More output or not more output. So, the output is, what is the proportion of output, that is, what is the comparison between input and output. Any idea? Based on the input, what is the output? More or less? More output. Why? Understand my question? If output is more, why? We have been discussing these things. I simply want you to tell me answers to these simpler questions, so that I understand that you understand that. Generative mechanism. Because generative mechanism inbuilt within the hypothetical device, so that we may be able to form new words and communicate new ideas. So basically, generative mechanism is the apparatus, is the capacity that is responsible for infinite output. What does generative capacity do? What does it do in precise terms? We got the idea about language acquisition device and universal grammar. We want to know, what is it that generative mechanism precisely does? Exactly. It helps us deduce the underlying patterns of language, that is, underlying rules of language. If we are talking about words, then it gives us words, the underlying patterns behind words. For example, words will have sounds in a systematic way, in a particular way, which is the fourth thing that we see is, we must have vowels in a word. We cannot have a word, which means in other words, that does not have vowel sounds. So, this underlying pattern, this rule gets clearer through development of this generative capacity, which is what we mean by language learning. Therefore, language learning is not really learning of words and sentences. Words and sentences are outcome of the development of a particular type of capacity. Also, when we say language is in need to human being, that is, language is inbuilt to human being, what we mean is the ability to develop this specific capacity is inbuilt. Output in a sense is really trivial. By output, we mean language, which is actually the outcome of this generative capacity is trivial, trivial quote in quotes. You understand this point? Because that outcome could be any language, which depends on immediate society. I think we have dealt with this thing in a way that in a clear way. If there are any confusions, if there are any issues related to that, please let me know because some of the things that I am going to ask you or talk about are based on the clarity of this capacity, clarity of understanding about this capacity. And again, they are also very simple point, not very complicated. But complication keeps building if the previous one is not clear. If the previous thing is clear, then the next one follows from the previous one. Can we go down this list of terms and see if we are familiar with these things? Not necessarily we have to go through this list again, but I just want to clarify whether you have heard these terms and not only heard these terms, we are very clear about them because these are going to be fundamentals of many things that we are going to be discussing. And I have been telling you that we are building the basis for a more serious discussion at the level of sentences in terms of what are the fundamental principles of language? What are more fundamental rules that operate in language? What is that linguistic computation which works in human cognition? How does that building takes place? Get it? I think we have, I do not remember, but I think we have talked about this. When you speak, I am not sure if you watch yourself or others, but if you do or if you happen to do from now on words, we have talked about the smallest possible sentence, which was just a word. What was the word? Go or come or go is better one because that is even smaller in a word, as a word. So fine. What do you think will be a longer sentence? How long do you think a sentence could be? There is no limit. How does a sentence end? How do we know that now sentence is over? Anybody, any idea? When we speak or when we read or write. No, no, I am talking about spoken language. Stop, a full stop. How do we know where to put the full stop? That is, full stop is in written language, but in spoken language we stop. So how do we know where to stop in order to understand that this sentence is over? So a sentence is like go, a sentence is like go home. A sentence could be, I am asking you to go home. A sentence could be this is a pointer, this is a room, this is a classroom. We are studying here. These are the sentences. How do we know that this sentence is over at the point when I say this is a pointer? This sentence is over. Now what I say is going to be the next sentence. How do we know that? Any idea? The reason I am asking you this question is, this question, the answer to this question follows from our understanding of why go is a sentence. What makes go a sentence? Everything has a meaning. When we say pointer, does it not have a meaning? Does it have a meaning or not? It has a meaning. Or everything could possibly have meaning. There is something else that makes the word the utterance go a sentence. So what follows from that is every sentence requires one verb. You may have little bit more. You may have something else. We can call them, call those things different things. But a sentence must have a verb. And when a verb is there in the sentence and then the verb agrees with the subject, then we know now it is going to be end of the sentence. The next question is how long a sentence could be? You said something about that? There is no limit. And that is in a way true. The sentence could be infinitely long. Is that difficult to believe at this stage? So can you give me an example of a long sentence or as long as it gets? So you are right. True. It is not just about commas and end. You are right. Essentially what you are saying is right that a sentence could be infinitely long. You understand this part? This could be a very tall claim. That a sentence could be infinitely long. How is going to be determined and the actual answer to this how comes when we look at the, when we look at actual linguistic computation in human cognition. And we understand the underlying pattern which allows a sentence to be infinitely long. We can get an example. We can get an example which will be let us say 10 sentences combined together. But then again it is 10. It does not tell you infinitely long. In fact when we say infinitely long it is almost impossible to give an example of an infinitely long sentence. We cannot possibly give an example of an infinitely long sentence. But we can possibly understand through the computation that underlying processes have accommodation for infinitely long sentence. That is what we will see. But for that these things are important. So clear about them. A language, linguistics, language and dialect, language learning or language acquisition, behaviorism that is two different ways of looking at how we understand, how we learn language, behaviorism and innate hypothesis, generative mechanism, language computation. Language computation is something that we have just talked about. We have not really looked at the total details. Language if at all at this stage you can give an example of language computation at the level of words we can say this rule is an example of language computation. That this is one rule which gives us words. And this pattern can give us many many words. We can have a different pattern but this pattern where we have a collection cluster of two consonants in the beginning of a word results into very few words. And here when we say very few we mean compare to this one. So number one gives a lot. We can go all the way to say infinite but we do not want to say that. Say that just a lot. This one radically reduced from this. That is way too low compared to the first one. Get this thing? And we will come to specific more specific examples radically too low because of this constraint. So this could be an example of internal computation at this level. We will talk about more soon. Again when we look at the specifics of generative foundation of language acquisition everything else that we have been discussing since yesterday. And we just revised it in the beginning of this class today is part of generative foundation of language acquisition where language acquisition device, universal grammar, principles, parameters, knowledge of language and again generative capacity. These are the terms that we have been using to understand how learning takes place.  And please be attention to the last one generative capacity and generative mechanism. There is an overlap between the two but still a little bit of clarity is required which is this is a mechanism and what when it gets internalized that becomes capacity. Knowledge of language just to quickly revise it anybody because this is not a simple phrase which means knowing about language it means what does it mean? So let us first look at universal grammar just to revise it once again to make sure that we understand this thing. Innate set of innate and abstract principles clear set of innate and abstract principles that is those principles are already inbuilt. It only requires triggering through input from immediate environment and that is the inbuilt principle which is responsible for developing language in us. So external factor input triggers and inbuilt principles get triggered and then we get language then we get these things. This is what we mean by principles. Principle part of universal grammar parameters a set of rules that languages vary around languages vary from one another. A set of rules that determines how languages vary from one another is what we know as parameter okay and this is what I was asking you. It is important to know this concept with clarity which is knowledge of language is that we know these things. We know that this rule is responsible for lots of words and we do not know all of those words because we know this one. So what this results into is I know them but I just do not know that I know them. Everything about language is part of that and that is what we call that is what we call knowledge of language and why do we not know that we know them? Anybody? Why do we not know that we know them? We should be able to answer this question at this stage. Remember I am saying I am talking about the rules of language or rules of language learning that we know but we do not know that we know all those rules. Why so? Why do we not know what we know? It is kind of a problematic thing when we are saying we know but we do not know that we know. Sounds very nice. We do not really go and learn the things so we do not know that we know this. So it is the ability that comes and even the parts of ability the what see if ability is a machine the components of that machine that mechanism is not really obvious. They are set of abstract things they just get triggered we just we really do not know them as a matter of list understand. So when we do something like we do 10 things in a day so we are doing those things one after the other. Therefore we know what are the things that we have done what are the things that we have learned then we know them but something that happens we do not even know the order in which they take place they take place and how they how they work how that machine begins developing therefore we do not know that we know them. However miraculously as a matter of miraculously