Evolving Beyond the Soil

From Columella in the time of the the Roman Empire to Wangari Maathai in our time, the issue of soil erosion has been one of continual realization of a problem and ultimate failure. Reading Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by geologist David Montgomery made me question whether we can ever rise out of our glorified simian chains and actually escape the endless treadmill of repeated history.

The book is a catalog of erosive failures. From the beginnings of history, Montgomery catalogs repeated attempts by civilizations to bemoan or ignore the erosion destroying their societies. Knowledge of practices to stem erosion in agriculture have often been applied after the damage has already been done. Sadly, a process often repeated since the time of the ancient Greeks. In most cases, (including today), soil loss far exceeds soil formation in most parts of the world. Similar to climate change, it often occurs much too slowly for the average person to perceive within their short life. Yet, inexorably, it occurs, eventually leading to landscapes that fail to support the societies they once did.

This was a read that often had me at the edge of anger at human ineptitude fueled in large part by market forces, that time and again in history put production ahead of long term sustainability.

The bright spots are the stories of places where continuous agricultural cultivation has been occurring for centuries, even millenia, by using sustainable practices that preserve and even improve the soil over time.