John D. Liu: 'The Art of Healing the Earth'
For more than 15 years, filmmaker John D. Liu has pursued his mission of making deserts green again. He made films about restoration projects in China, Rwanda and Ethiopia and became an ambassador for 'ecosystems restoration'. John Liu is currently a visiting fellow at NIOO-KNAW.
about John D. Liu's
films and writings
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As a journalist in the 1990s, John Liu visited the cradle of Chinese civilisation, the Loess Plateau in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River.
"This once thriving area that had been so nurturing that it had given birth to the largest ethnic group on the planet had by 1995 been completely denuded and was essentially a wasteland. I was compelled to try to understand how this had happened and began a somewhat quixotic inquiry to try to understand the main thrust of several fields of study including hydrology, soil fertility, microbiology, biodiversity, gas exchange, as well as atmospheric, weather and climate regulation. That not fully satisfying my curiosity I also began to contemplate philosophy, economics, poverty, wealth, anthropology, cosmology, consciousness and spirituality."
Next step in human evolution
His inquiry led him to view evolution in terms of broad trends and to consider a hierarchy of functionality. It has demonstrated that it is not necessary to accept degraded states.
"This is of immediate relevance because so many biomes are degraded and currently human economic and society on a global scale is continuing to damage the earth's ecological systems both in local ways and on a planetary scale. From what I have seen in various parts of the world, I would venture to suggest that there is a logical next step in human evolution and a way forward that can lead to a much more fulfilling and sustainable human civilization aligned with natural ecological trends. This is a transformational change that affects all aspects of human society, including academics and academic institutions."