the result of this is that we speak language not only we speak language we speak with full grammatical patterns and we talked about this grammatical pattern yesterday did we the grammatical means acceptable grammatical grammatical means well formed well formed acceptable and appropriate to so this really becomes a miraculous development that on the basis of the rules that are not so clear to us even about development we get an output which is miraculously well formed grammatical acceptable appropriate all right. So what is important about learning this thing what does it tell us so far if we understand acquisition we get to know how we speak how we begin to speak we get to know how language is a complex phenomena and it is a specific to humans we get to know that there are differences between languages and language differences are taken care of taken into account by set of principles and parameters okay and this is the second last part is something which we have not discussed so far is take it as it is right now we will talk about this which is how does language change takes place okay remember it is not not really completely obscure should not be completely obscure for you that if it is language continuum right then languages are two different at two different ends right but there are lots of similarities in between right lots of similarities in between still hold on like I said I will discuss this thing later but just let me give you a brief thing about this have you heard anyone saying or have you realized that there is a change in language after every five to ten kilometers have you heard this thing no not heard have you witnessed this thing it happens at language border in visible terms right for example at the border of Tamil and Telugu speaking areas you are going to see this change so the kind of Tamil people speak at that border is going to be very different from Tamil spoken in Madurai, Koyambatur or for that matter at the borders of Malayalam that is going to be different so differences at borders are clear I am talking about even when there are not borders after twenty kilometers you find people speaking a different kind of same language and this does not this is not a specific only to Tamil it is a specific it is true for all the languages not heard this thing not whatever there you call that is style I do not want to give them names as in Kerala where we are just talking about three sets that is three broader distinctions I want you to think about this thing and then tell me late by later I mean not today talk to people and try to see if this has any meaning language changes not only in three major categories but the language changes after every now and then every short distance people twenty kilometers from one place people will speak things differently and such changes are very minor when they become major then they start becoming different languages now these are the changes which are responsible for larger changes in language so how they take place is also taken into account if we understand these things and then finally language continuum and multilinguality which again we will address little later is also taken care of by this pattern of acquisition wait a minute it this is also important for you to understand more I will briefly mention this and then move to different concept most of the time when we talk about multilinguality what does it mean when we say multilingual what does it mean to you different languages people speaking how many languages more than one so and then what will be bilinguals those who speak to right now in the interest of time let me let me tell you this thing and ask me a question if there are if you do not agree with this thing and if you think we do not have clarity about it then the difference between the two terms bilinguals and multilinguals is nothing anyone who is a bilingual is also a multilingual so these two terms can be used interchangeably for a long time people made these distinctions just for the sake of mathematical order monolinguals bilinguals and multilinguals when you look at it look at language carefully and just now what you have seen the process of learning language what is it that works as input then you can understand the term multilinguality with with greater clarity which is remember we just established yesterday that children are not learning Bengali Hindi Tamil Telugu what are they learning actually what are they learning that whatever is spoken to them whatever the input the child receives from the society and there is no society which speaks just one thing right therefore what happens is this generative capacity is again inbuilt with the capacity for multilinguality get this point the fact that someone speaks more than one language is no additional capacity is is is part of this generative apparatus it is following from the capacity to learn a language is following from generative mechanism and in nateness hypothesis that people will be speaking more than one language that that is point number one point number two that everybody speaks more than one more than one language particularly when we look at language continuum at a micro level do you understand the distinction between macro and micro when we look at something when we look at language continuum at a micro level then we realize that people have capacity to negotiate between different varieties of same language also right there is a categorical distinction between Northern Malayalam Central Malayalam and Trabancore Malayalam but it is not that people speaking Northern Malayalam will not be able to understand and talk to speakers of Trabancore Malayalam get it people speaking Hindi in Delhi will not be able to speak to people speaking Hindi in Kolkata however there are striking differences between the two now what I want to underline is the following the ability to negotiate between the varieties is also part of multilinguality and this is the definition of multilingualism at a micro level and this is why we we claim and we say that every individual is a multilingual when we say every individual is a multilingual that does not mean everybody must know for five languages that is Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, English even the capacity to negotiate between different regional varieties is part of multilingual capacity is part of and and that multilingual capacity in particular follows from generative apparatus is this point making sense to everybody therefore multilinguality is important and therefore we we have mentioned here that this helps us understand the existence of multilinguality in real world okay so multilinguality in real world is no neither a big deal nor a strange phenomena alright okay then we have been we have looked at couple of more and very quickly we will look at few new concepts from this did you did I did I mention competence and performance so far I language any language and the distinction between I language and E language is I language here E language in the real world right I language the language of human mind E language the language of the real world that is external to human mind okay excuse me the distinction between competence and performance is exactly that competence refers to the capacity to generate language the fact that generative capacity lies in human mind so whenever we talk about competence we are actually talking about generative capacity we are talking about I language whereas performance is E language and capacity to use language in real world in real time get it so that is the distinction between competence and performance similarly the two terms form and function the distinction between the two terms form and function is exactly that form is about I language when we are looking at the internal properties of language underlying patterns of language we mean form we mean study of formal properties of language when we talk about the use of language in actual world we are talking about the function of language in the actual world so the terms like I language E language competence performance form function with minor differences refer to exact same kind of dichotomy okay then comes a point which is important for us to understand which is critical period hypothesis this is the term which comes in the context of language acquisition right which simply means if a child receives input from immediate society and as a result of which we develop generative capacity and child continues speaking a language for how long does this takes place can I does this happen to me I have been receiving input in Tamil in Chennai I have not been speaking them Tamil it is more than a year now other than two three words nothing has developed so how do we believe this and how does why why does it not happen to me what is responsible for that get this question some of you may be non Tamil speakers right and you have been living here for much longer a period than I have been living it has not happened to you so does it not raise a question to you that if it is if input from immediate environment is the only thing that is responsible for triggering universal grammar and developing generative capacity and in turn we speak the language then why did why did it not happen in last four years for me so what is that ability is restricted to different stages right what is that stage when does it stop whenever that stops is called critical period whenever that stops is called critical period and those who studied these things gave it a name critical period hypothesis so so the assumption is again if we look at in terms of this so let us say five ten fifteen and twenty years of age okay so the idea is it is starts from here and stops around this place okay that is around thirteen to fourteen years of age it stops I should use a more careful word it is not that it stops the access to universal grammar that is universal principles and parameters is open until this point that is when we receive input right the universal that input does something to universal set of rules that the triggering can take place after this does this help you understand after this it is not fair to say it stops completely what happens is the access becomes weaker and weaker and weaker that is the input is unable to trigger those rules and even if they do they do it in a very minimal way if we say access to universal rules stops what will be the consequence of that if we say access to universal rule completely stops the consequence of that will be we cannot learn any new word or we cannot learn any new language however there is enough evidence that we do learn some languages after fifteen years also remember you understand we do learn some language if we put some serious effort we do learn some new languages and English is one such example right maybe for some people they started learning English this side of the age group right there are many people who started learning after fourteen or fifteen okay some people started learning this side that is let us say some people started learning English from this point some people may be even earlier so there are different kinds of variations when it comes to learning English and some other languages now two points are critical here if we say the access to universal grammar access to universal rules or the