A Myrtleford raised regeneration pioneer hopes to replace climate despair with hope through his book, which outlines his experiences transforming an arid African landscape to a lush forest.
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Tony Rinaudo AM launched his autobiography The Forest Underground: Hope for a Planet in Crisis in Beechworth last night with an in-person discussion.
"Let's not sit down and crumble at the challenge, let's get up and do something about it," he said.
"That's it in a nutshell.
"I see a lot of despair about the ecologic crisis and climate and I'd like to give people a message of hope."
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Mr Rinaudo, an agronomist, pioneered an affordable and effective reforestation technique, Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, in the 1980s while he was working in the African country of Niger.
"What we were doing initially was to plant trees from a nursery the same way we do here in Australia," he said.
"The land had been cleared and it became almost impossible to practice agriculture because of the strong winds, the high temperatures and the loss of soil fertility."
Mr Rinaudo said it was impossible.
"So we started off, we had nurseries, we had raised the seedlings and carted them out to the villages and wished the community planted them, but most of those trees died," he said.
Then Mr Rinaudo had a realisation - the stumps from the landscape's original trees were still there, the trees had been cut down, but were still alive and could resprout.
"What we really needed to do was work with what was there," he said.
"If we could convince farmers and communities that it was in their interest, that they would have a better future for themselves and their children through restoring at least some of these trees, then because you had that rootstock there and latent feed in the ground, the rest would be relatively easy.
"You just needed to work with nature, instead of always destroying, burning, cutting, over grazing."
Mr Rinaudo's approach, FMNR, was so successful it has so far regreened more than 18 million hectares in 27 countries, reduced the carbon footprints and transformed millions of lives and livelihoods.
Mr Rinaudo will launch his book with a series of in-person talks in cities across the North East:
- Myrtleford, Club Savoy, August 24, 7.30pm
- Bright Historic Court House, August 25, 7pm
- Wangaratta Library, August 27, 10.30am
The book can be purchased from ISCAST and is also available as an eBook on Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and Barnes and Noble NOOK.
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