DO YOU THINK TERRA PRETA, THE AMAZONIAN REGENERATING TOPSOIL, COULD GREATLY REDUCE FAMINES AND WORLD HUNGER? [+] ballot by texsue57 ACTIVE Tue Apr 11, 06 - Sun Jan 04, 09 New research has unearthed (literally) new information regarding "Terra Preta," the topsoil commonly found in the Brazilian rainforests. Scientists have found evidence that a massive Amazonian civilization occupied nearly 10% of the areas surrounding the major rivers that run through the Amazon rainforest (as shown on the map pictured). It has been estimated that several million residents lived here before the first and only Spanish expedition to make contact with them spread a host of diseases that left less than 1% of the population intact. While the technology possessed by these people was very primitive (advanced pottery making is the only advanced technology unearthed so far), their farming techniques may be more important than anything modern science has delivered thus far. Brazilian farmers have practiced "slash and burn" techniques for decades, reducing large swathes of rainforest to ash in order to uncover new ground for agriculture. This method often yields only a few years, almost always less than five, of very low crop yields before the soil is completely expended. However, one to two thousand years ago the native populations of the area developed the "slash and char" technique. This entails cutting down a portion of the rainforest as normal. However, instead of clearing the area with unregulated fire, it is covered with straw or leafy vegetation in order to choke the fire of oxygen. When the burning is complete, it leaves behind charcoal. Charcoal retains the majority of the nutrients from the biomass. When mixed with the underlying soil it produced some of the most fertile soil known in the world. Not only years, but CENTURIES of high yields are attained with its cultivation. But this is not the only startling discovery to come out of the ground under the jungle. Somewhere in the roughly 10,000 species of bacteria that inhabit the soil lies at least one species that allows this fertile topsoil to actually regenerate. The discovery was made when a miner discovered that if he left about two dozen centimeters of terra preta, only two decades later the topsoil would resume its initial depth of nearly six feet. Research is currently under way to discover if and how this ancient technology, lost for nearly five hundred years, can be utilized to turn the poor farmlands of South America, central and southern Asia, and Africa, where famines still threaten the populations in those regions, into terra preta. If so, food shortages could be turned into a thing of the past, preventing or dampening the effects of armed conflicts there and malnutrition. What do you think? Yes No Ballot #92225 : SEE RESULTS Comment: show your vote with comment?

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