Andrew Millison: Permaculture lessons from around the world

06-08-2025

Africa's 'Great Green Wall' is a massive 8000-kilometre planting project aimed at holding back the spread of the Sahara Desert.
Like a green line across the continent from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, it's both planting trees and restoring degraded land to boost food production.
Andrew Millison has recently visited the wall.
He is one of the world's foremost experts on permaculture, where landscaping and horticulture replicates natural systems.
He is the founder of the Oregon State University Permaculture Program and travels the world turning his passion into popular explainer videos on his YouTube channel.
Photo:
Supplied by Andrew Millison

Hashtags

#OregonStateUniversity

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

This dog used to sniff out cold cases for police. Now she's saving bees by detecting bacteria

NZ Herald

4 days ago

NZ Herald

This dog used to sniff out cold cases for police. Now she's saving bees by detecting bacteria

The ultimate goal is for Maple's work to serve as a blueprint for teaching canines to detect honeybee diseases. It's part of a larger bee conservation effort in a record-breaking year for colony death in the United States, according to a survey by Apiary Inspectors of America, Auburn University, and Oregon State University. The losses appear primarily driven by pesticides, pathogens, poor nutrition and pests, Milbrath said. The colony losses, estimated at 56% in the year beginning in April 2024, result in an 'increasing challenge to meeting the demand for crop pollination and honey production in the US,' the survey said. Maple follows the paw prints of other 'bee dogs' across the country that have delved into conservation - including Darwin, a German shorthaired pointer in North Carolina; Mack, a retired Labrador retriever from Maryland; and Mack's successor, Tukka, a springer spaniel. Maple's crossover into bee conservation came after she medically retired from police work, said her longtime handler, Sue Stejskal, who is also new to beekeeping. Stejskal said Maple took a misstep and got injured while they were working on a cold case in Canada, forcing her to step away in April 2024 after seven years as a human-remains detection dog. Stejskal retired alongside Maple. Fortuitously, Stejskal was introduced to Milbrath around the same time that the Michigan Alliance for Animal Agriculture opened applications for grant funding. The team at MSU pitched a project on developing beekeeper resources and managing bacterial disease, agreeing that Maple and Stejskal would bring the expertise needed for the endeavour. Although Maple's new 'target odour' is distinct from her previous job, Stejskal said the fundamentals remain the same. Handlers expose the canines to a scent, offer a reward and teach the dog to conduct an action that means they've found the odour they're looking for. In Maple's case, she sits when she detects the smell. But bee colonies introduce many new and exciting smells for a dog's finely tuned nose. Stejskal said she has to train Maple to be familiar and comfortable with the new environment so the dog can focus on the target odour. 'And then the caveat with working around bees is, we had to outfit her,' Stejskal said. Stejskal worked with her daughter-in-law to fashion personal protective equipment for Maple. The duo picked out a children's bee suit and modified its measurements, though Stejskal said they were still perfecting it. Stejskal adjusts the bee suit to match the weather, at times adding a cooling vest, and she ensures Maple takes water breaks when necessary. Maple also wears dog boots to complete the outfit. Stejskal said she and Maple - a family since the dog was 10 weeks old - have enjoyed delving into bee conservation together. 'It's both of our retirement things. She's happy; it works for her,' Stejskal said of Maple. 'I call it work; for her, it's play.'

RNZ News

7 days ago

RNZ News

Chatham Islands building materials rusting 50 times faster than rest of NZ

BRANZ senior scientist Zhengwei Li. Photo: Supplied Building materials on the Chatham Islands are rusting up to 50 times faster than on the mainland, according to research by locals and the Building Research Association. Surrounded by sea and exposed to the elements 800 kilometres out in the South Pacific, the working theory is that salt-laden winds are to blame. Denis Prendeville, a sixth-generation Chatham Islander, had spent 23 years building fences for the Department of Conservation - so he knew well the island's rugged environment . "A hundred years ago, it was forested," he said. "Well, through clearing bush for grazing, the wind has actually finished off a lot of the remaining bush on the Chathams, so it's quite bleak in places." Now, reforestation work was underway, and pests needed to be kept out. "You haven't got anything if you haven't got a fence," Prendeville said. But using all the normal materials, a fence on the coast could rust through in seven years. Prendeville had learned ways around it - using thicker wire, and plastic inserts to keep metal from touching metal, which were the areas which tended to rust first. In the swamps, he usually skipped the bottom two lines of wires, as they tended to rust through in a year. But across the board, things needed replacing more often . "The expense on the Chathams, well you just double it to the New Zealand standards," Prendeville said. Building Research Association (BRANZ) team leader Dr Anna de Raadt said the working theory was that the salt-laden winds could be to blame, with gales picking up the sea spray and throwing it onto fences and roofs, speeding up that rusting process. She said their research has been a collaboration with the community. "Talking to the people living there, it's amazing to hear stories," she said. "One of them really brought it home for me. They were saying, 'Oh we buy a car, bring it over from the mainland to the island, and within three years it's rusted out.'" Scientists set up four racks of metal squares around the island, and left them out in the elements for a year. The metal testing samples. Photo: Supplied De Raadt explained one set was set up at a local school. "And it was really fantastic to see their eyes light up and actually hold the samples and look at them, because they'd see something like a beautiful, shiny metal coupon, and they'd compare it to one looking like a swiss cheese." The results showed corrosion levels were off the charts. An unprotected carbon steel plate, a millimetre thick, was completely gone within a year, despite lasting more than 50 in rural inland areas. BRANZ established more sites, and confirmed the results - the corrosion rates were among the highest defined by international standards. Carbon steel, used in common building products like beams, framing, and nuts and bolts, corroded at a rate more than 22 times faster than inland New Zealand, and more than three times the rate at our harshest coastal sites, like Oteranga Bay in Wellington, and nearly double the highest corrosion rate recorded at marine sites in Europe. "We are testing other materials to see how they will perform on the Chatham Islands environment," de Raadt said. "This then can help inform people's choices about what material to use where." "I guess the main point for us is: the right material in the right place." The current rating system fell short. BRANZ senior scientist Zhengwei Li said materials approved for Zone D - the classification long-held by the Chathams - just didn't hold up. "If you use materials approved for Zone D corrosivity in the Chatham Islands, you will have early material failure." The Chatham Islands Photo: RNZ/ Matthew Theunissen Building company owner Leith Weitzel moved to the Chathams from Wellington just over a decade ago, and said it was definitely an eye-opener. "So up in the eaves of sheds or houses, where you would have some sort of mild steel product or galvanised steel product, if it's not getting rain washing on it, it will start to show corrosion in a few years." It changed the materials they used. "We always opt to use stainless steel externally as much as we can, and we find that's made a huge difference." But even using marine-grade stainless, tea staining - that is, those patchy orange streaks that appeared on metal like water from a tea bag - still occurred. Weitzel said people were often tripped up. "They might buy a flatpack shed or they'll buy a tiny home, something that's of a kit-set nature, and they express that it is quite corrosive and windy and wild over here, and these manufacturers don't supply some of these buildings, these units up to standard, and they find over time that they have used the wrong nails and structural fittings." It was an awareness problem, he said - something the building research association hoped to improve as it took on further tests. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

RNZ News

06-08-2025

RNZ News