Geotherapy not Geoengineering!
Tom Goreau’s work on marine regeneration needs scaling-out
I first learned about Tom Goreau’s work in 2012 when just after the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) Albert Bates and I attended the award ceremony of the prestigious Equator Prize Awards where Tom was one of the winners together with the team of a coral regeneration and protection project in Western Bali. It was a memorable evening with Achim Steiner and the late Rajendra Pachauri reflecting on the need for a new social contract, and Gilberto Gil rocking out on stage with Tom and the other winners.
Tom Goreau grew up in Jamaica as the son of two marine biologists who were specialised in coral reefs and followed in their footstep. He has seen the reefs of his home island degrade and die in the decades since he started diving as a little boy. Tom has degrees in planetary physics (from MIT), planetary astronomy (California Institute of Technology) and a PhD in biogeochemistry (Harvard University). He worked as Senior Scietific Affairs Officer at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development and is the founding president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance as well as a “certified nuisance crocodile remover” (more on Tom’s bio).
Healing the soils
Tom is the co-editor of a book entitled ‘Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration and Reversing CO2 Increase’. It is an authoritative guide to some of the most cutting edge methods for soil focussed geotherapy.
The book “presents innovative new technologies for restoring the most productive ecosystems on land while maintaining high biodiversity. It addresses processes and techniques of soil carbon restoration through biogeochemical cycling, biochar, slow-release fertilizers, weathering of minerals (olivine) and rock (basalt) powders, amendments and bio-fertilizers, and the establishment of vetiver and other perennials” (more on Tom’s work focused on increasing soil carbon).
Since 2016 I have met Tom a number of times at the meetings at the Commonwealth Secretariat that I helped to curate through initially the Cloudburst Foundation and now through Common Earth. The initiative was initially called ‘Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change’ and has since evolved into ‘Common Earth’.
“Common Earth catalyses regeneration by working with the Commonwealth to educate around and deliver regenerative pilot projects across the 53 member states. The organization convenes key stakeholders at the Commonwealth Secretariat to learn about cutting-edge regenerative work and to mobilize multilateral support for it. Critically, Common Earth makes regenerative projects accessible in new ways through multimedia storytelling, art exhibitions, and public educational programs.”
Healing Marine Ecosystems
During the last meeting in October 2019 in London, Tom and I started to explore the possibility of bringing his techniques for marine ecosystems regeneration to Mallorca and the Balearic Islands where I live. In particular, to focus on the regeneration of the seagrass meadows around the islands as an important spawning ground for marine life and one of the most significant plants for the future of marine carbon bio-sequestration.
Tom co-authored a book entitled ‘Innovative Methods of Marine Regeneration’ in which he draws on his life time experience in marine science and presents “new techniques for greatly increasing the recruitment, growth, survival, and resistance to stress of marine ecosystems, fisheries, and eroding shorelines, maintaining biodiversity and productivity where it would be lost.”
Over more than 30 years Tom has been a pioneer in experimenting with the use of very low (direct current) electrical stimulation applied through fine steel grids to increase the settlement rate and growth, “and reduced mortality for a wide variety of marine organisms, including corals, oysters, sponges, sea-grasses, and salt-marsh grasses.” This book documents many of the astonishing results from field experiments he as conducted around the world.
Tom’s work is of huge significance as the health of the ocean is a primary determinant for planetary health and human activity has severely damaged marine ecosystems everywhere. The continued acidification of the world’s ocean and the run-away greenhouse gas release this could trigger are an existential threat to humanity and much of life on Earth. Tom’s work actively focussed on avoiding such a climate cataclysm as it offers a pathway to reversing the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere back to a safe level that would allow the warming to slow and eventually reverse as climate patterns stabilise.
Mallorca and the Balearics are home to many important research institutions, foundations and NGOs focussed on protecting and restoring the Balearic Seas — among them: El Centro Oceanografico de les Balears, the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, the Save the Med Foundation, the Marilles Foundation, the Mallorca Preservation Fund and the Ibiza Preservation Fund, the Palma Aquarium Foundation, and the Save Posidonia Project in Formentera.
The purpose of the call with Tom (recording below) was for him to present his work so I could share it with people in these organizations as a first stimulus for a deeper conversation around how to bring all of them into collaboration. The vision is to co-create an examplary marine ecosystems restoration project that would build on the recent increase in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) around the islands and establish large scale regeneration of a seagrass species to which the islands owe their white sand beaches: Posidonia oceanica.
“By regenerating ecosystems intelligently in a way to maximise biomass, maximise productivity and maximise biodiversity we can reverse some of the catastrophes that we have caused.” — Tom Goreau
Tom started of with summarising his view on the urgency of climate change and leaving our current trajectory towards irreversible run-away climate change. He regards the IPCC models as too conservative and driven by their political rather than scientific mandate. Other issues he covered in the video call:
- Biorock (sequestering marine minerals disolved in seawater into a naturally grown cement like substance)
- Many of his experiments around the world using micro-currents and steel mesh frames to grow marine organisms at increased rate (corals, mussels, oysters, etc)
- Application of this method to salt marsh and sea grass regeneration which have a high potential for marine carbon sequestration through building up marine ‘soils’ through burying the roots
- Applications of such artifical reefs to protect beaches from erosion and even to re-establish beaches
- Experiments in Italy where his team demonstrated that his technique could regrow seagrasses on bare rock where they normally do not root
- His work in superfund sites in the US on salt marsh regeneration
- The problem of seawalls made from concrete in general and how permeable artificial reefs are much more effective as costal protection
- The relevance and possibilities for applying this methodology around Mallorca and in the Balearics
- …
Enjoy!
Erratum: In the conversation I mention that there are sea grass regeneration projects on Mallorca already and say that this research was funded by Endesa (a power company) but the project was actually funded by Red Electrica (the operator of the transmission indrastructure).
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Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.
Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures
