Tierra del Fuego landscape. Credit: Eduard Müller
Eduard Müller on the Challenge of the Sixth Planetary Extinction
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COST RICA REGENERATIVE COMMUNITIES |
For the past thirty years, Eduard Müller, President Rector of the University for International Cooperation, has been deeply involved in addressing the challenges of biodiversity and land regeneration. He has participated in the negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity, in the development of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Earth Charter movement, and in UNESCO’s MAB Programme. Here he speaks frankly about what humanity needs to do, and why we have thus far failed to do it, as we head into the Sixth Planetary Extinction.
Can you explain why you are now so concerned about how we are prioritizing the issues threatening the planet?
Our planet is collapsing first due to a loss of biodiversity and second due to fertilizer use. Biological diversity was very important in the ‘90s, and then it just faded away, and climate change is now what everyone is focused on. The Paris Agreement is at the forefront of that. Meanwhile fertilizer use is not even on the radar in all of these pronouncements we see coming out of the United Nations. The third planetary boundary that we have exceeded is land use, which is inextricably related to agriculture. So climate change as a critical issue is really just in fourth place. That’s why I’ve always preferred to talk about global change, and not only climate change. You believe that our strategies for addressing these global crises have been both framed incorrectly and presided over too often by the power groups who were responsible for having created the crises.
I participated in the framing of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 17. Every single time that the United Nations opened up the floor for those meetings, it was, “We’d like to thank “X, Y and Z Corporation” for their support for having this meeting happen.” And if you look throughout the text of the SDGs it’s very technocratic. It’s the same philosophy, the same mindset that brought us into these problems we’re facing. I was very active in Al Gore’s Climate Reality team back 10 or 12 years ago. He has played a magnificent role in raising awareness globally, but for me his focus on solving the earth’s crises through technology, such as hybrid and electric cars, is not going to be enough. These are all good initiatives, but they’re like putting makeup on stains. |
The Agua y Paz (Water and Peace) Biosphere Reserve, a region characterized by both mountainous areas and areas of lakes, flooded forests and swamps, is among the areas that the Costa Rica Hub is working to regenerate.
You say plants are our best hope to forestall planetary extinction. We are experiencing the Sixth Planetary Extinction, and the difference from the others is it’s the first time we have so much science to back it up. We know exactly how we are going to disappear but we’re not using that information. There’s so much data, so much information. What we have lost is the ability to transform that data, information, and knowledge into wisdom. So we know we need to bring atmospheric CO2 down to below 350 parts per million. If we don’t do it, we won’t make it. I know people in the northern hemisphere have the expectation that they’ll invent a machine that pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere. But we can’t wait. We already have the best machines to do it, which are plants. These machines actually made our planet habitable millions of years ago. Plants pulled CO2 out of the atmosphere, and created conditions for other life. So why not go back to them, instead of continuing to destroy them with traditional agriculture? Your focus at the University for International Cooperation has been on more holistic, interdisciplinary approaches to land use management and on drawing on the wisdom of local communities to address our global challenges.
I founded the University 25 years ago to implement sustainable development, but began to see that the window of opportunity to do that had passed. About four years ago our mission and vision changed to a focus on regenerative development. The only real way we found in practical terms to incorporate that into academic programs was to break down the disciplinary approaches that got us to where we are now. I don’t believe we can solve complex issues through disciplinary approaches. And today, with all of the quantum physics and science that we know, we also know that there’s a spiritual component behind all this that will actually reveal that reductionists approaches can be wrong, that one plus one can actually be five. For me, that spiritual component is not religious, and many people still confuse religion with spirituality. Whenever I talk with other academics about spirituality, especially in the North, especially the famous universities, they just laugh, or they get nervous, they don’t like the word. Spirituality is about consciousness, ethics, values. It is about empathy and recognizing that we are all inhabitants of one home and that other species not only have the right to live here and flourish, but that our wellbeing depends on them. We need nature, nature does not need us. I was involved in the process of the Earth Charter. In the first group meeting back in 1997 we started discussing how to elaborate it, and then we went through the whole process of a consultation, and the launch in 2000. We’ve been working with the Earth Charter as a fundamental component of our academic programs. All students start the programs by working with the 16 principles that the Charter offers. Beyond reading them, they actually have to think on how they can incorporate them into their daily life, their day-to-day actions. You have also been involved for the last 25 years with UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme that works across disciplines to address ecosystem challenges through a World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Can you describe this Biosphere Reserve approach and how it is being implemented?
