Depending on climate, a healthy forest creates topsoil at a net rate of about 1mm per hundred years.

BSS Feature Article

Nick Radford is a multi disciplinary environmental designer of housing, landscapes and waste water systems and member of Bellingen Seed Savers. A recent article of Nick's was published in the Bellingen Courier Sun:

"You can measure the viability of a society by looking at their soil. When archaeologists study extinct societies such as Easter Island, they have a rule of thumb – topsoil loss roughly equals environmental degradation, and environmental degradation roughly equals societal decline.

Organic matter is a dark, rather mysterious substance that is the essential ingredient in brown topsoil. Unlike subsoil, organic matter is chemically balanced, well drained yet moisture conserving, and is responsible for virtually all of the fertility in soil. Organic matter is created by dead plants, animals and micro organisms, laid down at the floor of forests and swamps. Depending on climate, a healthy forest creates topsoil at a net rate of about 1mm per hundred years."

Read the full article at the link below:  Organic matter can save the humans