Rebuilding Paradise: the complex systems nurturing vital communities.
This urgent post on Facebook: I am in the air flying to Denver. My wife just texted my town is on fire. She is evacuating with the kids. No dog. That is all I know at this time. Prayers please.
Paradise, California is gone. One hot spot and a brisk wind was all it took after a long drought and sustained, historically high temperatures. My colleague Chris Kerston was in the air when he posted the above message from his wife. By the time he landed in Denver, found the first flight back, and drove toward his family and home, the fire had taken everything. Chris is one of thousands of families left with only a car, the kids, and the clothes on their backs.
We have seen events like this before, but rarely so sudden, intense, and widespread. Tornadoes leave a strip of rubble. Mountain wildfires take isolated settlements. Fast floods strip away every home and building in their flood plains. Hurricanes fill lowlands with water that takes weeks to subside. In most instances, people have some time to evacuate, shore up their homes, pack supplies, and take refuge out of harm’s way. They can come back to damaged homes and intermittent services and face the uncertainty of rebuilding, but their community is intact.
What do you do when your community is lost?
Chris Kersten has dedicated his life to fixing global warming. He is one of the leaders of the Savory Institute, which specializes in re-establishing functioning watersheds around world. Graze cattle in herds, move them often. The grass grows deep roots, the soil holds more water, the surface plants keeps the land cool and prevents it from blowing away or running off with the next big rain. Around the globe, Chris and a million colleagues are conspiring to work with natural systems so they function as they should.
There are two regenerative narratives that intertwine. One is rebuilding soil and watersheds. The other is rebuilding rural communities.
I see Chris and the Savory folks at conferences and meetings at least every month. We all work together under different organizations toward the same goal: fixing how agriculture is done so we regenerate the Earth, rather than spend its limited resources with selfish abandon. There are two narratives that intertwine. One is rebuilding soil and watersheds. The other is how to make this possible in the context of struggling rural communities.
To raise cattle on corn and soy feed, all you need is a little hay for the first six months and to sell your calves to the feedlot. But, to raise cattle on grass to get the benefits of deeps roots and robust regrowth, you need to bring those animals to full market weight on pastures — and then find a market to sell them to. But before you sell them, you need to slaughter them and process the carcasses. You need a packing plant that will take your animals when they are ready and charge a fair price. The packer needs a steady flow of business to retail his skilled labor. Workers need an affordable place to live. Their kids need good schools and safe places to play. And when tragedy strikes, everyone needs a community of people to depend on, for help with daily needs until things get back to normal.
The effort to make agriculture beneficial is meaningless without the tandem effort to make rural communities resilient.
The effort to make agriculture beneficial is nothing without the tandem effort to make rural communities resilient. When you pull a plant up by its roots, you still have a plant but it’s lost its footing. When you replant it, weeks go by before it can reestablish the complex system underground that provides nurture for its growth. Roots of plants engender a vast underground network of microbes, fungi, and worms that together convert bedrock into nutrients and nutrients into plants and food — all powered by sunlight. This is the soil biome. Within every presentation on the science of soil, I also talk about the fabric of rural communities and what they, too, need to thrive. I call this the rural biome. The physical roots of a community engender a network of shelter, safety, opportunity, services, food and relationships — all powered by people.
The things that support community have been lost in Paradise, California.
When a rural community loses its k-12 school, it’s hard to keep families in town. When the Internet still requires dial-up, everything is frustrating When the water is contaminated by pathogens, toxins or fertilizers, kids are not health. When the nearest grocery store is two towns over, and it sells cheap food from foreign countries, it’s easier to just move closer. When the post office is only open one hour a week, the roof in the community center leaks, and the last bank is bought up and closed, households businesses can’t manage credit and capital. When the town doctor becomes a distant nurse on the telephone, you think twice about raising kids or caring for elders in this place. When the food bank is empty because no one can afford to donate, you may go hungry. When the ambulance is a converted pickup and the EMT’s are teenage volunteers, consider the outcome of a car or farm accident. These and a thousand other simple things form the complex system that nurtures human communities in human settlements. It’s the rural biome that gives our towns robust life.
Some parts of the system are critical to a town’s survival, others are needed for growth and health. No one ever founded a township except above a source of drinking water along a good road from somewhere. Other parts seem like an afterthought, but may make all the difference: the town diner, the movie theater, the skate park, the walking paths, community college, trade schools, civic clubs and houses of worship. When a graduating senior decides what to do after high school, the sum of these may determine if she goes or stays. And if she stays, can she successfully contribute to the vitality of her family and community, or just survive week to week on its fringe?
Healthy soils have what they need help build nutrient-dense plants that clean our air feed us all. Healthy towns have what they need to build resilient vital communities that make us feel safe and content.
The rural biome of Paradise, California is lost. It will be rebuilt. Chris Kerston’s family will have a home, schools, parks and their dog. Over time, the town will put back in place the rural biome on which it can thrive again. But this is true only because the families and businesses of Paradise can rely on its far-reaching, complex network of other families and other communities to put back in place all that is necessary. The people of Paradise know what they lost — and how to grow it back.
There are many ways to support the communities decimated by these disasters. If you would like to help Chris, so he can help others, please visit his emergency Go-Fund-Me page.
For photos and updates on Paradise, visit Chris’ Facebook Page.
God Bless.
— AP Lewis
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