Mycorenewal to Save The Earth

Submitted by Aspergillus Administrator on 10 May 2013

The Amazon rainforest area in South America is an area with a huge, unique ecosystem and many thousands of unique species of plants (quotes from Wikipedia.com):

The biodiversity of plant species is the highest on Earth with some experts estimating that one square kilometer (247 acres) may contain more than a thousand types of trees and thousands of species of other higher plants. According to a 2001 study, a quarter square kilometer (62 acres) of Ecuadorian rainforest supports more than 1,100 tree species.[30]

and animals:

The region is home to about 2.5 million insect species [26] tens of thousands of plants, and some 2,000 birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 2,200 fishes,[27] 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified in the region.[28] One in five of all the bird species in the world live in the rainforests of the Amazon, and one in five of the fish species live in Amazonian rivers and streams. Scientists have described between 96,660 and 128,843 invertebrate species in Brazil alone.[29]

Such diversity is important in itself as it represents millions of years of evolution and therefore millions of different biological ‘solutions’ to the question of how to live and prosper in a rainforest, but is also important in man’s quest for new medicines, new foods and much much more.

It is quite well known that this part of the world is under extremes pressures thanks to the influence of man, not least to exploit its large reserves of oil. There is a lot of opposition to plans to exploit these oil reserves but some drilling has been going on for many years. Inevitably this causes pollution.

One solution suggested to remove this pollution is the use of fungi.

Amazon Mycorenewal in association with the Cloud Forest Institute have set out to more fully investigate this possibility. As part of this project they are presenting a 10 day workshop on methods of mycorenewal entitles the Art and Science of Mycorenewal at Santa Cruz, California, USA.

More on soil mycoremediation (Fungi for the people)