[acoustic guitar music, trickling water]
[male, Austrian accent] Wasser ist Leben. [male translator] Water is life.
Water is the most important thing. The whole world is 70% water.
We, animals, everything. 70% water.
[female narrator] Water is the key issue for the survival of humankind on this planet.
Nature has provided enough water everywhere on earth,
but a billion people do not have sufficient access to clean drinking water.
More and more regions lack the water to grow the food they need.
Centralised systems of artificial water management cannot solve this problem.
We need decentralised systems of natural water management.
We are in Tamera, peace research centre in southern Portugal,
where a water retention landscape has been under development since summer 2007.
Bernd Muller is responsible for Tamera's ecological research work.
2007 hatten wir in der Gemeinschaft Tamera die Frage ...
[translator] In 2007, the community of Tamera still had the question
whether a site of this size, threatened by desertification,
could provide food, water and energy for 300 people.
We visited Sepp Holzer and asked him this question, and he brought us this gift:
the vision of a water landscape.
[narrator] Sepp Holzer, an Austrian mountain farmer,
is a well-known specialist and visionary for permaculture and landscape healing.
Water is always at the core of his work.
Wasser ist fur mich das grosste Kapital.
[translator] For me, water is the most important capital.
Wherever it's possible, you should create retention spaces and collect the rainwater,
and relearn with the water how to maintain a balance.
This is the most important thing,
because once you've created the right hydro- logical balance, 70% of the work is done.
You help rich vegetation to develop, diversity,
because nature can reveal itself and develop in the right way.
[birds, child's voice in distance]
[acoustic guitar music continues]
[speaking German]
[translator] Traveling through the world, I've not seen a single situation,
nation, or land in which the development of a water retention landscape
would not give the first important healing impulses.
In many parts of the world, countries are not able to feed their population any more.
They have been unable to maintain their natural wildlife for a long time.
[narrator] As a consultant in many countries,
Sepp Holzer sees the consequence of deforestation, monoculture,
overgrazing, and industrial agriculture.
All these factors destroy the natural water balance.
[speaking German]
[translator] The soil is drying out. Water is being lost.
And the retention space, the natural water storage system of the earth,
is becoming dry. Then the flora and fauna disappear.
In the end the land will turn into desert, or burn because it's so dry.
You can see these problems happening all over the world,
bringing huge catastrophes.
[speaking German]
[translator] And the heavy rains come anyway. What happens then?
The water rushes down the slopes because the dry soil does not absorb the water.
When the soil is hotter than the falling rain it rejects the water.
Only when the soil is cooler, when the vegetation is giving shadow,
then it attracts the water and lets it seep in.
[narrator] This is the construction site for a new water retention space in Tamera.
Wherever you work with soil, you can read the signs of erosion.
Topsoil should actually form a thick living layer everywhere on the ground,
which enables rainwater to filter in. But this layer has been eroded away.
Now the topsoil lies in layers many metres thick in the bottom of valleys,
or is found as mud in rivers. [sound of heavy machinery]
The surface of fields and sites higher up is depleted and barren.
Decentralised water retention landscapes give the rainwater time to filter back
into the earth body.
[speaking German]
[translator] People always have the same questions.
Always the same worries: where will all this water come from
in such dusty, dry soil without streams or a river? How can I build a lake here?
[speaking German]
[translator] People have simply lost the knowledge
of how to use the catchment area and the rain.
The blessing of the water in the right way. When I use the catchment area,
then a pond or lake will fill very quickly.
[music, rain, thunder]
[narrator] How much water can change a landscape in a short time?
We can see here, comparing Tamera before the creation of Lake 1, and today.
[speaking German]
[translator] Water retention landscapes can be built everywhere.
Anywhere on earth.
[machinery]
[narrator] A water retention space must not be sealed with concrete or plastic.
It is enough to build a dam out of natural material at the narrowest point of a valley.
You dig a ditch until you reach an impermeable layer.
On that solid ground you apply layer after layer of fine material,
like moist clay, and drive on it and roll it, to build the water barrier.
This water barrier is the core of the dam.
[translator] For the outside of the dam I take coarse material.
It doesn't have to be dense and waterproof.
Of course, I will also have to compact it by driving on it and rolling it,
and like this I build the whole dam. The water barrier in the core,
and on the outside, in a slope of 1:2, one metre up and two metres along,
like this I build the two layers together up to the top.
[music]
[narrator] The water retention spaces have winding banks,
shallow and deep zones, a diverse vegetation of water plants,
and are built aligned to the prevailing wind direction.
This way, the water is always moving.
It is enriched by oxygen, and thus is naturally purified.
The water in a water retention landscape stays fresh and alive by itself.
[speaking German]
[translator] Since we created the first retention space,
we can already keep much of the water from the winter rainfalls on the land.
In this way it can unfold its full healing capacity.
The wildlife is responding and is returning and the vegetation is recovering.
We can plant fruit trees again. The forests recover,
and we can grow our food for people and for animals
in the direct surroundings of the first retention space.
[music]
The water which used to run away, and which is now stored here,
is at the same time also having an impact on the whole groundwater system.
[translator] In the first year, a spring developed below this lake,
which now gives water throughout the year.
Since we built this first dam, we no longer have such big variations
with a lot of flowing water in winter when it's raining, and droughts in the summer.
We have a more constant water situation throughout the year,
which is of course a huge benefit for nature.
[music, birds chirping]
Nature shows you how this works. You just have to ask her,
have to contact her, to communicate with her.
Then you will be fine anywhere on earth. Ask nature.
Think with her, and not against her. Put yourself in her place,
and you get all the answers you need.
Make room in your head so that natural thinking has space to happen.
[music]