This is amazing

"Leaves are called leaves because you're supposed to leave them." I am bookmarking this wisdom.

1) Long and thoughtful observation 3:22 2) Start at the top of the watershed and work your way down 7:25 3) Start small and simple 15:34 4) Slow, spread, and infiltrate 22:26 5) Always have an overflow and use it as a resource 33:06 6) Maximize living and organic ground cover 42:02 7) Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by "stacking functions" 46:26 8) Long and thoughtful observation II 51:05

I found it fascinating that not only did he improve the water table and well levels on his farm but his work benefited the neighbors beside and downstream also. Hope the neighbors saw the light and duplicated his ideas and spread the water wealth so the whole area can have a better life.

Now I think I understand beavers. I used to not quite understand what they were all about but they are basically nature's water managers.

this is better thn netflix exiting and emotional

Wonderful work . Water gets collected in every low lying area during rainy season . When they have no passage to run away , they cause floods . So give some resting area for the rain water . Just make provision for water to get collected in some area . Just dig up large area of 5 or 6 feet . When water gets collected , you have a lake . In every arid area with little rain make 500 or 1000 or more shallow trenches of one or two feet depth . Just leave it . Rain will fill them for you and it will percolate . Within 2- 3-6 years all wells will have water for all needs . The local people if they cooperate , they can make them within 2-3 days .

I'm so humbled by this man's dedication. Thank you and rest in peace Mr. Phiri🙏🙏🙏🙏

Thank you so much for honouring Mr Phiri and his accomplishments. It is painfully to learn the death of the great mentor.

One of the best pieces on Mr Phiri. He's work has seldomly documented internationally. This video has given me a lot of insight into his work and what Brad has done to expand the knowledge.

Zepheniahs Phiri and Yacoubu Sawadogo are unsung heros

Great video !! I recently moved to Concho, Az. and checked out the place on google earth before buying it. It has a gentle scope for about 1,000 yards all round and no trees. I'm doing the permacuture plan and building adobe sand bags buildings from the pond I'm digging. I've built an aquaphonic greenhouse and harvesting all the 14 " of annual precipitation I can. I was inspired by many water consevationists and the endless possibilities the area has. Thank you for this great presentation and sharing your wisdom and those you learned from. Please keep the videos and message coming to help people aware that there is only one water and it's the same water the dinosaurs drank. Let's not pollute it so it's of no use to anything or anyone.

Notes: 1) Long and thoughtful observation - look for areas of success and improvement 2) Start at the top of the watershed and work your way down - Use your first chance, best chance, and last chance 3) Start small and simple - if it's existing go around or between, rain garden, transform waste into solutions, size is measurement of how long you can last, 4) Slow, spread, and infiltrate - use zig zags, mellow flow by spreading toward road drainage(one rock high check dam, subjected to erosion. Grow, fill, grow, fill will eventually solve it). Plant on contour 5) Always have an overflow and use it as a resource - use rocks so allow flow, encourage sheets, create little ponds around trees with overflow, 6) Maximize living and organic ground cover 7) Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by "stacking functions" - tank to tree, well water can go up, eat fish when the water level drops, plant rain vs drain it. 8. Long and thoughtful observation - feedback loop. Evolve. Life is a slow process, just start.

This is fantastic and inspirational. The best role models are those that let the land teach them. 😊

Thank you thank you thank you. These systems thinking should be taught to the next generation. I hope everyone watching this starts their journey sooner than later. Much love

The best information I've seen.thanckyou amigo..

Boomerang beems is almost exactly what I have been picturing for the past two months. Here I thought I came up with something new 😂. Thank you for the video.

"welcome to my country"

Talk to the rain, I like it!