capacity to capacity to universal capacity to develop sorry the ability to develop generative capacity through triggering universal set of principles by external input from immediate society stops then no new language comes period the fact that that does not happen we can say it is a still open but it is weak therefore the languages that we learn this side are really good that is the capacity is reliable what that capacity gives us intuition and that intuition is authentic so when and that is the intuition which remains as original the intuition that we develop after this capacity becoming weaker is not authentic into intuition we do learn and therefore we we do not we feel less confident less confidence in languages that we learn later on get this thing therefore this when when the when it starts becoming weaker is called a language that we learn critical period all right keep one more thing in mind that it is this is not a sudden break I I have just drawn the sentence line this way it is not a sudden break probably it starts little early right so it is not as weak but nothing could be so sudden abrupt this starts happening little early it may not happen for some people it may happen all the way to 20 so these numbers are not very hard and fast but wherever that stops is called critical period the axis becomes weaker does not stop completely and that is called critical period it is clear what what we mean by critical period and see there are consequences of these things as you can see that consequences we learn in new languages and if we say axis is blocked then we do not learn new language okay all right if we are learning languages on this side then there is going to be impact or imprints of languages that we have learned this side of the on the new language therefore if we learn English here we are going to see lot of influence of languages from here on this and that is called mother tongue interference okay mother tongue interference with this I am bringing in a new term which is called mother tongue right or native tongue or native language what do we mean by that what do we call mother tongue what is mother tongue any idea quickly which is first major languages the languages that we have been learning in critical period and again remember this could be there is a strong possibility rather very very strong possibility that 0 to 10 the number of languages may be more than one right definitely more than one right definitely more than one in that case what is the mother tongue theoretically is if we understand this this acquisition process in a theoretical term then it should not be difficult for you to answer with to full with total conviction what will be the mother tongue you are right you you are absolutely right the languages that we learnt this side so I am asking you if we learnt more than one then what is the mother tongue among them all of them that is right the language that immediate society speaks and if there are more than one languages in that then all of them the therefore no one else decides about your mother tongue no one else decides oh you speak Telugu your mother tongue is Telugu that is not that is not how mother tongue is decided mother tongue is something very specific and technical in its term that mother tongue is the language or languages that we learnt on this side get it mother tongue is also the term which we use for the one term I already gave you which is native language mother term is also the term for forced language and this is little bit strange that you will find here when we say forced language right forced language by definition means how many one but if you understand the process of language acquisition forced language could be more than one or many so it is only the only inter in the context of language acquisition the the term does not mean much it is the only time when we say when we can say forced language is not a good term it could be possibly forced languages right and based on these understandings we can say in the larger context we are talking about really language not in not instances of language so whenever we talk about forced languages we are talking about many languages languages together but actually we are talking about language and anything that we acquired before this all of them are forced language are forced languages mother tongue native tongue and you decide what you learnt this side no one else decides get it and if if acquisition of all the languages of the world takes place this way then now you can appreciate it in a letter in a little bit better better sense what could be the difference between language and dialect if we are talking about different varieties of Malayalam and Tamil they are all learnt the same way if we are talking about different names of names of different languages there we learn all of them the same way if we understand universal set of principles and parameters the abstract rules of what we call languages or what we call dialects are all here and they get triggered in the same way then in a real technical sense there is absolutely no distinction between language and dialect so when we say language and dialect distinction is really sociopolitical we are not trying to be politically correct we are we are talking about what follows from the principles of language acquisition therefore no distinction between them get it all right are we are we clear about mother tongue forced language critical period right these these are way too fundamental things and a clarity is required and this clarity comes when we understand generative foundation of language acquisition without names or without any language there is there there could be no confusion in this just two more terms and then we stop for today if we know about forced language then there is a term which is called second language right second language by definition will be where here on this side right and there is one more thing a specific for second language is because it happens here on this side and because the axis is broken right so there is one more thing a specific for second language which is instruction so if I say I I know English as second language what I am essentially also saying that I have received instruction in English too ok however no instruction is required this side that is knowing you we understand the meaning of instruction a formal instruction in a formal setting in classroom with the help of books and other other materials all right so that is about second language second language is the language which we acquire probably beyond critical period and with instruction is called second language without instruction before 10 years or 12 years of age all of them are forced language all right then there is a term called foreign language right there is a term called foreign language what is that foreign language most of the learning is done in a formal setting true and minimal by minimal exposure what do you mean minimal exposure very true but why exactly foreign language very nice a foreign language is not the language which we decide according to national boundaries as you have seen if one thing you can see underlyingly being discussed that there is no concept of boundary walls in languages language boundaries are so porous so we are not talking about languages of political geography we are saying this term foreign language simply means the language where of course we get instruction so that way foreign language and second language are the same thing as far as instruction is concerned but the distinction between foreign language and second language is in terms of its accessibility and availability in the society for second language we get instruction as well as it is available in the society too for foreign language it is not available in society and on the basis of this distinction anything could be a second language or any language could be foreign language depending upon which place we are talking about so a Manipuri or Assamese could be a foreign language in Chennai at the same time Tamil could be foreign language in Himachal Pradesh or UP get it so these terms are technically defined in terms of first language second language and foreign language not in according to political boundaries alright one more point to clarify which is often asked you have not asked so far what happens to languages that we start what happens to languages that we start here and then we lose later that is we do not speak after couple of years we do not speak after couple of years I started speaking Tamil then to speak after couple of years that is three four years okay what will happen to that language think about this time is over we will talk about this and talk about sounds tomorrow thank you.


Right. Thanks, Ali. Welcome. Welcome to this fireside chat with one of the latest additions to the ERC movements, Rancho Cacatillas. We have two wonderful presenters from their side with us today and Florence. And John is here also. Thank you for being here. We are very pleased to have you around the fire. I'm dressed in a suit which is not usually very suitable for sitting around a fire. But my day has been with suits. I always call it camouflage, like a biologist would dress up in greener clothes when they're in the forest. I dress up in suits when I'm amongst a meeting rose anyway. Enough about my clothes. Let's go straight into this fireside chat. I am going to share my screen. I hope it works. It's the ninth of May 2023. In the sixth year of the ERC movements being fully up and functioning. And we are about to welcome our 60th community to the ERC movement, which is an incredible growth and it shows how much there is a need from people who are working on the ground. And who are thinking about how to involve local communities, farmers and those who are most involved in the local ecosystem that they're joining this movement. It's very empowering and very, very positive, gives you a very positive feeling. This particular fireside chat has a standard format. I share some news from the movement. Then, John will start the actual conversation around what's going on, and then the particular ERC who we are featuring will present their work and their ambitions. And this time that's Rancho Kakacilas. Hold your questions until after the presentations. It makes it more comfortable to tell your story. And maybe the question will be answered. After that, you may ask your question in person by raising your hands. I'm okay with you putting it in the chat also, but I will give you the floor to then ask that question. There's plenty of space for conversation for questions for philosophizing, because the session will last one hour. But we usually don't shut down the zoom, because the conversations are still ongoing, feel free to stay for an open discussion, and sometimes completely different themes pop up also that can be discussed around the fire. If you put it visually in your mind, it helps. We're sitting. We've worked our heart. We've worked hard all day in restoring. It's getting darker. We're about to eat something and we've lit a fire. We're sitting around it. And we're curious about each other. We're curious about what the others are thinking about patting each other on the back.  