COP 27 leaders urged to kick-start restoration of soil ecosystems

First-ever food systems pavilion to shine spotlight on foundation of life on land

Read an excerpt from the story by Sandra Cordon, originally posted on the CIFOR Forest News website:

Photo by Kelvin Trautman

The first-ever Food Systems Pavilion to be featured at a UN Climate Change Conference represents an enormous opportunity to ensure that the health of the planet’s soil – and with it, all the nutritional, ecosystem, and climate benefits soil provides – is considered by policymakers in discussions at COP27, say soil experts.

With over half of the globe’s agricultural soil already badly degraded, government leaders and legislators must take quick and significant actions to halt the destruction and kick-start restoration of soil ecosystems, said Leigh Ann Winowiecki, co-leader of the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH), one of the host organizations of the Pavilion.

“Let’s remember: soil is the absolute foundation of life on land, on our planet,” said Winowiecki, a soil systems scientist for the Centre for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF).

But although it’s the very basis of the world’s food systems – as well as the third-largest carbon sink –  soil has never been officially recognized at COP.