From landscape architecture to conservation agriculture | Thomas Woltz | TEDxCharlottesville

Nelson Bird Waltz Landscape Architects'

conservation

agriculture

studio is a highly collaborative design methodology that seeks to bring the skill set of

landscape

architecture

to lands in need. We seek to rebuild large-scale systems of deteriorated, depleted and compromised ecological infrastructure within active agricultural lands. When I completed my graduate studies studying with Warren Byrd I realized that

agriculture

was the largest contributor to nonpoint source pollution in the United States. Joined. How is it possible that the way we eat can end up killing us? The set of tools he had just acquired and was in the process of. of development had shown me that

landscape

architecture

is a profession that lies at the intersection of restoration, ecology, soil sciences, horticulture, civil engineering, could they also be in the middle of agriculture?

Could these tools be lent to this very important land use in a way that rebuilds this infrastructure? You can dream all you want and it's still theory until a very enlightened client comes along and says: I'm willing to let you experiment with my land. That highly enlightened

conservation

ist is here in Albemarle County and we begin a project that has lasted a lifetime. Over the past 18 years, he's allowed us to experiment with his land to do things we didn't really know how to do, like reestablish warm-season grass prairies. We started with a year of master planning, something I believe in today, this document along with the hundreds of projects that followed. pages of schematic design drawings through design development construction documents, but this document, this master plan has guided the construction of this property for 18 years.

We started with waterways by rebuilding badly eroded streams and drainage ways, replanting them with marginal species to create habitat for amphibians and reptiles we started managing the larger open land we replaced fescue, the non-native thatch grass with warm season root grasses deep, we reforested the edges, then we said: can we set fire to your farm? And he said absolutely that every three years a big cloud of dark smoke rises in Albemarle County and the ground plane resets burning invasive plants, invasive grasses. You have this kind of sublime result of this blackened landscape that then quickly comes back to life with incredible biodiversity.

This is the composition at the end. summer this rich habitat for birds, small mammals and reptiles, so while working on this project we realized that perhaps we had not been rigorous enough in documenting and measuring who our scientific partners could be who could help us collect data that Information that could be shared with extension agents across the country could eventually be shared with people who couldn't hire us or hire scientists. The study's work began to grow in many different states and even abroad. One of the fun ramifications of this was that the neighbors began to look and others a very enlightened neighbor, a writer, a poet and an actress nearby, she said: whatever you are doing to them there, I want you to come do it to me, so this is her driving her own burning of its native prairie, a very exciting and radiating positive influence.

More than 2,200 acres in Albemarle County have now been managed using this method. We began a much more rigorous relationship with scientists. This has been a game changer for us, working with conservation biologists to give us data on what systems are compromised within a piece of property, so what I love is putting together a team of scientists and a team of designers from our office. and gather them to camp on the site for a week to learn what the dynamics of the site are. What is committed. You cannot distinguish a designer from a scientist. and that is a dream come true, this is a white sheet that attracts moths at night and we count all the insects, amphibians, native plants and non-native plants, it gives us this reference data and then we start designing with it in This time was another very enlightened one.

A client came in and acquired a 3,000 acre sheep station in New Zealand and that's what I want to focus my comments on today. It is on the east coast of the North Island. A three thousand acre sheep and citrus crop farm that had been almost all of the farmland in New Zealand has been highly compromised over generations of farming practices. This is the site for those of you who love the islands of the Bahamas. This is sublime for someone who knows the ecology of New Zealand. This is a disaster on the brink of the North Island's native ecology.

It is a temperate rainforest. Can you see a tree? The erosion was horrible. The lack of biodiversity is saddening, so we set out on a mission: could we remove the most fragile areas of this farm that should never have been farmed? I'll show you some of the erosion. problems some of these lands that should never have been cultivated, could we remove them from agricultural production? Could we rebuild wildlife infrastructure? encourage biodiversity rebuild parts of the rainforest this client said yes I believe in this and for the last 12 years we have been building a model farm for the country of New Zealand that demonstrates the best management practices of agriculture with biology highly researched conservation, rebuilding these systems and reweaving them.