Before we, before we do this, I'd like to share a bit more about what's going on currently in the movement and especially the things you can find the participant, the participatory exercises you can join in at some of the ERCs around the world. This weekend, if you're in the Netherlands, there's the boot beauty vegetates festival co-organized by the Dutch ERC called Kings Garden. It's a festival with music learning workshops around biodiversity in agriculture. And in May, the French ERC is organizing another body, heart and soil immersive regenerative experience with people that have done these find very, very enlightening and very regenerative. So definitely would recommend you looking into going to France at the end of this month or in the middle of this month. And then in the beginning of June, there is a course that you can take about existing restoration at the ERC at the Plano in Spain. Another course in July, very old then but still worthwhile going. And then another course after the summer in September that they're inviting you to and I call this slide participate and learn we have launched a new website and there is more to discover what you could participate while you're going there. If you go to ERC earth or ecosystem restoration communities.org or ecosystem restoration camps.org they'll lead you to our new website. And if you click on the participant menu participate menu you'll get to see those organized event that you usually have to pay for to participate in. But you can also see volunteer opportunities I had I don't have that on my screen right now. But there is a few hundred volunteering opportunities at ERCs around the world. You don't have to pay for those to participate.  And then there's some long term volunteering opportunities at specific ERCs around the world that you can also find through that new we call it the restoration project finder. But those who want to participate in these. In the work of these ERCs, you can probably find something that matches your needs, your skills, and your interests through that website so do visit it. See what's on there and see if there's anything that matches your desires. ERC news we have a new website and the reason we have a new website and you can also see it in the logo behind me is because we've changed our name. We're now calling our movement ecosystem restoration communities. You can also call it ecosystem restoration camps still or ecosystem restoration camps and communities. But in the conversation with the ERCs that are part of the movement. We learned that communities just better fits better reflects the nature of these ERCs in the movement, which are usually very much local community based local farmer based but very happy to have people from around the world to come and join in the work. There is a new website attached to it. The old website was very much about what we as a foundation are doing and the movement was all the secondary. It's all about the movement. You can learn more about the movement on it. You can also find out what you can learn there's courses being offered around the world. You can participate in the work of these ERCs and you can donate to the movement as a whole but you can also donate directly to the ERC of your choice by finding their page on the website. Clicking on the donate button that's on their page and donating directly to them. And we promise to make sure they get that money as soon as possible. So go and find ERC earth. We're using that one, which is an abbreviation. You know, there's lots of abbreviations out there, but it's easiest to remember the ecosystem restoration communities.org website. It links to where you can find all these new developments to new ERCs are joining the ERC movements in the next few weeks. One is in South Dakota. It's the Bison People Land group. It's a Lakota Sioux initiative to work with Bison to regenerate the South Dakota steps, I think, or the grasslands that are there. Very exciting because it's a native led initiative in the US. And the people behind it aren't new, but the ERC is new eco camp tree top in California. It is organized by Matthew Trump who started our third ERC in the movement, which is the eco camp paradise in California, which is very near to where the street top ERC is being initiated and it focuses very much on fire resilience and fire restoration. After the incredibly disastrous fires that hit that region. I put a YouTube link in this presentation. I realize it's impossible to copy and paste, but I will put it in the chat. It's a new promo film. It's very much intended for audiences in what we would call the West, where our donor community lives most. And where people are struggling to find out how in earth we're going to change the direction of society, struggling with governments and corporations and black farming agribusiness not changing very much. I haven't discovered that yet that there's this global movement of people who are making that change already with their hands and their minds and collaborating. And this new promo has been developed specifically for that group of people. Go see it. I hope it moves you. It moves me every time I see it. I find it's very well done. Congratulations on the team to doing that because we're improvising everything. There's very little budget to do this work with. And I do not know why my PowerPoint is no, I don't want to do that. You still see the PowerPoint or you know watching my. So a final I finally an invite from me to help us grow this movement. There's great initiatives you know about that you join have them join. There is an up and running knowledge exchange platform. There's all the work we do as a community to help each other. And the presentation of Florence and Anne will be about this. But we also still need donations, because it's not coming in very easily. So if you have friends who you know are loaded. Tell them about us. We are the one global initiative that's truly locally focused truly locally set up locally led on the ecosystem restoration. And we need, we need that support. Our theory is that if we have hundreds of these initiatives join the movement, we can truly and long lasting we change the face of this planet and change the way humans interact with nature to a sustainable route sustainable path. So yeah, tell us tell the world about us. I am going to stop with my presentation. Hand over to john for some wise introductory words john. Well, thank you, Peter. And thanks for everybody who's coming in. Everyone will hear this later on. Personally, I'm really happy that the movement is growing. It really needs to, because we live in interesting times. This is a Chinese kind of a concept, and it's not a good thing. You want to let you want to go to the garden and look at the moon and drink some heated rice wine and write poetry. And if you live in interesting times, you're forced to do other things. And we're forced to realize that humanity has been making a lot of mistakes for a very long time. And we're now. We're now seeing the results. So there is definitely cause and effect. Human civilization has kind of reversed evolutionary succession. So what I noticed when I was studying ecology is that there's always more biodiversity, always more biomass and always more accumulated organic matter. And that this is the basis of the creation of the oxygenated atmosphere, the freshwater system, the fertile soils. And over historical time, human beings have turned that around, but there's always less biodiversity always less biomass, always less accumulated organic matter. And this has led to the deregulation of the hydro hydrological cycle the weather the climate the reduction in fertility in the soil. And we are there. And no amount of container ships, going back and forth across the world with stuff in them is going to change that. The only thing that's going to change that is if human beings actually change their consciousness and understanding of what's important, and what is the basis of life. And it is very, very satisfying to see that people are joining the movement, the camps are joining the movement. And I would say something, you don't have to know people who have loads of money. We need to have loads of people. Everybody gives $5 or $10 a month to the ecosystem restoration camps foundation. We could go to very large numbers of members. And in the current world. That's a cup of coffee or two cups of coffee a month to share with this movement. We've got a million people to share 10 $10 a month. We would have 120 million dollars per year to share with camps. Now this is completely different than grant writing or, or writing proposals. The opportunity, then to be led by the people. And I think we should all realize that everyone is equal that what we're looking for is a horizontal social organization, not a vertical system. And that everyone, if we all have the ability to work together to collaborate, we're not in competition with one another, we're working together. And that is what makes it possible for us to do amazing things. So as individuals, we're very limited. But if we all work together, we can do things which are quite amazing. And somehow, over time, we've been socialized to kind of compete with one another. And we need to realize that no one will remember that that that's not important. And that's what we understand and what we do that's reflected in how the ecosystems function that that will determine the quality of life for all living things in the future. There's a couple of other things that are happening which I'd like to just invite, let you know about. One is that the UN decade for ecosystem restoration is getting a bit more functional. And there is a youth task force working on food. And I think if we can tell and work with the young people so that they understand that there is a way for them to directly today tomorrow and every day work, which is more effective at actually infiltrating water or, or mitigating human impacts on climate change or just restoring community restoring us to a place where humanity is in a better place. I, I don't know if in America, it's just unbelievable what's going on with these mass shootings. So I can't, I'm traumatized every day, whenever I turn on the news or open the paper it's just horrible. So one thing is the UN decade that's that's happening and we're going to have many more chances to engage large numbers of young people and the young people will be leaving this. The second thing is, I've mentioned this a few times. This is a group called eco flicks. I don't know if you've seen eco flicks but it's ECO FLIX.com eco flicks.com. And what's interesting about eco flicks is, they will give that they have a large number of films, mainly on animals, but they have been now putting on something called the great work of our time. And what's interesting about this is that they will give free educational subscriptions to teachers and schools. So if we as activists go to our schools and our teachers everywhere around the world and we say you should get a eco flicks free educational subscription, then children all over the world could learn about these issues. When they're young, they don't have to wait until they're older they can see it. And some of the places in the developing world they don't have many educational resources so this could really be important for them. So those are the