Question about intentionally burning forests for charate-if you know about this answer!?

Question

I have to write an introfuction(below):

Environment: In a Brave New World no one has their own individual thoughts or feelings on issues surrounding them other then to carryout what’s secretly brainwashed in their minds, which is to consume, have s*x, and think about certain types of people in certain ways. Although this is true, the people of the World state still care for their environment and the reader sees this through the burning of dead bodies for phosphorus to be used to replenish the soil. In a world where the population has reached shocking numbers and is continuing to grow, the use of land over a wide range of he country for agriculture to provide resources for the people has left soil depleted of it nutrients. One of the solutions being widely debated is to intentionally set areas on fires, and what is left of these fires, called Charate (ash), would put back lost nutrients into the soil. On side argues this while the other argues this... I dont kow what to say for...

Answer 1

It sounds like what you are talking about is what's called slash and burn agriculture, only on a large scale. It provides fertility for the land for two to three years and it will be used up and you would have to move to a new area to burn.  It works on a small scale because they only can farm a few acres then move to a new area. the area they farmed is given time to replenish itself. After about ten years the same area will be cut and burned again. On a large scale like you are talking about the burn would provide the fertilizer for about two years and there would be no new areas to move to. Those in favor of this would be very short sighted and only looking at the present with no regard for the future. Those against it would probably be looking ahead and see that the scheme couldn't work in the long run.

Answer 2

To describe what has been done usefully. rather than the worst examples.

When trees are burned in a pyrolitic oven, they first provide large volumes of wood gas that can be used much as one uses natural gas. What is left in the pyrolitic oven is not just the plant nutrients, but the unburned carbon, charcoal if you will.

This charcoal with the plant nutrients are then used as a soil amendment. This is not exactly like having plant matter in the soil. The charcoal does act like humus in the sense that it holds water, adsorbs plant nutrients and prevents clay crystals from collapsing.

Why this is actually better than humus, is that in the tropics humus will totally decompose in less than a year, all the carbon gone, but charcoal does not support bio degradation, it stays for decades or centuries doing what humus does while it lasts.

This then is a carbon sequestration strategy that keeps the carbon there to do its job.

What it does not do is support a lot of organisms in the soil.

In a tropical forest environment, wood would have decomposed in a year even if it were not burned, so the plant nutrients will be free to leach away as soon as the humus holding it is gone. The only way crops can be grown is to keep plants always growing to absorb nutrients as they are made available or to have charcoal or humus that will hold the nutrients. Without that, rain forest rains will take it all to the river.

Answer 3

To follow up on what johnh said, burning makes available to plants nutrients that were previously unavailable because they were locked up in growing material, wood, stems, etc.

Answer 4

Google Terra Preta which is an ancient form of agriculture that made the Amazon basin incredible fertile about 500 years ago. it used a combination of techniques to form this very high carbon/charcoal soil that even still is amazingly fertile