{"id":1254,"date":"2024-12-23T14:12:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T21:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?page_id=1254"},"modified":"2025-09-25T12:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T18:13:13","slug":"movies-and-potluck-decembr-2024","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/?page_id=1254","title":{"rendered":"Movies and Potluck Decembr 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We watched a DW (a German public broadcast service) documentary<\/a> (42 min) about the baobab tree and the communities it supports – plant, animal, and human. It is a thought-provoking examination of community as well as the stresses that drought and development impose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In watching that film, I was reminded of an earlier, perhaps more hopeful video we watched of John Liu and the Loess Plateau. The plateau is a very large area in China that had been totally denuded of vegetation due to centuries of over-farming and overgrazing. The Chinese government decided to replant vegetation. The results almost seem impossible and the work was largely done using hand labor. It gives me hope when I look at my yard and think how much I have to do. I found a more recent video by a Dutch public broadcast company, VPRO, that interviews Liu and looks at both the Loess and other projects: Regreening the desert<\/a> with John D. Liu (2012): 47 min 30 min<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The information that accompanies the video states: \u201cIt all started in 1995 when Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry, exhausted wasteland into one green oasis. This experience changed his life. From that moment on, Liu has been travelling all over the world to convince and inspire government leaders, policy-makers and farmers with his film material and knowledge. Liu diligently spreads the message that restoration of ecosystems is not only possible, but also economically very meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1995 project that started it all for Liu resulted in this 2007 film<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for revegetation projects closer to home, I found this video and a link to the organization doing the work. We didn\u2019t watch this during our movie and potluck night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planet Wild: America\u2019s ambitious plan<\/a> to restore the Wild West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Prairie<\/a>:
Their focus is on shortgrass prairie. Looking at their website, they seem to be based in Montana and working there exclusively. The shortgrass prairie, however, runs through a far greater area including the eastern half of NM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, just as a bit of video to watch during breaks, I showed this wonderful time-lapse series of plants<\/a> starting from seeds through up to a year or two of growth. It\u2019s eye candy for the gardener!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We watched a DW (a German public broadcast service) documentary (42 min) about the baobab tree and the communities it supports – plant, animal, and human. It is a thought-provoking examination of community as well as the stresses that drought … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":835,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1254","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1254\/revisions\/1257"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.margaretmenache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}