5.

Hands in the Soil: Biocultural Diversity and the

Ecosystems Approach

In this Lesson, you will apply the ecosystems approach to understand complex relationships
between land, soil, biocultural diversity and management strategies. For as long as humans have
walked the earth, they have interacted with soil. For thousands of years, indigenous land
management practices altered the soil. Through these traditional methods, indigenous farmers
developed complex soil classification systems and management practices to conserve and utilize soil
sustainably. Up until fairly recently, soil was understood, classified and therefore managed in these
ways.

As we learned in the first module, the study of modern agriculture has largely been focused on how
to increase production in a given acre of land, while ecology has been a separate study of ‘natural’
ecosystems. In agroecology, we try to integrate an understanding of ecosystem processes with
agricultural production. This agri-ecosystem approach starts with the soil.  Under our feet, there are
working ecosystems in the soil as complex as any above ground. Soil is one of the most diverse
habitats on earth, and consists of some of the most biodiverse assemblages of living organisms on
the planet. The diversity of soil organisms is directly responsible for many processes in ecosystems
that can provide regulatory and provisioning services to humans. For this reason, it is important that
our agricultural practices support soil biodiversity in order to increase the overall sustainability of
the agricultural system (Barrios, 2007; Bennack et al., 2002).

Ecosystems are a system of complex relationships between biotic and abiotic factors. Soil
ecosystems are as complicated as terrestrial systems, if not more so. In the soil ecosystem, there are
five main components: Mineral matter, dead organic matter, water, air and living organisms. Soil
ecosystems, which
vary depending on
location, weather,
parent material, etc,
support the rich
biodiversity in
animals and plants
that covers our
world. Soil
ecosystems are vital
to carbon storage
and sequestration-
they hold more
carbon than the atmosphere and plants combined.

The modern paradigm for understanding agriculture however, with its chemical bias, treats soil an
inert substance instead of addressing the rich diversity that’s a part of soil ecosystems. In the same
way, industrial agriculture largely ignores the cultural diversity of humans in an agroecosystem.  We
now know that a handful of soil contains more living organisms than humans on planet earth.
 Currently, we’re in the middle of the greatest extinction of species since the extinction of dinosaurs
65 million years ago. These species have untold effects on the world’s ecosystems, and our survival
as a species. Similarly, and much like our soils, our globalized culture is becoming homogenized.
We are losing traditional cultures, languages, and land-management practices that have been
developed over millennia.

By ignoring the importance of cultural diversity, we ignore the importance of diversity in other
systems, such as agroecosystems. As a culture, we have embraced simplified efficiency at the
expense of humans cultures and agricultural systems. What is now re-emerging however, is an
understanding of soils based in the traditional, systems-approach view of soils as complex
ecosystems, past a chemical view of understanding soil. It has also become clear that soil diversity
and biocultural diversity are inextricably linked. Protecting ethnobiodiversity can protect soil
biodiversity, and vice versa. In this Lesson, you’ll explore that link.
Learning Objectives:

1. Contrast traditional soil classification and management with modern, industrial soil management and
classification
2. Analyze the relationship between land ownership and traditional knowledge and culture, compare
different avenues of land reclamation
3. Analyze the relationship between soil biodiversity and human cultural diversity
4. Identify and explain different soil physical and chemical characteristics, and understand how they are
related
5. Value traditional biocultural knowledge of soil classification and management; understand the
consequences of the loss of traditional ecological knowledge
6. Explain the role of soil and decomposition in the global carbon cycle, nutrient cycling and soil
structure
7. Demonstrate the functional groups of soil organisms, and the roles they play in agroecosystem
functioning
8. Compare soil management practices and their effects on soil ecosystems; determine which
agroecological practices protect and enhance soil biodiversity

Sources:

Barrios, E. “Soil biota, ecosystem services and land productivity”. Ecological Economics, vol. 64,
no. 2, 2007, 269–285. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.03.004

Bennack, D., Brown, G., Bunning, S., and Hungria da Cunha, M.. “Biodiversity and the Ecosystem
Approach in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: SOIL BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT FOR
SUSTAINABLE AND PRODUCTIVE AGRICULTURE: LESSONS FROM CASE
STUDIES”. Proceedings on the Ninth Regular Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture, FAO, 2002, Rome. http://doi.org/92-5-104917-3