things that I've been thinking about. And I think we need to work on just. To change the name to communities. We need to understand what it means to be in community. We need to all kind of take that to heart that we are part of a whole. We're not just individuals. And that's what I'm working on and thinking about and we're going to have a great presentation. Now, and a new camp a very large and interesting collaboration. So I'm very happy to learn more and I'm sure you will be too. So welcome again and thanks for listening to me. I hope you enjoy this and I'll stay as long as I can I do have another meeting later today but I'll stay as long as possible after the presentations to talk with anybody who's interested. Thanks john. Thanks for the introductory remarks and this the spirit and the, the, what is called the charge, I guess, or the impulse that you just gave. I'm going to turn it over to Anne and Florence. And starts from, I'm not going to introduce you any further because I've seen your presentation and you will explain perfectly well what you're doing and who you are so and I give the group to you. Hello everybody. I'm just uploading my presentation. Can everybody see. See. Okay. Well, we're very excited to be here. And like john was mentioning, starting this, this community. So we always hear bad news everywhere so when I started to be an ecosystem restoration communities. It's good to hear some good news on restoration. And also, we're doing this with and from innovation is a lumbra. I'm Anne McEnany. I'm a senior program officer at a lumbra innovations foundation. And we are a collective of businesses and nonprofits that's working toward a world in which community environment and economy function as an integrated system for well being. We have a high risk tolerance. We're always learning. We try to think as holistically as we can. And we have a long term commitment to the projects that we work on. I'm working with the team from Rancho Cacochillas on the land and water stewardship strategy for our collective and Rancho Cacochillas really is the crown jewel of where we demonstrate what's possible. It's where we test. It's where we invest. It's where we innovate. And it's where we invite others. And eventually we hope to influence to forge connections to build community awareness. And to, as john says, to equip the learners, workers and leaders of tomorrow with the care and the passion that we have for the land. We really consider Rancho Cacochillas a hope spot in the world. And we're proud of what we've done, but we're here to learn. And that's, we want to thank you all for inviting us and for allowing us a seat at the table to share what we know but also to allow us to ask questions and and learn from everything that you're doing around the world. Rancho Cacochillas is in Mexico and the California Peninsula at their very tip in the Cape region. I would like to mention that it's a very arid landscape we the rains that we get it's around 200 to 250 millimeters per year. Normally it's with the monsoons from August to October. The rains had changed over time before we got rains. Well, when you talk to elders 50 years ago they would say that rains would start in June, but now rains are more scarce. And the rainy season is every time a little bit smaller. And also one of the things to say is that because of this rdT, the human footprint is very small. There's not a lot of people around here in the whole state, there's around 1 million people so it's not a very dense state. We're going down zooming in into Rancho Cacochillas. What Rancho Cacochillas is this polygon. And we've been adding other polygons, as you can see around here, all of these two. So there's around 16,000 hectares that in some day we will have to manage for the moment, the ones that we have been managing are the ones that are in green. The green is the fences. And it's about 50% of the total land that is being under conservation. So after 10 years of conservation, we can see the differences like in the wild populations. Like 10 years ago we could see these groups of deer in the summertime when everything's dry and animals gather into the springs. 10 years ago maximum groups were three deers. Now we see groups of six, seven deers and sometimes we see males too in there. So these are some of the regeneration programs. There's a lot of programs going on in Rancho Cacochillas. So Rancho Cacochillas is part of the tourism ranch. It's part of the profit, but we're working with the foundation with them to so Rancho Cacochillas can be a farm school where people can learn of these practices and start replicating them outside of our boundaries. And then there's the watershed management, the holistic livestock management, and then there's a regenerative agriculture. So as you can see here the fence effects on the right side is inside of Rancho Cacochillas, you can see much more vegetation. This was fenced out like in 2020 so the changes can be very fast once you protect it. So we started fencing because normally here ranchers have their cattle roaming around freely. So once animals are roaming freely they go to where there's better vegetation, more forage. So to the point that they overgray, they compact and at the end they desertify so we start to have more bare ground coming in. So this is a zoom in to the ground as you can see on the outside. There's a lot of bare ground in the back, and also when you can see like directly to the soil there's barely vegetation covering it. And on the right side, you can see how the annual grasses are coming in and how they are weaving all the leaves that are drying from the from other bushes that are around. This is NDVI picture image of one of our sites, one of the ranches. It's called the Ancon Ranch. If you can see here inside Ancon, this has been protected for more than 12 years. And this is the outside that now is protected for two years. But just as we compared like the reddish, the yellowish are the, it's more bare ground and the greens, the dense green is dense vegetation. So you can see that as a sky image how it can change. And also one of the things that I wanted to point it out is the percentage of organic matter. Like inside of the 10 year fencing there's 1.45% of organic matter, and outside it's 0.89. It may seem a little bit, but if you do the math, normally 1% of organic matter in the soil can hold 150,000 liters in one hectare. So just here inside it would be around 80,000 liters of the soil to retain more water for every hectare. It starts to act more as a sponge. On the watershed management, it's what we do is different kinds of gabions. The kinds of gabions we do is according to the sites from the slopes and also into the small creeks and the arroyos that we call. So on the slopes, we use a lot of small branch bundles to retain water on the sides and also these ute bags that are filled up with sand and a small mix of cement. And down into the arroyos we use a little bit more of rocks that are available around there. And in the bigger arroyos we use rock and cement dams. So I just want to give a small example of one place that we fenced for four years and erosion kept going on. But once we started with these small branch bundles and these ute bags, one year after, well after the rains, a lot of annual grasses and annual plants started to come in. This is the gabions after the rainy season. You can see how much soil is being retained here. And also we have an example on the ranch of a kind of stairway of gabions going up the arroyo. And now after eight months of after the rains, it still has water running where other canyons that we haven't worked are drying out. The whole estate life stock management is another way we we try to regenerate the land. We started that in 2014. With 42 Criollo cattle. I highlight the Criollo cattle because it's genetically adapted to the region. The Spanish brought them 400 years ago, and they let them wild into this land. So the ones that are alive right now are have passed through natural selection where they have resisted a lot of heat, the landscape, the lack of foraging summer and a lot of parasites. So it's a very, very adapted genetics for the region. And they're very good at foraging. So we've, when we started, we would move them with vaqueros. That's the local cowboys and with movable corrals. And once the herd started growing, we finally established electric fences that's much more helpful for this kind of land. And we do big, very big paddocks instead of small ones that normally are. We've seen in other examples in the savory methods. Also, last year we started with the holistic big management. We did some genetic studies on them. And it resulted that 87% of our genetics is also Criollo. So we were starting to this program to, to save the genetics of the Criollos. And also we are trying to finalize them in the rainy season when we have all of these wild plums. So the idea is a little bit doing these added value products like brochuto style hams and all those things. And one of the things other things we are doing is regenerative agriculture. It's agricultural practices where we have polycultures with more than 30 species. We don't tell the land, there's crop rotations. And also in summer when it's there's a lot of heat. There's a lot of plants that we can't grow, but we can grow forages. And those forages are organic forages that we use for our goats and cows. We also use compost and bio fertilizers and we do all of them and also the organic pesticides. And also we're creating the seed bank for the regions where we are every year selecting the best plants that we have. So every time we have more genetically adapted seeds to this region. And one of the things that we do also is the educational programs. So as economic alternatives for the region, we have some beekeeping workshops, cheese workshops, the cheeses that we make are much more higher quality. And also they give at least four times more value to the cheeses than the cheeses that are done around here. And also one of the things that is coming soon is a butcher workshop. So also it's added value to the region. As John mentioned, we need to pay attention to the youth around us and make sure that they're connecting with the landscape, so that this land has a future. We call it a STEAM program, which is science, technology, engineering, arts and math. And both our ranch teams as well as visiting scientists work with kids every week to showcase what we're learning to take them to different places and show them how the land is changing and regenerating. And also giving them access to things like drones and binoculars and how science happens on the ground, a naturalist. And these are the kids in the rural areas that because we live in a ranch culture that is aging. Most of the kids have had to go down to town to earn money and to bring back to the family, but the kids are spending more and more time on the landscape. And we're seeing a lot of enthusiasm for the future generations creating more of a to continue the ranch culture and also, but with we're hoping more regenerative practices. And we're trying to think really big. As I said, at the beginning, we really feel like this area is a hope spot for our region. As you can see in the middle of this photo, there's a lot