2006/12/20 by Bruno Glaser · 463 citations
Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Agroforestry #Soil water #Environmental science #Rainforest #Soil fertility #Population #Ecology #Agriculture #Shifting cultivation #Geography #Environmental protection #Biology #Soil science
paper · open access · doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1978
published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 362(1478), 187-196 (Royal Society)
openalex publication_date 2006/12/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Terra Preta soils of central Amazonia exhibit approximately three times more soil organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus and 70 times more charcoal compared to adjacent infertile soils. The Terra Preta soils were generated by pre-Columbian native populations by chance or intentionally adding large amounts of charred residues (charcoal), organic wastes, excrements and bones. In this paper, it is argued that generating new Terra Preta sites ('Terra Preta nova') could be the basis for sustainable agriculture in the twenty-first century to produce food for billions of people, and could lead to attaining three Millennium Development Goals: (i) to combat desertification, (ii) to sequester atmospheric CO2 in the long term, and (iii) to maintain biodiversity hotspots such as tropical rainforests. Therefore, large-scale generation and utilization of Terra Preta soils would decrease the pressure on primary forests that are being extensively cleared for agricultural use with only limited fertility and sustainability and, hence, only providing a limited time for cropping. This would maintain biodiversity while mitigating both land degradation and climate change. However, it should not be overlooked that the infertility of most tropical soils (and associated low population density) is what could have prevented tropical forests undergoing large-scale clearance for agriculture. Increased fertility may increase the populations supported by shifting cultivation, thereby maintaining and increasing pressure on forests.