Radio Today is available on 1485 AM in the greater Johannesburg area or nationally on DStv audio channel 169 and this insert was aired on 21 September.

Ever since we discovered how to use fire, we humans have been like “toddlers with matchboxes” – and dangerously so.

So said science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: innovation inspired by nature (first published in 1997). She was talking at the inaugural lecture of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership’s Resilience Forum in Cape Town on 27 August 2009.

Her fondly delivered description of our “relatively new species” conjures up a vivid image of how we humans have become too smart and successful for our own good. So smart and populous in fact, that our beloved “heat, beat and treat” approach to almost everything could threaten our very own survival.

The problem with our approach to solving problems is that it usually causes a host of other problems in its wake – problems that in turn need solving. Human induced climate change is an obvious example.

A smart way to re-invent our survival is to learn from other successful species that adopt a less hell-fire-and-brimstone approach and manage to create and re-create, for example, in water and at room temperature.

Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems. It points out that in Nature there are 3.8 million years of evolution and 30 million other species to learn from.

The discipline offers a new way of viewing and valuing nature and introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it.

Benyus, who is based in Montana, USA, heads up a design consultancy that places a biologist on every team along with engineers, scientists, designers and business leaders. Their job is to hear the problem that needs solving and then provide an audit of how other species would approach the same problem, sustainably.

She is currently in South Africa to run a training programme for designers and consultants in Limpopo.  It is her first trip to Africa, and she is palpably “blown away” by coming into contact with the remarkable variety of biodiversity that we have here. “So much to learn from”, she points out, right on our doorstep.

The results of biomimicry so far have been extraordinary. Here are some of the Africa-based examples she provided in her lively presentation, which she backed with stunning photographic wildlife imagery. They involved new eco-smart technologies learnt from how the stripes on a zebra’s back regulate temperature. Or from how the mucus in a giraffe’s mouth protects it from being torn to shreds by Acacia thorns. Or from how termite mounds run extraordinarily efficient air-conditioning systems. Or from what we can learn from basking hippos about sun protection. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of opportunity

Benyus is currently putting together a free-for-all Google-like matchmaking portal database of Nature’s solutions, as they emerge: AskNature.org.  It will put designers and technologists who invent products and systems in touch with biologists so they can match human needs with Nature’s solutions.

One of the clues, according to biomimicry, is to not look at problems in isolation. We need to define our problems differently and look for “sets of solutions”. Another is to look at one of the key principles of successful evolution: “preserving life”. “Just look at a bird’s nest”, she suggests. “If we put life at the centre of all decision making, we will get it right.”

Benyus might label us as ‘toddlers’, but she is not hard on us humans. She points out that evolution only happens with mistakes and the opportunities that arise to correct these. Nature chooses what works, she says, and we have all the information we need at our fingertips to find the sustainable solutions. But we need to look to Nature for these because our own “heat, beat and treat” set of solutions is not doing the job.

We have had a lot of fun being “toddlers with matchboxes”, but it’s time to grow up.

Monica Graaff is the 2008 SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year and an associate of Incite Sustainability.

“Green building is a broad name for efficiency across everything, not only buildings, and includes transport, structures, rail networks and waste disposal.”

This follows on statements in the same publication and in other reports that green buildings also improve the investment case for owners.

PD Naidoo & Associates continue that an increased understanding of the link between a building and its natural environment and the influences these have on each other has also led to new design approaches in construction.

The concept of biomimicry has increased in prevalence, they explain. Biomimicry involves the use of nature as inspiration for design concepts. Conventional examples of this are termite mounds, which run as efficient large-scale city-type habitations, and the invention of Velcro arising from observations of burrs on animal fur.

In the recent Brunel Lecture, Peter Head, director of ARUP, also referred to the 10 principles of Biomimicry as providing the solutions for sustainable design.

To learn a lot more about biomimicry, we invite you to attend one of the public lectures by Janine Benyus and some of the directors of the Biomimicry Institute. Get all the info here…

Janine Benyus recently spoke alongside former US president Bill Clinton and renowned business author Peter Senge at the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Chicago.

“Ever wondered how geckos run across a ceiling without falling off? Or how the prairies survived for thousands of years without soil erosion or colonies of pests?

Biomimeticists think about questions like these. Biomimicry is studying nature, understanding how it works and using it as a model for our designs.”

Read the full article here…

* Student fee = R50

To book for any of these events please contact Magda de Kok on 021 469 4765 or magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

Biomimicry is the process of learning from and then emulating Nature’s genius to create more sustainable designs. It’s studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell or an electric eel to make a better battery.

“Biomimicry introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.” – Janine Benyus

Why emulate nature?
Because organisms and ecosystems face the same challenges that we humans do, but they meet those challenges sustainably. More than 30 million species, represent a deep reservoir of wisdom – blueprints, recipes and strategies for how to live gracefuly in place, in ways that create conditions conducive to life.

Here is a video of a talk Janine gave at the 2005 TED conference

From 30 August – 6 September you can join these these world renowned experts at the Leshiba Wilderness in the Limpo Valley near Kruger National Park, South Africa.

You can also download the official brochure and application form here. Closing date for application is 1st July 2009.

CPSL is also organising public lectures in Cape Town on 27th August and in Johannesburg on 9th September – please see our website for more details

More information on the presenters:

Janine Benyus

• United Nations Environment Programme’s 2009 Champion of the Earth for Science & Innovation
• Time magazine’s Hero of the Environment award
• Biologist, Innovation Consultant
• Author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

Dr. Dayna Baumeister

• Co-founder of The Biomimicry Guild
• MS in Resource Conservation and a PhD in Organismic Biology and Ecology from the University of Montana
• 11 years as a biomimicry educator, researcher and design consultant

Visit www.biomimicryinstitute.org for more information.