of barren landscape at the top of our watershed with highly overgrazed and excessive drought impacts. It's those are the places that we want to focus on that are outside of our ranch boundaries. That is the property. Those are many, many owners and this is a very ambitious vision, but that's the role of the foundation is to reach those families. And introduce them to new practices and to help provide technical assistance from our ranch teams and other groups working in the area to basically restore this beautiful landscape to the left here. That boundary is a hard boundary, which is the biosphere reserve that is the water source for the entire region. And if we didn't say it before. One of our major goals from the foundation is to recharge these aquifers. We need to be building water back into our system, which is allowing the land to naturally regenerate. We're not able to, because we live in such an arid landscape, we are not able to plant trees. They won't survive. We need to allow the land to tell us where regeneration will happen. And we've been trying to be very thoughtful and methodical about how we move forward. And we're incredibly passionate and we want to move fast, but we want to make sure we're listening to the land at the same time. And also, now that we're in this movement of ecosystem restoration communities. And there's several people around here that have experienced in doing this restoration on a large scale. Well, we're asking for help to see how we can make this 30 year goal, 20 year goal or 15 year goal so we can accelerate this regeneration in this landscape. Well, and I should also say that this is where we hope to encourage the ecosystem restoration communities. Down the road, we haven't opened this project to volunteers yet, but we are very hopeful to have more hands working on this vision with us in the future. Yes, the idea is opening to restores for 2024. Right now, 2023 is more the knowledge exchange and how we can start this camp in Rancho Cacachiles. So, that was the regeneration we do on Rancho Cacachiles and also we wanted to talk about how we are suffering climate change here in our region. As I mentioned earlier, the rainy season is every time a little bit smaller. And in 2020 we had an exceptional drought. It was the driest year over the last 70 years. And after that we had two good rains. So that had, we think had a possible trigger stress on a lot of in the ecosystem. So there was a lot of cactus and trees right now that we are seeing that are sick, and some are even dying. Also in that year in 2020, a lot of cattle died. It was a lot of virus going in the ecosystem. Also a lot of deers died and also some hairs died. So it was pretty dramatic for that year. So just to give you an example, in that year we had a 50 millimeter rain in Rancho Cacachiles. Normally it's 200 to 150 millimeters per year. And some parts of the ranch didn't even rain. So these, as I said, plants started to stress. So when they stress their defenses go down. So there's a lot of beetle damage in some trees. And it's, I wanted to point this tree out. This is a bursera tree. These normally have some chemicals that don't allow beetles to come in. And now there's a lot of beetles attacking a lot of trees. And also there's apical constriction in some of the cactus. That's when they pass through drought or water stress. And also the fungi on some trees is, there's more fungi on the trees now. And also we can see a lot of cactus that are yellowing. And also some cactus, they have like gray skin. And also the apex where the growth normally goes, it's graying out. So we've seen that some cactus that have more than 50 to 60% of graying, that inhibits its photosynthesis. So some, they are most probably, they, they can die if they, there's more gray on their bodies. And this is what he wanted to share of Rancho Cacachillas. And did you want to add something? Oh, we're just really grateful to be part of the network and to learn from you all. And please anything you have to contribute in terms of learning from the last slides we shared on the drought. We're still trying to determine the root causes. Although there are, it's probably a multiple, multiple stressor cause, but anything that anyone's learning around the world in these same kind of arid regions would be helpful to us. Yeah. Thanks both. And I think we need to be grateful that you decided to join this community with all the knowledge that you bring and all the insights you already share. And in our conversations in the last few months. Arid regions have a lot of ear sees in them. And in these aren't regions, there's a lot of learning going on, but there's also a lot not not yet know. And the search for what will work in restoring our regions and the search, you know, starting at a smaller scale. That's something that we that we're jointly trying to find out. And I'm actually looking forward to that conversation starting with Somalia. Somalia, Turkey, Northern Africa. All the places started dealing with droughts, droughts and droughts Southern Africa. And seeing the impacts on vegetation that have always been there. But they're starting to die and how then to kickstart that. Existing again, and I saw in the comments. Jonathan from hotland that I visited last week or two weeks ago now Jonathan. Huge fire has changed the forest landscape into a desert landscape. And there's some major challenges there too so I think around the world we're trying to grapple with this and I see one of our greatest experts john raises hand because he saw an arid region change, which is are so many of us are in this movement in China but maybe you have some other insights to john that you would like to share. Yes, first of all, front and, and thank you so much for that presentation it's so exciting to have you in the communities and to imagine what we can do together around the world so I think I have a lot of relevant information for you. I'm hopeful that we can have more times to discuss this and five ways to collaborate. But I did want to tell you that we've been working on something called the echo aces with Dr john Todd. And this is, I wonder you might have, you know about the biosphere experiments, or you might know about the Eden project in Britain. We're using geodesic domes and understand that if we, if we create geodesic domes, we can actually control many climate parameters within that. And we can use these as incubators. It's possible to maintain different relative communities inside the dome. And in doing that, it allows you to create an incubator which couldn't in grow soils we one of the one of the things that has been been working is early precursors of soils. And the diatoms, for instance, are critical for the creation of soil, early succession soils, and it's possible to bloom these rapidly in, in the echo aces. So this is something that we could talk about because it's already being developed for Egypt and for other other areas. We can find a time soon to connect with that and I'll be, I'll be in Europe relatively soon staying at the echo aces for a while so I'm going to try to do some documentation of it and some writing about about its major characteristics. And be willing to share that. So I got distracted looking for a video that explains the echo aces. And the only one I can find is in Dutch but um, yeah, that's, that's a way to start regeneration again when all is lost but I get the feeling from the satellite imagery you showed that not all is lost yet. So severe drought events are causing some rapid changes. And I, yeah, maybe there's others here who are working in dry areas who'd like to share some insights in this call. And if not, you know, as I said to you will start a design lab on the new you see knowledge platform to see if we can get some of these people that are doing this on a site. So to join up with you guys and have some joint design thinking, take place and see if we can across the globe start to figure out some methods to get out of the stronghold of trap. Because what we do see that if you are able to regenerate areas rain often does return. It's a very interesting correlation. And what I know when we visited the sign I and what we hear from Syria right now is that just stop tilling the soil already holds so much more water. And I know that you guys are doing that anyway. Jonathan has his hand raised and the Jenna has her hand raised Jonathan. I'm more here but it's almost late time and I will in our region. It's very dry. Usually to be very dry before the climate change. So it's raining more than the new year. The cashew tree is very good for restoration this kind of mirror because he likes of dry, dry region. And he is quite producer production, productive in the dry regions. And now the day that it starts running more here in this region Brazil, where we are. Cashew is not so good because he liked the dry. And then we plant the trees. And between the trees we can restoration the soil, because they protect for the very, the sun and very erosion and very things that like that. And then Cashew it's a very, very good for restoration dry season in Africa and in Asia, they use it to do this too. It's just to share what we are doing here. Thank you. Thanks, thanks so much. I saw your contribution in the chattel so Jonathan, you've got your laptop turned on. Yeah, I just noticed that Carlos put in a comment on this topic. But I think that what we have to recognize looking at that graph that was shown. We're having really extreme weather events. It's not just a drought here in California we're having flooding. In fact, this week here in Northern California. We've had two inches of brain or even two or three inches of hail in mid May which is our you know warming spring season. In just a few hours or less. We literally had, you know, a hail down for yesterday here. I think we have to look at ways of introducing kind of broadcast soil amendment, and I had a really interesting suggestion from a registered professional forestry yesterday about bringing in pine needles. People are trying to get rid of pine needles in areas where there is fire danger, but introducing them back into a region that has lost those pine needles may actually be more conducive to holding the soil from these heavy day looses. And simultaneously we're not introducing a potential pathogen like wood chips, or hey which would introduce invasive species. So coming up with really creative solutions for your specific ecological region is is crucial. I'm just interested to hear what people are doing to address the extreme differences in weather patterns that we're experiencing the climate change is not like on a linear trajectory. It's up and down. And this is why I think, you know, ideas like john is promoting are both good and somewhat troublesome we don't want to wall ourselves off and have some kind of conservation fortress, or have a technological solution that can't be sustained, but looking at the local ecological solutions that promote the resilience to these dramatic climate differences. Here we're having a really really cold springs we're getting snow, this may, which is not unheard of, but it's definitely more extreme after these times that we've experienced for years so I just like to hear what people are suggesting as kind of