Terra Preta, or Amazonian Dark Earth(s), is human-created, organic-rich soil, formed from food waste, animal bone, human excrement, ash and charcoal from fires, and other waste materials. Sort of a super-compost heap (or midden), Terra Preta was created out of the infertile soils of the Amazonian rainforest, beginning at least as long ago as 4,800 years.
Comparison profiles of nutrient-poor soils (left), and Terra Preta (right). Photo courtesy Bruno Glaser and Rsukiennik
The human-engineered Terra Preta is responsible for the growth of the great walled villages of the Amazon known as the "Lost Cities", recorded (but widely discounted until recently) by two men who were part of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquest of South America. Terra Preta is also known for the growth of the biochar movement in the world today. Biochar, adding charcoal to midden deposits, sequesters carbon from the atmosphere and settles it in soil, putting it to work enhancing the soils and doing the planet some good at the same time.
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I hope someone from the gardening community would give me (us) a receipe for making Terra Preta for the 400 sq. ft. clay pit in my (our) backyard which is sometimes referred to as a garden.
Thanks for a very interesting introduction to this remarkable discovery. I’ve been hearing and reading a bit about the meaning of these new revelations regarding the previously presumed ‘sterile paradise’ of the Amazon and everything about it provokes questions whose answers promise to be revolutionary; from questions of carbon sequestration, to questions of what and who are these presumed primitive tribes in the Amazon. Could they infact be the offspring of what used to be, not too long ago, a thriving civilization who had to return to barbarism to survive near annihilation due to European contact?How widespread was this culture? Are the current estimates of 10% conservative and could a lot more of the jungle basin have been under human control? Could we, or should we, cultivate the amazonian basin again so that their legacy and the needs of hungry world can be met, and was the act of these people’s ancestors responsible for some of the incredible diversity we see in the amazon? Did the farmers of the North American woodlands likewise use a similar form of permaculture to cultivate our eastern woodlands? What are the implications of the recently revealed, but not dry, water irrigation systems of the Andes and were those people related in culture and technological understanding? Clearly, a very deep vein to mine and thanks again for bringing to us. Cheers.
I feel very sad about the state of the rainforest. Farmers are now using Agent Orange to get rid of vegetation, since clearcutting was too slow.