[Terrapreta] indigenous practices

[Richard Haard]

Thank you all

I was hoping to pull some dialog on this topic with my initial question.

Locally in the Brazil region is especially interesting for me and May  
has addressed this curiosity of mine very well. We do have the  
presence of the terra preta (primitive) in the amazon region and some  
interesting insight about shamanism and traditional knowledge and how  
there is a transition to the present day learning and teaching from  
what we inherit from both traditional knowledge and 'modern  
scientific' society. Your point May that the need to cooperate and  
communicate a new set of sustainable best practices for the small  
holder farmer and for that matter the urban environment also is most  
critical for our future of society. We have complex multiple tasks to  
accomplish.

Where we (global we) are heading has no historical basis  because of  
our dependence on finite resources and the cumulative changes coming  
to play in the present day. One approach may be to say we should  
change all these practices that are creating this situation but yet  
society has this powerful inertia  supporting the status quo. Another  
approach will be to be forced to adapt to pressures of population and  
shifting climate yet in either case we need to find a mode of  
communication.

My own interest and career over the past 20 years has been restoration  
of natural plant communities in western Washington. I was one of the  
first in my region to grow and supply native plants to meet demand  
created by government mandated wetlands restoration and the need to  
restore riparian zones to protect endangered salmon species and their  
rearing and spawning habitats. At first none of us really understood  
what and how to do this and much effort was 'wasted' on early  
attempts. Yet in time the education, the collective experiences and  
sharing demonstrations of what works has made a best practices 'modus  
operandi' adapted to our specific climate and level of urbanization.

I have been very impressed by the writings of Drs. Lehmann and Steiner  
on the need to change practices of slash and burn to slash and char in  
the humid tropics. Yet you are at the same beginning point in this  
arena as I was in my own. My own experiences of course are completely  
different but the process of collective human adaptation may be very  
similar. For me during the early period I was very frustrated and  
wanted everyone to change their practices immediately, which did not  
happen. The changes that did occur were glacial and began with  
innovation, demonstration, education and communication at all levels  
especially to and with young children. Children are our best teachers  
as they know best to see over the horizon.

Thanks again for this interesting dialog

Rich H
On May 14, 2008, at 5:47 AM, May Waddington wrote:

