Network activities on Amazonian Dark Earths

 

As a result of international meetings with sessions on aspects of Terra Preta in Spain and Rio de Janeiro in 2001, a network of scientists interested in research on Amazonian dark earths was formed under the leadership of Dirse Kern from the Museo Goeldi in Belem, Brazil.

The network organized the First International Workshop on Anthropogenic Terra Preta Soils in Manaus, Brazil (Kern, Falcao, Teixeira, Woods, Sombroek, Lehmann).

An article in the August 9 issue of the magazine Science reported on the event and a production by BBC was released on December 19, 2002 (BBC Two at 9pm) under the title of "The Secret of Eldorado" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/eldorado.shtml):

Impression from "the set":

 

A special Symposium during the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis on "Amazonian Dark Earths - New Discoveries" got several of the terra preta and bio-char scientists together. Read here.

A Symposium and a one-day Workshop were held during the 2006 World Congress of Soil Science (WCSS) in Philadelphia. Read here.

LINKS

Additional information on Terra Preta can be obtained from the following web pages at the Museo Goeldi and the University of Bayreuth. Eprida has a web page on the use of incompletely combusted materials and its use in soil amelioration stimulated by Terra Preta Research.