also say that we need to realize that that people are hearing this, that that there's a call, and that call has been going on for some time. But perhaps many are called and few are chosen, and the those who are chosen, they're choosing themselves. They're choosing to recognize this, and it's a very hard thing to make that choice because it means you're basically going in a different direction against everybody who's going in toward the abiotic systems, but you're going toward the biotic systems and recognizing that this is the determining factor. This is the indicator and the determinant for functionality, and that all production follows function. So it's the functional systems which are more valuable, the products are less. And when you when you understand that the products are less, then that's not the basis of the economy. More products is not going to help us. More piles and piles of crap that has to be sold is not going to help us. And the growth rates that we can have by increasing functionality, that's where the real money is when you finally do this. And the money has to be shared and has to circulate in order for humanity and the earth to work. And, you know, once we understand that, then we realize, okay, if we do this, I mean, we're seeing it kind of in Scandinavia, in in some places around the world where, like, well, everybody needs to go to school. Okay, education is free. Everybody has to go to the doctor sometimes, but maybe health is better than sickness. So let's let's let's let's make sure that everybody's healthy rather than like make money off the people who are sick. You know, like that's how you what are you doing? Now, in if you think about the ecosystem restoration communities, I think that these are people who are going, I I, you know, I can't take it anymore, really. I don't want to, I don't want to go to work in a cubicle to buy and sell plastic junk that comes across the ocean in a polluting ship, and you know, it's just the billions of rubber duckies or whatever they are, you know, and it's irrelevant. It just it's meaningless. And if you if we can put our lives to work to ensure that future generations will be able to breathe and have clean water and clean soil and clean air, that's really what our task is at this time. And it's hard to get your mind around these these numbers like infinity, but I mean, it's hard to get your mind around the idea that there's over 8 billion people. But if you if you if you realize what this means, you go, well, if we don't do this, if we don't realize that everyone has the right to life, then there has to be some kind of event which takes out a pretty large number of people. And are we ready for that? Is that what we want? Do we choose that? And I mean, by not choosing ecological function, what are we choosing? You know, so you you you really have to understand that we we don't really have we have choice, we have free will, we can choose to do the right thing or the wrong thing, and basically that's it. Yeah, and within the wrong thing, we can do lots and lots of things wrong, and vice versa, no? In the right thing, well, yeah, but in the right thing we can do a lot. It's there's diversity within that, but but it's joyous, yes, and it's for everyone else. It's and and and if you if you work in the good of for the good of all, it's also the best case for you. So there have been two Nobel Prizes, one to John Nash and one to Eleanor Ostrom, which basically say the same thing. If you pursue individual interest to the point that it erodes the collective interest, it's not in your interest anymore. I guess there is one more thing I would say. I think that experimental status for Kachana in able to prove the information about natural regulation of hydrology in this particular biome is critically important. And there are certain people who are working on that around the world, and to have mass collaboration and mass participation with everyone who wants to do that. That's the ideal outcome. So then you there's one group called uh the Weathermakers that I'm working closely with, and they're they're doing really good work, but they're very small, but they're and they're they've they've gone through a number of uh disappointments because they they have a really very good possibility, but then whenever it gets close to they they they understood the continental divides and the hydrological cycles and the differences between the temperature differentials and this causes, and they they know how to do these restorations at scale, and they were measuring this and theoretically modeling the restoration of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. And they got very close to implementing a very big experiment. They had funding from the European Union and or from European countries, and they had um they had the Egyptian government on board, and they had the science community vetting this over a long time. And then, of course, war breaks out in in uh Gaza, and it's just all disappears. So they're they're kind of so we've been looking at how how do we make experiments that are at scale but tell us and show us what we can do. So if we bring that kind of experimentation to Kachana, then they know how to lower the the surface temperatures indoors, in controlled areas, and outdoors using passive evaporation systems. Well, if we experiment with that in Kachana, one, you're not gonna be sweating during your podcasts, and two, you're gonna be able to produce different kinds of vegetation and even produce during this extremely hot period, which is gonna allow you to incubate the legacy genome from all over that region, and then spread it, and then you're gonna get a canopy which is gonna cool, and you're gonna get uh circulation in the lower hydrological cycle, and you're gonna stop some of the the the meta impacts of having the moisture go into the upper atmosphere. You're gonna keep it close to the soil and close to the earth. And so I think this is what I think this represents what you already know is possible, but by having the scientific experimental status for the area and having support from engineers and scientists and people. So now imagine that we have camps. So we saw the first camp in in Spain, and it was ridiculous because people started coming there without even being asked. We just started talking about the idea of creating camps, and then we talked about the idea: well, we could put a camp on in Spain in the high Altiplano, and we started talking about you know, some of the people who are who were speaking on it, and at some point, vans filled with people from other countries started driving up and saying, Okay, we're here, we want to build the camp. You know, it's like, really? We didn't we we didn't ask for anybody to come, we didn't even tell anybody where it's gonna be. You know, how how is this possible? And now it's like eight years later, nine years later, and thousands of people have gone through there. And these concepts are being discussed and they're they're being reinforced. And the peer-to-peer communications is much more powerful than having anybody else try to talk to the people because they know exactly what they need to know, because that's how they got their their recognition of these these issues. And pretty soon you get that hundredth monkey idea where you don't have to tell anybody because everybody knows this, and that's really where we need to get to. But we have the Weathermakers, and there's also Wetsis. This is you should look at Wetsys as a potential partner, and I'm sure that there are institutes within in um in uh Australia that will want to be part of this. And I think that this is the status that makes it possible to study this. And enough scientists and engineers saying this is important, we have to learn this, and there's no way, just like in the Lis Plateau, where I started. Started to look in China, if they hadn't done it, we wouldn't know that you could do it at scale. And if if you destroy the ability to have continuity after 35 years of research on this, that's ridiculous. Can't allow that to happen. So this is this the idea that you can go from someplace far away. The Chinese learned this, actually, that they were trying to centralize everything and tell all the farmers all around the country from Beijing what they should plant and what they should do. And they found they had no productivity. As soon as they dropped that thing, they doubled productivity and then they doubled it again and they just kept growing for decades now. So once you get this in mind and you make better and better decisions, that's good. And so that's our task, I think, to understand that and get to that situation. But it's not theoretical, it's a physical thing. We have to do it with people and with policy makers and with with engineers and with scientists. We have to do this all together. We all have a role role to play. And the it's a great opportunity in Kajana, absolutely.