It’s basically a concept of a territory that is managed by the people who live in it and who decide on how to allocate the uses of the land, from protected areas to more intensive uses. It has three functions, which is conservation, development, and education. So we identify the main constraints for a territory and how it can reverse degradation and do regenerative development. And then we bring the different knowledge areas such as sustainable use, regeneration, connectivity conservation, regenerative agriculture, holistic cattle production, nature-based solutions, ecosystem approach and more, together with local knowledge to solve complex problems in a transdisciplinary fashion. Over the years, we have tried this on several biosphere reserves throughout Latin America working with different stakeholders, such as government, business, local and indigenous communities, but so far not in a systemic way because we didn’t have the resources for it. But I truly believe that’s the way to go. I think there’s a global tendency in recent times that is strengthening local governance over central government. It’s artificial, having one central government. By focusing on territories we can actually involve the local people in decision-making. We need to prepare them, because they don’t always have the training or education, but they do have a lot of knowledge of their place. A big mistake scientists have made, and I would include myself among them at the beginning of my career, is assuming we have all the answers. Indigenous communities have worked on regeneration for ages. The academics are just too proud to go and learn from them. Or if they do, what they usually do is go and take their information and publish it, rarely reverting and generating the deserved benefit at the local level. What we need to do is to go to local communities and work with them, developing the new maps for the territory with them. So this is basically our strategy of what we want to do. And then have these territorial sites as training sites for other places to come and learn. |
The Agua y Paz (Water and Peace) Biosphere Reserve. Photo credits: Eduard Muller
What specific approaches do you take to land regeneration when you engage with a local territory or bioregion?
We look at biodiversity and fertilizer use as the main constraints for keeping our safe operating space for humanity. The only way to actually solve our problems is by recovering biodiversity and eliminating fertilizers, or reducing their use. To do that we need to reintroduce regenerative cattle production to improve the biodiversity of grasslands. Grasses are a lot more efficient at fixing carbon than a forest is. Forests are actually losing carbon because they are drying out, they aren’t going to save us. A big system like a forest cannot adapt to changes quickly, whereas grass is very resilient, and it’s actually a carbon pump. But if you look at the UN documents, they’re all talking about reforestation. We can also learn from what the Cubans did, they were forced to eliminate synthetic fertilizers and pesticides so they increased carbon in the soil with organic matter, and through that they raised productivity and are today producing most of their food requirements without damaging the environment. Within the conservation community there’s a movement that says: “nature needs half to survive so that humans can survive.” By increasing agricultural productivity, we can then release land back to nature. In certain areas that can be natural regeneration. In other cases, we need assisted regeneration. Can you talk about your assisted regeneration, land art project?
We decided to add some more flavor onto this regeneration, to make it economically viable. Land art is actually painting landscapes with trees. I’m not talking about painting them on a canvas, I’m talking about painting them on the mountains. This then turns into an added attraction for tourism. In Costa Rica, tourism is basically the most important economic sector we have. But there are areas of the country where people just drive through. They don’t stop to eat or do anything else because there’s nothing to attract them. So along these areas if we can create land art, and turn these areas into beautiful canvases, then for three or four months a year we can have flowers. We finance this through voluntary carbon markets. We actually are selling each tree we plant through the carbon markets. We started two and a half years ago with a pilot project managed by Natural Pact in the mountain slopes of the Central Pacific area of Costa Rica and the process to plant 100 hectares has been started. We got the first flowering this year. Of course the trees are still only 3-4 meters high and it will take probably another 5 years to see the paintings on the mountainsides. But here in the tropics, after 8 or 9 years, basically you have a pretty good secondary forest growing. If it’s assisted, then things work. A land art pilot project of Natural Pact in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica. Above: An artistic rendering of the landscape plan, and Year 1 and Year 2 of its implementation.
