Reviving Land on a Changing Earth.

The earth is changing, partly by human interferences. As our numbers swell and our wants multiply, we are pushing ever closer to the biosphere’s capacity to sustain us. The encroachment of our increasing demands on Earth’s finite limits is reflected in a growing list of stresses: uncertain food supplies, scarcity of freshwater, loss of biodiversity, depleting reserves of fossil energy, disturbances to climate. Most or all of these stresses are tied to our use of ‘land’ – the soil beneath, the sky above, the water flowing through, all biota (including us) embedded therein. To face the coming changes, then, we will need to look anew at land (ecosystems) to see how we can better live on the land, gently drawing from it sustenance, while preserving it also for future inhabitants and the fluid functioning of the biosphere. Because ecosystems often respond only slowly, this urgent goal will require creative far-sightedness, looking decades ahead, instructed by wisdom of the past. My aim is to briefly contemplate how we in soil science might advance the restoring of land on an earth under stress, not only by more concerted study but also by reviving an awareness of land’s intricacy and crucial functions. I offer few definitive answers, merely some tentative thoughts as seeds for further fruitful discourse.