AJ 1:29:22

Chris, do you want to bring us home with uh final thoughts?

Chris 1:29:26

I think what what John has described is pretty well what we were aiming for. We we never we we were just looking at doing it just at a at a at a small family level and just

Population, Rights, And True Wealth

Chris 1:29:40

hopefully, you know, to convince labor and grow out that way. But given the time that we're in and how how some of this segregation has escalated and we don't have time for people to start inventing things on their own. I think it's really is important that we we we can't afford to to look for a common denominator that suits everybody. We've got to look for the highest locally relevant common denominators in the class. And I can I can't see a better way than doing that. And and and also I think powerful message that is easily missed is that what John says it has to be translated to action. I will argue, and I don't feel an intuition, I will argue we have enough local local knowledge to start. And if we start now, by the time we've gone three years down the track, we'll have the additional knowledge as well. Just because we can't see everything we want to do that needs to be done in a 10-year horizon to turn things around, doesn't mean it doesn't give us um an excuse not to start. And then and and so I think every every every um every season we don't do we don't start is is it's gonna take even more longer uh longer to catch up on because of this exponential thing. And we really have to reach it around. I I still believe we have a sporting chance. The horse is bolted, we have a sporting chance to rain them in. But it needs collaboration. No it's it it goes beyond a single pastoral operation, it goes beyond a single um family operation or individual players, just uh it doesn't matter how talented and lucky they are. We we do need collaboration at the level that John was talking about. And translate that to ecosystem functioning.

AJ 1:31:53

Yes, you're writing there, John, cross fertilization, mass collaboration, mass participation, collective intention. There's something about the create well, what you've done writ large, no? Um, even if you stumbled on it. Creating the spaces and the opportunities for people to to do that, to opt for it, to choose it.

John 1:32:12

Well, I I think ultimately the society will decide. You know, the the this is what I've I've noticed because like I'm not very good at raising money and nobody really wants to support the the work. But and really I think it's because most like corporations or institutions they want to take care of themselves. They're they create a like a bureaucracy or something else. I see it more like it's service, that that actually it's not about an individual institution, it's not about one local place. I mean, it's we have to work hyper-locally, but we have to do that simultaneously on a planetary scale. I mean, go going to the COPS, the convening of the parties of the climate change meetings or the biodiversity meetings or the desertification meetings, it's kind of important. But as soon as you go there, you should look at it and go, well, actually, how many of these meetings do we need? You know, and if we're if we're going to have meetings in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates or Egypt or something, and we decide we're going to have tents and we're going to put diesel generators outside of the tents using gigantic air conditioning or driving gigantic air conditioning units that are blowing directly into a tent in the desert. Um why are we doing that? Because I mean, uh uh it's kind of ridiculous to discuss um emissions restrictions in a tent where you're blowing a diesel generator. You're using a diesel generator to blow air conditioning in a tent in the desert. I mean, if we want to, if we want to do that, let's all wear bikinis and you know speedos or something. And then that'll be an exciting thing for all the look at all the politicians and everybody in their in their bathing costumes, you know, like okay. But all right, you know, that's that's a thing. But it would actually then we wouldn't use the energy, and we we'd we'd come to the conclusion it's not a theoretical problem, it's a physical problem. We have to answer it. We have to, and we know enough to do a huge amount of things. We're not doing any of the things that we know. We're saying, well, let's have some more technology. What we need is a vacuum cleaner to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and put it in a hole in the ground. Well, that's ludicrous. How many how many of these machines are you gonna have? You're gonna have to blanket the earth with these machines to suck it carbon, and then then what? You you're running your what fuel are you gonna use to run the machines?

