As climate negotiators convene in Baku, Azerbaijan for COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to discuss the most urgent climate change issues, we turn our attention to a group of researchers who are working to safeguard the Earth’s precious black soil land. We meet Hou Hongxing and his fellow researchers who have spent years in the field in Northeast China, monitoring the evolving conditions of the region’s black soil and exploring ways to retain its fertility.