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How will the empowered role civil society now plays in territorial governance in Costa Rica potentially support regenerative land use initiatives in the country? In 2012 a law was passed in Costa Rica that divided the country into 28 territories. Under this law the territorial council decides what happens in each territory and is composed 60 percent by civil society and both local and national government representing a maximum 40 percent. So even when the government changes, the council still has its priorities and its projects defined. The UNESCO Bioreserve concept was based on having local governance councils, but their functioning has had different levels of success. We hope to prove that by having a legal backing as we do in Costa Rica, we can implement regeneration in large areas. The Nicoya Penninsula, where the Costa Rica hub is also developing land regeneration projects.
Where are you working now in Costa Rica on this Bioregional approach?
The Costa Rica hub is already starting to work in four different territories: the Water and Peace Biosphere Reserve, the Savegre Biosphere Reserve, the Osa Peninsula, and the Nicoya Peninsula. We would like to have at least 1000 hectares in each territory to work with. So we are looking at about 4000 hectares. We are going to meet over the next few weeks with the territorial councils and will start defining with them what activities we can actually begin working with, and to identify farmers that are willing to start working with us. Through the local councils farmers can access government funding for their projects. But this will take time and we have to go through the legal processes. We’ve already had successful workshops with agriculture in Nicoya, so we know we can produce healthy food applying agro-ecological principles. Now we are in the process of organizing the first two or three courses together with Savory Institute to train farmers on holistic cattle production. We plan to train over 400 farmers and at least 100 cattle ranchers next year. These will also be trained as trainers so we can have an exponential impact on thousands of farmers over the course of a few years. We’re going to be trying to incorporate three components in every farm: organic agriculture or regenerative agriculture, regenerative cattle farming, and regeneration of natural spaces. Now there are areas, like Nicoya peninsula, where it’s mostly cattle production at the moment. But the local hotels and restaurants have to bring in vegetables all the way from San Jose, and San Jose brings them in from other parts of the country. So by the time they get there, they’re wilted, they’re not good quality. So we will be developing in Nicoya the capacity for producers to sell directly to the hotels and restaurants. We are going to work with the One Health Approach, which means that we will be controlling health from the soil to the fork. We can do this at a local level, by training the farmers, and certifying the health processes. We will have to work out all the details and mechanisms for them. We have successfully developed through our Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which is registered as an official incubator with the Ministry of Commerce, training processes that have allowed women and youth to set up their own companies. We are now expanding this training to our hubs with the intention of developing circular economies that allow for local wellbeing. We’ve trained over 3,500 women from extreme poverty in Costa Rica over the last three years with over 90 percent success rate, and we expect to do the same with youth. We have introduced similar programs in Argentina and in Peru. We need to retain youth in rural areas, but to do that we need to bring in technology. The university has signed a contract with a company in Israel to bring technology agricultural development hubs to our hub. These include intelligent irrigation systems, green houses, drones, adding value, and establishing value chains. You believe it is critical that we scale up this work quickly and that we have the resources to do it.
We’ve been working with pilot projects too long. We have two billion severely degraded hectares of land around the planet. We have the resources and money is available to increase the soil carbon sequestration capacities of those hectares by 2 or 3 percent within the next five years. Those resources and money are just not being channeled into the right direction. We don’t need 50 years to do it. If we had 10 percent of what the US spends on military every year we could bring the planet back to 350 or even 300 parts per million. It’s something that is doable, and it’s doable very quickly because we have the people on the ground. We don’t have to bring experts from around the world. |