The actress and activist heads underground to highlight the plight of our soil.

Welcome back to my <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/nathalie-kelley-s-climate-column" target="_blank" rel="noopener">monthly climate column</a> here on L&rsquo;OFFICIEL IBIZA - a safe, shame-free space where we explore all things &lsquo;saving the planet'. But first - I want to talk about sex. Let me get your juices flowing by having you close your eyes and imagine running your hands through some lush, moist, deliciously rich and fertile&hellip; soil.
Seriously though, there is nothing sexier than black earth or terra preta - the name given to the dark, fertile soil of the Amazon rainforest, responsible for giving life to some of the planet&rsquo;s most lush and abundant biodiversity.&nbsp; What&rsquo;s even more exciting is that terra preta is a human invention! The indigenous peoples of the Amazon used a combination of compost and biochar (more on that later) to elevate an originally poor soil into something supercharged, from which the largest and most biodiverse rainforest in the world was created. This might come as a surprise to you, but the Amazon rainforest is not just a random act of God(dess), but one enormous food forest and orchard, co-created by humans. Talk about expanding our idea of our human potential!&nbsp; Just imagine - there was a time in our human history when we were actually building biodiversity and not destroying it!

So, what does that have to do with Ibiza?&nbsp; Well, it turns out that Philip down at Terra Masia is using similar techniques, enriching the land with compost and biochar to drastically improve the quality of Ibiza&rsquo;s soil.&nbsp;This is apparent when you compare the lushness of the soil and abundance of healthy organic vegetables in Ibiza to the typical produce coming out of mainland Spain, where drastic soil erosion and loss of fertile topsoil is due to decades of misguided agricultural systems.&nbsp;&nbsp;
If you are on the island, please take the opportunity to visit Terra Masia and see this transformation of the Ibizan landscape for yourself.&nbsp; If you&rsquo;re really dirty, you can ask Philip if you can put your hands in his wet, black soil and smell it - it is the most delicious divine scent. What I imagine the dark fertile womb space of the Great Goddess might smell like. If you are like me, you might be tempted to taste it a little&hellip; swallowing a few tasty crumbs of rich soil is equivalent to taking a whole bottle of expensive probiotics - that is to say, it is loaded with beneficial nutrients and good bacteria. &nbsp;

Beyond being the fertile foundation that supports all life on earth, soil also has a superpower &ndash; it actually has the power to reverse climate change!&nbsp; Yes, you read that correctly. If you&rsquo;ve seen the movie <a href="https://kissthegroundmovie.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kiss the Ground</a> (if you haven&rsquo;t, please immediately add it to your Netflix queue), you know how this process works.&nbsp; Healthy soil can sequester excess carbon from the atmosphere and store it underground for millions of years.&nbsp;Carbon has been unfairly blamed as the culprit in this climate crisis, but it is actually a&nbsp;building block of life. We just haven&rsquo;t understood how to work with it.&nbsp;In fact, if we added less than two per cent of&nbsp; organic matter to the soil found on farmable land globally, we could lower atmospheric CO2 to near pre-industrial levels!&nbsp;
This is huge news for those interested in a safe future for all and it is absolutely achievable. It&rsquo;s a much more promising idea than building massive shades in space to block out the sun or waiting for some high-tech solution to come along and save us.&nbsp; Here is an ancient, sophisticated technology, the planet&rsquo;s very best, developed over thousands of years of evolution, and the best part is - humans play a crucial part in this story.&nbsp; The way we treat our soil in the coming years will quite literally determine our fate on this planet. We can continue down the path of industrial agriculture &ndash; a system that for decades lied to us about being the solution to world hunger and has led to the devastating loss of topsoil and fertile land. Or, we can start adopting these ancient practices, refined over millenia, that are producing out-of-this-world improvements in soil health and some of the tastiest fresh fruits and vegetables I have ever tried. &nbsp;

So, how do the rest of practically go about increasing soil matter?&nbsp;Stay tuned for next month when I breakdown the secret formula behind terra preta; compost and biochar, the latter also being an indigenous Ibicencan farming technique currently experiencing a much-needed revival. Because if Ibiza, the world capital of sun and sex, can make soil sexy again surely the rest of the planet will follow?

Nathalie Kelley is making soil sexy again.

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