#iys2015

[observer-land]

Soil awareness raising: a key point for our future

During the International Year of Soil 2015 (IYS2015) a lot of people produced a huge amount of very good material, I mean the video clip from Soil Science Society of America, the infographics made from the FAO or the several workshops or congress made across the whole world.

Soil awareness is a broad concept, as we saw today, and is possible to do a lot of things.

We could reach 3 different target:

1.     Primary school children

2.     Teen ager

3.     Decision maker and politicians

1. Primary school children: Interact with young people is crucial for our future, educate school children is the only way to preserve the  necessary soil for the survival of humankind. It is an urgency, we don’t have the time to convince all the government to modify the official school curricula. To reach and form the educator or the environmentalist that have relationship with the local communities school could be the right way to meet (young) people that are still like a clean blackboard.

2. The teen ager are not anymore a clean blackboard, but are very sensitive to the social media communication. The use of Instagram or facebook could be the way to “stay connected” with them.

3. The decision makers and politicians are those hardest to reach, too many time they are constantly chasing the consensus in the short term. The step that we need is to try to explain to the people that interact with the soil (almost everyone!) that the soil has a value a big value, not lower than that of water and air. This is important for the local administrator that has to contain the lost of a nonrenewable resource, but is equally important for someone that have to “push up” products strictly linked to the soil (like vines…)

Souces:

http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/en/

https://www.soils.org/iys/monthly-videos

http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/resources/infographics/en/#c328551

https://www.geo.uni-hamburg.de/bodenkunde/service/publrel/pdf/miehlich-2008-soil-awareness-eurosoil-2008.pdf

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[aapremlall-blog]

Started a new #compost bin! #composting #urbanag #urbanagriculture #urbangarden #urbangardening #urbangardenersrepublic #IYS2015 #SoilTalk #soilful

[observer-land]

Money, get away                                                                       Money, get back

The Global Soil Partnership should become an interactive, responsive and voluntary partnership, open to governments, institutions and other stakeholders at various levels. Partners by default to the GSP are the FAO member countries who determine FAOs priorities as laid out in the Strategic Framework and Programme of Work and Budget of the Organization and according to the needs and priorities identified in their countries.

These partners could come from any kind of international, regional and national institutions/organizations working on soils (Governmental Organizations, universities, civil institutions, research centers, soil science societies, UN agencies, NGOs, private companies, farmer associations, donors, etc).

Current Resource partners: European Commission (1,3 million USD), Thailand (100,000 USD), Switzerland (100,000USD) and International Fertilizers Association (58,00USD). The European Commission has been a major supporter for the establishment of the Global Soil Partnership, in line with the EU's Soil Thematic Strategy.  After extensive dialogue for selected activities during 2014-2015, a project proposal has been accepted in order to provide €1 million to the GSP, 0.2 eurocents each EU citizen (1.1 each Swiss citizen and 0.1 each Thai citizen)  [*]. 

And the other partners?

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Reference: [*] source FAO

[observer-land]

Do the right thing

The increasing desire for architects, engineers, planners, ecologists to incorporate soils in their approaches acknowledge the aboveground impacts of belowground conditions, is very positive and has potential to increase understanding of many ecological process and patterns. If these positive new approaches do not have at least a basic understanding of soil, the potential for making fundamental errors. And thus the risk of generating incorrect and unreliable information is high [1]. A soil contains life, is very reactive to chemical stress, normally compensates both chemical and physical stresses. If you apply a specific test developed for the asphalts [2], does the applicability of the results remain reliable? If you guess soil moisture by feeling and observing its appearance “As the soil approaches wilt point, it becomes lighter in color. If you’re unsure what the color should be when there is adequate moisture, add water to a small sample and compare it to the actual soil color” [3] sometimes you could falling into error. ...and if you think of increasing the culture on the soil suggesting questions like this “There are 6 major types of soil: Sandy, Clayey, Loamy, Silty, Chalky and Peaty [4]” maybe you will not get the desired result.

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References: [1] Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 15 (2013) 237– 244 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ppees.2013.05.004 [2] Geomaterials 3, 165-171 (2013) 165-171. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/gm.2013.34021 [3] Landscape Architecture Magazine (2014) http://landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/2014/01/21/soils-the-measure-of-moisture-parked/ [4] http://www.playbuzz.com/ifdcvs10/whats-your-soil-iq

[observer-land]

Sebastiao Salgado, 1944 Workers, Tea plantation Rwanda. (http://aksypavv.livejournal.com/2819.html)

"While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil."  (Thomas Jefferson)

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[observer-land]

Without our soils, we...

can not eat not survive the floods would not live in cities do not save ourselves from disease do not breathe would not escape from global warming do not survive the poison of our waste do not fight poverty would never know our past history

IASS Vimeo Channel

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[observer-land]

#EarthDay: Soils enable life on Earth

Soils enable life on Earth

Image FAO

[observer-land]

Urban desertification

Since the last decades a new form of desertification is becoming ever more important: the “Urban Desertification”. From the social point of view the urban desertification was long considered related to the abandonment of degraded areas [1], but the overcrowding of large areas of our planet produced a real desertification phenomena, where plants do not grow unless in pots or in marginal areas, where slums or new town are very similar as environmental function and they differ only apparently [2].

Photograph: Google Earth/2014 Digital Globe, theguardian.com

n these areas of relative exclusion, people experience physical and economic barriers to accessing food, and in particular healthy foods [3, 4]. In EU28, the conversion of hectares of agricultural soil in the last years implied a net loss of wheat-equivalent, which accounts for the calories needed by several percent of population [5].

The soil is always the basis of the choices concerning the fight against desertification, in the broadest sense of the term.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures?CMP=share_btn_link

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References: [1] R. Wallace, 1990. Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx. Social Science & Medicine 37, 801–813 [2] J. Simon, 2014. Urban desertification and a phenomenology of sustainability: the case of El Paso, Texas. Interdisciplinary Environmental Review 15, 160–182. DOI> 10.1504/IER.2014.063659 [3] V. Reising, A. Hobbiss, 2000. Food deserts and how to tackle them: a study of one city's approach. Health Education Journal 59, 137–49. doi:10.1177/001789690005900203 [4] L. Morton, T. Blanchard, 2007. Starved for access: life in rural America’s food deserts. Rural Realities (Rural Sociological Society) 1, 1–10. [5] F. Malucelli, G. Certini, R. Scalenghe, 2014. Soil is brown gold in the Emilia-Romagna Region. Land Use Policy  39, 350–357 doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.01.019