Chris 1:35:11

I mean, just the energy we've spent talking about these vacuum cleaners and putting them to the air, you're like, we've heard these we've been this has been a discussion for at least 10 years. If that oh no, no, much longer, much longer. If that same energy had been used to just get achieved results in the landscape and work with nature, we'd already be we'd we'd already have discovered half a dozen new ways of doing things.

John 1:35:33

Well, I've I was working with the UN and and the World Bank, and they're always saying nature-based solutions, but they but or that's recent, and then they then they they they just have another name and they create another name and then they have another story to tell. But the question is like, no, it's understanding and it's choice, so it's collective intelligence leading to collective intention leading to collective action. And the faster you get to collective action, especially in this experimental stage, because at the experimental stage, we ought to go real fast. That's also the message from China. They do rapid prototyping. That sounds like a good idea. Send some donkeys out there and let's see what happens. Well, okay, we've seen what happens. The vegetation comes back, the the microorganisms and the and the the soil fertility and the the movement of the the cutting of the of the soil opening up with the hooves is needed. Otherwise, it just degrades further and it erodes further and it becomes impossible. It becomes a hard, a hard surface where any water that comes to it will run away. The problem is that we don't, we haven't got the fact that the donkeys and the biology of the microbial communities and the fungal communities are the precursors to soil creation. That soil is not the subsoils, that's the lithosphere. The soil is the pedosphere, where the sedimentary materials are mixed together with the decaying organic material, and it's the habitat for many, many, many essential organisms. So once we understand these things, you know, like I have to repeat this again and again and again. If I tell my family we have to have biomass, necromass, and accumulated organic material, which is necromass, and uh biodiversity, they go, Dad, John, stop talking about that. You all always repeat that. I say, and they say, we know that. I said, if you knew that, you'd be outside right now. And you'd be massively increasing the amount of organic material as fast as you possibly can. And you'd be repeating this to everybody. I mean, at lunch, you're gonna be talking about toilets and you're gonna be talking about like how do we how do we stop? I mean, we have u tro you look all over Europe. You have eutrophication, you have red tides all in all the estuaries and and and outflows into the ocean system. What's that? You're losing the fertility. Why the why do you think you're having massive blooms out there? You've neutrophied the water. All of that nutrients has to be in growing soils. Think how many soils we just you know, just every time I see an algae bloom, I go, hey, what's going on? Stop it. And we need to do that with people's understanding and people's action. Now imagine if the if the true value of ecological function is uh is appreciated by the society, then anybody who works in this in this field should be rewarded financially. They should be paid to do this because that's more valuable than plastic goo-gaws that get shipped across the world. And the the young couple, now you I'm I know I I'm I'm of an age, Chris is younger, you're younger, but you know, can can you imagine if every young couple that got married, then the whole community came around and they said, Hey, you know, congratulations, you're getting married. You know, we're gonna come over. You know, we're you know, here's a nice place. Look at those beautiful trees here, and you know, this this area. We're gonna we're gonna come over there and we're gonna build a house. And uh that's your house. And we all go over there and we build this most beautiful house. And uh a few, you know, with like a swarm, you know, it's like it's a flash mob. And they go and and every every every master craftsman puts their little touch to it, and it's just beautiful. And and the the two kids go in there and they're so happy. And you know, how many people are getting divorced because I can't pay the mortgage or they you know, like, oh, I'm completely upset because I've gotta go over here and do this and that. But why not just have that and then grow soils, you know, grow food, grow, grow natural systems, because that's true value. Now we're now we're getting somewhere, you know. Now we're we're proving what it means to be civilized. I mean, you know, if if yet more more naked women is civilization, then you know, well, Babylon and ancient Rome, and you know, like it's a there's you know what's the difference? You know, it doesn't matter. So 2,000 years ago is now, you know, no, it's not now. We know enough. Read Homer, read read Voltaire. We know this, you know, stop it. Read read uh um evil and volume. You know, we we know this.