book is a buy. Unfortunately they made him rush through, he clearly needed at least 90 minutes. - Now that Mr. Phiri (and others for instance Geoff Lawton, or Joel Salatin) have found out what works and can teach that - it could be replicated, scaled up in a big manner and sped up. Interestingly most of their farming neighbours ignore them, be it in Virginia, in Australia, Zimbabwe, Austria or the U.K., it is often homesteaders and people that are new to farming that take up their methods. Of course a lot of the enthusiast do not perservere or they do not have the financial means and have to give up prematurely. I saw a short video of Geoff Lawton - he has advised many governments (in the Middle East) and UN organisations and nothing came of it. Middle men got in the way. As for speeding up things: With earthdigging machines it is much faster to dig wells, basins ponds, dams, walls etc. manually. Mr. Phiri had to make do with humble methods and what humans (in his case only one family) could achieve with shovels. Like the one rock high structures on the ground. That is unspectacular, but still effective and can be done with manual labor and w/o paying for machines. Geoff Lawton has volunteers & machines at his disposal. OR even better IF governments, grassroots, charities would do large scale projects and inject money into developing countries: paying people there to do the work. The problem is of course that if you inject resources and make it "easier" a lot of enthusiastic folks (the residents but also the "advisors" that were trained by the experts) can get things wrong. Plus there will be a lot of people that go along but without much conviction or engagement, plus opportunists that just want to skim off subsidies. Brad Lancaster mentions that - things like swales became well known (and a "staple" in permaculture) and they work - until in some cases (like massive rainfalls) they don't - if such a once in a decade rain or ongoing rain for weeks, or heavy snowfall, .... has not been factored in into the planning. That means that the one big rain that really could have filled the aquifers instead destroys your structures and a lot of your former work. The backup - if one provisions fails or the water diversion structure is unexpectedly overwhelmed or gets clogged - is easy to neglect, when there is so much to do, and it does work well for a few years. Even Geoff Lawton had a swale (or even 2 or 3) fail on his farm in Australia, of course there it is no big deal. no one was in danger, they have the resources, machines and volunteers to fix it - they also failed in a big rain, after a very long dry season he did a short video on it. And Lawton undertood in hindsight what he should have done differently (one was very new and not yet protected by plants, and in another case a overflow pipe got clogged up), but it was more an Oops. But of course that is Australia and they get more rain than in Zimbabwe, that means failing to harvest all precipitation of one season is not that bad. The permafrost farmer in Austria, Sepp (short form for Joseph) Holzer had great successes in his neck of the mountains. He did a lot of earthwork with machines and found out (and developed) many principles on his own from the early 1970s on. He took over a farm in the mountains in the 1960s (at age 20). some of the ground is pretty high up (meadows) in an Alpine region that is called the Siberia of Austria (the state is Salzburg, the region is Lungau), he grows kiwi and apples and cherries there by creating microclimate zones that suit those warm loving trees. Many decades later (when he had become famous and his domestic and international projects were an undeniable success) he adivsed a woman in another state (no mountains, the Pannonian ecosystem, flat, at most hills, warmer and drier). She had a major landslide and the project to create a park (demonstrating permaculture principles for paying visitors) failed. Looks like the landslide did a lot of damage, they were then engaged in a court battle. She had to declare bankrupcy and lost her land and he bought the farm from her (I hope at a good price). So even the experts can fail, it is unclear whether he advised her wrong, did not mentor her enough to see when she misapplied the principles, or if she failed to apply his advice in the wrong manner. Maybe he also pushed his luck on his farm in the mountains, that there was an element of luck that he never had a major mudslide in the last 50 years. In the mountains where you would think it is much more dangerous. But of course the land (meadows on mountain slopes, rocky area) was not very productive so they have a LOT of land, so even IF they had a landslide in the mountains, there should not be so much damage. On the other hand in the flat state (Burgenland) where that park was planned, land was always more productive & valuable and the conditions are distinctively different compraed to the region where he had taught himself "permaculture" (He did not even know such a thing and term existed, he just went with observing and imitating nature). One of the few regions in Austria where wheat and sun loving fruits can be grown in good quality (not so rainy, more sun), so we can assume that her property was not as vast as that of his mountain farm, and a landslide there was an effing big deal because soemthing of value was likely to be nearby. Plus the RAIN patterns are very different: in his state there is always a lot of pressure on vegetation with lots of rain and snow - avalanches - and there is not much flat land either and shorter growing season (spring starts late and winter comes early). So what was prone to mudslides and avalanches, already went down centuries ago. But if you introduce rain harvesting methods in drier land (with some slopes), which massively increase the WEIGHT - you can get unwanted results. The soaked layer or heavy ponds / filed swales may sit on a layer of clay, or dense loam, so with a lot of rainfall a "sliding" layer of fluid can develop that can trigger a mudslide. It is possible she already had the weight but not YET the deep rooted vegetation to hold it. Maybe these effects were even surprising a professional like Sepp (Joseph) Holzer. On the other hand I know of a project which he did on dry flat native land in the U.S. (he went much bigger with the earthwork than the overwhelmed owner had opted for - she just went with the flow) - and they had great results. Back to speeding up things in Africa: So it would be necessary to let them do their thing for one season, than someone that SEES the pitfalls or the next necessary step, comes by and gives them a yearly check. That could speed up the process considerably. And shorten the learning curve for the lucky ones who now learn not from their own experiences but the experiences (and failures) of others. It also means that people that are less dedicated (also to learning NEW methods, and abiding by them) will also be engaged. They are "weaker" actors. They may either "cheat" (when it is cumbersome to stick to the principles) or enthusiastically but without deep understanding implement things (like swales) and not understand when and whey they fail - and then give up. Some ongoing mentoring and other incentives (financial and things like community projects) could help to get the mediocre actors on board. In India they have a contest of fillages and communities to revive the ponds and lakes theat used to provide water for the dry season. One very famous actor started a charity, and they put the well performing communities on the stage. it is a COMMUNITY effort and a matter of pride and even if the project is not the best among hundreds, because all pull together they will see some improvements and they all win. You would think that by now the whole regions models Phiri (or Geoff Lawton in Australia, etc.) but that is not what happens. Most do "same old same old". Farmer that come from a farming tradition (and are heavily invested in expensive machines - which are the pride of the typical first world farmer) oft do not like to be outdone by an outsider with unorthodox methods. When they do not even invest like them (that can be hundreds of thousands in debt), or use smart methods to avoid weeds (which either require lots of manual labor OR herbicides and / or GMO crops). Some more money / resources and training people by prolonged mentoring would be the way to go.

