Humans and the Soil

It may just be because I am a soil enthusiast, but I found chapter 3 of The Ecology of Eden to be fascinating. Western farming practices have been destroying the soil for hundreds of years, and, rather than changing their practices, they instead just change the soil, moving onto a new area and leaving swaths of unusable farming land behind them. Reflecting on this, it is clear that this comes from a disconnect between Western culture and the ground it originally came from. Much of the technology in Western culture serves to separate people from where their food comes from, and that, in turn, makes it easier to forget how connected we all are to the soil. Without it, life would not be possible, and yet we treat it like it is simply another resource to be used and abused for the sake of progress.

Eisenberg's description of the soil as a living organism really stuck with me, largely because it is living. The soil is as different and as alive as any other species, and it changes with the environment as much as animals or plants do. I believe that in order to help preserve the biodiversity on earth, one of the first places we need to protect is the medium in which these organisms live, whether that be water, air, or the earth itself. The soil as a living being shifts perceptions to it being a part of the environment, too, and that shift makes it that much easier to see how important it is.