Experts have calculated that the black earth could support a population approximately equal to that of the Amazon basin today. And this statement radically changes the knowledge we had about the pre-Columbian Amazon basin: that of a small population of primitive and nomadic tribes. Archaeological investigations have also caught the attention of soil scientist Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University in the US, who was intrigued by the black earth that archaeologists were excavating. Lehmann analyzed this soil with the idea that its reproduction was feasible and, in addition, he realized the possibility of recreating an amazingly fertile soil that would be a blessing not only for the farmers of the Amazon but also for the world. Lehmann not only confirmed the reports of local farmers about this soil, but also discovered the presence of a special type of charcoal, which he later called “biochar.” Later it turned out that this charcoal was an elixir for the soil. Biochar is porous, this property allows nutrients to adhere to it and not be washed away by torrential rains and, in human terms, biochar never decomposes: the oldest samples of this soil are 8,500 years old and the biochar found in it still lingers. But the most surprising thing that Lehmann found about biochar is that it has a powerful effect of capturing and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2). This, without a doubt, would contribute to reducing the immense amount of CO2 that is released into the atmosphere and which is also the main cause of climate warming. The ingredients that archaeologists have found in black earth are mycelia (i.e. micro fungi), biochar and fragments of broken pottery. Mycelia play a crucial role in soil: they make it alive and help break down organic matter. Another virtue of mycelia, according to biologist Teruo Higa, is their ability to cleanse the soil of toxicities, this includes heavy metals, antibiotics and hormones, which are digested and neutralized by their metabolism. Currently it is extremely urgent and necessary to have the benefits of black soil in the Amazon basin, this would have a great impact on small farmers who use slash and burn agriculture since the arrival of the Spanish (when the steel tools were introduced like the machete, and probably when all knowledge of the terra preta was lost). Well, since there has been great deforestation, particularly in the San Martín region (due to the exploitation of firewood, monocultures, oil exploration, cattle raising and mining) farmers only have a small fraction of the 50 hectares on average necessary for slash and burn agriculture to be sustainable.

Now the question of the ceramic fragments that are found throughout this black soil and not only in the great pre-Columbian cities of the Amazon is that of their roigin. An investigation, led by Frédérique Apffel-Marglin, which was initiated thanks to one of her indigenous collaborators, found that some indigenous Kichwa-Lamas elders continue to offer broken ceramics to the spirits of the food field at the time of planting within the context of a ritual. They maintain that their ancestors made such offerings and that, furthermore, when they cleane a new clearing in an old field, they discovered that it was full of remains of potsherds. The practice of these offerings, unfortunately, has been succumbing to the gaze of the dominant mestizo society, which considers such practices to be mere superstition.

It is also important to highlight how a pre-Columbian technology, which was interrupted in such a catastrophic way more than five hundred years ago, can provide concrete solutions to problems generated by modernity. If we want, then, to adopt pre-Columbian technology, it is important to pay attention to the wisdom of this people. The Kichwa-Lamas and the indigenous peoples of other places consider the Earth, the Cosmos,  as well as the mountains as being alive and conscious and, like humans, possessing volition. For the Kichwa-Lamas, one addresses the spirits of the chakra with kinship terms such as: Mama Allpa (the soil), Pachamama (the Earth), Mama Killa (the Moon), Yakumama (the rains/water), Sachamama (the rain forest) and Tayta Inti (the Sun), among others. Humans who invoke them as relatives simultaneously express that they are part of the Earth and the Cosmos, and that these non-human spirit relatives nourish and keep them alive. Such awareness generates the desire to reciprocate and strive to care for the world on which all humans depend. Likewise, this conception of indigenous peoples teaches us, in times of a serious global ecological crisis, to develop a radically different way to look at nature, which, unfortunately, became in the eyes of modernity an insensitive machine, without will, that must be dominated and whose so-called “natural resources” must be used only by and for humans.

In the Sachamama center, the Yana Allpa project (name of the black earth in local Quechua) successfully developed the recreation of the terra preta. The studies that scientists did on the composition of black earth allowed us in our center to be successful in recreating it. Furthermore, a quick review of the literature teaches that the bulk of the organic components of black earth varies depending on location, that is, ancient pre-Columbian people used whatever fertile organic material was at hand. This allowed us to consider using local ingredients that are abundant and freely available in such a way that permanent agriculture works and is also adopted locally by small farmers. So, together with the center's technical staff, it was decided to use local ingredients.

The Yana Allpa project aims to share the center's experience in the processing of black earth and contribute to taking the step from agrochemical agriculture towards regenerative agriculture that, in short, promises to benefit us all. The center has also been disseminating or training interested institutions or people about the Yana Allpa recreation process, as well as transferring this technology from pre-Columbian peoples to those interested.