Slash and burn
Weatherlawyer
just the right time and place, it might be possible to eradicate every
tree in the forest with their short term tecniques of asset stripping.
However the stone age apemen who just happened to live in perfect
harmony with the environment to such an extent that they fostered the
legend of El Dorado, used a slash and burn technique that was good for
replenishing the soil.
Proof of devolution?
"The Amazonians' greatest achievement lives on. Soil scientists
analysing the terra preta have found its characteristics astonishing,
especially its ability to maintain nutrient levels over hundreds of
years.
20th century techniques of farming on cleared, torched rainforest -
so-called slash and burn agriculture - have never been sustainable.
With the vegetation burned off, the high rainfall soon leaches all the
nutrients out of the soil.
Research has shown that even chemical fertilisers cannot maintain crop
yields into a third consecutive growing season, yet terra preta remains
fertile year after year.
Orellana's accounts offer potential insight. He reported that the
indigenous people used fire to clear their fields.
Bruno Glaser, from the University of Bayreuth, has found that terra
preta is rich in charcoal, incompletely burnt wood. He believes it acts
to hold the nutrients in the soil and sustain its fertility from year
to year.
This is the great secret of the early Amazonians: how to nurture the
soil towards lasting productivity. In experimental plots, adding a
combination of charcoal and fertiliser into the rainforest soil boosted
yields by 880% compared with fertiliser alone.
Yet terra preta may have a still more remarkable ability. Almost as if
alive, it appears to reproduce. Bill Woods has met local farmers who
mine the soil commercially. They find that, as long as 20cm of terra
preta is left undisturbed, the bed will regenerate over a period of
about 20 years. He suspects that a combination of bacteria and fungi is
causing this effect."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/eldorado.shtml
Compare the techniques of such primitives to the high tech efforts of
the Indonesians in the 1990's:
"It is difficult to imagine the scope of the fire problem in Indonesia.
In late 1997, the smoke was so thick it was often difficult to see
across the street.
People suffered terrible respiratory problems.
The drivers of speed boats crossing Balikpapan Bay could not see the
opposite shore to navigate and would wander off course and sometimes
end up in the open sea.
Flights were often cancelled throughout Borneo, Malaysia and even in
Singapore and the Philippines because of the haze that stretched from
Singapore to the Moluccas."
michael...@gmail.com
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html?highlight=terra+preta
Michael
Weatherlawyer
michael...@gmail.com wrote:
> You might be interested in this thread on terra preta:
> http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html?highlight=terra+preta
>
BBC is it is loaded with evolutionist whackoes.
Such is their prerogative. But they have no busines pushing unsupported
facts and maladministaration.
But that's just me. I'm watch a show on the ideas about the death of
large reptiles. (But tiring rapidly.)
About that forum, it's got Uncle Al in it and that deviate is too much
for sensible control.
Weatherlawyer
Weatherlawyer wrote:
>
> Yes it is a discussion of the Horizon programme. The trouble with the
> BBC is it is loaded with evolutionist whackoes.
>
> Such is their prerogative. But they have no busines pushing unsupported
> facts and maladministaration.
>
prior to the European devastation. Raised road beds might have lead to
lagooning and the resulting deposition of debris.
When the forest is raised in modern techniques vast stretches of top
soil are washed away. There is very little top soil anyway as far as I
know. So that that layer that contains the symbiotic fungii is the one
taken.
I find it difficult to believe that charcoal was used as a mulch so
much as a fuel that lends itself to cooking in mud huts or the like.
Still I should be the last person to quibble unusual ideas. I just
wonder that so little research is done on the ideas they come up with
for these shows.