RIP Zephaniah Phiri Maseko. Through your wisdom, you live on.

This is a wonderful presentation, showing the small changes I can make which will have long lasting impact in my garden. Thank you!

God bless the individuals that know and live off the land. I need to start taking notes from native Americans that lived in the arid regions of the USA. Much love! ❤️🇺🇸

Wow what a brilliant presentation. I will DEFINITELY use this in my newly bought farm!

Fantastic thank you for sharing

Good speech, wunderfull speaker!

This is amazing. Thank you so much. Very educational. Cant wait to get the books.

This man used what is called common sense or "scientific method ". Thank you so MUCH for THIS.

This was so insightful! I just watched another video on YT about 5 mistakes that permaculture makes and one of them was putting in swales. As I watched the other video I kept thinking, they aren't even observing their land properly. Do they even need them? So this video was amazing. Giving not only other rain catching methods but also constantly reminding us that you might not even need xyz method and that another method might work better! I loved these examples and the hard, long-term investment in Mr. Zephaniah Phiri Maseko's had made to helping his home and the planet. It's amazing the work that was done!

Thank you for giving credit to the person who thought of this...

Water. Isn’t lazy. It’s patient.

That was a feat of true success, made from an impossible start. May we all be as 'lucky'.

This video reminds me of "The Battle Against Drought", by the Paani Foundation.

This is a splendid presentation for anyone who wants to be introduced to permaculture. The concepts are initially a little confusing and this really lays it out beautifully. Well done.

Good stuff.... I'm from South Africa.

A very educative & motivating vídeo thank u.

Fantastic info. Thanks!

In other words, this is what we should have seen in the Star Wars moisture farm.

Wonderful presentation! Sharing some notes - Integrate grey water into your systems. - You want water in the soil, not on top of it, otherwise there are loses - "If you don't understand the thinking behind a strategy its going to fail!" - "Plant the rain before you plant the tree" - Life's a slow process, just get started." Water Harvesting Principles: 1) Long and thoughtful observation 3:22 2) Start at the top of the watershed and work your way down 7:25 3) Start small and simple 15:34 4) Slow, spread, and infiltrate 22:26 ****5) Always have an overflow and use it as a resource 33:06 6) Maximize living and organic ground cover 42:02 7) Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by "stacking functions" 46:26 ****8) Long and thoughtful observation II 51:05

Great presentation, thank you!

Thank You!

i understand the phrase "plant the rain" now

Great.

Please look up Home Ignition Zone's before planting near your home.

i watched the whole thing thank you for the information

Amazing stuff, Thanks for the upload...........

6years ago damn, i just found out. Why everthing whats so important is hidden so much. I am going to look and observe haha. Thanks for this nice informatio ❤

I love this!!

Bless Mr Phiri.

Thank you !

Thanks to Mr phiri

Brilliant!

