Saving The Shrinking Amazon Region Scientists Look To Mayan Culture For Secrets Of Preserving Jungle

June 4, 1985|By Gino Del Guercio, United Press International

The Amazon, the world`s largest jungle and home to an estimated nine out of 10 of the world`s animal species, has been shrinking each year by an area the size of Connecticut.

At that rate, one of the world`s last remaining wildernesses, two-thirds the size of the continental United States, will be transformed within a lifetime into barren scrubland that is unsuitable for farming or raising cattle, able to support only about five percent of the animals and plants that now live there.

However, jungle experts are conducting bold experiments they hope may save the Amazon. They believe the jungle must be saved to preserve a rich and valuable resource, prevent an ecological disaster that some say could affect world weather patterns and prevent the extinction of millions of plant and animal species.

Terry Erwin, curator of insects for the Smithsonian Institution, has undertaken one of the most ambitious of the projects. He believes the jungle`s salvation may rest with technology developed by the Mayan people of Central America and Mexico 1,000 years before the birth of Christ.

The farming techniques, uniquely adapted to life in the jungle, were lost when the Mayans were crushed by the Spanish in the 1500s. Only recently were the techniques rediscovered by archaeologists who stumbled upon the remnants of their civilization.

To understand the cures, however, one must first understand the disease.

The Amazon`s destruction is the product of crashing economies, exploding populations, increasing violence and ill-planned government policy.

In Peru, for instance, many of the Indians who lived in the mountains fled to the jungle because of failed crops and recent guerrilla warfare. Many of the people who lived in major cities, such as Lima, also immigrated to the jungle because of overcrowding and lack of jobs.

The people turned to agriculture. But unlike the rich and fertile farming regions of North America and Europe, much of the soil in the Amazon jungle is barren. The nutrients are mostly contained in the living matter of the forest canopy, with the roots of the 90-foot trees embedded in infertile clay.

To create crop or pastureland the people who move to the jungle cut and burn the trees. Much of the jungle`s nutrients are lost into the atmosphere; those which remain in the form of ashes are used for farming.

In less than three years the soil loses what little nutrients it contained. Fertilizers are useless because they are quickly washed into the rivers. The farmers are forced to slash and burn more jungle.

The Mayans found a way of overcoming the jungle`s infertile soil. They discovered that certain sections, called swamp forest, contain rich soil but are flooded with water. The Mayans built raised gardens a couple of acres in size with ditches around the edges.

When the rainy season came, the soil was washed into the ditches. After the rains, the soil was scooped out of the ditches and piled back into the gardens, which remained fertile for many years.

The raised gardens combined with the bright sun of the region and abundant water made for ideal growing conditions. Using the system, the Mayans were able to build a complex and amazingly stable civilization.

Erwin, with the help of a non-profit organization called Earthwatch, is trying to adapt the technique to the South American jungle and then teach it to local farmers.

He believes the people of the Amazon could build similar gardens with concrete walls and ditches a yard wide and a yard deep around the perimeter. The Mayan technique could be further improved by growing fish and turtles in the water-filled ditches, which would provide meat for the villagers and enrich the soil that collects in the ditches.

``If everything works fine, then we`ll transfer this technology to a nearby village,`` said Erwin. ``If they do a good job then the next step, maybe four or five years from now, will be to go commercial so that the villagers get together in their commune and make a big one.

``They harvest it collectively, then they sell those vegetables at the nearest town and that gives them money they then put back into the village for their education system, medical system and whatever kinds of things they need. They`re going to be be bringing themselves up by their bootstraps,`` said Erwin, who has lived in the jungle a total of five years.

A student from Peru began testing soil last September, mixing swamp soil with sand to see which proportions are best for growing corn, peanuts, tomatoes and beans.

Erwin plans to use the preliminary results for an experimental garden project in August, if he can get the funds.

Earthwatch, which organizes scientific vacations in which participants pay to work with scientists in exotic locations, is organizing trips in August and October of 1985 and February of 1986. Small teams of six to eight volunteers will fly to the Amazon for two weeks to help with the gardens.

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