excellent links! I saw the doc in a weird group trip situation, so I didn’t get a chance to learn the title but it was riveting as a soil ecologist with a long interest in prairies and their environmental history.
it was also years ago, so my memory hasn’t sharpened, but there was commentary/discussion on how much of the prairie lands of the Midwestern US had extensive wetland networks that were constructed and maintained by beavers prior to the Columbian Exchange and that the depth of soil organic matter in the now channelized and drained “Grain Belt” came from extensive periods of soil flooding, building up organic matter faster than it could cycle.
the others in the audience were just tourists, so few of them cared, but I was having my mind blown. fuckin’ beavers are the expert terraforming heroes, larding the lean earth.
excellent links! I saw the doc in a weird group trip situation, so I didn’t get a chance to learn the title but it was riveting as a soil ecologist with a long interest in prairies and their environmental history.
it was also years ago, so my memory hasn’t sharpened, but there was commentary/discussion on how much of the prairie lands of the Midwestern US had extensive wetland networks that were constructed and maintained by beavers prior to the Columbian Exchange and that the depth of soil organic matter in the now channelized and drained “Grain Belt” came from extensive periods of soil flooding, building up organic matter faster than it could cycle.
the others in the audience were just tourists, so few of them cared, but I was having my mind blown. fuckin’ beavers are the expert terraforming heroes, larding the lean earth.