Synergy and Balance with the Natural World

Working WITH the forces of nature results in healthier, more climate-resilient buildings, reduced costs, property appreciation, and ecosystem regeneration. Building development, land/water management, and architecture that is integrated with and complimentary of local ecosystems and climate also solves problems such as flooding, effects of drought, and contaminated land/water. Opportunities and solutions are all around us. They are inexpensive and self-renewing. Design methods and case studies are outlined in great detail, enabling anyone to become more profitable, self-reliant, and less dependent on inefficient, expensive, centralized systems. This creates a shift-from waste to regeneration, vulnerability to resilience, and from resource depletion to replenishing. Anyone who owns, rents or manages residential, commercial, or agricultural property will benefit. Property values are directly related to the health of surrounding landscapes and ecosystems, yet billions of dollars are lost from mainstream methods of building and land/water management. We are being held hostage by these highly centralized policies that are destructive, dirty, and expensive. This is a blueprint for prodigious change, where buildings, humans, and nature coexist and prosper. Some benefits include: ¿Understand the correlation between clean lakes and property values, and how to turn polluted lakes into healthy ecosystems-without chemicals or dredging ¿Turn toxic landfills into healthy, buildable areas without excavation, and at minimal cost to you ¿Protect your property from the devasting effects of flooding while replenishing underground aquifers ¿Building designs that conform to local climate and topography are healthier, less costly, and more resilient to extreme weather. Here are 9 proven ways to improve your building's performance. ¿Create additional revenue for your community while increasing property values through community farms, including managing a farm and improving soil health and crop yield. ¿Sustainably reduce agricultural runoff pollution Also included are sections on environmental law, how the legal system allows for environmental exploitation, and the grass roots movements that are changing the status quo. Indigenous cultures see everything as interrelated and connected to everything else, themselves included. Our integral relationship to the world has been hijacked in favor of corporate interests advocating separation and isolation. This book contains viable, problem-solving alternatives to a highly compartmentalized and isolationist modern society, where humans are considered above and separate from the natural world.