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When you imagine the architectural[br]wonders of the world,

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what do you see?

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The greatness of the Pyramids of Giza

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or maybe the amazing[br]aqueducts of Ancient Rome?

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Both of these are amazing[br]feats of human innovation.

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As an architect,

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I've often wondered why do we[br]monumentalize the ancient wonders

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of civilizations that collapsed[br]such a long time ago?

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I've traveled the world[br]studying ancient innovation,

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and what I've found are Indigenous[br]technologies from living cultures

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that are still in use.

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And some of these cultures[br]you may have never heard of.

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They live in the most[br]remote places on earth,

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facing environmental extremes[br]like desert drought and frequent flooding

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for generations.

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A couple of years ago,[br]I traveled to northern India

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to a place overlooking[br]the plains of Bangladesh

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where the Khasi people live

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in a forest that receives more rainfall[br]than anywhere else on earth.

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And during the monsoon season,

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travel between villages[br]is cut off by these floods,

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which transform this entire landscape

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from a forested canopy[br]into isolated islands.

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This hill tribe has evolved[br]living root bridges

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that are created[br]by guiding and growing tree roots

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that you can barely wrap your arms around

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through a carefully woven scaffolding.

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Multiple generations of the Khasi men[br]and the women and the children,

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they'll take care of these roots

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as they grow to the other[br]side of that bank,

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where they're then planted[br]to make a structure

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that will get stronger with age.

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This 1,500-year-old tradition[br]of growing living root bridges

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has produced 75[br]of these incredible structures.

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And while they take 50 years to grow,

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in this landscape[br]they actually last for centuries.

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All across the globe,

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I've seen cultures who have been[br]living with floods for thousands of years

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by evolving these ancient technologies[br]that allow them to work with the water.

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In the southern wetlands of Iraq,

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which are formed by the confluence[br]of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers,

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a unique, water-based civilization lives.

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For 6,000 years,[br]the Maʿdān have floated villages

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on man-made islands that are constructed[br]from a single species of reed

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that grows around them.

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And the Qasab reed[br]is integral to every aspect of life.

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It is food for water buffalo,

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flour for humans

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and building material[br]for these biodegradable, buoyant islands

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and their cathedral-like houses

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that they construct[br]in as little as three days.

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And this dried Qasab reed,

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it can be bundled into columns,

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it can be woven into floors[br]or roofs or walls,

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and it can also be twisted into a rope

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that's used to bind these buildings[br]without the use of any nails.

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The Maʿdān villages[br]are constructed in the marsh,

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as they have been for generations,

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on islands that stay afloat[br]for over 25 years.

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Although global attention[br]is focused on the pandemic,

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cities are still sinking[br]and sea levels are still rising.

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And high-tech solutions

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are definitely going to help us[br]solve some of these problems,

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but in our rush towards the future,

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we tend to forget about the past.

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In other parts of the world,[br]where rivers are contaminated with sewage,

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a city of 15 million people cleans[br]its waste water with its flood plains.

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On the edges of Calcutta,

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flanked by a smoking[br]escarpment of the city's trash

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and ribboned by its highways,

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an Indigenous technology of 300 fish ponds

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cleans its water while producing its food.

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And through a combination[br]of sunshine and sewage

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and a symbiosis[br]between algae and bacteria,

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the wastewater is broken down.

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Fish ponds continue[br]this cleaning of the water

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in a process that takes around 30 days.

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And this innovation,

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it's not just a model for chemical[br]and coal-power-free purification.

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Since Calcutta's core[br]has no formal treatment,

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it's the city's only way[br]of cleaning the water downstream

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before it enters the Bay of Bengal.

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What I find so unbelievable[br]about this infrastructure

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is that as cities across the world[br]in Asia and in Europe

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begin to replicate this exact system,

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Calcutta is now struggling to save it[br]from being displaced by development.

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And then to deal with flooding[br]in a completely other way,

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the Tofinu tribe has developed[br]the largest lake city in Africa.

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Ganvié, meaning "We survived,"

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is built of stilted houses that are[br]organized around a canal system

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that you can navigate by dugout canoe.

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And the royal square stands[br]amongst 3,000 stilted buildings

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that include a post office,

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a bank, a mosque

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and even a couple of bars

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that are all surrounded[br]by 12,000 individual fish paddocks,

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or mangrove acadjas.

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This chemical-free artificial reef[br]covers almost half of the lagoon

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and feeds one million people[br]that are living around it.

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What amazes me

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is that while an individual acadja[br]is pretty insignificant,

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when it's multiplied by 12,000,

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it creates an Indigenous technology[br]the scale of industrial aquaculture,

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which is the greatest threat[br]to our mangrove ecosystems ...

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but this technology --

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it builds more biodiversity than before.

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Just earlier this year,[br]when I was back home in Australia,

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the craziest thing happened.

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The burned ash from the bushfires[br]surrounding Sydney rained down on us

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on Bondi Beach.

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And worried about carbon emissions --

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not viral transmissions --

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we were already wearing masks.

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The air was so choked by a plume of smoke

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that was so big that it reached[br]as far away as New Zealand.

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Then in the midst of these wildfires,

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which were the worst[br]we'd ever seen on record,

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something unexpected happened,

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but incredibly amazing.

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The ancestral lands in Australia,

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where Indigenous fire-stick[br]farming was practiced,

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were saved as these fires[br]raged around them.

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And these ancient forests --

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they survived because of seasonal,[br]generational burning,

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which is an Aboriginal practice[br]of lighting small, slow and cool fires.

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So though wildfires[br]are a natural disaster,

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as a consequence of climate change,

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they're also man-made.

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And what's so amazing about this[br]is we have the ancient technology

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that we know can help prevent them,

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and we've used it for thousands of years.

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And what I find so fascinating[br]about these technologies

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is how complex they are

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and how attuned they are to nature.

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And then, how resilient[br]we could all become

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by learning from them.

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Too often when we are faced with a crisis,[br]we build walls in defense.

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I'm an architect,

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and I've been trained[br]to seek solutions in permanence --

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concrete, steel, glass --

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these are all used to build[br]a fortress against nature.

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But my search for ancient systems[br]and Indigenous technologies

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has been different.

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It's been inspired by an idea[br]that we can seed creativity in crisis.

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We have thousands of years[br]of ancient knowledge

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that we just need to listen to

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and allow it to expand our thinking[br]about designing symbiotically with nature.

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And by listening,

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we'll only become wiser

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and ready for those[br]21st-century challenges

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that we know will endanger[br]our people and our planet.

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And I've seen it.

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I know that it's possible.