Amazonian Dark Earth, or terra preta do indio, has mystified science for the last hundred years. Three times richer in nitrogen and phosphorous, and twenty times the carbon of normal soils, terra preta is the legacy of ancient Amazonians who predate Western civilization. Scientists who long debated the capacity of 'savages' to transform the virgin rainforest now agree that indigenous people transformed large regions of the Amazon into amazingly fertile black earth. The Amazonians' techniques remain an enigma but are believed to have used slash-and-smolder to lock half of the carbon in burnt vegetation into a stable form of biochar instead of releasing the bulk of it into the atmosphere like typical slash-and-burn practices.
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Terra Preta: Black is the New Green:
Filed in: terra_preta, Amazon, CO2, sequestration
3 comments:
I have a few questions.
1. Say I have an allottment in Wales UK - would terra preta do indio work here or is it just specific to tropical regions?
2. If it only works in the Tropics then will it contribute to deforestation if it becomes accepted practice after all slash and smoulder refers to froest clearing.
I'm afraid I can't help you on that. I'm just flagging up something that may be of interest I don't know enough about it to say. I suspect that the thing to do is to follow up the article here
It looks like Cornell have the researchers, so looking up Lehmann at Cornell may be your best bet.
Looks to me like the people you might want to contact would be
on this page
diolch
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