6:11 p.m.
Dear IUFRO Meliaceae Working Party:
Below is IUFRO Spotlight #61. Other Spotlights can be found at:
http://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
Regards,
Sheila Ward
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: IUFRO Headquarters <office(a)iufro.org>
Date: Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 2:22 AM
Subject: IUFRO Spotlight #61 - Digging into soil and what it means to
earth's survival
To: Dear Reader of IUFRO News <mahoganyforthefuture(a)gmail.com>
[image: IUFRO Spotlight]
IUFRO Spotlight #61 - Digging into soil and what it means to earth's
survival
*IUFRO Spotlight* is an initiative of the International Union of Forest
Research Organizations. Its aim is to introduce, in a timely fashion,
significant findings in forest research from IUFRO officeholders and member
organizations to a worldwide network of decision makers, policy makers and
researchers.
IUFRO will encapsulate, and distribute in plain language, brief, topical
and policy-relevant highlights of those findings, along with information on
where/how to access the full documents. The *IUFRO Spotlight* findings will
be distributed in a periodic series of emails as well as blog postings.
*________________________________*
*Digging into soil and what it means to earth's survival*
PDF for download
<https://www.iufro.org/download/file/29805/6715/spotlight61-humusica_pdf/>
<http://www.iufro.org/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=19833&md5=f546a1a0cc95594a6d1796ac326914aac5073fb0¶meters%5B0%5D=YTo0OntzOjU6IndpZHRoIjtzOjQ6IjgwMG0iO3M6NjoiaGVpZ2h0IjtzOjQ6IjYw¶meters%5B1%5D=MG0iO3M6NzoiYm9keVRhZyI7czoyMjoiPGJvZHkgYmdjb2xvcj0iYmxhY2siPiI7¶meters%5B2%5D=czo0OiJ3cmFwIjtzOjM3OiI8YSBocmVmPSJqYXZhc2NyaXB0OmNsb3NlKCk7Ij4g¶meters%5B3%5D=fCA8L2E%2BIjt9>
*The new living structures are the result of the re-elaboration of the old
ones. Soil plays the main role in the process. So, humans who endanger life
on our planet express a severe disagreement with a natural harmony that
risks triggering negative feedback for the species. This always occurs to
other species, why shouldn't it happen to us? In: Zanella et al., 2018.
Humusica 1, article 1: Essential bases – Vocabulary. Applied Soil Ecology,
122 (Part a), pp. 10–21.The new living structures are the result of the
re-elaboration of the old ones. Soil plays the main role in the process.
So, humans who endanger life on our planet express a severe disagreement
with a natural harmony that risks triggering negative feedback for the
species. This always occurs to other species, why shouldn't it happen to
us? In: Zanella et al., 2018. Humusica 1, article 1: Essential bases –
Vocabulary. Applied Soil Ecology, 122 (Part a), pp. 10–21.*
Most people think of soil simply as something that grass, trees and other
plants grow in and on.
But nothing could be further from the truth, says Dr. Augusto Zanella.
Below in quotes, some key concepts gathered during an IUFRO Spotlight
interview.
"Soils – in the forest and elsewhere – involve and affect ‘normal life'.
They modify the air we breathe, they influence the climate, impact the food
we eat and the water we drink".
"Soil is not a substrate or a source of nutrients. It is a living matrix
that sustains the functioning of every ecosystem".
"It works like an efficient bank. It capitalizes energy and nutrients to be
delivered for building and sustaining more complex and efficient
ecosystems. It is a source of new materials, continuously generated from
biodegradation and re-elaboration of dead structures".
"A comparison between natural and anthropic soil systems revealed the
importance of the biological structure of soil for understanding and
managing how the soil functions. Anthropic soil is that worked by humans in
a way to produce new characteristics that make it different from the
original natural soil".
"There is a connection between the soil and produced food qualities. There
is a relationship between the type of agriculture and climate warming.
There is a relationship between forestry, agriculture, soil and human
development/health. And there is an interconnected soil in space, air,
water and all living organisms."
Dr. Zanella, of the University of Padua, Department of Land, Environment,
Agriculture and Forestry, and Deputy Coordinator of IUFRO Working Party
8.02.03 – *Humus and soil biodiversity*, is one of the proponents of
*Humusica*, a concept that looks at soil and soil research from a somewhat
different perspective and seeks to provide an international and consistent
soil classification system.
"It is a new concept of soil; more biological and connected to the process
of natural evolution. It's soil seen as the place of the endless recycling
of structures that grow old and die. Life cannot exist without death. Soil
is the conjunction that links the two."
In a slight digression from the interview, 40-odd years ago, American
writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry put it somewhat differently, but
seemed to capture some of the essence of what Dr. Zanella and his
colleagues believe when he said: "If a healthy soil is full of death, it is
also full of life: worms, fungi, microorganisms of all kinds ... Given
only the health of the soil, nothing that dies is dead for very long."
As part of this new concept of soil, it would be beneficial, Dr. Zanella
says, to have a standardized vocabulary and classification system for humus
forms. That would be of immense benefit to anyone who works with soil. And,
on different levels, that's pretty well everybody from policymakers to
foresters, landscapers, farmers and weekend gardeners, he says.
To that end, he and his colleagues have produced a series of *Humusic*a
articles that, among other things, answer "three crucial" questions:
1. What is soil?
2. If soil has a biogenic essence, how should it be classified to serve
such managerial purposes as exploitation or protection? And
3. How can this soil classification be used for handling the current
global change?
The *Humusica* papers are presented in the form of a field manual that is
"a fundamental tool for assessing everything from land use to climate
change," Dr. Zanella says.
In addition to the publications, there is also a free iOS app – TerrHum –
available through the iTunes App Store. It is a University of Padua app
that allows the main content of the *Humusica* 1 field guide to be stored
on a cell phone. With this app (an app that is compatible with non-Apple
products is currently in development) it is possible to classify all
non-submerged forest topsoils on the planet.
He reiterates that this is a new way of looking at soil. "By accepting a
concept of soil related to the ‘planet Earth digestive system', that
involves microorganisms distributed everywhere, I better understand myself
and the world in which I live.
For instance, I better understand why I should prefer agriculture that pays
attention to the quality of the soil, because that has a crucial influence
on the quality of the produced food, and human health depends on it."
He adds that, given current global change conditions, soil – and how we
humans handle it – will be critical to human survival. Climate change
should be a top-of-mind concern, but there seems to be a general lack of
consciousness to the danger.
"The current climate warming will probably be the first major trial that
conscious humanity has to overcome in order not to perish. The soil will be
a crucial resource in that survival process."
This field manual and classification system (explained in 87 articles,
arranged in three Special Issues) can help fight the adverse effects of
global change by using the collected knowledge about the biodiversity and
functioning of natural (or semi-natural) soil to reconstruct the lost
biodiversity and-or functioning of heavily exploited or degraded soils, he
says.
*The Humusica articles are collected in the Applied Soil Ecology Special
Issues Vol. 122 a, 122 b and 123*:
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-soil-ecology/special-issues
*Information about the Humusica project and publications can also be found
on the webpages of IUFRO Unit 8.02.03 - Humus and soil biodiversity*:
https://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-8/80000/80200/80203/public…
<http://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-8/80000/80200/80203/publications/>
*________________________________*
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Visit: https://www.iufro.org/
*________________________________*
*IUFRO Spotlight #61, published in October 2018*
*by IUFRO Headquarters, Marxergasse 2, 1030 Vienna, Austria.Available for
download at: **https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
<https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/>*
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