This map shows another layer of this project that has been a real game-changer for us. In Nelson Bird Wolves, this is the layer of cultural history. The cultural landscape is something so important that it often remains invisible. The footprints of people who were on dry land before you arrived. In this case, the great Maori migration arrived at this property in 1300. 1769 Captain James Cook arrived at this property, his first landing in New Zealand was just north of the bay, uh, not on this exact land, so I What you are seeing are three maps, the cultural landscape, the agricultural landscape and then the green lines are the reforested places. landscape rebuilding wildlife connectivity but we are using the fragile erodible slopes rebuilding wetlands places that really should never have been farmed this was my first trip to a fragment of the New Zealand rainforest the scale of the plants is absolutely phenomenal we created a association with Maori leaders who have become dear personal friends and tremendous supporters of this work, they really get it, they see the whole earth as one interconnected living body and I would say my view of the earth is more connected to their cosmology than perhaps with the ones I've had. we grew up with this is what formwork does in new zealand did you build railway tracks directly in the rainforest? you placed the trees and retained them this is what the formwork looks like today the highly erodible volcanic soils dissipate into the ocean this is the scale of the trees we are reclaiming some of our partnerships with the Maori, the local Maori tribe It has been collecting seeds in native forests, propagating them locally, they have a small nursery and then we buy the trees to plant on the farm, so these come in and I want you to look at this cabbage palm that is still in the ground, each one of those pegs white represents a tree is a fillet for one of our trees to date we have planted 600,000 rainforest trees on this property so I'm just If you're going to back up, you might want to grab the armrests to start getting an idea of the scale of these plantations.

We are reforesting the entire coastline to make this property look like it did when James Cook landed in 1769. The wetlands had all been drained to maximize grazing land, so we thought we would rebuild them, but let's not pretend or naturalize. Actually, let's build them as a visible living painting. Let's be artists here, but let's work closely with biologists and conservation scientists to know exactly. what we are returning so that the ecological services remain, but that this is a visibly designed construction, a kind of living painting, if you will, these are the grading plans, two kilometers of deep water river and then 14 islands of different slopes planted with different native species to become home to many of the flightless birds native only to New Zealand we were inspired by the paintings of Roberto Burleigh Marks a Brazilian landscape architect from the 60s who is also a great painter these are natural forms but they are so abstracted this was our inspiration this was the construction site that lasted almost three years 75 acres of constructed wetlands where there once were wetlands 100 years ago and this is the result: we have this spectacular and wide landscape of freshwater wetlands and marshes, these are the pre-treatment canals that collect hundreds of acres of fresh water, filter it with plants and then keep it in this wetland that is now full of native birds.

We also reorganized the farm's agricultural land. This is a citrus production and you will see. We have reforested the edge again with small trees instead of nylon screens. We use trees cut into shelter belts to protect the citrus from freezing and then to again honor this cultural landscape to the Maori footprints in the distance in this image you are looking at Mount Taranaki. a very sacred site for the natomanuhiri, the local tribe that we have been working with for so long, this bridge is on axis with the top of that mountain, so every day, the farmers and the workers, when crossing this bridge , they have this kind of moment of homage to a sacred place for the Maori the Maori have a long tradition of earth mounds and building fortifications with earth settlement sites food storage these are some of the vestiges that remain this is a well of kumara kumara was a vegetable that the Maori grew from 1300 to the present day.

These holes are dug in the clay lined with leaves full of food and then arches of branches and leaves to cover them from the wet weather. We wanted to honor these traces. Honor these traditions in the midst of farmlands as we rebuild ecologies. Let's rebuild. a respect for these valuable cultures that are almost invisible on this slide we have guided the routes between the citrus production and these tall hedges cut as a tribute to a 300 year old cemetery this is a cemetery in the middle of the farm that I wanted to honor to the Maori, we were actually commissioned to do this work by a white person from overseas, as working with them was a deeply emotional connection we had with this tribe.

It can be seen that this axial relationship with this burial mound has now been brought forward. in honor instead of being at home, we then worked with them to ask how we can respectfully honor this tradition and demonstrate this tradition in the middle of the gardens around the farm, so this was developed as a tribute to the Maori culture of the land that forms this abstract, terraced landscape this was not a quote from their traditions, but rather how we work with them and inspire in this and honor it in a new way for a new generation in the future, perhaps the most ambitious part of the Working on this farm was a project with many aspirations.

