Bio-Char
"With simple pots or soup cans
We can help heal the soil for generations."
This map from ConsciousPlanet predicts 95 per cent of America's soil will be degraded in less than 30 years. Degraded soil is largely a result of single-crop farming practices, which disregard the needs of the local ecosystems and soil micro-cultures.
There is an over reliance on chemical fertilizers, excessive use of pesticides and herbicides.
In the year 1541, Francisco de Orellana took one of the most dangerous and fateful expeditions of all time. He managed to sail the whole length of the Amazon River.
In fact, after a battle with a tribe in which the women fought along side the men, it was he who named the river “The Amazon” after the Greek legend. Upon his return to Europe, he reported that a sprawling civilization existed there, one that could be compared to same level of advancement of any European country.
Even with the fact that most of their society ultimately perished by disease and warfare; their legacy lives on in the garden of the Amazon and in the earth itself.
With the amount of bio-diversity of the rain forest it may seem that the soil there would be fertile and good for agriculture. However, in the same way most of the oxygen that is generated by the rain forest is used there, the foliage and nutrients are recycled and stay within the plants of the forest and it is extremely difficult to maintain crops there. In fact, the truth that human agriculture goes back at least 10,000 years in the region was a mystery for archaeologists for many years. It was discovered that the ancient peoples’ in the region actually created a regenerating living-soil known as ‘terra preta’ or “black earth”. The Amazon rain forest itself is actually a symbiotic creation that came out of the harmony of humans and the forest.
