Tag: ecoforestry

The hemp plant is not only the most useful plant in the world, hemp is also a potential climate saver and can even significantly reduce global warming, climate crises and land degradation with appropriate applications. Greening Deserts projects such as the Greening Camps and research stations will use bamboo, hemp and other key plants extensively to improve soil quality and water quality. Various greenhouses and research fields can be established together with the camps for education, research and product development, the projects also serve the climate, nature and environmental protection. At each camp can be special biotopes, botanical gardens, greenhouses and parks for endangered species – especially for cultivating or saving plants, insects and other animals of each climate zone or region.

The groundwater, global waters and water circle can be improved by sustainable hemp cultivation, ecological agriculture, organic farming and innovative water management. Only natural fertilizers will be used and pesticides are avoided, there are many good alternatives. Different bamboo and hemp sorts can be used in almost every climate and under all possible conditions or events. Global hemp cultivation can really contribute to climate, soil and water improvement as well as for a better cultivation of crops and a variety of afforestation or reforestation. The founder and project developer of Greening Camp projects has been developing these innovative and sustainable solutions for years. Climate protection, nature conservation, species protection and plant science are a few of the primary tasks.

Since the Greening Deserts Masterplan in 2017 many of the innovative ideas, developments and solutions have been presented and realized – not only in relation to open-cast mines, open-pit mines and surface mining. Through connected projects, most developments and ideas have been established internationally, even if only conceptually or theoretically. Many of the developments or products can be realized with hemp, e.g. hemp books, papers, nets, tarpaulins, ropes, textiles, packaging materials and other hemp products. Hemp fibers have been used for many centuries in fishery and shipping because of their flexibility, tear resistance and resilience. Nowadays, there are well over 50,000 industrial hemp applications, but far too few are really used. That is why many of the most useful applications are analyzed with the greening and research camps and applied accordingly. Hemp paper, hemp wood and hemp plastic are interesting products, so like the ingredients CBD, THC, etc. – not just for science. Industrial hemp can be used for hemp paper and hemp packaging, saving more trees and forests and reducing global deforestation. It could even reduce the plastic waste, especially the plastic bags. In this relation is the hemp cultivation not just interesting for developing countries with soil and water problems like in Africa, it also has enourmous potential for European countries and whole Europe who missed many of these developments.

More information about hemp plants and hemp paper:

For about 12,000 years people have been using the raw material. Hemp paper was invented in China over 2,000 years ago and reached Europe in the 13th century. For 500 years it was the most widely used raw material in papermaking. Hemp books such as the Gutenberg Bible and other well-known works were printed on hemp papers. Hemp paper is much more stable and durable than wood paper. Hemp paper books last much longer and do not turn yellow fast. Hemp fibers are naturally lighter than wood fibers. Hemp is therefore better suited for paper production than wood.

The cannabis or hemp plant produces several times higher yields than trees in terms of cultivated area and growing time. One hectare of hemp field can replace about 120 hectares of trees. Sustainability, the forest conservation or preservation of the forests, as well as the improvement of the soils, are further advantages of hemp production. In principle, almost all varieties can be used for hemp cultivation. Particularly suitable for hemp fiber production is high-growth industrial hemp. Depending on the variety, hemp plants can grow several meters in just three to four months.
Hemp leaves an optimal field or soil for subsequent plants. According to farmers and hemp farmers, a wheat or potato field can produce up to 20% more yield in the following year. The hemp plant is therefore a perfect catch crop and is also very well suited as a bio fertilizer. In some regions even two harvests per year are possible. Hemp is the ideal plant for ecological and organic farming or sustainable agriculture. In Germany, hemp is not allowed to grow for everyone. The cultivation of hemp is just allowed with certain permits and only for certain agricultural companies. All other companies in agriculture are not allowed to grow hemp, not even private or forestry organisations. This clearly contradicts the positive qualities and benefits for the environment, nature, medicine and society.

Further ecological and economic advantages of the raw material hemp:

• Hemp is very undemanding and grows on almost any soil, the root system loosens up the soil.

• Hemp plants are very resistant to fungal attacks.

• Hemp cultivation creates a slightly wetter climate, hemp fields support biodiversity, especially with respect to insects.

• Hemp plants suppress weeds and improve the soil climate.

• Hemp can clean up poisoned soils, sometimes even from some heavy metals.

• The hemp blossom has many valuable ingredients.

• The hemp plant can be fully utilized, including the foliage, flowers, seeds and stems. There are thousands of applications and products, e.g. hemp tea, hemp oil, hemp paper, hemp textiles or hemp fabrics.

• Hemp fibers are very resistant and therefore usable in many areas.

• Hemp fibers are among the most stable natural fibers in the world.

• Hemp paper can be recycled more often than wood paper, almost every type of paper and cardboard can be made from hemp.

• Hemp books, magazines and newspapers are the future!

