[act-ma] 12/14/20 - Biomimicry Restoration: Healthy Oysters for Healthy Coasts, Oceans and Climate

[gmoke]

"Biomimicry Restoration: Healthy Oysters for Healthy Coasts, Oceans and Climate
Monday, December 14, 2020, from 5 - 6 p.m. EDT
Register for free at https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/1016072887368/WN_mUknppwnTi-Qy97BCNlGbQ?blm_aid=25138
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, in partnership with the GBH Forum Network, is honored to present Marine Biologist Anamarija Frankić speaking about the role of oyster habitat restoration in creating healthy living coastlines, oceans, and humans.

"Globally, oyster habitats are the most degraded habitats among coastal systems, with the loss of 99% in the last 150 years. These 350 million years old keystone species and their natural keystone habitats are at the brink of total collapse due to intensive human industrial harvesting and pollution of coastal areas. Science has acknowledged the ecological value of oyster habitats and their importance to coastal health and protection. We now know that oyster habitats used to embrace coasts of all continents, protecting them and supporting life and water quality, often growing up to 10 cm/year. How can we best work with nature and help restore species, habitats and natural systems? This presentation will address the biomimicry approach for oyster habitat restoration locally and globally in order to recover marine health and resiliency. "


I’ve followed Anamarija Frankić’s projects in Boston Harbor for years now.  She is doing the work and blazing the trail.  She’s also a very good teacher and researcher well worth listening to.

This event is part of the Life Saves the Planet lecture series, from Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and and GBH, the local PBS operation.  Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (https://bio4climate.org/) has been organizing important conferences on the many different aspects of geotherapy, using ecological systems to repair the damage homo sap sap (that sap) has done.  You can access their conference proceedings at https://bio4climate.org/conferences/  It is good to see that they have begun collaborating with GBH.


A foundational text on geotherapeutic principles is Geotherapy:  Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429168901) which has made me believe it is possible to reduce atmospheric carbon to preindustrial levels (about 270 ppm) by the end of the century if we did everything we know how to do simply with SOIL consistently and globally with practices that work from flowerpot to thousand hectares scales.

Another is Healing Earth:  An Ecologist’s Journey of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship (Berkeley, CA:  North Atlantic Books, 2019  ISBN 9781623172985) (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/healing-earth/) in which John Todd shares the lessons he’s learned over a lifetime of building, rebuilding, and repairing ecosystems, demonstrably healing portions of the Earth.
 

We remain alert so as not to get run down, but it turns out you only have to hop a few feet to one side and the whole huge machinery rolls by, not seeing you at all.
Lew Welch

Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous behaviors tha will avoid extinction.  
R. Buckminster Fuller
 
the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.
Diane di Prima