Natural sequence farming: How Peter Andrews rejuvenates drought-struck land | Australian Story

These people shouldn’t be seeking permits, they should be in charge of giving permits

And yet we are happy to call a sportsman “Australian of the year”. This man is the true jewel of the country.

I've done this on our 13 acres and the results were immediate. A once seasonal creek now flows/trickles year round. Vegetation and wildlife flourishes along it.

I love how Malcolm Turnbill, not a farmer, was like “you see, not all farms are like yours and the land is different everywhere, so it is important that we keep the inflexible laws that apply to the entire country, rather than making the laws more flexible so farmers can do what they do best.”

Make these guys the Agriculture Ministers, they actually know something

"A nation that takes care of its soil, takes care of itself." Enough said!

"Society Grows when old men plant trees they know they will never sit in the shades of."

Wisdom from ancient Greece.

4:41 I used to live here. Helped Peter build one of these systems in the creek as a kid, didn't realise what he was actually doing to many years later.

This man has been my hero for decades. Why nobody listened to him 30 years ago is astounding.

Dear ABC News in-depth,
Surely it's time for a update to this fascinating story???

Visionaries frequently irritate the plebians in society. What a gift that Tony Coote and Peter Andrews were able to work together, meshing their strengths. I hope their gifts continue to inspire farmers everywhere. Thank you.

It’s about slowing the water down so it works for everyone - this is such important work that needs to be done. People need to see that we can bring the land back.

We had a gentleman in Texas who used these same methods. He started some twenty five years ago, and had truly amazing results. I wonder if he didn't base what he did on What these people did in Australia. He started in near-desert. no creeks, only scrub. The water came back after he started putting in the kind of grasses that existed pre-European ecoculture. Amazing how often the older methods work best.

He’s holding back tears as he’s trying to make his point out to us. That’s how you know he knows what he’s talking about and he wants us to understand it too

Everyone in Australia should watch this. It’s what Permaculturists & Bill Mollison have proposed for years. Excellent content

It`s the second time I`ve looked at this, and it`s still inspiring. I plan to acquire a plot of land in a dry country, in a few years. I will attempt to restore it using some of these techniques. I`m so glad there is such knowledge out there on the net, to enable plans like mine to take place, and to give us all hope for the future. Thanks for posting this

These people are heroes. Fighting governments who support multinational chemical companies is a gigantic task. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their efforts to save this land from the fools.

This same phenomenon of water retention and land rejuvenation was observed in the USA when beavers were reintroduced to parts of the country where they had been wiped out by fur trapping 100 years prior. The beavers build dams of wood and mud to create habitat they can live in and as in this documentary, the land could hold water again and desert became oasis.
(edit) I was horrified by the other story in this documentary about the Bylong coal mine and KEPCO mining company. Unfortunately, it's a story that repeats itself in every country where big greed outweighs the powerless public.

The guy everyone is trying to silence, is usually the guy with correct answer!

When I bought my property 45 years ago it had the remains of the last "crop" still standing on it that the previous owners hadn't bothered to harvest. Why? Because basically there was nothing there to harvest. They had corned it, quite literally, to death. The corn plants were not over 2.5 feet tall, and had made no ears. Absolutely pitiful.
Well, I quit growing corn on this hill ground, where corn should NEVER have been grown in the first place, and started planting it back into trees. It's taken many many years to recuperate, but it finally has for the most part. Now every morning we hear the birds singing in the trees and see the huge deer (which personally I can not stand LOL). But when we moved here there wasn't a single deer of any size to be seen. Now people come from all over the country, willing to pay big money for the privilege of hunting those selfsame deer. And where there was only scrubby weeds that dried up if it didn't rain for a short while, now it's green from Spring until early Winter.
The land has been transformed and if one wanted to clear it off again, I'm sure high yield corn could be grown for a few years.
But it's hill ground, and will never be suitable for "farming" which here is more like mining. Because what topsoil there is will once again be quickly washed away down the hill.
But as it is, in a few years, there will be some awesome trees that could be harvested for timber worth far more than the corn ever would have been worth. So maybe, just maybe, we can leave our kids something worth having.
Here's hoping that that they're able to actually appreciate it. I know we love it here on our big hill, looking out over the huge river valley stretching out for miles and miles below us. It's simply a fantastic Vista that the previous owners would never have enjoyed. Why Not? Not enough immediate ROI!