Name: How to build a resilient future using ancient wisdom | Julia Watson
Uploaded: 2020-10-23T18:55:45.000Z
Duration: 8 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

When you imagine the architectural wonders of the world,

or maybe the amazing aqueducts of Ancient Rome?

Both of these are amazing feats of human innovation.

I've often wondered why do we monumentalize the ancient wonders

of civilizations that collapsed such a long time ago?

I've traveled the world studying ancient innovation,

and what I've found are Indigenous technologies from living cultures

And some of these cultures you may have never heard of.

They live in the most remote places on earth,

facing environmental extremes like desert drought and frequent flooding

A couple of years ago, I traveled to northern India

to a place overlooking the plains of Bangladesh

in a forest that receives more rainfall than anywhere else on earth.

travel between villages is cut off by these floods,

from a forested canopy into isolated islands.

This hill tribe has evolved living root bridges

that are created by guiding and growing tree roots

that you can barely wrap your arms around

Multiple generations of the Khasi men and the women and the children,

as they grow to the other side of that bank,

where they're then planted to make a structure

This 1,500-year-old tradition of growing living root bridges

has produced 75 of these incredible structures.

in this landscape they actually last for centuries.

I've seen cultures who have been living with floods for thousands of years

by evolving these ancient technologies that allow them to work with the water.

which are formed by the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers,

a unique, water-based civilization lives.

For 6,000 years, the Maʿdān have floated villages

on man-made islands that are constructed from a single species of reed

And the Qasab reed is integral to every aspect of life.

and building material for these biodegradable, buoyant islands

that they construct in as little as three days.

it can be woven into floors or roofs or walls,

that's used to bind these buildings without the use of any nails.

The Maʿdān villages are constructed in the marsh,

on islands that stay afloat for over 25 years.

Although global attention is focused on the pandemic,

cities are still sinking and sea levels are still rising.

are definitely going to help us solve some of these problems,

In other parts of the world, where rivers are contaminated with sewage,

a city of 15 million people cleans its waste water with its flood plains.

flanked by a smoking escarpment of the city's trash

an Indigenous technology of 300 fish ponds

cleans its water while producing its food.

And through a combination of sunshine and sewage

and a symbiosis between algae and bacteria,

Fish ponds continue this cleaning of the water

it's not just a model for chemical and coal-power-free purification.

Since Calcutta's core has no formal treatment,

it's the city's only way of cleaning the water downstream

What I find so unbelievable about this infrastructure

is that as cities across the world in Asia and in Europe

Calcutta is now struggling to save it from being displaced by development.

And then to deal with flooding in a completely other way,

the Tofinu tribe has developed the largest lake city in Africa.

is built of stilted houses that are organized around a canal system

And the royal square stands amongst 3,000 stilted buildings

that are all surrounded by 12,000 individual fish paddocks,

This chemical-free artificial reef covers almost half of the lagoon

and feeds one million people that are living around it.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to build a resilient future using ancient wisdom | Julia Watson

individual

crisis

ancient

infrastructure