[Terrapreta] Your input needed: "Soil health" at Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels

[Laurens Rademakers]

Hi,
I'm part of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne's Energy Center), which is developing social, environmental and other sustainability criteria for biofuels. It does so in a set of discussion groups. 

The upcoming discussion (number 8 of the Working Group on the Environment) will address criteria for soils. It will basically conclude: biofuels should *improve* soil health and maintain soil ecosystem services. 

Please have a look at the background document in attachment, which will be the starting text for the negotiations.

I will obviously introduce a discussion about biochar coupled to biofuel production. No doubt many participants at the roundtable will be surprised to hear about terra preta's potentially great effects on soil health.

However, I would very much appreciate your input and advice on how to present the issue. I think this roundtable presents an excellent opportunity to get news of the existence of biochar / terra preta out. 

The roundtable is extremely stringent in designing its sustainability criteria, so I would love to hear some strong arguments in favor of coupling biochar to biofuels production. 

The meeting on soils is planned for next week, May 7th (apologies for this short notice).

Kind regards,
Lorenzo



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