Not Every Vetiver Job Needs a Hedge
A new quick-reference sheet on choosing the right layout — and a request for corrections A farmer has a patch of low, wet ground where only rice will grow. He plants a contour hedge across it, because a hedge is…
The Hedge that Builds Itself
A reader’s guide to the Vetiver Hedge Mechanisms standard, for members who do not build slopes for a living Our design standard guide Vetiver Hedge Mechanisms now runs to a hundred pages and eighteen annexes, and parts of it are…
The Vetiver System for Stream Bank Stabilisation
The two attached documents make a complementary case for the Vetiver System (VS) as a living, low-cost means of protecting river, canal, dam and sea banks against flood and wave erosion. The first sets out the underlying method and a…
Bridging the Adoption Gap: TVNI’s 2026 Engineering Standards for Slope Stabilization
For three decades, Vetiver Grass Technology (VGT) has demonstrated extraordinary technical performance in stabilizing engineered slopes—yet struggled with institutional adoption. Hong Kong documented ten years of zero slope failures, then rejected vetiver. Hawaii faced $70 million in flood damage and…
Newsletter (NL2026-03) – Mapping the Vetiver System Worldwide, Vetiver México’s ‘Vetiver for the Earth’ Competition, Paseo Ambiental Orégano (Venezuela) Celebrates 5th Anniversary, Farmer innovation/Solomon Islands, Community-first vetiver model for landslide-prone hillsides, Slope stabilization and carbon capture
Mapping the Vetiver System Worldwide: A New Country-by-Country Evidence Table TVNI has compiled a comprehensive country-by-country evidence table documenting the global reach of the Vetiver System. The table currently covers 120 countries and territories — each assessed across six evidence categories:…
Newsletter (NL2026-02) — A belated February newsletter & Global Water Bankruptcy, Patricia Tello Reátegui, Potential Funding Opportunities for VS Practitioners, VS Academic Visibility, Slope steepness & rooting, and others….
Our February Newsletter is coming out quite late for technical reasons: we have just migrated the TVNI website from its long time host, CSS Communications (of Bellingham, Washington) to a new host and so were “down” during the transfer. As…
Vetiver Grass Technology (VGT) for Engineered Slopes: A Fully Integrated Bio Hydro Mechanical Stabilization System
“Use geofabrics only when risk demands it — vetiver does the heavy lifting.” “Why pay 5 times more for geofabrics when vetiver does the real work?” “Vetiver isn’t vegetation — it’s bio‑engineering that stops slope failure.” Across the world’s highways,…
Thirty Years of The China Vetiver Network: Achievements, Impact, and Lessons for the Future
Liyu Xu, China Vetiver Network Coordinator, and his team from The National Institute of Soils (Nanjing), as well as many others, notably Xia Hanping (South China Institute of Botany), Lu Zhong-Xian (Institute of Plant Protection and Microbiology, Zhejiang Academy of…
A new technical reference and guide for slope stabilization from Dr. Mohammad Shariful Islam
The Vetiver Network International is pleased to present this new technical reference and guide: Standard Specification for Slope Stabilization Using Vetiver Grass. Authored by Dr. Mohammad Shariful Islam, a distinguished researcher and practitioner in the field of bioengineering, Dr. Islam’s…
Newsletter (NL 2025-12) – a year in review & other news
The Vetiver System in 2025 The most outstanding aspect of the Vetiver System in 2025 were the people of the VS global community. WhatsApp groups in India and Latin America, the monthly Latin American Conversatorios, and numerous active Facebook groups…