Heal the Planet with PONDS

Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison visits beaver dams talks about how beavers are the worlds greatest ecosystem engineers. He journeys to different permaculture sites in Oregon to see how these sites are actually mimicking the hydrologic and ecosystem effects of the beavers, as well as shows never-before-seen footage from large scale water harvesting projects in Rajasthan, India, and breaks down some simple take-away points for how we can design our landscapes to function for humans and the ecology. We can step into our role as a beneficial keystone species and heal the planet with ponds!

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Rajasthan drone footage from Ashok Meena

Second Cameraman:
Stories of Regeneration

Beaver interview camera:
Saskia Madlener

Digital Animation from Ben Missimer:

Watershed Map of North America:
Robert Szucs / Grasshopper Geography:

Andrew Millison’s links:

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[shanshui.garden]

I discovered natural springs on my property in 2017 that had been piped off the property in the 1970's so the previous owner could keep horses. I opened up the water and turned it into a series of 9 ponds 6 waterfalls, 8 dams, over 100 feet of slow moving creeks. Non of this is lined. The changes in my property and the biodiversity has been mind-blowing.

[ronniemcmaster]

Every time I see someone complaining about their wells running dry, I share one of your videos. I wish more people were interested. There are lots of people in rural areas who could use your techniques, start a nice orchard, and safeguard their land in case of wild fires. Firebreaks and swales could work wonders.

[kf]

I've been doing this on my farm for the past 20 years. Definitely works. Since I was a kid, I've felt like I was part beaver, because building dams is so deep in my nature.,

[thisearththeonlyheaven]

We don’t have beavers in Australia, but we do have Peter Andrews (developer of Natural Sequence Farming) showing how to rehydrate and regenerate landscapes, in part by using leaky weirs and swales to slow and spread water. According to Peter a lot of the Australian landscape was once well hydrated with chains of ponds.

[Tugedhel]

Love it... Be the Beaver... I remember talking to a super excited OSU grad student in the early '80s who had just spent the summer studying riparian zones and reporting radical improvements (instantly) when beaver like treatments were done to streams even using just a few logs, planks or railroad ties to make water steps to raise the water levels of the typical thin streams cut four feet down by erosion (accelerated by cattle damage). These little six foot wide water steps brought the water up to within four inches of the flood plain level. Instantly, the farmers entire meadow was green across its entirety without setting or moving a bit of irrigation pipe. What the farmer had initially agreed to with skepticism and reluctance became a point of celebration and new thinking was birthed that fencing the banks from the animals and shifting their water source to cattle troughs was NO PROBLEM AT ALL! Be the beaver... slow it down & let it spread. Love it Dr. Millison

[BritishBeachcomber]

In the UK we are reinstating old farm ponds. Done properly, seeds buried for decades are regenerating the original water plants and restoring habitats within a few years. We are also reintroducing beavers with great success.

[MARILYNANDERSON]

I am convinced we need waterfowl, beavers and a full scale symbiotic team of animal and plants to terraform our environment to our own benefit as well as theirs.

[smrk]

Greetings from NYC. The beaver trade was big money for Europeans in the 18th century. John Jacob Astor built up the island of Manhattan with his riches from the beaver trade, and his family established the high society old money culture that characterized the Gilded Age. This comes at the expense of so much, including Native American tribes. The healing has begun. Thanks for your hard work.

[one_field]

Here in the mountains of Virginia (east coast of the US), the beavers are coming back wonderfully. There's actually a ton of rewilding quietly occurring here (the successful reintroduction of elk, the population boom of bears and other predators, and tremendous reforestation). Our waterways are getting cleaner as a result.

We haven't yet attracted a beaver to our own small homestead, so we've had to manually maintain check dams and percolation pits, but we keep hoping one will move in. They're breeding so successfully in the area that pest control companies are having to trap them in the urban regions. Unfortunately, they're not legally allowed to relocate the captured beavers to those of us who want them; the law still labels beavers as a nuisance species. Still, with their population growing annually, I think it's only a matter of time before they move up our little creek.

Maybe one day, all of America's ecosystems will be able to regenerate like this.

[gertboshoff]

Humans can become a "keystone species". First time I'm hearing it. 🙂 I like it.

[WayDeath]

And it's not just ponds
Retaining water and slowing down its flow can be on a smaller scale as well.
I'm working at a wolf sanctuary in an arid region. In summer often get short but strong thunder storms. Unfortunately there are no beavers in the region and water often runs of quickly on the surface, washing out roads instead of seeping into the ground.
On our property here, when we plant trees, we create little sales to retain some of that water.

I wanna do this on a bigger scale on the hillside of our watershed. We used to have a creek running through the enclosures but I has dried up and the little spring barely provides any water anymore. I hope in the long term (even with the changing climate) we can restore that spring a little bit

[tss]

My family has land in the Laurention mountains in Quebec. From our land you can walk up to the top of a mountain ridge as you go you find a series ofsmall lakes and ponds connected by streams and waterfalls. At the top where you would least expect it is a large pond with you guessed it massive beaver lodges and dams. At the top of a mountain! What a wonderful world we live in where a small hard working creature can create such a natural wonder.

[davidford]

Good to see, not least because one of my several greats uncles was the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, running a network of 33 forts busily destroying the beavers from San Francisco to Alaska and across to the Rockies. Glad they are fixing what he did.

[jpuerer]

The Story-Telling, the editing and the amount of useful information in this video are just a great combination. Thanks Andrew

[gaeangardensbyizabela]

This is a huge eye opener, everything is interconnected and people need to understand that their experience is the direct result of their actions. I've learned a lot about the movement of water, thank you

[no_i_dont_want_no_slugs]

My brother has a newfound appreciation for beavers because of this video :)

[nicholasruiz]

Beaver wakes up in the morning, looks around, and just thinks DAMN

[nesforce]

Very inspirational. I can now boldly proclaim that I love beavers more than I used to and I really love beaver.

[russellgibbon]

Yet another magnificent video Andrew - thank you! I will share it far and wide . . .

[scottweisel]

I would imagine these projects also reduce destructive flooding during heavy rains, as the ponds and surrounding meadows allow for storage and slow release of the extra water.