biological solutions also to their local climate catastrophes. Thanks. So before I give it to you john Carlos, if you're willing, as I see your contribution in the chat, which talks about also about a more system system based approach using local governments and everything. Could you share a bit more about that. Sorry to put you on the spot. Carlos, no. Don't worry. Carlos if you're, if you're there you're muted. If you're interested in speaking. I would, I would just say that in many of the successful restoration projects that I've seen. We took a method to stimulate and and increase the rapidity of evolutionary succession. So they were expressing. They were necessarily always endemic or or indigenous species, but they were expressing pioneer species that would grow rapidly. It's interesting in China where where I began to study this. They used really fast growing and non native species. Now when you go to these areas you don't really see those you see a massively diverse, higher succession situation, which, in many cases return, because the legacy genome was there dormant, but the conditions were not right. And I think when you're what you're saying, when you say you can't plant trees. I think this is what this suggests. And I found one one agronomist. And I would say scientist who was working in Kenya. He actually won many awards for his restoration efforts. His name is Renee Pollard. I don't have a chance he's quite old at this point. I don't know how his condition is we had helped him 15 years ago to. He had had many masters and PhD students studying within. And there is a place called Pollard Park near Mombasa. I was working for a cement factory. And the cement factory had completely done this open pit mining to get aggregate for cement through from calcium carbonates so uplifted coral from ancient coral, and they were just wiping it out. There was nothing left there was no vegetation there was no, and when you do this the other thing that's very important to understand is, when you, what you mentioned with your orange color, coloration in the, in the satellite imagery is that when you expose the soil the solar radiation directly hits the ground. In my experience, the temperature increases are enormous. They're like 1520 degrees that's normal. 10 degrees would be like, you know, you know, not very much. And I've seen as much as 45 degrees differences between below a vegetative canopy and unexposed soils. So, when you do this, you're altering the physics. And when you alter the physics, then you're pushing the moisture into the upper atmosphere where it's no longer circulating close to the earth. This is the phenomenon. There's one more aspect that I noticed about this. It's not simply in the organic material in the soil. So it's not just about infiltration and retention in the organic layer that's important, very important and that should be a sponge. And it should be moist and friable and have a lot of porous areas for the water to go down. But actually, the water is in the vegetation. So, so the cellular water it's almost like there's, there's different kinds of water you know we talk about gaseous or we talk about liquid or we talk about solid, but actually it's cellular we're 70% water. So, so the water is in the, in the, in the living material. And the canopy the height of the canopy. That's also a critical understanding is when the higher the canopy. That's where the solar radiation is interrupted. And you get this micro climate below the canopy. So the higher the canopy. The larger this, this micro climate is below the canopy and that's where the moisture circulates and the temperatures are massively lower. So those are those are things. If, if, if you could emulate the, the evolutionary succession, starting with pioneer species and going further up. A rapid, a rapid change. And the other thing that happens is, it reduces the wind speed changes the wind direction and lowers vortex activity. And one of the extreme weather events that we're talking about are the result of these enormous surface temperature changes, and the reduction of the density of the air. So that's what it makes me think about when I hear what you're facing. John, there's an important point in what you raised is that many restorative restorationists feel hesitant about non-endemic species and succession in that sense. Still, you know, the fear of invasives. I don't know about you Florence, how you feel about those. But they, yeah, we do see evidence everywhere that they speed up that restoration process simply by providing shade to endemic species who otherwise find it difficult to grow and indeed help with that hydrological cycle. Jonathan has his hand raised again, but do Florida and want to respond to any of these conversations so far or things suggested in the chat. Yes, I just wanted to add a little bit on what John was saying, but just to answer a little bit of your invasive species. There's there's several ones, but like the ones that we worry most about is buffalo grass. Because of what its history is in the world. It's very, it likes a lot fire. And the species around here didn't evolve with fire. So if we have more buffalo grass, there's going to be more fires. And it can be a monoculture of buffalo grass in some point. That's one of them and the other one. I don't know the rubber vine. It, it's a vine that comes from Madagascar. And it's very invasive in the, in the arroyos. So like in the where the water where there's more water. So those are invasive species that we're trying to get out of the system before we start the revegetation of the area because once we start revegetation and there's more water in the system, those are going to proliferate much more. And I just wanted to add what John was saying of the micro climate. More people hear the elders when you listen to the elders 50, 60 years ago, rain started in June and went up to October and there could be like 30 rain events. And it wasn't like very hard rain. It was more soft rain of what I've heard from them. And now when we have rain, it's in August, sometimes September and sometimes it's just one event per year. And for me, it's part of that, that there's a lot of bare ground that's pushing the clouds away. And what we want to do with a 30 year goal is start to revegetate the whole system, the whole region to the point that we can bring the clouds back and their brains back as it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. And it will work. Carlos said that his microphone is working. I'll give you the floor after Jonathan because he's had his hand raised for a while and then I'll give it to you Carlos. Jonathan. Why don't we hear from Carlos first because I'm kind of responding to his comments. Feels very parliamentary. He yields to you Carlos. Okay, thanks. Well, I just got to say it's been quite interesting because we gathered local organizations because of the policy and management. We have a lot of fullness in our city, in Queretaro City. Here is the city next to Mexico City. So we have dry lands and we have a very exacerbated urbanization model. So we were running out of green areas to recharge aquifers and to allow the hydrological cycle to properly function. We started making pressure because also we got our water privatized by a model of public private association here in our city with corrupt governments and all kinds of Mexican things, you know. So it has been hard, but we are still pushing. We are growing, we call it collective intelligence with the concept, but it is about we are learning and educating about water. So we have lawyers. I am an environmental engineer with the watershed management master's degree. But we also have a lot of artists and different fields of working for water. So we wish to, we are looking forward to help expand this kind of networking in other countries in other places just like ecosystem restoration communities to understand and on a deeper level of water from chemistry from society to social and cultural meanings. And we are celebrating with the protection of Pena Colorado because it is a micro watershed which joins three aquifers, which will allow to recharge the groundwater from our metropolitan zone. But also there are a lot of errors coming like aqueducts and a lot of things that we are not happy our government to commit, but we are still pushing. Okay, thanks. And feel free to join the movement. We are not a competitive organization costs, the initiative is nothing to be part of us. The only thing we ask is that you share your insights and your knowledge seems like you have quite a few of those so be very welcome for people in other water stressed areas to hear about your approach. Maybe it can be copied. Jonathan. Yeah, I love this topic. And I also know that it's quite controversial. Those who are initially working on some of these things were even referred to as eco terrorists when they were trying to relocate plants. You mean invasives or exotics. Yeah, well exotics. Maybe one word. I don't like the word invasive. I mean we're in a global ecosystem at some level that you know there's colonization that's been happening for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds if not longer years. And migration, I like the word migration, and how do we assist migration. And simultaneously, I think we have to recognize the importance of indigenous peoples and species. So one of the approaches that I'm doing because I found out that the state seed bank does not have any seeds in the seed bank. And from the valley, the region in which I'm in, is I'm looking to collect seeds from trees from in in DEMIC species that have a history of living through these kind of environmental conditions from the edges in which the fire did not actually touch. We used to have trees forming a canopy that John mentioned how important the canopy is that were, you know, 150 meters high. And most of those trees have have died within the fire zone. But there are edge trees that I'm discovering, as I hike around into the wilderness and looking to try to find ways to find these from those historic genetics, the progeny, will simultaneously, I'm bringing trees from lower and drier elevations up mountain which is the way that a lot of commercial forestry units are doing. And the federal government is also doing a reforestation project where they're introducing a different kind of pine. And so I don't think it's an either or but an and also, and I think we do have to work on our, you know, heirloom heritage seed banks. And so I think there's, you know, something that we can provide as local activists and local, you know, whatever we want to call ourselves restoration experts to try to find those seeds. And to propagate them from species that were endemic to the area prior. And so I'm approaching this in this way and hoping to have some camps that are specific around seed collection from native species. So that's a thought that I have. So, Florence and others. There's invasive being pushed on you or the exotic, but you responded with two that are threatening the health of the ecosystem. The ones you mentioned the grass. Could introduce fire and the divine. And as a way to rewet the system. How do you think about that? What is your response as an expert on your ecosystem? Well, as Jonathan says, like