[Terrapreta] Amazon cattle ranging

[lou gold]

Hey Folke,

Let's keep it vigorous. There are good learnings going on.

Nope, not even a hint of Jesuit in my background.

I checked into the Sahara and the latest models do agree with you that the
abrupt climate changes did not seem to be associated with human use.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/390097.stm

However, human deforestation does seem to be associated with the EXPANSION
of areas of desert and drought.
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu17ee/uu17ee06.htm

In regard to the Amazon. First, I very much agree that it is a huge system
and that it is really hard to judge on-the-ground where there can indeed be
local areas of deforestation coupled with periods of more rain, etc. But,
I'm also very impressed with the climate modeling that says that the
regional rainfall patterns are very much created by forest transpiration.
This is what has the climate modelers freaked out about a possible tipping
point. I get a lot of this by being a general follower of Nepstad's
thinking.

Do you disagree with the assertion that the expansion of drought and fire in
the Eastern Amazon is being intensified by deforestation? Do you disagree
that this is like to alter regional weather patterns? And have global
consequences? If yes, please say why.

I think that we probably have very different "takes" on what the Indios de
Terra Preta story might mean. You seem to want to project back into the past
from contemporary Indian agricultural practices. On the other hand, I want
to see the possibility that there was a civilization that lived in balance
(through terra preta soil technologies) but was unable to pass the
information forward because of the catastrophic die-off following invasion
of exotic diseases and a devolution of the survivors toward nomadic
hunter-gether ways. Unfortunately, neither of us can actually prove whether
the present came from the past or if something different once existed. But,
I do want to believe that the human race is not intrinsically destructive of
nature and that harmony between large populations and the forest can be
established. I think that we share that hope.

Nope, I'm not an academic or a researcher or a farmer or a rancher or a
long-time resident of Amazonia. I'm a storyteller about the relationship of
people and nature. These two blog posts tell a bit of my background and my
perceptions as a newcomer to the Amazon:

http://lougold.blogspot.com/2007/11/soy-in-amazon-pat-roberts-writing-in_06.html

http://lougold.blogspot.com/2007/08/expoacre-few-nights-ago-i-went-to-rodeo.html

Perhaps these posts will give a better picture of me and my prejudices.
Perhaps they will convince that I'm an ignorant gringo, or maybe they will
convince that there is a genuine search for a better way that we can share.

You ask if I ever worked with any forest-saving organizations? Well, I
founded this one: http://siskiyou.org/
and I worked with it for 20 years. AND, I also came to see the very real
limitations of the "classical wilderness defense." I understand that if it
truly is a war between man and nature that it is probably all over except
for picking up the pieces. In such a fight humans will conquer until a
correction occurs that will be most uncomfortable for all species that have
habituated to something like current conditions. In a sense, I'm convinced
that we we fall but I also hope that we might fall more on a pillow than on
a rock. That's one of the many reasons that I am in Brazil and on this forum
and being open to thinking of our common world in new and different ways.

OK, that's my best shot.

Touch the earth and blessed be.

lou









On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Nikolaus Foidl <nfoidl at desa.com.bo> wrote:

