Global Community

Great Green Wall in China -- I'm sharing a video titled "How China turned the desert into green forests" with an impressive story about ecosystems transformation with a large-scale master-planned forestation over vast desert lands to combat desertification in China. I've learned a bit everytime when I read info about this "Great Green Wall" project, and hope you'll enjoy this one. I'm spreading it as part of my actions to take part in the UN World Soil Day 2025. The link goes: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-china-turned-the-desert-into-g…

SKYWARN actions kickoff on Skywarn Recognition Day 2025 --
Today, December 6, is the SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) in the US. While the NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) cancelled the SRD 2025, as a registered Official Skywarn Spotter and a SciStarter participant in the SKYWARN citizen science project stationed at the Arcadia Ecohome in the foothill community of Arcadia, California, I'm taking on a weeklong voluntarily sky-watch of the San Gabriel Mountains, a desert mountain range just north of Arcadia, as part of my actions to take part in the celebrations of both the 2025 SRD on December 6, the first Saturday of December, and International Mountain Day on December 11, along with reporting and advocacy activities such as this writeup. Monitoring the sky over desert mountains in Southern California where unusual winter wildfires have occurred in recent years, such as the devastating ones in January 2025, driven by extreme drought and heat after wet years and strong Santa Ana winds, is becoming critical in the era of climate new normal with hazardous windstorms and firestorms for our attentions and actions as members of the Skywarn Weather Spotters Network and the Fire Adapted Communities Network (FAC Net).

Soil properties and soil biodiversity play significant roles in land degradation, especially in arid regions. Today is the UN World Soil Day (WSD) 2025 themed "Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities”. As an urban farmer and a USEPA recognized Qualify Water Efficient Landscaper (QWEL) working at the Arcadia Ecohome’s micro-agroforest, a Certified Bee Friendly Farm and a listed Climate Victory Garden, located in the arid Southern California, I’ve registered a local event with FAO to support the global celebrations of WSD. Our key actions taken today is focused on improving soil properties and biodiversity to combat land degradation with actions to add organic matters from fallen leaves, tree trimmings & food wastes to the forest floor through composting so as to enhance the soil sponge’s functions of taking and keeping moisture from cool night dews, to harbor a bio-diversified forest-floor inhabitants such as insects, earthworms & microbes who contribute to build healthy soils, to induce root growth for reducing soil erosion, and to minimize green & food wastes generated in urban areas to be hauled to remote desert landfills. The photo (sorry, cannot be uploaded) taken today shows sheet composting of fallen leaves all over the forest floor, pile composting of twigs & branches by tree roots and an in-ground composting of kitchen wastes, all for building healthy soils by nature-based solutions. I’m sharing what we do at CIEDM with our networks, especially my follow members in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Communities of Learning and Practice, as part of our grassroots actions in social media campaign for WSD.