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How it all got started...

Geoff and Nadia Lawton first got involved in the original Greening the Desert project site in 2000, when they were a part of a permaculture design and consultancy team for three years funded by a Japanese aid organisation. During this time the original site flourished, the tree systems that were introduced started to regenerate their own soil, even soil microbes and fungi had returned to the site.
However, after three years the funding stopped and with no funds for local staff the project site was abandoned. Nevertheless the site kept on regenerating itself…

Geoff and Nadia did not want their efforts to go to waste and they knew that the only way to prevent projects like this from being discontinued was to create and manage the projects themselves, hence Nadia Lawton founded the local NGO the Jordanian Association for Environment and Soil and in 2008 initiated the second Greening The Desert Project site that you can visit today.

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10+ years and still going strong!

Over the past 10 years, Greening The Desert demonstration site and education centre, located between the villages of Al Jawfa and Al Jawasreh in the Jordan River Valley, has exemplified the imperative impact of a permaculture integrated approach in an arid climate. Incorporating organic agricultural production, water and waste management, soil amelioration, renewable energies, environmental sustainability and ecosystem diversity, it provides a unique model for self-sustainable farming. Hit play to se a slideshow timeline of how it all happened.

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