SUGi Talks

Since the Enlightenment public space has served a pivotal role in the exchange of ideas, the cultivation of national identity, and the integration of communities. In Beirut however, money-hungry privatisation and hostile policies have left much of its public spaces dwindling.

Amman, Jordan is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and the ongoing desertification of the region continues to threaten its resources. Our SUGi Forest Maker Deema Assaf watched her hometown of Amman become almost unrecognisable as urbanisation swept through its landscapes.

Did you know that underneath the forest floor, a sophisticated network of fungi forms a secret super highway between plants? Carrying resources and chemical messengers, this highway acts as a mysterious support system allowing trees to communicate and share material.

On this excerpt of ⁠SUGi Talks⁠ we speak to Gaurav Gurjar. Gaurav is a jungle tree expert at Afforestt and the Director of the Maruvan Foundation in Rajasthan. Over the past few years, Gaurav has been restoring an area of India’s lost desert forest, and with the support of SUGi he’s begun the second 4,000 sqm phase of the project. Living on the land, enduring intense heat and drought, Gaurav has worked tirelessly to harness the elements in order to restore the land, and the results are astonishing. We talk about the power of deep observation, ancestral wisdom, and how as a society we could live in better harmony with Nature to create abundance for all.

In 2019, after decades of corruption, intense pollution and a severe economic collapse, protestors flooded the streets of Beirut demanding change. Amongst them was environmental architect and one of our first SUGi Forest Makers, Adib Dada.

In this episode of SUGi Talks we meet the writer and journalist Lucy Jones. Her book Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need The Wild explores the powerful ways Nature impacts our lives, and dives deep into the research that explains why we have such a profound connection to the living world..

You might have heard the term 'Nature-based Solutions', but what does it actually mean? What do they look like? And how can they help cities tackle the ecological and climate crisis?

On this episode of SUGi Talks, we meet Cecil Konijnendijk. Cecil co-directs the Nature-Based Solutions Institute, a think tank dedicated to evidence-based urban greening strategies, and he is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading urban forestry experts.

Our cities are in trouble and it’s not just the climate crisis. Urban areas are facing multiple interconnected challenges, including the ecological crisis, the human health crisis, and the climate crisis.

Changing landscapes, the implications of urbanisation, and the importance of changing mindsets towards Nature.

In the not-too-distant past, Deema was working as an architect in Amman, Jordan. As one of the fastest growing cities in the world, Deema watched her hometown become almost unrecognisable as urbanisation swept through its landscapes, forgoing much of its Nature and local biodiversity.

Did you know that underneath the forest floor resources can be transferred from one tree to another in need? The Mycorrhizal Network is a fungal web that resides in soil.

What would happen our minds if one day we woke up to a world with no trees, forests, or even grass? If birds and butterflies were a thing of the past, and green spaces were non-existent. What if our only experience of Nature was through a simulation on a screen?

Roaming the lush rainforests of Northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea, the Cassowary bird is a striking sight to behold. Resembling something like an exquisite dinosaur at 6 feet tall, this at-risk flightless bird is now in a fight for survival. As a keystone species, the Cassowary is facing endangerment due to the fragmentation of its habitat by development and industrial agriculture.

Since time immemorial the traditional lifeways of the Yakama people have been deeply rooted in the natural world. But the ongoing trauma inflicted on the community has left this connection to the land fractured, with indigenous knowledge dwindling amongst many of the younger generations.

Our cities are heating up, and fast. Rising global temperatures means the urban heat island effect in our cities will be amplified. Trees are a proven way to help cities combat this growing issue.

“I can remember walking out and there being rocks here and there. The dirt was just powder; there wasn’t even weeds growing. After Ethan did all of the things with the soils. It’s beautiful because we’re rebuilding what was already here.

“We're in a consumer, materialistic environment. You know, there's not much empathy or there wasn't much empathy for nature. Greed is a great thing. You know, cities expand through greed, and nature was knocked to the bottom. But I think it's partly because everyone assumed nature would always be there. Forests will be there, that it's never going to start disappearing and it's never going to have an impact.

It's just that interaction that nature has with people that it's so important. It's ancestral, it's in our genes. If people are stressed automatically, they'll go outside and sit against a tree or just take a big breath because they're outside. And it's really important.”

Like many of us, during the pandemic Jason Williams, aka The Cloud Gardener, was forced indoors. While on furlough from his hospitality job, he decided to try a few plants out on his balcony.

Up on the 18th floor of a high rise in Manchester city, he went from struggling with one marigold flower to transforming his balcony into a thriving ecosystem in the sky.

In the 1970s, Japan was undergoing an industrial boom. As the skies filled with smog and pollution soared, public health became a grave concern.

In this episode of SUGi Talks, we meet Dr. Grey Coupland. Grey is our lead scientist at SUGi, and she holds the key to the rich data behind our Pocket Forests.

On this episode we speak with Gaurav Gurjar a jungle tree expert at Afforestt, and the Director of the Maruvan Foundation in Rajasthan.

For our very first episode of SUGi Talks, we meet James Godfrey-Faussett. As SUGi’s lead Forest Maker, James manages our global urban Pocket Forest and afforestation efforts.