African Soil Mapped For the Very First Time 56
vikingpower writes "A team of international experts has drawn up the Soil Atlas of Africa — the first such book mapping this key natural resource — to help farmers, land managers and policymakers understand the diversity and importance of soil and the need to manage it through sustainable use. A joint commission of the African Union and the European Union has produced a complete atlas of African soils, downloadable as three hefty PDFs (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). The initiative was announced four years ago, and is intended 'to help farmers, land managers and policymakers understand the diversity and importance of soil and the need to manage it through sustainable use.' A digital, interactive series of maps is (still) in the making."
Rare earth? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should virgin forest be destroyed because of a soil map? The virgin forests are probably undisturbed because they exist in remote locations. Are there large agricultural corporations in Africa looking for land? Otherwise it would probably be too expensive for a subsistence farmer to deal with financial and other costs with clearing the land and establishing a farm.
Totally ignorant on this point, but I'm not aware of a correlation between forest land and underground minerals valued in the mining industry.
Chances are the map will point out the degraded farmlands and allow better planning for restoration. There might well be some destruction of virgin forest, but what about grasslands that are still in their native state? In the U.S., it's native prairie that's lost 99% of its area before European settlement. And most of that was to agriculture.
The only reason You would map someone else's soil. (Score:2, Insightful)
The only reason You would map someone else's soil is to decide if it's worth invading them to take it away.
Re:EU actuaally useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
This *is* about the market (and Western investors jumping onto the land/resources grab to expropriate everything of agricultural value). Imperialists coming in to map your resources is like burglars snooping around to case a joint --- "we're just peeping through the windows to help survey the quantity and location of valuables in this house."
Improving agriculture through scientific management of soil resources can be a good thing --- but the good is gained when this knowledge is *disseminated to help the people,* not *concentrated to help the wealthy.* Instead of mapping soils to fill a comprehensive UN almanac, spread resources (simple equipment and knowledge) so that *local communities* can *map their own soil,* and manage/improve their own resources (no need to centralize the information on a continental scale). Investors in London, Berlin, and New York should not be the ones to know soil conditions --- the farmers and communities *living on top of the soil* are the ones who should be empowered to collect and interpret this information.
Re:The consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it could cause regional or tribal wars with people trying to get the best land for themselves.
The people that live there already know where the best soil is. Something to be said for living hundreds of generations the continent.
Its probably outsiders that need these maps, you know like agribusiness or something.