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relationships and interconnections by marriage. Eventually, as tree canopies become more
dense, the forest islands become considered 'too cold' and are abandoned as dwelling places,
though products might still be harvested from them. Flooding, disease, and social and polit-
ical allegiance and convenience of access to roads might also influence decisions to abandon
a forest island (Frausin et al. 2014). The forest islands that were once perceived by Europeans
as sad remnants of past forest cover, are viewed by locals as abandoned 'old towns.
As well as enhancing livelihoods for farmers, creating new anthropogenic dark earths in
the tropics could contribute to important Millennium Development Goals, such as long-term
sequestration of atmospheric CO
2
and maintaining biodiversity in rainforests by reducing the
incidence of shifting agriculture (Glaser 2007). The potential of biochar is generating much
excitement, initially due its promise for local sustainability but more lately due to the poten-
tial for carbon storage (Fairhead and Leach 2009). It has been estimated that the use of bio-
char could sequester 400 billion tonnes of carbon by 2100, leading to a reduction in
atmospheric carbon dioxide of 37 ppm (Leach et al. 2012). National biochar networks have
formed in China, Mongolia, Hawaii, New Zealand, Japan, and elsewhere and there is an
International Biochar Initiative (IBI) (<http://www.biochar-international.org/>). Win-win
biochar projects, which benefit communities and environment, include the use of slash and
char, in place of slash and burn, in Brazil, and the use of pyrolizing cooking stoves that con-
vert crop wasters to biochar, in Kenya (Fairhead et al. 2012, Leach et al. 2012).
Anthropogenic dark earths are a product of complex socioecological systems that are
embedded in local culture and sense of place, having values far beyond soil fertility; they are
integral parts of the cultural landscape. In west and central Africa, anthropogenic dark earths
not only provide food and forest products, they are valued for shade, privacy, and meeting
places. They are resilient and sustainable in part because they allow large areas of surround-
ing vegetation to be used for other purposes, such as rangelands and rice cultivation. The
forest sites have symbolic significance because of their connection with ancestors and the
presence of sacred trees; thus the African dark earths and forest islands and gardens repre-
sent a connection between people and their landscape (Faison et al. 2006).
Local-scale, initiatives, however, are in danger of being engulfed as the commodification of
biochar gathers pace (Monbiot 2009, Fairhead et al. 2012). The pressure to include biochar in
carbon trading schemes raises the spectre of vast plantations of fast growing trees destined
for biochar production. Such 'green-grabbing' may displace agropastoralist communities
and create biodiversity deserts in the process (Fairhead et al. 2012, Leach et al. 2012). In this
era of Afro-pessimism, the degradation narrative still predominates, and the looming social
injustice and environmental degradation threatened by large-scale biochar initiatives seems
all the more tragic because those landscapes were so long misunderstood (Monbiot 2009,
Fairhead et al. 2012, Leach et al. 2012).
Biocultural diversity
The negative effects of people on biodiversity and ecosystem services are well reported, but
less attention has been paid to cases where human management has enriched or enhanced
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