While I (Duke) was able to chance upon a lecture by Coakee William WildCat talking about Mycoremediation and replanting trees.
Coakee William Wild Cat
The Prefix ‘Myco-‘ relates to ‘Fungi’ and ‘Remediation’ is about ‘restoring the environment’. So Mycoremediation is using Fungi to help restore the environment. We can use Fungi to filter water, eat cigarette butts, eat trash and plastic, create compost to restore nature,
Essentially, Fungi are able to turn anything into nutrients for more living organisms like plants and trees. The other big take away was that Fungi are not super soldiers by themselves, they are a part of a larger ecosystem that benefits from being in a larger ecosystem. The Trees, the birds, the bees all play a role in helping eachother work as a ecosystem, as a sort of community.
The pressuppostions or assumption are;
-All of the soil everywhere, including the desert, has everything life needs to thrive. It just needs to be unlocked and converted by microbes and fungi.
-All soil can grow everything
-Trees and plants use water to cool themselves to be at the ideal temperature to photosynthesize, thus if you provide shade for plants, they would need less water.
-Water is used for transportation as well.
-More trees cool the earth, more trees are better. Trees are essentially the airconditioning system of the earth for temperature regulation.
-Fungi can’t thrive by themselves, they need support from the bio-community, which includes the bugs, the microbes, the trees, the plants, the birds, and the bees.
-You can grow anything anywhere.
-All of the above assumptions means that we can save (and terraform) the planet simply by allowing forests to exist and thrive.
And the assumptions above speak credit to the theory of panspermia, in which Earth may have been a dust mote that was impacted by xenomicrobes to allow for the flourishment of life.
Diversity allows for mutualism and cooperation and synergy between all the lives in the forest.
Wild Cat advocated to plant trees and even gave methods to grow trees in the desert itself by starting a nursery. He was able to mention the Miyawaki Method of starting a tree nursery using shade and density to create forests.
The basic principles of Miyawaki Method are;
-Increase plant density,
-less water needed with more shade from density,
-and more biodiversity is good for the soil.
This can be accomplished by using a false canopy or tarp to help provide shade for tree nurseries that are fledgling forests. Reducing water costs, and with a goal of about three of so years, the forrest should be self sustaining if done properly (minimal watering needed).
There was also a nice tip in gardening or farming about No-tilling, because tilling removes inches of a lot of stratified microbes that are interconnected in the soil. Thus the tilling of the land actually devestates the established microbiomes that are doing the work to provide for the plants and trees.
Tilling essentially messes up tiny layers of advanced settled microbes and insects and burrows. The Analogy that Wildcat made was that it would be like taking a very large rake with picks bigger than buildings and running it through the streets of New York City and then asking why Wall Street isn’t back up and running. Essentially it takes time to repair the damage done, and tilling causes too much damage and disconnection between roots and mycorhizzae and the overall ecosystem.
Also, tilling releases a lot of carbon. There are heat maps and carbon maps that show local farm towns moments after tilling, proving that tilling releases stored carbon in the soil, or in the necromass of deceased fungi or more. Essentially tilling is bad.
There was a discussion on Guerrilla garden warfare where people are radically planting more greenery in urban and desert environments. A form of urban afforestation that people can even do in their own backyards. Using methods like earthballs where a seed is embedden in fertile soil and planted enmasse.
Typically speaking, nature wants to do what is natural. Trees and plants want to grow the way that they want to grow. Our ability to determine that is limited without the use of excessive forces- and so I think we should honor respecting Nature to do what is Natural in most cases.
Wild Cat also taught some wisdom on Enchanting people with the Forest;
The Forest looks at humans trying to be humans by looking at other humans
The Forest says that it’s foolish.
The Forest can teach humans how to be humans.
The only thing humans have to do is plant trees.
This will also recreate the conditions to allow fungi to thrive.
And Remediate and heal the land.
To Recap,
The Forest as a whole is the ultimate mycoremediation, and this was the lesson I learned from Coakee William WildCat at SouthWest Funga Fest 2023.
You can find more information about planting trees and helping the earth at MotherTree.earth. Also if you’re interested, WildCat advocates that people make a promise or an oath to plant 100 trees a year if they’re able, and all of that work adds up to the enrichment of life and earth.
There was a lot of interesting history about the congregation of native indiginous tribes speaking a common tongue and working together to remediate the land. There’s historical evidence and the Nawat tongue and through stories passed down that there were continental Land Management meetings happening for thousands of years. The idea is that the entirety of the Amazon Rainforest was created by human ancestors that arrived 10 to 11 thousand years ago.
There were definitely more learnings, it was about a three hour lecture, so I’ll share more when I get around to it. I just gotta take the notes and transmute them to digestable and appropriate content relating to All things Fungi.
Thank you for reading!