invasive is kind of a mean term. I understand that. And also as humans, we're pretty invasive so they're, but for us, for me, there's several species that we can use more in like, like in the fruit forests, like where the canyons are where there's more humidity. What we've been using as that could be possibly invasive. But is a moringa tree. So moringas. As you know, our super foods, and here they grow very good. So for us, it's an alternative for us to to eat as vitamins. But we use it a lot for our animals that normally in the, in the dry season, we have to supplement. And supplementation here for animals is alfalfa and it's what it comes from the low lands where there's a lot of exploitation of the aquifer. And it's used with chemicals. So that's something that we're trying to get out of our equation with some other species that's not native. I'm not against using other species, if we can use them in benefit of everyone. I'm so fast at this question. I forgot looking at the time, but the hour has officially ended. And if you feel obliged to stay, you don't have to. We can also start to migrate into any other issue you would like to discuss with this group being here because it's an interesting group of people. So that's sort of how fireside chats evolve. That's perfectly possible. If you are having to run away, feel free, we're not offended. That's okay. But because the official hour has ended, I would like to formally thank you, Florence and Anne for your contribution and john or your contributions and everyone else who's contributed to this discussion. And if you don't mind, I will end the recording, although I'm sure I'm going to miss some great conversation. So you can persuade me to do differently for people who may want to see this after this conflict, this, this zoom ends. Maybe we should leave it on. I'm thinking out loud now. I see Ali saying yes, leave it on. I'll leave it on such influential persons. Yeah, so feel free to leave but free free also to freely contribute because we're in a very good content conversation right now. That is producing knowledge that might be useful for others who see this later and absolutely feel free to go. Thank you for being here. And Carlos is going to chase you. Good. I hope Carlos is still here. I just don't need him again. No, Carlos. No, because I feel is very interesting any project that is involving water. I'm really worried. So a brief introduction I have a Spanish name I have Colombian, but I'm also half Italian I grew up in Italy, and one big project regarding water is taking no place in Lake Como, because in Italy there has been the worst droughts in the past year. And the glaciers are melting. So, even places where usually don't face this problem now are facing me. And I think it's really good to connect and maybe in the knowledge exchange open a conversation about this. We have lost Carlos so I don't know. I'm watching it. I'm watching it. I didn't keep it. Tell us what you want to say. Just that like it's so interesting. I mean, some parts of the water get in dryer and dryer and some others. Christina shared with me a few weeks ago. An amazing video of the desert in Jordan with grass in April. So maybe these are just circles. Yeah, but it's interesting. I'm really worried about Italy. So I would like to connect everyone that is doing something similar together. Yeah, that was my intervention. Thanks. Thank you, Ali. And absolutely I think we need to figure out some sort of structured dialogue about water stress areas and strategies. Anyone else would like to contribute something if not then we're going to slowly wind down to ending this call but John. Yeah, that's one too. I would just say that this, the situation with extreme and erratic weather events is going to continue for some time. It's not possible for this to, to be corrected quickly, but I think it's interesting to know that the surface temperatures are what's driving wind speed wind direction and vortex activity so I just want to you know, reinforce that idea that when we understand this, then we start to see that there are microbiologic biologic issues, but there's also So, you know we need to really be generalists or be holistic about our view of this. So, when we're thinking about hydrology in some of the places that I've been and in research institutes and in development projects with UN and World Bank and others. There's some misunderstandings in thinking about hydrology they're not necessarily thinking about the cycling all the time. They're thinking about quantities, like when I'm, I'm currently in California. And California has been thinking about water, more or less as if the river systems and the aquifers and reservoirs that have been built are just storage facilities, and, and we have a big pipe and we just turn it on and take the water. It's a very simplistic view. And it's not understanding the, the, the concept of the cycling of the moisture. And then I think the other thing that's really important about this is that it's not simply local impacts that we're having. We're having local impacts, which then release. So if you have, if you have very high surface temperatures, creating thermic drafts and pushing moisture into the upper atmosphere. You're actually now losing that water from the local system. So where is it going. You know, and I think this is this is the interesting thing now, which is coming up in scientific areas is looking at how does this affect the global things we're having in California this year. And last year have been dealing with atmospheric rivers. So they were, they were dealing with drought for more than a decade, and then suddenly they're hit with atmospheric rivers. And we saw this in Spain, a couple of years ago, where there were right on our, the camp in Altiplano there was this event called I don't know what they exactly call it, but it was just this unbelievable cloud formation. That cloud formation just dropped all the water in one go. Huge huge just push down. It's, I've never, I had not actually thought that that was such a thing because what what we're seeing is, we're in the scarcity. We're looking at just achieving critical mass for compensation and precipitation. In the case that we changed the physics on the planet, we're pushing huge amounts of moisture into the upper atmosphere. And there are two aspects about the moisture in the upper atmosphere one, it's a greenhouse gas. And it's more of a greenhouse gas, and it's more prevalent than CO2. And it's more effective as a greenhouse gas or more impactful as a greenhouse gas, and it's more, more quantitatively larger than the CO2 in the atmosphere. And secondly, that water is going to come down. Quite interesting. One person I've been working with is Professor Mian Mian, who was in the Mediterranean. He was the director of the Mediterranean climate monitoring station in Spain for many many years. He's now quite old he's in his 80s. But his work is remarkable in that it shows, and he was able to very, very accurately pinpoint where the water would come down. So this, this is something that most people are not getting to this level of granularity in their, in their considerations of these things, but he's been doing that and there are some institutes, but it's, it's, there's a lot of work to do in this but I think we need to be aware of this. And we need to kind of consider, and that's why we have to work locally, but we also have to work simultaneously on a planetary scale, because this is not about a single place. So when we have these kinds of impacts, where it's, it's global impact. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone want to contribute to the conversation. Hi Chris, I see your video turned on. Chris, you may want to unmute yourself there you go. There we go. Yeah, lovely to hear from everybody again inspiring presentation. I want to give some voice into the invasive vegetation conversation. Because in our situation we are dealing with what established 5060 70 year old established lot of mature invasive vegetation and declining diversity. I feel like the capacity of organizations and initiatives to monitor and manage appropriately in the long term is really important in that decision making as well. The risk of initiating something and not seeing it through and then not knowing the long term knock on effects down the line. So, I think it's always very contextual to understanding the ecosystem and the project within the ecosystem and looking at those dynamics over time. My input into into that warning to be careful and considerate and to make sure you have a deeper understanding if that's my interpretation. I see Jonathan applauding that. Thank you Chris. Anyone else want to contribute. John. I think that what's happening there and in Baja is really good because they're planning for this. I mean at least for decades, and they have the long term goal in in place. That true Florence, you're, you're really dedicated to the monitoring and understanding. Yes, yes, it's true. Are you already working with restore. The, the, the technical university in Zurich. No, I haven't heard about them. Okay, well, I will get you in touch. Yeah, we'll put you directly in touch with. Thank you. Well, I'll send make our team members current on the shuttle today and mail because we will help you will help you get uploaded to the restore platform is a really good platform to monitor what you're doing. Your hands still raised Chris you want to add some more or is that an accidental raised hand struggling with your phone I think. That's okay. I think the enthusiasm to contribute this is going down and might be because it's late in the evening in some parts of the world or the day is waiting and the work is waiting. So I think I'm going to close this wonderful session. It is recorded we will publish it on YouTube, right Ali. Thanks to go watch it and learn, and I think john one of our big next efforts with the advisory council should be a dedicated session with your seasons water stress and some of the experts in the council to start discussing what we can what we can invent, learn from each other and do to help each other. Let me just add something to that then. We have been talking with the Buckminster Fuller Institute and also with common land foundation. Also, potentially with the Presencing Institute and others to to join in design laboratories on a planetary scale. So this could work by directing it toward different projects. So, whatever project is meeting it can just raise their hand and say focus on us. And then we can gather everyone together and look at that and and find out different ways to connect and collaborate. Yeah, that is the intent to collaborate and to build a system that can deal with the complexity and they can bring in all those talents. I am going to wish you a very pleasant evening from my perspective but it might be morning or day in your perspective. And I hope to see you again in a next session with a new project that will present itself. Very likely to come to talk about droughts and vegetation cover. But as we do this, the knowledge will grow. Thank you for participating and see you probably next month already. Thank you. The recording will be on YouTube. Thank you all very well. Thank you. Thank you everybody and everyone else.