22 Feb 2026 6 min read Basecamp Updates

VIDEO UPDATE #5 🌀 How We’re Learning to Revive Natural Water Cycles - Part I

Healing landscapes is not about leaving them alone—it’s about teaming up with them.

Changing how we look at climate, droughts, fires, and floods—and changing how we deal with them.

In November 2025, we gave a weekend course in Central Portugal on Reviving Natural Water Cycles. We dove into what’s really going on in our climate, and what it takes to actually heal it: living landscapes.

The theory we offered is about attitude more than technique. During hands-on practices, we focused on helping water to slow, spread and sink into the ground—instead of running off, eroding, and degrading the soil.

↡ A trailer of the presentation video

↡ A written summary of the full presentation

↡ Reflections from participants

↡ Credits, thanks, and links to more

The full presentation and Q&A session are available to members below.

🎥 Trailer (2 min.)

💡

Auto-translated subtitles available in multiple languages. Click ⛭ to set yours.

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📜 Presentation Summary

Prologue—What’s really going on

Crisis: A threat to who we think we are; an opportunity for what we truly are

Beyond visible symptoms like droughts, fires, and floods lie deeper systemic causes. Two short animations by the Water Stories team (our main mentors) explore how:

the natural water cycle functions;
how human activity has disrupted it;
a cascade of consequences that are all related, but not natural—and very solvable.

I. A mindset shift

Going from control to relationship, from fear to connection, and from seeing ourselves as separate to understanding ourselves as participants in the regeneration of life.
Reviving natural water cycles isn’t just about applying techniques—it’s about restoring the right relationship with the land, each other, and ourselves.

Images of engineered landscapes. Text: 'We've been engineering against natural water cycles'

II. Dominant narratives

It’s not primarily ‘the climate’, not simply CO₂, and not ‘the eucalyptus tree.’ Such ideas distract us from seeing the real levers of change: our land practices, our broken water cycles, our disconnection from nature.

Through recent and local examples, including a flash flooding event just days before this course, we show:

how degraded landscapes connect and amplify fires, floods, and droughts;
how restoring the soil’s capacity to absorb and hold water can reverse the spiral of destruction.

Slow, spread, and sink water into the ground

III. The work

What can we actually do? We explore several proven strategies:

Enhancing infiltration through earthworks and rehydration
Creating (perennial) water bodies to cool and hydrate land
Building retention barriers with materials already on-site
Mimicking natural processes, including the role of beavers (and how we can learn from them)
Designing in collaboration with the landscape’s own intelligence, using all of our senses to read land and read water

And we challenge the fear of ‘getting it wrong’—failing forward instead of waiting for the perfect plan (and getting stuck in Analysis Paralysis):

experimenting,
modeling,
observing,
and learning—just as nature does.

We humans are a very useful keystone species on Earth. Healing landscapes is not about leaving them alone—it’s about teaming up with them.

🗣 What people said about the course

“The presentations were excellent, engaging, and concise—and I loved the group vibe and practical activities. This course gave me the knowledge and experience to tackle challenges on my land with confidence and renewed purpose.”

Adam Thomas, Syntropic Ecosystem Designer and Builder

“Super knowledgeable, sensitive and friendly teachers, and a course that filled me with inspiration, motivation, and the confidence to start sharing what I’ve learned. It has stayed with me ever since, like the opening of a big dam, releasing the water free to run its true and natural course!”

Flor

“I left, boosted by inspiration and the desire to act. I even decided to explore steering my career (as a copywriter) in the direction of regenerative agriculture.”

Thomas van de Loo

This is Part I of a deeper exploration into what it means to restore living water cycles.

In Part II, we’ll go further into field application and community practice.

💡 Learn more about Miracle Project’s vision and mission on our main website

🎁 Thanks

EcoAtivo and Ananda Kalyani
For co-facilitating and hosting a hope-giving and inspiring weekend.

The wonderful team @WaterStories.com
for being such generous and impactful teacher-trainers—and for a heartfelt partnership.
» WaterStories.com

The equally wonderful team @MaatschapWij.nu
One of the Netherlands’ only good-news-only platforms for a greener, healthier and more connected society, promoting our mission and sponsoring part of our video work.
» MaatschapWij.nu

🪇 Music used in the trailer
Scattered Wave by Asura