The Amazon is burning

Beautiful sunsets are the bittersweet result of being surrounded by smoke as our little part of the Amazon burns. This time of year is the dry season and there is always a lot of agricultural burning. With unusually hot weather and the rapid expansion of pineapple farming as a new cash crop, the burning is worse every year. While there are certainly governments, multi-national companies, and mining companies behind a great part of the destruction of the Amazon, a lot is cut by it’s own residents, with heavy hearts, but no remaining options for making a living. Our neighbors are not evil or ignorant, but they are poor. They are the first to feel the impacts of climate change, and get the least benefit from the development. We need societal change to a system that doesn’t profit from exploitation of the environment and the most disadvantaged communities.

Like many aboriginal peoples, the pre-hispanic cultures in the Amazon jungle strategically used fire as a part of their agricultural cycle. Although the jungle seemed wild and untamed to the European explorers, a lot of it was extensively managed as a food forest with decade-long cycles to provide edible crops, timber, firewood, and housing materials. After the large trees were cut down for timber, the area was burned to return carbon to the soil, and the forest was replanted with pioneer species and edible plants. Controlled burning was also used in the process of producing terra preta, a highly fertile anthropogenic soil that can be found in the Amazon basin. Unfortunately, the specific knowledge regarding how to produce this soil has been lost with the Amazon cultures. Fire can be thoughtfully used in agricultural processes to improve the soil, For example, the addition of biochar can help retain carbon and water in the soil, and provide a high-surface-area substrate for beneficial microorganisms. Hence, farmers should be educated regarding the use of fire to take advantage of its beneficial effects and avoid further destruction of the land.