TED2009 Part IV - If you do nothing else with your life this year, watch these guys

Willie Smits, who talked about how he was saving Orangutans, essentially had to design an entire ecosystem to reforest parts of Borneo, and in the process he has designed a framework that anyone can - and should use. On Day 1 he was the first guy I met as I walked in, jetlagged. On Day 3 I was privileged to watch him give what I consider the talk of the TED conference, the talk of the year and maybe one of the most important of the the decade:

It's impossible to even begin to explain what he has done - to save orangutans he has solved nearly all the problems you need to solve to save forests from deforestation - land usage, economics, organisation, biology of fauna and flora - the whole thing. Sadly TED has not yet released the video, so I've taken some data from the liveblogs - Ethan Zuckerman:

When Smits tells us that his project protects a thousand orangutans, the audience erupts into applause… which makes him extremely angry. “No, no! Don’t you understand? I care for more orangutans than all the zoos in the world because we’re so bad at protecting them in the wild.”

Orangutans are losing habitat to deforestation, and the deforestation comes from clearing old-growth rainforest and building oil palm plantations. Indonesia is madly planting oil palms to sell biofuels, and may be creating an environmental disaster in the process. The country is now responsible for more CO2 emissions than any nations but the US and China… and Indonesia has virtually no heavy industry. The damage comes simply from removing forests.

To save orangutans, Smits needs to save forests. To save forests, he’s trying an incredibly ambitious experiment - rebuilding a forest in Samboja Lestari, an area in eastern Borneo that had been turned into a biological desert through deforestation. With all large trees gone, all other plants died, leaving a waste of dry grasses… and desperate human poverty.

In cooperation with the Indonesian government, Smits has transformed the environment and created over 3000 jobs. The project has reintroduced bird, lizard and primate species, and has mitigated both floods and fires. But it hasn’t been easy.

This area of Borneo is farmed using slash and burn techniques. These fires often spiral out of control, and at this point, much of the area is plagued with underground fires. When the earth dries, these fires can come to the surface and rapidly burn millions of hectares. In 1998, a fire burned 5.5 million hectares.

The key to preventing Borneo rom burning is the sugar palm. Smits discovered them because he was required to give six to his father in law as the dowry for his wife, an Indonesian princess. Not only are the trees fire and flood resistant, they produce sugar water every day, which can be tapped and used as a biofuel. Smits calls them biological PV cells, which yield three times as much fuel per hectare as any other crop.

To rebuilding these forests, Smits is trying recreate the complexity of nature - Acacia mangium trees help shade out grasses, protect soil and allow microclimates to form. Banboo can be used with Acacia timber to build structures… but the bamboo can burn unless it grows along waterlines. They can help filter the water, helping mitigate pollution. Eventually, Smits throws his hands up and says, “It’s complicated.”

It is, but it’s also very simple. Working closely with people in the local villages, farmers are planting crops like beans and pineapples between palms, giving the farmers free land. The crops feed the orangutans, and everyone makes money… by avoiding monocultures and figuring out how forests are actually made by nature, it may be possible to rebuild the forests and save our primate bretheren.

It gets even better. Smits now sees evidence that trees are rain machines. Despite widespread drought in the area, there’s now dramatically increased rainfall over the land he’s helping rehabilitate.

Also yesterday Dickson Despommier showed the work he was doing on hydroponics, especially vertical hydroponics (growing plants on racks) , and went through the data on its higher efficiency and lower ecological damage vs chemical intensive farming.

These talks, and Ray Anderson's on the first day, showed real, practical, do-able Greenstuff that have major actual impacts.

TED awarded 3 prizes for great achievements last year, and asked for resource to help the prizewinners. Here's my suggestion - as a priority, anyone in TED or outside should start working on getting Willie's And Dickson's stuff to as many people as possible.