AJ 1:41:19

Stop it. Funny you should end there because when you mentioned Gandhi before, I remembered what the press asked him as well, which was, what do you think of Western civilization? And he said, It's a good idea. Yeah. Well, John, I'm wondering, as you know, I'm wondering, we always end talking about a piece of music with whoever my guest is, but I wonder if instead of talking about it, we might get some action. You might play something.

John 1:41:49

Yeah, let let me let me I'll I'll I'll see if you can hear anything. I'm not really positive that this won't work, but but I can do it separately and from maybe outside too, because it's a beautiful day out there. Well, there you go. And uh you can see the moon gate. Let me see where where are we at? Can you hear that? Or not? You can?

AJ 1:42:20

Yeah.

John 1:44:16

Love it. Yeah.

AJ 1:44:24

Sweet.

John 1:44:24

Well, that's what I think everybody should be doing at the ecosystem restoration communities.

Experimental Status And Global Partners

John 1:44:30

They should be playing music. I I recommend rehearsal, rehearsal a lot, you know. So it's like rehearse like you're performing, and then perform like you're rehearsing. And it works very well. And then and then the other part is we should be having meals, we should have central kitchens so that everybody comes back kind of tired from restoring the rivers and the the grasslands and planting and whatever dealing with the animals and so on. And then they come back hungry and tired, and it's it's like beautiful, great dinner, diverse local foods, harvested daily, you know, perfect everything. And uh everybody's having fun, and then music afterwards, good movies afterwards, just have fun, have a have a really good time. That's the anecdote to the despair that's like really taking over the world, it seems like it's like, oh I'm an old newsman, but I can't watch the news, yeah, because it's so horrible. Yeah, you know, it's like I don't want to know that. Oh god.

AJ 1:45:57

There is a Kachana brew that I can recommend when you get there as well. Okay, John.

John 1:46:04

Yeah, the Mongol Mongols have uh mare's milk, which is for fermented erak. It's the champagne of the steppe, right?

AJ 1:46:16

That's great. Yeah, the mango ice cream is pretty good actually at Kachana too. Oh, you've got so much to look forward to. Excellent, excellent.

John 1:46:23

Well, let's let's have a rotating cast of characters. So all the people who want to restore the earth should come down to Kachana and and help out. There's 70, what is it, 77,000? What did you say?

Chris 1:46:39

77,5,000 hectares.

John 1:46:41

77 and a half thousand hectares. So, I mean, making the waters flow carefully to infiltrate, increasing.

Chris 1:46:53

I think I think I worked it out. Even in a even in the poor season, we're still looking at two and a half liters of water per day per square meter. Well, that we should be able to hang on to our water. I only when I read a book, uh that's the right. What the farmer should say when he's asked how much rain do you get, he should be able to say all of it.

John 1:47:16

Yeah, that's yeah, that's it. Yes. And you know, I mean, it's inshallah, God willing, you know. Yes, yeah, you know, it's it is a miracle that we're here. We live on the only planet we know that has an oxygenated atmosphere.

Chris 1:47:38

You've got two options. You can say it's a statistical pro improbability, what are you gonna do about it, or you can say it's a miracle, thank you, let's go for it.

AJ 1:47:46

Alright, you guys. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, thank you, Anthony. Thank you guys, and and uh I know there are many grand plans afoot for what this year might see, so uh perhaps we'll meet again soon amongst all that.

John 1:48:00

I hope so.

AJ 1:48:01

Terrific. Thanks, Chris, thanks, John. Thank you both. That was filmmaker and pioneering force behind the ecological restoration communities, John D. Liu, alongside Pioneering Regenerative Force in the East Kimberly of Australia, at Kachana Station, Chris Henggeler. Incidentally, John is also bringing together a media collaborative currently, so there's another thing to reach out about if you're inspired by any of this. With great thanks to you generous supporting listeners for making this episode possible, including Mike Mouritz, Ruben Parker Greer, and Rob Scott for backing this in for four years now. And for three years, Robert Staley, Robert Pekin, Adam Scott, and Maryanne Anderson. And for increasing the amount of your subscription, thanks so much, Vicky. I know for many it's tough right now. I've heard it from some of you who've had to cancel your subscription. So just if you can, please consider joining these fine folk to help keep the show on the road. There's a discount to the upcoming Grounded Festival available right now to subscribers too. Thank you, one and all. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.