Climate change and human actions are rapidly degrading and destroying ecosystems.
Mud Valley Institute was created to support efforts to stop and reverse the damaging changes we are experiencing in our bioregion and local ecosystem.
Desertification is a growing problem in Mediterranean Europe.
Arid and semi-arid regions are becoming increasingly vulnerable to soil degradation and loss of vegetation cover. Climate change, combined with unsustainable land use practices such as overgrazing, deforestation, intensive agriculture and urban sprawl, is exacerbating the problem. Desertification has serious ecological, economic, and social consequences, including loss of biodiversity, reduced food security, and increased poverty and human migration.
Nowhere are these degenerative impacts being felt more rapidly and acutely than in southern Portugal, at the southwestern-most tip of the Iberian peninsula. Here in what was known as the bread-basket of Portugal not so long ago, the Bravura dam that served area farms with irrigation water has essentially been dry for multiple summers already, with no end in sight. Native forests on the headlands of this watershed have been replaced by the pulp and paper industry with monocultures of non-native eucalyptus, which do nothing to replenish aquifers. The only downstream agricultural developments in recent years have been massive avocado plantations, irrigated by boreholes that are having to go ever deeper to find water.
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Meanwhile on the coast, touristic development proceeds apace, with no evident regard for what is now understood even in the popular press to be an acute water crisis. In fact, what little water had filled the dam above “dead volume” was diverted to the urban grid as an emergency measure, with barely a hint of conservation measures in the tourism industry as of yet. Tourism has challenges enough already, including a shortage of skilled low-wage workers and the exorbitant cost of housing them, and adding a water crisis to the list of challenges adds another burden the industry must address.
This leads to what is perhaps the most tragic face of the Desertification problem: youth unemployment and emigration to countries where the prospects for gainful employment and good living conditions are better. In Portugal, this manifests in three obvious ways: (1) jobs in the touristic and hospitality industries are mostly filled by immigrants, while (2) overeducated and un(der)employed youths remaining in the cities are in many cases reliant on public and/or family subsidies, while (3) villages in the rural interior are overwhelmingly populated by senior citizens, with few able bodied younger folk remaining to care for the land.
Absent caring stewardship of the land, the already degraded lands in this brittle climate zone are more vulnerable to wildfires in the summer, erosion and flooding in the winter, and increasing degradation of the natural vegetation and animal life that formerly existed in such diversity and abundance as to be the basis of a healthy Mediterranean diet and lifestyle not so very long ago.
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Source: ECA, based on World Resources Institute, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Desertification Synthesis, 2005, p. 17.
How we can make a difference.
Mud Valley Institute is situated on a regenerative organic farm in “the desert of touristic Algarve”, still a Garden of Eden for fly-in holidaymakers, but with a semi-arid climate that is severely threatened by global warming. We are, therefore, well-positioned to serve as a force multiplier, leveraging the energies and expertise of our core team and local partners to achieve a collective impact much greater than its modest budgetary resources would appear to support.
Taking our cues from nature, the global network of learning centers we envision and work with are part of a web that must be woven of a lightweight and flexible yet strong thread, well-anchored to hubs that are well-rooted in the ground on which they stand.
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In the realm of natural ecosystems, every bioregion is its own context, with its own unique mix of elements and relationships, challenges, and priorities. Yet each bioregion is interconnected with the other systems and all are a part of the whole. Damage to one ultimately impacts others, or all. Inversely, making one healthy can also impact others in a positive manner, and this is the work we strive to do…restoring ecosystems and bioregions, for the benefit of all.
By facilitating a process of sharing and collegial co-development among committed local land stewards, Mud Valley Institute aims to develop a set of tools and knowledge that can work to regenerate ecosystems across the bioregion and in similar climates around the world, as a first step.
The benefits our work brings.
We create numerous positive outcomes in the areas of ecosystem restoration and regenerative agriculture through the combination of our own work and research and by joining forces with local, regional, and international partners.
Habitat conservation and protection
From our ecosystem restoration activities and reversing the effects of desertification.
Improved biodiversity
From keystone species stewardship.
Improved food security and water availability
From improving soil quality and water capture and retention, and implementing regenerative agricultural practices.
Creating and supporting agents of change
By developing people through education and training who are actively focused on ecosystem restoration and regenerative agriculture.
Enhanced collaboration among land stewards
Through better communication and knowledge sharing among communities like ours around the world.
Promoting more effective ecotourism projects and practices
In order to make this industry more, and truly, impactful.
Ecosystem and environmental literacy and advocacy
By empowering and educating multiple stakeholder groups.
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