>
> >>
> >> *From:* terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:
> >> terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of *lou gold
> >> *Sent:* Wednesday, 21 May 2008 1:08 PM
> >> *To:* Nikolaus Foidl
> >> *Cc:* terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> >> *Subject:* Re: [Terrapreta] Amazon cattle ranging
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Oh boy Folke, since David Yarrow and I seem to be the tree-huggers who
> >> regularly contribute to this forum I can't help but think that your
> lecture
> >> is being delivered at least in part to me. So let me take the time to
> >> correct some of your statements that simply seem off-the-mark to me.
> >> Dear Lou, I was a bit surprised that you accuse me of unproven or
> incorrect assumptions by responding me with un correct and un proven
> assumptions, that's a neat semantic trick you have, one never stops to
> learn. Are you a Jesuit? ( no offense meant, not to you and not to the
> Jesuits, but thats a discussion tactic i was seeing very frequently with
> Jesuits)
> >> *I know, everybody loves trees and it is a gut feeling for everybody
> that
> >> cutting trees is bad. *
> >>
> >>
> >> I don't know who the "everyone" is that you are refering to but it
> >> definitely does not include me. I am not against cutting trees and I am
> not
> >> against the logging industry. The problem is that somehow you really
> don't
> >> seem to see the forest for the trees.
> >>
> >> In fact, one can take a long term view of the earth's vegetative cover
> and
> >> see a ceaseless war between forestland and grassland. . The territory
> >> controlled by these two great vegetative kingdoms has shifted back and
> for
> >> across the earth many times due mostly to changing climatic conditions.
> >>
> *
> >> In general, human beings have been soldiers in the army of the
> grasslands
> >> using all the weapons of "civilization" and "domestication" to achieve
> >> victory over the forest. In general, BUT NOT ALWAYS. Apparently, one of
> the
> >> great exceptions is to be found among -- you guessed it -- the Indios de
> >> Terra Preta -- who are thought to have had millions of people living in
> the
> >> central Amazon basin without ceaseless deforestation.
> >> *Dear Lou, these are absolute unproven assumptions, both the millions
> of Indio's and the non- deforestation. Watching Indio's which are still not
> completely absorbed by our civilization, living still mostly the ancient
> way, I see a quiet big area per person cut down and used for food production
> per person, as they still use inefficient crop and techniques, the area per
> kg of harvestable and eatable food is relatively big. So if there where
> "millions"
> as well the deforested area would have been huge. As you might know, you
> can not live on meat or fish in the Amazon alone, specially if you are
> densely populated.
> >> Deforestation sounds like a catastrophic event.
> >>
> >> *Well, some times it is and some times it is not*.* It is when it
> triggers
> >> climate change. Human deforestation created the climate shifts that
> resulted
> >> in the Sahara desert, making it uninhabitable by most plants and
> critters. A
> >> shift like that is catastrophic. When deforestation starts to trigger
> >> regional climate change we might prefer to keep a lot of the forest
> >> standing.
> >> As well the assumption that the Sahara desertification is man made has
> no prove at all.
> >> *A grown established forest has neutral balance of fixation and loss, if
> >> the forest gets too old the danger of loosing all the stored biomass
> with a
> >> big scale fire is imminent and very often.*
> >>
> >> This is not true for the central Amazon basin where fire has
> historically
> >> been extremely rare due to heavy rainfall. And where does the rainfall
> come
> >> from? It comes from the transpiration of the trees in the forest.
> Without
> >> the forest, the climate shifts to drought as has already been ocurring
> in
> >> the Eastern Amazon. And drought triggers more fire, etc, etc in a
> positive
> >> feedback loop that can alter both regional and global climate in
> >> catastrophic ways.
> >> Typical desk argumentation which can not be confirmed with what happens
> in reality
> The last two years we had in the neighboring Amazon ( intact forest areas)
> severe drought where the river levels dropped 9 meters below the normal
> levels measured in this season whilst in neighboring nearly complete
> deforested Bolivia we had severe rains and inundations with rains more then
> double then normal.
> In the last 15 years we note a rise in average rainfall  of some 100 mm
> every 7 years.( 15 years ago we had an average of 200 mm less then we have
> now) meanwhile in the huge and still intact Amazon forest ( the remaining
> one) the average rainfall goes down every year.
> We as well are suffering a temperature shift, more cold days every year (
> cold in our region means temperatures below 18 degrees Celsius)
> Whole Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Argentina  have a
> common weather pattern which is not so much influenced by the small local
> changes, these are big scale changes which are influenced by more then only
> Amazon Jungle changes.
> >> With all due respects for the important work that you are doing in
> Bolivia
> >> -- and the creative stewardship for both conservation and food
> production
> >> that it represents -- I've got to say that the lowland basin of the
> Eastern
> >> Amazon presents a radically different situation. Here is what Dan
> Nepstad
> >> from Woods Hole says about it:
> >>
> >> *Mongabay: **In Bali you also put out some rather dire projections for
> the
> >> Amazon in 2030. Could you elaborate on this?
> >>
> >> **Nepstad:* There are all these models (namely the Hadley model)
> pointing
> >> to the end of the century when there will be a big forest die-back in
> the
> >> Amazon. But before global warming is going to kick in there is going to
> be
> >> all sorts of damage from the droughts we are already seeing as well as
> >> deforestation, logging, and the fires that are part of that regime. To
> >> factor in these effects, we took our deforestation model, our logging
> model,
> >> and what we know about the effect of drought on tree mortality, and
> >> projected out the year 2030 using current climate patterns ? the last 10
> >> years repeated into the future. We found that by the year 2030, 55
> percent
> >> of the forest will be either cleared or damaged ? I think 31 percent
> cleared
> >> and 24 percent damaged by either logging or drought, with a large
> portion of
> >> that damaged forest catching fire. This produces a huge amount of
> emissions.
> >> We're looking at 16-25 billion tons of carbon going into the atmosphere
> in a
> >> very short time frame -- the next 22 years. The scary thing is some of
> these
> >> assumptions are quite conservative.
> >> http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0124-nepstad.html
> >> Dear Lou, do you live in the Amazon, if so for how long now? Have you
> ever been in Bolivia?
> Are you a farmer or somebody making his living in forests or grain
> production or cattle fattening?
> Have you own practical observations or trials or projects which deal in
> detail with the above mentioned or are you just a well informed North
> American member of a research center or University?
> I have not seen arguments from you , only citations from third persons. Do
> you discuss based on own personal investigation in this environment?( Amazon
> Forests) Sorry if I have doubts and please don't take it as an personal
> attack, but I get the feeling that your arguments a third hand assumptions
> and not lived reality.
> >> *We have to see that this planet is the only one and until we do not
> have
> >> an alternative to agricultural food production we cannot save all the
> trees
> >> in this world.*
> >>
> >> In what possible scenario do you imagine that anyone seriously involved
> in
> >> these issues is trying to "save all the trees in the world"? You never
> worked with FSC or other Forest saving organizations. There for real you get
> the impression that the only what counts is saving the trees in the world.
> >> OK, I'm glad to think about how we can be most creativily involved in
> earth
> >> changes INCLUDING DEFORESTATION but let's not clutter the discussion
> with
> >> assertions that simply are not true. You might revise yours too!!!
> >>
> >> Touch the earth and blessed be.
> >> Get real and blessed be.
> >> lou
> >> Nikolaus
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
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