Featured Image: The FLOWS team learns the burn barrel method for making biochar from expert Michael Alcazar
As part of our ongoing series with the Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability, KGNU’s Hannah Leigh Myers joined the FLOWS team for a biochar workshop and learned how to make this nutrient-rich, carbon-sequestering material that has the potential to combat environmental degradation.
“FLOWS decided to look at biochar which is this amazing solution [environmental degradation] that was cultivated by indigenous people in the Amazon for at least the last 8,000 years. It’s an amazing soil amendment,” says FLOWS Founder and Assistant Director for Energy & Climate Justice at CU Boulder’s Environmental Center, Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish.“As a simple technology biochar has the capacity to help sequester several gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
For a deeper dive into the history and science of biochar listen in on permaculturalist Michael Alacar’s classroom biochar lesson below
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- FLOWS Resident Leader Peterson Jean’s experience using a machete in Haiti proved particularly valuable
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- FLOWS Resident Leader Indya Love helps fill the truck with scrap wood
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- FLOWS Student Technician Magnolia Landa-Posas’ time gathering wood with her family in Mexico came in handy
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- FLOWS Coordinator Angela Maria Ortiz Roa starts the woodpile
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- Workshop leader Michael Alcazar explains the method they were about to use to create the type of biochar they wanted
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- FLOWS Student Technician Remi Ruyle helps tightly pack the barrel with wood
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- The FLOWS team began their workshop by circling, holding hands, and focusing their minds and hearts on the learning ahead in gratitude
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- A Boulder firefighter working nearby explains the fire safety rules related to biochar production
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- Flames temporarily escape the biochar barrel before being control with a lid
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- Permaculturalist Michael Alcazar shows the group a dark black piece of biochar and explains the less white ash biochar contains the better the quality
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- Demonstrating the many uses of biochar, FLOWS Resident Technician Elizabeth Achulo shared her memories using biochar as a form of toothpaste in South Sudan
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- The full-day biochar workshop taught participants bio making takes patience
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- The biochar setup the FLOWS team used was made almost completely from reclaimed metal barrels
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- After the hands-on part of the workshop, the group sat down for a biochar presentation and discussion
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- Like many FLOWS workshops, new faces and special guest were welcomed to join and lead the learning
FLOWS is currently accepting applications from Boulder residents with low/moderate incomes interested in becoming technicians for the program. Residents will receive green job skills training and a stipend for their participation. Find out more at colorado.edu/ecenter/FLOWS
This FLOWS radio series is made possible by a grant from Boulder County