By Robin Van Loon | Executive Director
What is biochar?
Something you’ve never heard of could save the world. So what in the heck is “biochar” anyway?
When I first started researching and then writing about biochar – the agricultural use of charcoal – the resources were few and mainstream exposure to the idea almost nil. Fast forward to 2017, and you can watch no fewer than a half dozen TED talks on biochar – touted as a profound game changer, and something you may very well never have heard of.
The astronomical rise of innovation and practice in biochar is extremely gratifying to see – it’s not always that obscure, sensical answers to deep problems are able to surface productively of their own viral accord. And yet today it seems that biochar has indeed broken out. You can watch hours of careful explanations of why biochar works and why it matters by leading experts – probably a better option than trawling our past GlobalGiving reports for morsels of understanding.
Thank goodness: biochar has hit the big time.
We’re celebrating the crossover in the most appropriate fashion – by breaking ground on our region’s very first Adam Retort, an environmentally sound charcoal production oven. Starting now, the dedicated team of farmers and foresters that is Camino Verde will be producing more and cleaner charcoal to feed our reforestation efforts. That’s right, charcoal goes with tree planting, from the pots holding over 100 species in our native tree nursery to the acres and acres of reforestation we manage.
Now, if you’ve spent these first few paragraphs repeating the question I asked at the start – “so what is this stuff anyway?” – don’t worry, the TED talks aren’t your only solution. Here’s biochar distilled down to 30 seconds.
Ancient Amazonian Indians turned compost and charcoal into their fields and in so doing achieved perhaps the greatest longevity of soil fertility ever known to man. Charcoal improves soil for farming over the long term, not just for one season. And it’s also an amazing carbon sink – the CO2 captured by plants is held in a stable form for over a millennium when those plants are pyrolyzed, or turned to charcoal. The whole process – growing plants, charring them, incorporating the resulting char into the soil – acts as a carbon pump a million times more efficient than high tech solutions meant to sequester carbon by other means.
In times like ours, with atmospheric carbon rising apace with the thermometer’s mercury, biochar is nothing short of a miracle.
As we lay the foundation for our first Adam Retort – thanks to your support – we look forward to taking on a more active role in the global research and implementation of biochar. Research: to find out exactly how much carbon is captured in the charcoal produced from different plant species, to accurately measure and literally weigh our impact. Implementation: to expose Amazonian farmers to the benefits of a technology piloted by their ancestors and provide a powerful low-cost soil amendment that really works.
Together, we’re taking back the air. Thank you for your support of Camino Verde’s Amazon community ecology outreach work and biochar innovation. It’s our honor to sink carbon in your name.
By Robin Van Loon | Executive Director
By Robin Van Loon | Executive Director
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