2015 - The International Year of Soils and World Soil Day (5th of December)
On 20th December 2013 United Nation General Assembly decides to designate 5th December as World Soil Day and to declare 2015 the International Year of Soils.
The basis for this decision is noting that soils constitute the foundation for agricultural development, essential ecosystem functions and food security and hence are key to sustaining life on Earth, recognizing that the sustainability of soils is key to addressing the pressures of a growing population and that recognition.
It is also an advocacy and support for promoting sustainable management of soils can contribute to healthy soils and thus to a foodsecure world and to stable and sustainably used ecosystems, recognizing the economic and social significance of good land management, including soil, particularly its contribution to economic growth, biodiversity, sustainable agriculture and food security. It eradicating poverty, women’s empowerment, addressing climate change and improving water availability, and stressing that desertification, land degradation and drought are challenges of a global dimension and that they continue to pose serious challenges to the sustainable development of all countries, in particular developing countries.
United Nation General Assembly recognizing also the urgent need, at all levels, to raise awareness and to promote sustainability of the limited soil resources, using the best available scientific information and building on all dimensions of sustainable development, noting that World Soil Day and the International Year of Soils can contribute to raising awareness of desertification, land degradation and drought, in line with the objective of the United Nations Convention to combat desertification in those countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa.
(based on this document)
Author: dr. Aleksander Marinsek
Published: Iztok Sinjur