Could we rebuild an ecology so stable, so rich and so safe that we could reintroduce the tuatara, which is one of the most endangered animals on the planet? It is the last descendant of the sphenodont family, which for the scientists in the room is the dinosaur family, these animals are very committed, it takes a year to gestate an egg and we thought that nine months was bad, they are very vulnerable to pests that have been introduced into New Zealand, New Zealand. It has no native mammals, think about it, there are no lions, bears, tigers, stoats, weasels, cats, dogs or people, so this incredible landmass evolved without humans and without mammals, so birds diversified to fill the niches, they also lost the ability to fly, they did not need predators.

So we think that with this huge team not only do I have 40 creative, dedicated, passionate people at Nelsonburg Waltz working with me, but we also have hundreds of ornithologists, biologists, conservation biologists, who are deeply our partners, but we also have these cultural geographers, archaeologists and anthropologists. With this huge team led mainly by Steve Sawyer, a conservation biologist from New Zealand, we said about this ambitious goal: could we reintroduce the tuatara? And again, without an enlightened client, this wouldn't have happened, so the first step was to build a predator-proof enclosure so that the weasels, the possums, the stoats, don't eat the eggs.

You'll see here's a low wire mesh. Go forward a meter just low. earth life lesson when you reach the barrier and you dig and dig and dig suchMaybe you should back off a little Dive in, fortunately, they don't know, don't tell any mammal. You know that trick. It seems that these gentlemen are right in front of me. You can see that there is water in the distance, but this is actually where they are working so you can draw. It's on paper, but these guys are the ones building it, that's why I say the credit goes to others in all this work, so with the predator-proof enclosure, as you can see, we reforested the inside of eighty,000 trees to rebuild the rainforest within this enclosure.

We had to prove to the conservation department that we had a safe and stable habitat. Now the tuatara lives in a symbiotic relationship with gasoline. The grey-faced petrols and fluttering seabirds have not been seen on this coast for 100 years. we started how we rebuilt this ecology we had to prove that we had three cycles of these seabirds nesting on the peninsula before the conservation department and the maori released the tuatara into our care this fence was inspired by christo i have to say this we call our ecochrist , the fence project he did in Sonoma, but it's in service of a larger ecology, so again we tried to be inventive with these ecological measures.

These are the heroes of this project too. These are the conservation biologists who come and measure. Data is checking ink pad traps where the bugs can cross and you can see their tracks, if any. Fortunately, we have clean papers and are free of predators within the enclosure. This is our target species and there is gasoline in their burrow. They dig these. Burrows eight inches deep gypsum is what causes a tuatara to lay an egg, so we needed some burrows. Steve Sawyer, our ornithologist and conservation biologist had this brilliant idea. The first time it has been done, solar collectors are used to power speakers.

Outdoor speakers. That's what you see in the distance. and made a CD of gannet gasolines and fluttering shear waters. If you ever need to gaslight someone and drive them completely crazy, I'll give you a copy of the CD so that every night at cocktail hour the CD starts playing thanks to the solar collector. and these sea birds far away in the distance over the Pacific begin to circle and have begun to land. For the first time in the world, he has managed to use these devices to attract seabirds. We now have the first new organic colony established in the world. uh, I repeat, pairs of fluttering shears, their numbers reduced to a thousand worldwide.

This is Steve with a gasoline that landed in his lap. They are not afraid, no wonder they are extinct. And this is the moment that captures your heart. You're seeing barren, eroded lands that I showed you in the first few slides covered in rainforest species and these beautiful seabirds coming for a safe night's sleep. I am pleased to report that 62 tuatara were delivered from the conservation department and Maori tribes to the grounds last year and they are absolutely thriving. This has been a 12 year journey to rebuild this very fragile ecology really from the ground up. I end with this image because I feel like it's a way of saying this image of the ocean. where we now have blue penguins nesting in boxes on the right is the tuatara enclosure um in the distance are the constructed wetlands and along the coast is the replanted edge in the distance you are looking at sheep grazing land rotational grazing which has greatly reduced measure the impact on this land here is where landscape architecture is found at the intersection civil engineering horticulture conservation biology and agriculture thank you for your time