> Being new at the list and a bit shy on the public polemic ground,  
> let me say I am impressed at the quality and vigor of the  
> discussions on this list. The engineering aspect of Terra-Preta-dos- 
> Índios and biochar are too new to me, but obviously seem to be what  
> arouses the lists impetus since it is totally related to the most  
> important current issue of our time, climate change... So, even with  
> Lou's gentle recommendation's that we focus on cooperation, I can  
> see that perspectives get hot before they get incorporated! Still,  
> I'd like to say a few things about knowledge, innovation and  
> practices on the "down to earth" every day practices. Then I promise  
> to be quiet(er)!
>
> So excuse me for being long on this one...
>
> During my time with the Yawanawa tribe, I observed that knowledge  
> management in general, could fit into a quote by late Jorge Terena,  
> that "knowledge, practices and innovation by indigenous peoples are  
> not the result of one man's work in a specific time, but of a  
> collective effort over many generations". So, proprietary issues  
> aside, we can also identify the basically empiric approach to  
> experimentation. But experimentation is carried out within a system  
> - call it holistic, consider its non-exclusion of other spheres of  
> existence such as magic, spiritual, etc. - which is not analytical  
> as is ours. We have the fantastic example of Dr Maurice Iwu, African  
> born phyto-pharmacognocist, who after many years of research in the  
> US returned to his village and realized that the active molecules he  
> was investigating maybe did not have the same effect without the  
> rituals he had left behind as he left village life... So, the shaman  
> lou mentioned may detect alkaloids in a plant because of its  
> bitterness, associate it to the heart because of its shape, but will  
> still be acting in accordance to insights and intuitions acquired by  
> an ayhuasca or similarly provoked trance, and will be following  
> procedures and cumulative knowledge and efforts which were relayed  
> to him in very strict training, generation after generation, in a  
> very disciplinary approach. All at once.
>
> The end result may be as simple as the replies anthropologists get  
> when looking for deep meaning by asking why such ornamentation and  
> receiving the answer "to look pretty"... Or one of my very respected  
> professors adventure with the Maku, after the third or fourth year  
> of registering the tribe's eating habits was shocked that they  
> abandoned the fruit that had been neatly noted down in previous  
> years, and eagerly devoured a different fruit that season. After  
> anxiously asking for an explanation, he received a reply to the  
> effect that they "were into this other fruit now"....
>
> The bottom line is, very unfortunately I was ignorant of the terra- 
> preta issues when I lived with them, and still very interested in  
> their farming methods. I took pictures and accompanied some of the  
> slash and burn practices, read about and took notes on how they  
> managed three or four gardens at once, etc. the cycles by which they  
> returned to already used capoeiras, etc. Still, without the  
> engineering skills demonstrated by most of the experts in the list,  
> I still don't understand what the big question is, in regards to the  
> origin of TP: whether it was waste or soil management. The  
> originally much bigger and more sedentary groups of varzea indians  
> may have developed more sedentary agricultural practices - where was  
> most of the TP located? I would like to read more about these  
> anthropological questions, so please recommend me literature, and  
> let me know if there are articles you can send me. My very ignorant  
> guess, at this point, is that the burning of VERY BIG Humid FOREST  
> may result in a lot of charcoal material; many different practices  
> such as smouldering fish and ceramics, and even keeping warm by  
> burning big logs slowly under the hammock - use charcoal, all in  
> small scale but repeatedly, in cycles...  don't know, really, but  
> would like to read up.
>
> Now, I am not in the Amazon. I am working in the Northeast region of  
> Brazil, between Piauí and Maranhão, almost at what is known as the  
> transition to the amazon region. As everywhere else, we are facing  
> climate change in rather severe ways. This is a drought ridden  
> region, subjected to intense slash and burn.
>
> Last year we went through 9 months with no rain, and someone  
> criminously set fire to the native pastures in my land, provoking a  
> 5 day forest fire that burned a big part of the caatinga area of the  
> farm and the cerrado forest, and of the 10 thousand trees we had  
> planted. They did that "to renew the pasture" -  a traditional  
> practice, another example, along with slash and burn -  of  
> traditional knowledge and practices which used to fit wisely into  
> this world, which just seems to be getting smaller.
>
> The practice makes a lot of sense for the  guy who lets his goats  
> loose in my land, thinking he has all the right in the world to do  
> so, and expects the new growth to be chummy, soft and fresh as soon  
> as the rains come. My "practice" led me to call the police, fence  
> that part of the farm, cry over the figures that had been so neatly  
> taken down on how many trees I had planted at each parcel of land!  
> Information forever lost - scientific control forever lost  unless I  
> spend money having someone count how many trees re-sprouted (a very  
> large number, happily!).
>
> So, It becomes a very crucial point to the immense population of  
> small farmers in Brazil, to have alternatives to slash and burn.  
> This is of utmost importance. To begin with, this population seems  
> invisible to the modern world, which seems to consider peasants as  
> an extinct living form. But it as a social category which not only  
> accounts for the livelihood of an enormous percentage of the  
> Brazilian people, but also generates a sort of overseen economic  
> asset that regulates prices (downward) by producing cheap food and  
> providing food and natural resources for this vast contingent who  
> are "out-of-the-market". More importantly, these until recently  
> "invisible" Brazilians have been struggling for their very deserving  
> role at nature management, landscape management... after all, nobody  
> is closer to the Earth as farmers.... which many times have no  
> alternative as to employ slash-and-burn farming procedures.
>
> At the Buriti Doce farm, following Ronaldo's specifications on the  
> alternative burning we were making, the locals were shocked. They  
> thought we were doing it in a very stupid way, because we spent more  
> money than they would have done, because we invested so much in  
> separating the wood, preparing the caeiras, et., before the fire  
> w2as set to the land. And I still had no idea of the benefit from  
