conference
Speaker Bio
Charles C. Mann, Author
Sustainable Soils, Sustainable Landscapes: An Historical Perspective
Charles Mann is the author of 1491, a groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. He outlines the evidence -- archaeological, anthropological, and ecological -- supporting researchers' new understanding that for centuries before Columbus Native American societies manipulated their environments on a vast scale. Indeed, the hemisphere was so thoroughly painted by the human brush that many researchers now describe the belief that Europeans found a land that was mostly wilderness as "the pristine myth." These "humanized landscapes" occurred throughout the Americas, but some of the most interesting new findings center on the Amazon basin. Indians there focused their agriculture on a wide assortment of trees, much like permaculture and forest gardening, and worked to develop stable soil systems based on carbon storage (terra preta de indio and biochar) and micro-organisms. This story is playing out today around the world as scientists hope to use these incredible tropical soils as models to restore soil fertility around the world and even combat global warming.