1) Long and thoughtful observation... what is actually occurring... 3:40 ie when it rains, where and how does it slow down and sink into the earth? What is working to generate life? 2) Consider the big picture... what is it you are trying to achieve? Evolve your thoughts and methods as you go. 3) Mimic the successful ways; ie build blockades across slopes to slow the rain flow so it sinks into the ground. 4) Start small and simple. ie let’s make our wet spots wetter... harvest grey-water. 5) Slow, spread, and allow the water to infiltrate the ground. 22:30 to increase the water content in the soil. 6) Work for the long term success, so small steps repeated can often make a longer term positive effect than a larger step... ie one rock check-dams... a single layer of rocks set over seeds so they will grow to stabilize and strengthen the structure you build. 30:00

All similar to 1930's NRCS homestead guides. The oasis zone you describe is within the high fire risk zone for houses. Move the oasis out past that 30ft/10M range and place large vegetation and seasonals out 100ft/30M All dry land areas are also fire prone, rethink your foot print and designs using fire design adjustments and you are in the green zone!

Awesome 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏teaching on rain ☔️ 💦 . Thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏for sharing information 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

Brad Phiri Lancaster , good talk! 😎

Brad Lancaster on water Harvesting and the story of Mr Phiri, his mentor. Mr Phiri at 1:40. Mr Phiri's land before he started his journey. It is mostly bare rock with little to grow on. Most was washing or blowing away. Inspired by the Bible's Garden of Eden, Mr Phiri decided to build up his land. 1) Thru long thoughtful observation he found he was losing soil to wind and water erosion. He'd follow the rain to observe where it was washing away, where it was staying. He noticed slowing the water allowed sediment, and seeds to remain. His first structure at 5:00. Additional structures at 5:03, with significant greening already occuring. Diagram of one type of possible rainwater harvesting system 7:26. Start at the top of your watershed, and work your way down. This way your hydrate more of your Lans. Diagram of Mr Phiri's farm at 9:00. Photo of Phiri's farm after some structures to retain water were built 9:21 (uphill view). 9:32 (downhill view). 9:40 significantly more regreening at Phiri's place. 10:02 diagram. Work with your watersheds. 2) Starting at the top: Example of roads that lose water, and how to harvest road water at 10:51 (drain). 11:58 another road-water harvesting structure called a rollout. Rollouts= angled dips/speed bumps for water diversion. 15:14 an example of a gentlly draining ditch dispersing water along a gradually sloping hillside. 3) 15:37 Start with small and simple strategies. If you have existing vegetation 16:12, 16:37, 17:12 Mr Phiri's greywater harvesting 19:28. Mr Phiri's water catchment basin 20:22. (Immigration center 😁😁😁). Reservoir 20 years later 22:13. 22:27 ephemeral reservoir. 4) 22:28 Slow, spread, and infiltrate diagram. 23:00 Phiri's cistern set up. 23:30 dead level contour. Phiri's adaptation to the contour drainage set up by his government 24:11 (Phiri pits). 26:06 Sheet flow spreader, after it is just built. 27:40 after vegetation is established. Good for high sediment areas, like Haiti. Variation 28:51. Check dam 29:11. Sheet flow spreader for a creek 31:51 32:55 planting on dead level contour. Terrracing 33:02. 5) Always have an overflow. Use it at a resource 33:06. Mr Phiri's overflow catchment 34:42 (fruition pit, 1995). Fruition pit, after (2014) 34:58. 35:47 Swale design, and possible flaw. 36:28 The Speed/Depth/Volume Erosion Triangle. 38:13 improved overflow for a swale. 38:53 Hansom's pool (example of improved swale overflow). Boomerang/smile berm (diagram) 39:32, photo at 40:21. Key elevation relationships of earthworks 40:31. 6) 42:03 Maximizing living and organic groundcovers. 43:27 reforestation/'responging'. Mr Phiri's planting for water first. 44:27 Living mulch/organic mulch topdressing. 44:40 use of living structures. 45:19 Rain Garden Zones 7) 46:26 Maximize relationships and efficiency by 'stacking functions'. 47:01 Phiri's well 1995/2014. 48:10 Supporting function by multiple resources within the system (Phiri's donkey pump, 1995). 48:19 Same place in 2014. Bottom of Phiri's property in 1995 (a dry season) 48:30, with ephemeral pond. Phiri's son and grandson 49:34 in front of ephemeral pond during a wet season in 2016. 49:39 Phiri's dryfarmed banana plantation. 8) More long and thoughtful observation, the feedback loop 51:06. To find out more about Mr Phiri's work, check out www.Muonde.org, or Muonde Trust in Zimbabwe. Phiri's work in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia is inspirational. He has been a blessing to us all. Sadly Mr Phiri has passed but he has left us a tremendous legacy. Brad Lancaster has published a book series call Rainwater Harvesting in Drylands.

I prefer listening to advice from Alan Savoury, also from Zimbabwe.

water isnt lazy it is being drawn towards the center of the earth via gravity, i.e. the lowest point, be it manufactured or otherwise, it can find during the journey the earth makes it endure as long as it is water. the 'lazy' is doing alot of work here.

