This video of HMI Certified Educator, Brian Wehlburg of InsideOutside Management Consulting in Australia, provides a highly effective explanation of how biodiversity is critical to create greater resilience and stability in a natural system. This video was captured as part of Brian's work with CarbonSync.
Brian explains how diversity and complexity in an agricultural system creates resilience. He demonstrates, using participants in his course, how the addition of more species to an ecosystem allows it to function better, especially if there are disruptions such as drought or flood.
Brian explains that if cows are eating one grass species (monoculture) like Paspalum, there is no complexity or resilience in the farm. By adding a legume like clover, which cows love to eat, you can introduce bacteria that will fix nitrogen in the soil, which in turn helps earthworms, which in turn provide nutrients to the Paspalum. If caterpillars arrive, they get eaten by the quail thrushes, which also eat grasshoppers.
The demonstration provides an insight into how Holistic Management, creating complexity and diversity in a farming system, supports the development of symbiotic relationships which increase resilience, productivity, and profitability.