WASWAC joined the Soil and Land Network for Change and the Campaign Golden Grounds launched by IASS Global Soil Forum and Global Soil Week.

Introducing the Soil and Land Network for Change

The Global Soil Week launches its Soil and Land Network for Change, a project to document the soil and land change-makers resulting in a web-based tool released at the next Global Soil Week 2017 in Berlin.  The promoters consider that making change happen towards a shared vision of sustainable soil management and responsible land governance requires the concerted effort of many different actors from local to global. To facilitate cooperation amongst these actors, the Global Soil Week is initiating a project to document the network of change-makers in the areas of soil and land- The Soil and Land Network for Change. WASWAC just joined the Network which already includes various kind of partners such as initiatives and organizations from civil society, academic, government, NGOs, cultural, religious, youth,…Some of the ones already included in the Network are: Land Right Now, 4 Pour 1000, People 4 Soil, European Society for Soil Conservation-ESSC, Focus on Land Africa, Global Citizen, Global Soil Partnership, La Via Campesina, World Centre for Sustainable Development, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and many others. The objective is to create a strong global community for change.

These changes aims to “Social Justice and Climate Change Action” between others important topics such as: Soil Biodiversity and health: Why do we need a living soil? Soil and Climate Change Mitigation: How can we put carbon back in the earth? Land Distribution:How to fight poverty, hunger and inequality? Global Goals: What does inclusive development look like? Sustainable land Management: Healthy soils for a people and planet; Soil Fertility: How can we keep the soil healthy?.....

The web site:  http://globalsoilweek.org/golden-grounds provides you more information, including expanded insight on the mentioned topics. In each of them you will find concise information on the subject together with references for to know more

The link also includes access to the IASS Vimeo Chanel to see the video on “Better Save the Soil” with arguments considering that “both political initiatives and local actions are necessary to secure the access to food and livelihoods for everyone. Measures for sustainable agriculture are already at hand, but they are often not applied – both on a small and large scale. And even if most of us live in cities, we all can do our part in saving soils all over the world”.

The link also provide access to the animated film on ‘Let´s Talk About Soil’ which tells the reality of soil resources around the world, covering the issues of degradation, urbanization, land grabbing and overexploitation; the film offers options to make the way we manage our soils more sustainable.

Introducing the Golden Grounds campaign

The Earth Day, April 22, 2016, was the opportunity providing momentum for awareness-raising on global challenges to the sustainable development of our societies and the planet.

On this occasion and in the forefront of the upcoming Global Soil Week in spring 2017, the IASS Global Soil Forum launched a web based campaign Golden Grounds, to make global challenges transparent to a wider audience and to present soil and land related strategies for social justice and climate change action.

Golden Grounds is about the earth under each of our feet, upon which all of us depend. Our soils which are our communal life-support system, a common good for humanity, are under immense pressure to produce an increasing amount of food, energy, and raw materials. Soil degradation continues unabated in many countries, resulting in devastating losses of biodiversity and threatening the provision of ecosystem services such as soil fertility for food production, groundwater recharge or carbon sequestration. We need to protect the living soil from rapid and continuous large scale degradation going on all over the world. These soil resources are unequally distributed while growing consumer demand fires competition for fertile land. Secure land tenure as well as a pro-poor approach to land rehabilitation are strategies to realize the recently negotiated Global Goals.

This public awareness campaign contains:

-a new single and music video ‘Golden Grounds’

-animated Infographics on soil and land strategies for social justice and climate change action

-available for free download on the campaign page: www.globalsoilweek.org/golden-grounds

Also you can use a Social Media Toolkit to spread the word in your communities.

This Report was provided by Prof. José Luis Rubio, an active councilor of our association.