Thank You for sharing

Couldn't understand the African water farmer's organization website URL.

The most useful and life changing presentation i have ever seen

Great

Making it rain is easy, convincing government or countries to build the systems is the problem.

In San Francisco I let my roof water run into my yard rather than into the sewer system which is required by code.

Great content. I am really thinking hard about rainwater harvesting in usually wet western Washington state where the Summers are hot and dry. Have tanks to collect rainwater. Need more trees and pools around them. Also, have left grass to grow in a half acre with flattening it. No animals. Past 70 and grew up on a farm so know how much time and energy they take. Perhaps I could borrow a couple. Hmmm. Observation is key. Thanks so much. Love his work. Saw the Dirksen film, and was amazed at how much one can do!! Looking to buy some mesquite flour.

amazing insights and wisdom from people living off the land

Good work

Very good

Fascinating presentation for those of us who love to learn about how things work. Excellent, clear descriptions and the drawings made the concepts easy to understand. Loved it. 🌿🌿

It's nice to see this. All on computer cuz I've been working on this for five orser years I have some ideas that will blow Minds seems like every year it gets a little better

Funny. Mr Phiri built his "immigration center" at the "keypoint" the same as PA Yeoman.

For great water-harvesting how-to information, check out the newly revised, full-color editions of my "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" books available direct from me the author, Brad Lancaster, at deep discount at: www.harvestingrainwater.com/shop/

Boomerang berms look like what the call demi lunes (half moons) in the Sahel zone.

This is how to stop the wild fires 🔥 and desertification of California!

This is invaluable information, and some great wisdom at the end there

What is the name of the HBO miniseries mentioned at 0:25 ?

Amazing talk, so much great information!

Quite useable with 2x speed :^) Impressive Work!

Thanks Brad! Great presentation! Learnt a lot

Siiii REFORESTAR REFORESTAR árboles nativos para que VUELVA el ciclo de vida. Ahora no hay equilibrio en el mundo . Los árboles regulan la temperatura en la corteza TERRESTRE. Resguardan las NAPAS SUBTERRÁNEAS. DÓNDE hay árboles hay agua. Cómo tan poca visión?

Great points but I found the speaker annoying

you'd think others in his area would learn and emulate what he did. Guess some are waiting for someone to come do it for them.

A very wise talk on many levels

that's amazing, thank you so much

you are best schooling all about swales and rainwater ... but you can learn a little from us and you earn 3-5 x more fruits !! this is the new life together look like the flower of life youa re interesting ?

Awesome teaching, ugly tag rope LOL

Don't want to undermine anything but I would like to take a very high stance and take a whole Watershed under my own management if I had the backing of the government the money do it I have a few ideas

I have questions

Great presentation and information. Thanks for posting. How is mosquito breeding prevented when there are open air pools of water? You would assume that where there is slow moving water mosquitoes would use it to breed. The time stamp of 39:31 is an example.

I have watched your videos so many times. There’s a strong possibility that we’d like to hire you for a large (100-500 acre) project in Utah. However I need to know if you’ve ever dealt with snow, or if there’s another moisture retaining expert that would know better? When I was a kid I remember an old fruit farmer in Canada talking about how they piled extra snow around trees so they didn’t bud out to early. I’m thinking that snow doesn’t follow all the same rules as rain. Do you know of anyone in your field that follows similar principles but with snow? How do you plant the snow?

Why is there no subtitle option in the video?

You forgot to mention to check with local laws country laws , a person can be in big trouble with power hungry officials

Who is the guy at min 39:24 ? Pls 😁

maybe the sahara will turn green over the next millennium.

i WATCHED ZEPHINIA PHIRI MASEKO AND HIS IDEAS OF PHIRI PITS IS OUTSTANDING....AND THE ARRESTS BY POLICE FOR THIS PROJECT IS JUST BEING IGNORANT

How does the video relate to the Rain Water Harvesting for Drylands and Beyonds books (vol 1 and 2)? Have others also found it worthwhile to order the books? Thanks.

Clue; the African rain farmer is a European.

he wanted to create the garden of eden

I'm not yet half-way through and struggling to finish. Dear presenter/speaker, Every second does not need some noise escaping your face. Please refrain from using "uh" and "uhm'' to occupy each space between thoughts, sentences, and breaths. Don't be afraid that you'll have people run away if there is a single second of silence. And if they do, they weren't ready to hear what you had to say anyway.