My guest today is Neal Spackman, Neal is best known for his work on the Al Baydah project in Saudi Arabia, and as the co-founder of the Sustainable Design Masterclass. Neal has been working for nearly a decade in one of the most arid regions of the world in a severely desertified region of saudi arabia to regenerate the landscape there through permaculture methods focusing on water harvesting techniques. As a former student of Geoff Lawton, Neal began work on the project with no prior experience with either permaculture or dryland restoration, but in a remarkably short time he and his team have completely transformed the way the land both sequesters water and builds topsoil, and has even reached the point where the trees no longer need any water from drip irrigation in a desert that receives only a few centimeters of rainfall a year.
In this interview Neal talks in detail about the intricacies and challenges that they face on his land restoration project, the social and economic factors that add a human element to the designs, and how he went from a complete beginner to running one of the most prominent and successful desert restoration projects in the world.
We also talk about the incredible information and interviews that he hosts through the Sustainable Design Masterclass and the inspirational stories of people who are running profitable businesses by regenerating the earth.
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