Andrew Millison
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2025–2026
14:11 · 9.8M views · Nov 14, 2024
Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison travels with the UN World Food Programme to Niger to see land recovery within the Great Green Wall, where rainwater harvesting is boosting food security and restoring the ecosystem.
Recommended in regreening and desertification threads as an optimistic, constructive example of land restoration.
4 comments from Hacker News
Would semi-circular bunds help fight desertification in Arizona and along the Colorado River and in the Southwestern US, as they do on the Sahel? From [LINK] : > Agricultural Bunds (and buried unglazed water vessels) would probably work in NM, too; but which agricultural resources can process bunds instead of rows? From [LINK] : > Water bunds look like they work to prevent water from flashing off, but probably initially disturb the mycorrhizae in the topsoil: Semicircular bund: [LINK] > "Inoculating soil with mycorrhizal fungi can increase plant yield: study" (2024) [LINK] From [LINK] : > Half Moon Bunds look like they are working to regreen the Sahel. Bunds would require different farm machines than rototilling tractors that cause erosion. > "Mastering the Art of Half Moon Bunds" [LINK] > Andrew Million's light board videos are a great resource , as a software dev with no real experience in hydrological engineering for sustainable agriculture. > "Inside Africa's Food Forest Mega-Project" this video Desert Control now has offices in Arizona. They specialize in water bags that catch silt for use as fertilizing soil amendments. Mycorhizzae are essential to healthy soil. Plant residue can keep moisture in soil that you're trying to reestablish Mycorhizzae in so that roots establish so that the soil holds water. Geotextiles can also keep moisture in soil. Chitosan-Alginate and/or plasma-fluffed hemp aerogel would make great geotextiles for erosion control, soil remediation, water ba
Just search for things like "green wall", "china straw landscape", etc. A few good ones that I watched: - Inside Africa's Food Forest Mega-Project this video - China Buried Tons of Dead Plants Under the Desert Sand [LINK] - Green Gold: Regreening the Desert | John D. Liu [LINK] There are way more. One channel that I might call [LINK] . They basically use donations to take on projects to do smalls scale nature restoration. I am actually considering making a donation to them because I like what they do. There are more examples of such channels. Not everything on this front is without controversy of course and I'm not blind to that. But I like the positive, constructive nature of these approaches. Just the simple notion that it's fixable with a bit of cleverness and lots of hard work. China is of course an autocracy that you can criticize for a lot of things. But they are doing a few things right as well. And it's worth calling that out and learning from them.
> A dramatic example of this are the arab states that are trying to brute force make the desert an attractive place to be They're doing it wrong. I'll point to places adjacent to the sahara building a "green wall" which is turning parts of the sahara back to a savannah and replenishes the water table. this video Andrew Millison's youtube channel has several videos on the subject, and related subjects in other parts of the world too. [LINK]
I looked it up: Wage subsidy: [LINK] : > A wage subsidy is a payment to workers by the state, made either directly or through their employers. Its purposes are to redistribute income and to obviate the welfare trap attributed to other forms of relief, thereby reducing unemployment. It is most naturally implemented as a modification to the income tax system. Permaculture and Bill Mollison: perpetual spinach and Swiss Chard do well here. TIL there are videos about perennials and about companion planting. Potatoes in the soil below tomatoes, in food safe HDPE 5 gallon buckets with a patch cut into the side. But that's still plastic in the garden. Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, Squash. Import substitution industrialization > Latin America,: [LINK] "The Biggest Mapping Mistake of All Time" re: Baja and the Sea of Cortez : [LINK] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is derided as untrue. See also links to " War is a Racket ", which concludes with chapter "5. To Hell With War" [LINK] Structural adjustment > Criticisms: [LINK] Golden rule: [LINK] The "Farming Simulator" game has the user operate multiple labor positions on the farm as concurrently as they can master. We can't do similar backpackers-style field labor because there aren't travel visas that are also work visas FWIU. Volunteering while on a student visa is fine AFAIU. Non-commercial open source software development is also something that folks enjoying their travels can do for no money here. Laser weeding is still fairly unde