We then discover how azolla changed the climate, why it is a unique Superorganism and why it represents the Third Event since life originated on our planet.

But it was not until the eighteenth-century that azolla was ‘discovered’ by the West during Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s circumnavigation of the globe. Plants collected from South America were brought back to Europe where they were described in the scientific literature by the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

The stage was now set for the next part of our journey as we move from the Past into the Present.

— Azolla is revered in India and the Far East as a wonder plant. Photograph reprinted with the kind permission of Alina Paul-Bossuet, image source.

Takao Furuno: Young Aigamo ducks eliminate weeds and insects in a rice field using his eco-friendly ‘Aigamo Method’.

We then travel to Sierra Leone where azolla’s use as a biofertilizer in rice paddies doubles the yield of rice and provides the country’s Ebola Orphans with a sustainable source of food, money to build their schools and a future filled with hope, while also preventing deforestation of the region.

Sierra Leone’s Ebola Orphans, bereaved and abandoned by the state in 2015. Image source.

Ebola’s orphans in 2020, so very different from 2015 when their future seemed bleak and uncertain, thanks to ‘Hope for Ebola Orphans Sierra Leone’ (H4EO) and Alexandra and Jonathan Bujak’s Azolla Foundation.

We see how azolla can slow the move into cities across Africa and the world, letting people stay in their communities so that people can maintain a connection with their roots.

… instead of migrating thousands of miles, or eking out a bleak existence in shanty towns, favelas or Nigeria’s Makoko – the world’s largest floating slum.

Makoko, home to between 40,000 and 300,000 people (nobody knows the exact number). Image credits: left, centre, right.

The story then takes us into space where azolla can be used in closed-loop life support systems (CLLS), providing food, recycled oxygen and purified water that are essential as we terraform other worlds.

Photos: Max Rymsha’s view of Mars biodomes. Right: UAE’s prototype. Image source: left, right.

Back on Earth, the Azolla Biosystem, which is described in the book, grows azolla anywhere in the world. The highly flexible, modular biosystem sequesters CO2 for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) or converts the greenhouse gas into a local source of renewable food, livestock feed, biofertilizer, biofuel and high-value pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

Simplified flowchart of some Azolla Biosystem products and its integration with biofuel production, aquaponics, hydroponics, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

But azolla can do more. Azolla Hubs that house the Biosystem increase urban agriculture in the world’s growing megacities and help connect their inhabitants with nature through living, green arteries.

Greening the cities. Image credits: left, centre, right.