More information you can find on the Hemp Papers project pages.

Please care the soil not just on the World Soil Day on 5^th December, care it everyday like your fresh water. If we care more about our soils we care more about ourselfs, our planet Earth and the humanity. The Latin name for man, humans or homo, derived from humus.

Interesting quotes:

About a third of the world’s soil has already been degraded. Soils are the basis of life, ninety five percent of our food comes from the soil. – Maria-Helena Semedo

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a “wood wide web” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods. – Tim Flannery

Collaboration has no hierarchy. The Sun collaborates with soil to bring flowers on the earth. – Amit Ray

Civilization has its roots in the soil. Each soil has had its own history. Like a river, a mountain, a forest, or any natural thing, its present condition is due to the influences of many things and events of the past. – Charles Kellogg

The Earth and soil is the basis of all life, even on the deep undergrounds of the oceans. The deforestation, land degradation and the pollution of air, water and soils by humans is responsible for many climate changes, human-made global warming and even a mass extinction in only 100 years! If humanity will fail to save and protect the most important species, the endangered and keystone species, the human species will also die out – maybe also in just 100 years. – Gediminas Caplikas

History is largely a record of human struggle to wrest the land from nature, because man relies for sustenance on the products of the soil. So direct, is the relationship between soil erosion, the productivity of the land, and the prosperity of people, that the history of mankind, to a considerable degree at least, may be interpreted in terms of the soil and what has happened to it as the result of human use. – Hugh Hammond Bennett

If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us. – David Suzuki

I saw all the people hustling early in the morning to go into the factories and the stores and the office buildings, to do their job, to get their check. But ultimately it’s not office buildings or jobs that give us our checks. It’s the soil. The soil is what gives us the real income that supports us all. – Ed Begley, Jr.

It helps to think of soil as a living organism covered with skin like a human. We can live with a certain percentage of our skin damaged, but if too high a percentage is damaged, we die. So, too, does soil and thus most life. – Allan Savory

People in cities may forget the soil for as long as a hundred years, but Mother Nature’s memory is long and she will not let them forget indefinitely. – Henry A. Wallace

Soil is not usually lost in slabs or heaps of magnificent tonnage. It is lost a little at a time over millions of acres by the careless acts of millions of people. It cannot be saved by heroic feats of gigantic technology, but only by millions of small acts and restraints, conditioned by small fidelities, skills, and desires. Soil loss is ultimately a cultural problem; it will be corrected only by cultural solutions. – Wendell Berry

Soil organic matter sustains agriculture, which sustains civilization. Soil organic matter generates and regulates every ecosystem service that sustains life on earth. Topsoil loss in excess of topsoil formation has been the defining characteristic of agriculture. The rapid formation of carbon-rich topsoil is the greatest priority and opportunity of our time. If you harvest a crop you are removing nutrients from that ecosystem – for sustainable production they need to be replaced.

Standing on soil feels so much different than standing on city pavement; it lets you look inward and reflect and see who you really are, while you see a beautiful, unspoiled land as far as the eye can see. It allows your inner life to grow. – Ricardo Montalban

The only truly dependable production technologies are those that are sustainable over the long term. By that very definition, they must avoid erosion, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste. Any rational food-production system will emphasize the well-being of the soil-air-water biosphere, the creatures which inhabit it, and the human beings who depend upon it. – Eliot Coleman

The fate of the soil system depends on society’s willingness to intervene in the market place, and to forego some of the short-term benefits that accrue from ‘mining’ the soil so that soil quality and fertility can be maintained over the longer term. – Eugene Odum

The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. – Wendell Berry

Understanding is the soil in which grow all the fruits of friendship. – Woodrow Wilson

We must come to understand our past, our history, in terms of the soil and water and forests and grasses that have made it what it is. – William Vogt

Greening Deserts Sustainable Projects Summary:

Greening Deserts projects are cultural, economic, educational, scientific, social and sustainable projects in the field of horticulture, hydroponics, sustainable agriculture and ecological forestry – but also in the fields of clean technology, green technologies and renewable energy such as solar, water and wind energy. Electricity access, availability and reliability together with energy efficiency will be optimized at the greening and research camps. The focus is on education, sustainable developments and scientific research. Conservation, environmental protection and species protection plays a very important role, too. Main goals of the projects are to reduce deforestation, desertification, pollution and global warming on a large scale. Goals are also to improve the energy and food security, to offer innovative management, ecosystem and greening services. The projects will reform the agriculture and forestry with Ecofarming, Ecoforestry and Permaculture methods, technics and techniques. The projects can include each region and nation in the process, especially in relation to Cleantech, Greentech, environmental protection, a real Sustainable Infrastructure and Sustainable Investments – Green Finance and Sustainable Finance. The worldwide cleaning and greening process can accelerate the global peace building process siginificantly.

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