Protect Soils

This is the 2007 draft on soils. You will get the newest version here.

Soils deliver more than nine tenths of all food for human beings, whether it is directly or indirectly (crops, fungi, milk produces, meat – everything but fish, seaweed, algae, salt, and soda).

Affected people and foundations of life: More than 1.2 billion people and about one third of all land usable for agriculture in more than 110 countries are affected by soil degradation (MA [Millennium Ecosystem Assessment] 2005a). Soils are loosing fertility for production of food and other agricultural goods. Moreover large areas are threatened of being turned into steppe or deserts. Major causes are overgrazing, intensive or inappropriate methods of agriculture, and deforestation. Suitable plantings can improve the quality of soils.

Targets/goals: to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought (goal of UN [United Nations] Convention to Combat Desertification; UNCCD 1994).

Trend: − Annually, 20 000-50 000 km² (square kilometres) of soil is lost globally through land degradation, chiefly erosion (UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme] 2007, 95).

Measures: The UN Convention to Combat Desertification has initiated various action programmes (unccd.int).

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Annotations: For numeric names the short scale is used:
1 billion = one thousand million = 10⁹ = 1 000 000 000

Sources

• MA 2005a – Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (ed.): Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Desertification Synthesis.
• UNCCD 1994 – United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa.   UN General Assembly, A/AC.241/27.
• UNEP 2007 – United Nations Environment Programme: Global Environment Outlook 4.  

Draft (2007)