The CA4SH September Partners Meeting laid the groundwork for advocacy at upcoming COPs
On September 13th, the Coalition of Action for Soil Health (CA4SH) brought together partners from the public sector, research institutions and more to exchange ideas and provide updates on their efforts to scale up soil health globally.
CA4SH is a collective, and partner meetings are a key opportunity to connect and mobilise under common focal points, and to promote and strengthen each others’ activities. CA4SH’s organisational team shared ways to engage with core messaging and encouraged partners to submit their stories, ideas and resources to be featured in our monthly newsletter and social media channels.
With the 27th Conference of Parties at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 27) coming up in November, strategic planning is more important than ever in the coming months. During the Partners Meeting, the CA4SH Global team brainstormed ways to increase the visibility of the Soil Health Resolution (also available in French and Spanish) and to advocate for this being the COP of Soil Health with support from governments adopting the Resolution.
During the meeting, CA4SH Global partners provided input on the current draft of the Resolution and brainstormed key messaging to bring forward into COP27. While the core messaging is not finalised, there were certainly some recurring themes in the discussion, like:
Healthy soil is essential for a healthy planet.
We need healthy soil to achieve ecosystem restoration, climate action, food and nutrition security and biodiversity goals.
Soil is at the centre of our food systems and livelihoods. Soil health is human health.
Soil is a unifier between water, vegetation, air and climate
Soil health is the bedrock of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, food security and the fight against desertification. It is at the core of ecological transition.
We need political and legal frameworks to support soil health and drive investments in soil health.
Working toward healthy soils means working toward achieving multiple objectives.
Soil health is not only about land degradation and nutrients, but also microbes and biodiversity.
All of these messages, and more, will inform the conversation at the COP27 at the many sessions that CA4SH partners will be actively involved in like the Food Systems Pavilion, which we are co-hosting, and the CA4SH day Boosting soil health through nature-positive production on Day 5 of the Pavilion. CA4SH partner the “4 per 1000” Initiative is also campaigning to bring back their own day at the COP through a session titled Healthy Soils for a Healthy Planet where they will not only underscore the importance of soil health, but also promote and give the floor to CA4SH to bring on more soil health champions into the advocacy arena.
The preparations for the COP27 are laying the groundwork for all our actions in the global arena as a coalition. Soil has an enormous influence on upcoming events like the 50th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the 15th Conference of Parties at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (UNCBD COP15), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the 15th COP of which formed our roots. We are committed to providing a hub of information, resources, tools and updates on our dedicated event pages; please let us know if you have something to contribute that will help us scale soil health in global dialogue.
For now, this is where we are:
