Greening the Desert Project: Permaculture Video Series

The Greening the Desert Project website hosts a collection of educational videos centered on transforming arid landscapes into productive food forests through permaculture techniques, led by experts like Geoff Lawton. Key content includes demonstrations of desert food forest establishment, where barren soils are converted into lush ecosystems using water harvesting, swales, and companion planting to capture rainfall and build soil fertility. Chop-and-drop methods are prominently featured, involving pruning nitrogen-fixing plants like legumes and mulching them directly onto the ground to suppress weeds, retain moisture, and enrich soil organically without external inputs. The videos also promote permaculture internships, such as the upcoming 2-week program from November 23rd to December 4th, 2025, designed for hands-on learning in Jordan's challenging desert environment. Participants engage in practical sessions on ecosystem design, plant guilds, and animal integration to create self-sustaining systems that produce abundant fruits, vegetables, and herbs. These resources draw from decades of on-site experimentation, showing dramatic results like increased groundwater levels, diverse wildlife return, and year-round yields in previously unproductive areas. The project exemplifies permaculture's core tenets—observe and interact, catch and store energy, and obtain a yield—applied to extreme climates, offering replicable models for global arid regions facing drought and food insecurity. Videos range from short tutorials to in-depth tours, making complex concepts accessible for beginners and advanced practitioners alike, with emphasis on community involvement and long-term resilience.