> biochar.   thought I would simply sell the charcoal and make up for  
> the extra expenses...
>
> So, with all the extremely modern or post-modern scientifically  
> generated information coming in from the US, Germany, Holland,  
> Australia we see in the list and in this amazingly fast growing  
> network... if there are keys that may help,  this is awesome.  I  
> participated in a project with a very organized political group -  
> Assema, babassu breaking women - in substituting burning practices  
> which was extremely interesting, and would like to see this proposal  
> grow in this country.
>
> This being probably my main focus of interest, I would very much  
> want to learn about the engineering side of things... slash and  
> char, and other considerations such as the CH4 product of the  
> traditional charcoal caieras (kilns?), and whatever more I can learn  
> from the list.
>
> Since local EMBRAPA was pretty open to the proposal and their soil  
> expert is coming to the site on Monday, we will be working on  a  
> project. Dr. Lehmann has already contributed with a pretty objective  
> design for expermental lots, and Dr Christoph has menioned he is  
> intereste in finding out about CH4 emissions in the traditional  
> kilnns (caeiras). The more input qwe have over the next few weeks  
> the better!
>
>
>
> 2008/5/14 lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com>:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> With respect for everyone here and also with highest regard for the  
> wisdom of ancient and present indigenous peoples, I would like to  
> suggest that we should be celebrating rather than arguing when one  
> variable seems to be confusingly intertwined with another.
>
> Social science has long observed that there may be a difference  
> between purpose and function and that humans may or may not be aware  
> of all the functions that their acts of intention perform. Yes we  
> can be inspired by the wisdom of ancient practices AND we can reach  
> for wise future forms. The key is wisdom and the guideline toward  
> wisdom can be different from what we might arrive at by focusing  
> exclusively on the questions of knowledge which, in modern times,  
> have had a heavy bias toward reductionism and the logic of either/or.
>
> The anthropologist Jeremy Narby reports asking an Amazonian shaman  
> how he discovered various plants cures, how he was led to the  
> knowledge of specific remedies for specific problems. The shaman  
> answered by saying that he looked for "correspondences", even visual  
> similarities such as the possibility that a plant with a heart- 
> shaped leaf might offer a cure for heart problems (physical or  
> emotional). But the shaman being a solid scientist never assumed  
> that correspondence equaled cure. He took the next step of making a  
> trial and judging the empirical results. We moderns do something  
> similar in statistical analysis. We look for correlations (even  
> counter-intuitive ones) and we are mindful that correlation does not  
> necessarily mean cause.
>
> It keeps ocurring to me that the whole biochar project contains the  
> kernel of great wisdom that is applicable not merely for healing the  
> soil but also for healing the mind. The leap of thought is to move  
> from the illusion of separation toward the wisdom of connection, to  
> somehow get free of thinking that it must be either this way or that  
> way into the realization that it can indeed be both this way and  
> that way. This is the guidance of "correspondence." And this is what  
> we should be looking for. So, when I hear that biochar can increase  
> soil fertility, retain moisture and nutrient, filter water, manage  
> waste, feed people, slow deforestation, create economic opportunity,  
> etc, etc, I don't want to argue about which variable is the most  
> important.  I want instead to celebrate that a great wisdom of  
> recipocity and connection seems to be emerging (or re-emerging) and  
> get on with the empirical experiments that will most likely show  
> that there is no one-way-fits-all but a variety of ways that include  
> diverse best practices for specific places.
>
> Sometimes, when I contemplate terra preta (and I'm not embarrassed  
> to say this), it seems so beautiful and so healing that it brings  
> tears to my eyes. I never imagined dirt (not in my eyes) could do  
> this.
>
> hugs and blessings to all,
>
> lou
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 2:45 AM, Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com> wrote:
> Robert - i have been puzzled by this statement outlined below in  
> red. Reading Christoph Steiners dissertation, Slash and Char as  
> Alternative to Slash and Burn, –
> soil charcoal amendments maintain soil fertility and establish a  
> carbon sink
>
> I have indication that indigenous practices are intentional  
> knowledge based soil fertility management. Whether you or Nikolaus I  
> am curious what is basis of this assumption, as my Inuit friends  
> still to this day rescue stranded 'expeditions' using their  
> traditional knowledge in the far north and perhaps we need to give  
> credit where it is due for the soil management skills of these  
> indigenous people of the Amazon.
>
> From Chapter 1, page 35, 'Indigenous Knowledge of Terra Preta  
> formation
>
> clip from abstract
>
> quote
>
>  In order to gather
> more information about the creation of Terra
> Preta (TP) we describe indigenous soil fertility
> management; analyzed managed and unmanaged
> soil and compare soil chemical and micro-
> biological parameters with those of prehistoric TP
> (TPp); and, discuss the formation of TP under
> indigenous soil fertility management. Fire and
> organic matter (OM) are the main components of
> indigenous soil fertility management. Small fires
> are used to create burned soil (Terra Queimada),
> and burned organic materials (ash and charred
> residues) are used to increase the fertility in
> patches for special plants like medicinal plants
> and vegetables. After a burn (Terra Queimada)
> the soil had a strong scent of pyroligneous acid
> (Terra Cheirosa) which is stimulating soil micro-
> organisms
>
> unquote
>
> Yet this is present day - how can you presume to know the motive of  
> people who are long gone other that what their heirs are doing today?
>
>
>>
>>> Dear Nikolaus,
>>>
>>> Once again, you give them all, and this is the only response!!!
>>>
>>> Boys and Girls, when someone of higher leaning speaks, "listen"  
>>> and "learn" and don't just comment because you want to add without  
>>> substance!
>>>
>>> Nikolaus in your own words during our correspondents, "Terra Preta  
>>> was formed as a waste management practice, not a soil management  
>>> practice" So any who claim different, then find fund and send  
>>> students to South America and prove this otherwise!
>>>
>>> Biochar is a start, biochar enhancement is a next step but agri  
>>> engineering is the real solution!!!
>>>
>>> Rob.
>>>
>
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