Genius Solution to Transform Barren Land into Fertile Garden

This episode features two simple solutions to transform degraded, deforested land into lush, fertile habitats. Across Africa, people are coming up with innovative, simple techniques to stimulate the ecosystem, reverse a vicious cycle of devastation and restore biodiversity.

The first method is called Bunds, also known as "Earth Smiles", which are a simple, low-cost rainwater harvesting technique used for landscape restoration in arid and semi-arid regions.
They consist of semi-circular (half-moon shaped) pits dug into the ground, with the excavated soil piled up to form a small embankment. The open side faces uphill, and the curved "smile" side faces downhill to catch and hold runoff water.

The second method is called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), which has managed to bring back an estimated 200 million to 240 million trees across Africa — without planting a single tree. How? By utilizing the underground forests that already exists.

When a tree grows, its main shoot releases a hormone called auxin that suppresses the growth of other shoots and buds - to focus energy into one single strong trunk to create a tree. But when the tree is cut to a stump, it stops producing auxin even though the roots stay alive underground. As a result, dozens of shoots sprout at once, competing for resources making it look like a bush. Essentially this simple technique is about choosing one or two strong shoots and pruning away the rest so the chosen sprout can quickly become a tree again. This growth happens much quicker than planting a tree because the root system is already established.

Big thanks to Planet Wild for collaborating on this video. It's an honor to contribute to an organization that is actually doing good...not just saying they're doing good.