James Fairhead: "Amazonian Dark Earths in Africa?"

A presentation by James Fairhead, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex.Part of the University of Chicago Program on the Global Environment's inaugural conference on the Social Life of Forests, held May 30-31, 2008.Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), anthopogenic black soils, have been widely discussed in tropical America, where such studies have done much to recast the history of Amazonian occupation. Indeed, such soils have been documented into Costa Rica and seem to be a widespread technology that spread out from the Amazonian hearths, documenting the close history between people, land, and agricultural productivity in this part of the world. In contrast, Africa still maintains its wild primitivism in the popular imaginary, and thus the question of anthropogenic soils remain undiscussed. We outline the discourse about soils and tropical degradation and present data on the development of anthropogenic soils in Africa. Extensive fieldwork at two West African settlements and comparative studies in five others show first that dark earth analogues do exist in West Africa, and that there are great similarities between agro-ecological practices in Amazonia and West Africa that directly affect soil richness. Similarities in soil context, farming methods, climate, and decreases in human population likely contributed to the development of African soils comparable to ADE; while differences in resource availability, domestic animals, and ?ruined villages? in Africa may have had an unparalleled influence on the African soils.

Видео James Fairhead: "Amazonian Dark Earths in Africa?" канала CISSR at The University of Chicago