Basic HTML Version
Apcil-May, 1970
brush is so thick a man can't force his
way through without a bolo knife.
Giant green trees jut high above mas–
sive and protruding, gnarled roots.
Jungle growth is so lush and dense that
even after all is slashed down, the
farmer has no land to work on! He has
a great brown-green mat severa! feet
thick between him and the soil. His
easiest and usual recourse is to
BURN.
What is Jeft after burning off the
jungle is "the poorest soil known outside
of the world's
frank deserts" (Science
News,
March
29, 1969.
Emphasis ours
throughout). Soil in Amazonia is decep–
tive in its "richness." And, worse yet,
you soon unintentionally destroy what–
ever richness exists. You, the pioneer,
are practically forced to destroy the soil
- the very thing you need most! Burn–
ing destroys mycorrhiza and other soil
life. The pioneer who burns is on his
way to destroying himself! And land
clearers
are
burning here - have no
doubt. So much so that in Colombia's
Amazon, pilots often have to fly
20
to
30
minutes
on imtmments
through
farmer's smoke!
' 'Too bad," you say, "but couldn't
other ways of clearing the Jand be
used ?" Probably true, but one way or
another ground must be deared, or
crops can't receive enougb sunlight to
grow. And that brings
llS
to
Jhe most
seriottJ
ag1'ic~tlture
problem
of aU Ama–
zonia. The problem, for that matter, of
most all potential breadbaskets such as
the Niger River, the Volta basin, and
the Ganges-Brahmaputra. This is the
laterite cycle.
Rain
Brings
Ruin
Years ago when geographer-math–
emattaan Thomas Malthus foresaw
today's population outgrowing all food
supply, optimistic visionaries aod Don
Quixotes hastily pointed to vast, unde–
veloped tropic jungles as the solu–
tion. Surely the rich, lush growth would
produce limitless tons of food.
... Or at least, so everyone wanted to
believe.
Recently, love of investigation and
population pressure have driven scieo–
tists into the greeo wilds of scattered
tropical areas in search of new lands to
farrn. Armchair philosophers smugly
1'1>e
PLAIN TRUTH
awaited glorious scientific pronounce–
ments of a future breadbasket.
What a crushing, disappointing shock
awaited them.
Rernember that any healthy, fertile
soil has a good supply of minerals. And
most jungle soils have those vital min–
eral and chemical supplies. But sadly,
those minerals have one
1·elentless,
DEADLY ENEMY.
Tropical
RAIN.
Rain, rain aod more rain! Driving,
pounding, splattering, soaking, dreoch–
íng
RAIN.
Up
to
200
inches a year in
sorne areas. Always a yearly average of
frorn 80 to
100
inches in Amazonia.
We have seen it. We have been in it.
Those incessant tropical showers
erode, wash away,
/each
out maoy of
life's basic elements: potassium, iron,
29
This fatal soil-hardening, plant–
destroying process is termed "lateriza–
tion."
Brick, hardpan in the jungle?
Hard to imagine, we know!
Yet "hardpan'' is hardly the word
for it.
Tropic soil actually lead1es out after
a few years into
brick.
Sorne famous
temples of the "lost civilization of
Khmer" (modero Carnbodia) were
built of bricks quarried from forrner
fields - land turned to laterite. Jungle
farms evo!ved
(into) agricultura!
corpses. Those temples are still standing,
nearly
1000
years later! The Khmer
civilization of Southeast Asia died out,
somewhat mysteriously. Part of that
mystery is no doubt solved by what
science recently discovered about the
lOng Leopold Pholo
In Amazonia there
is
only one way to clear the land- BURN! Heavy-duty
equipment and machinery are not available.
calcium, magnesium, aluminum. But
that's not all.
Dejected scientists emerge from the
"green mansions" with a dismal report.
Five bcief years of pounding tropical
rain hardened the cultivated soil beyood
use -
BEYOND HOPE 1
In
technical
terms, "the end product of excessive
leachiog is a soil of iron and aluminum
oxides and quartz, invariably acidic,
deficient in bases, Iow in plant nutri–
ents, and intensely weathered to great
depths."
leaching cycle in the tropics. The uofor–
tunate people of Khmer had deared,
burned and farmed themselves right out
of farmland, right out of existence!
In the Western Hemisphere, aod
closer in type to Amazonia, we have
another mute testiroooy to the kiUing
power of the laterite cyde. Ever hear of
the Maya (Maya-Itza) civilization of
the Yucatan? Masters of astronorny
and the calendar, conquerors of the
Mexican jungles, admirable builders of
possibly the greatest early civilization