[Terrapreta] German article on Terra preta (Introductory article)

[Michael Bailes]

German article on TP
Translation thanks to eric1 at Hypography

Never to fertilize any more owing to the black earth of the Amazonas

The black earth from the rain forest of the Amazonas makes plants in home
and garden grow faster and stronger, and on top of that renews itself almost
automatically

Voices on the subject
ZDF-Reportage 2003
ZDF-report 2003 (ZDF = Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen = second German (public)
television network)
Marc van Roosmalen, Feldforscher am Rio Aripuana, über die Folgen
konventioneller Bewirtschaftung:
Marc van Roosmaalen, field researcher on the Rio Aripuana, about the results
of conventional management.

"The Indios have started with Terra Preta in order to be able to go on
living for generations on the same land – without burning as is done these
days. Now the farmers cut now fields from the rainforest again and again,
cultivate on them for some few years and next have to cut down a new field,
leaving the soil unfertile. Wit hall our modern chain saws and axes we can
not live as well in tune with nature – as could the allegedly primitive
Indios of the past."

Marc van Roosmalen advises the use of Terra Preta for cleansing the rain
forests:

"Terra Preta can change the future of the rain forest. When one knows hoi t
is made, one can foroce the people to contrive their fields on Terra Preta
like the Indians. Then they would need only a small piece of land, that
would have tob e cleared only once and covered with Terra Preta. Next one
could work it for generations, without having tob urn down more sections of
the rain forest."
Ein Bauer zum Thema:
A farmer on the subject :

For years, Damiäo has been cultivating coffee, papaya and other tropical
fruits on the abandonned Indio fields – easily recognized by their black
earth, the so called Terra Preta. Again and again, Damiäo discovers remnants
of the Indio culture. He shows van Roosmalen an Indio oven, in which there
is still a bread, possibly more than a hundred years old.. It is covered
with a thin coat of tree rubber, and was surrounded by Terra Preta, the
"black earth". More and more scientists discover proofs of a highly
developped Indo culture that confirm at last the reports of Francisco de
Orellanas from the 16th century.

With a sample of the soil from Damiaös plantation, Marc van Roosmalen wants
to determine the thickness, the age and the exact composition of the Indio
soil Terra Preta. Soil experts have confirmed meanwhile that the Indios,
using a mixture of molusc chalk and charred tropical wood, achieved a small
miracle : a soil that is not washed out by rainy seasons. The Indios could
remain in the same loction for 2000 years. Now their fields are worked by de
Caboclos, many of them for over 40 years completely without
fertilizing. Universität
Bayreuth, 2002
University of Bayreuth, 2002
Dipl. geogr. Gerhard Bechtold:
Geography grad. Gerhard Bechthold :
Terra Preta (do indio) is a black earth-like anthropogenic soil with
enhanced fertility due to high levels of soil organic matter (SOM) and
nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium embedded in a
landscape of infertile soils (see soil profiles below). Terra Preta soils
occur in small patches averaging 20 ha, but 350 ha sites have also been
reported. These partly over 2000 years old man made soils occur in the
Brazilian Amazon basin and other regions of South America such as Ecuador
and Peru but also in Western Africa (Benin, Liberia) and in the savannas of
South Africa. Terra Preta soils are very popularby the local farmers and are
used especially to produce cash crops such as papaya and mango, which grow
about three times as rapid as on surrounding infertile soils.
*(I am not going to translate this back into German – not even if you ask
for it !!!)*
Arte TV 2005
Arte TV 2005
Terra Preta: Das schwarze Gold des Amazonas, eine Dokumentation von Peter
Adler
Terra Preta : the black gold of the Amazonas, a documentary by Peter Adler.

Untill recently, the "green hell" along the largest hydrographic system of
our planet, was considered was considered tob e unstirred for thousands of
years. But not far away from Manaus, a metropolis in the Amazon area,
Brazilian archeologist Eduardo Naves discoverd artefacts and fragments,
obviosly relics from an early civilisation. A memory of cities and empires
that have l disappeared long ago ? Neves and his American colleague Jim
Petersen believe they have struck on remnants of large villages in the
surrounding forest.


The "Terra Preta do Indio" black soil lies like small islands in the
otherwise extremely unfertile amazon area. Everywhere where the rain forest
is burnt down, the ashes allow for a short time of aggriculture. But the
soil is washed out soon, and the farmers can not afford costly fertilizers.
Instead they burn down new sections of the forest, in a diabolic spiral.


Agronomists and soil experts are sure that "Terra Preta" is man made, but
how ? That is why the "Terra Preta Nova"-project is about, on which
scoentists all over the world are contributing in different fields of
testing. By combined fertilizing with charcoal, biomass and compost an
originally unfertile soil can be made into a flowering landscape, and allow
for the economical development of poor areas, at the same time preventing
further destruction of the rain forest.

-- 
michael
(always peccable, sometimes sapient)
"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . .
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf
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