Extraordinary Inspiration Leads
To Seed-Bearing Clay Ball Program
Boyé Lafayette De Mente
KAMAKURA, JAPAN - In 2003 a film-school teacher named Ryuji Enokida had an extraordinary inspiration that is now helping to restore plants and trees to areas that had become barren deserts, using an astonishingly simple process that requires no watering and no fertilizer.
It somehow occurred to teacher Enokida that plant and tree seeds encased in small balls of clay would germinate and grow when spread around in arid areas that had become virtually lifeless.
After testing the idea and proving that it worked, Enokida formed a group within his existing Yokohama Art Project to introduce the process to the world. He teamed-up with a film-maker friend, went to a Kenya diplomat and pitched the idea of re-greening an area outside of Nairobi that had once been heavily forested but had turned into a dry, dead area when all of the trees were cut down.
With approval from the Kenyan official Enokida and his group spread hundreds of clay balls (about one inch in diameter) embedded with acacia, eucalyptus and other plant and tree seeds in a 1-hectare (2.47 acre) plot of barren land.
Within one year trees from the balls of clay were 1.5 meters high and were thriving without having been fertilized or watered! Not only were the trees thriving, but the baked and cracked earth had regained some moisture.
The secret of this miraculous-sounding growth was that the difference in the day-and-night temperatures resulted in dew forming inside the balls at night, causing the seeds to germinate and put roots down into the ground. Being embedded in clay, the seeds were protected from the extreme heat and dryness and from being eaten by birds and other predators.
Local Kenyan residents were shocked that the little seed-bearing balls of clay actually turned the plot of land green, and asked that the project be expanded into other desert areas in the country. Seeds planted in this manner near the equator grew taller than the average person within one year.
The program has now been spread to China, first in the Beijing area, and could play a major role in helping to reforest huge areas of China that are bare of plant life because of cutting and logging.
Enokida’s film-making friend has prepared a documentary on the project to help raise money for the enterprise. This is something that the big foundations and environmentalists should get behind and turn into a worldwide wave of greening the barren areas of the planet. Information about the Yokohama Art Project is available on the Web.
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To see a list and descriptions of 30-plus books on Japan by the author, access his personal website at: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/.
