The Orchard Near the Dead Sea

In 2001, permaculture designer Geoff Lawton stood on a barren, salt-crusted plot in the Jordan Valley, just miles from the Dead Sea. The soil was so degraded that nothing grew. Temperatures regularly exceeded 120 degrees. Locals said the land was finished. Lawton's team began with the smallest intervention — shallow ditches called swales to catch whatever rain fell. They directed every precious trickle into the parched earth rather than letting it run off.…