An old durian, mangosteen and rambutan orchard, once sprayed brown with poison, now green again and alive with animals.
When Gene came home to Malaysia, the orchard's caretaker was keeping the ground clear with herbicide. The grass was brown, the soil bare, and very little lived between the trees.
In early 2021 Gene stopped the spraying. He let the grass and ferns return, kept the old fruit trees and the boulders they grow among, and brought animals back onto the land. The orchard has grown lush and fruitful again, and it is now part of his 28-hectare organic farm.
The farm sits in a valley in the hills of Pahang, with forest rising behind it. A healthy orchard gives the wildlife of those hills somewhere to feed and pass through, instead of a poisoned gap.
Durians are never picked from the tree. They drop when ripe, so at dusk in season Gene walks the orchard with the dogs and gathers what has fallen.
The orchard is run the way Gene ran his farm in North Carolina: as one system, where the animals, the trees and the soil support each other with as few outside inputs as possible. He now helps other Malaysian farms do the same.
Dusk on the orchard. Gene walks home with the dogs.
Ten years breeding animals for a changing climate in North Carolina.
The 10‑Year Project →
