Opening Plenary: Soil. The Substance of Transformation.
Date: Monday, 20 April 2015
Time: 10.00 – 12.00 GMT+1
Plenary Description
2015 will be a decisive year to take the necessary steps for the transformation to sustainability. The United Nations General Assembly is set to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to chart the way forward for the Post-2015 Development Agenda. To kick off the Global Soil Week 2015, the Opening Plenary will demonstrate why and how soils must be perceived as the substance of transformation. How we manage our soils is central to the achievement of several SDGs. Land and soil management will determine their implementation or at least strike a balance between their inherent
demands. Soil is a non-renewable and increasingly scarce resource. It needs to be managed wisely in order to achieve environmental sustainability and to preserve the basis for people’s lives today and in the future. Social sustainability requires equitable access to soil as a prerequisite for food security and the eradication of extreme poverty. Hence, sustainable management of soils is needed to ensure: that we do not exceed our planetaryboundaries and ensure a life in dignity for everyone. Soil is the substance of transformation.
This message of the Global Soil Week 2015 will be conveyed by an inspiring group of speakers. The session will start with the premiere of our second soil film followed by a keynote address by Prof Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the IASS. He will then be joined by an opening panel. Our guest of honour, his Excellency Minister Aroldo Cedraz, will conclude the session and build the bridge from the Global Soil Week 2013 to the Brazilian Soil Governance Seminar and the Global Soil Week 2015. Read more
Tuesday’s Plenary: Towards an integrated perspective on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Date: Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Time: 15.00 – 17.00 GMT+1
Plenary Description
Having emphasized the role of sustainable soil management and responsible land governance in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, we want to take the debate on soil as the substance of transformation one step further: from setting goals and targets for
sustainable development towards the challenging process of implementation. In the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the question of “how” will move centre stage. How will we achieve sustainable soil management in a world of growing demands? To begin the search for an answer, we have to think of soils in the broader water-energy-food-climate nexus. Competing demands placed on a number of scarce resources, including soils, will have to be balanced. To achieve this balancing, integrated resource management as well as coordinated governance approaches are needed. Balancing demands also implies protecting the land rights of those most vulnerable. Sustainable soil management must take a human rights-based approach and needs to be linked to responsible land governance.
The keynote address by Sara Scherr of EcoAgriculture will introduce the landscape approach as one way of operationalising integrated management approaches. In his keynote, Klaus Deininger will present insights from this year’s World Bank Land Conference on linking land tenure and land use. The second part of the session serves to deliver core messages from sessions to the plenary: individual dialogue sessions will report the results of their discussions via call-ins from the floor. A panel of established experts will respond to these call-ins. Johan L. Kuylenstierna of the Stockholm Environment Institute will close the panel by drawing conclusions on an integrated Post-2015 Development Agenda. Read more
Wednesday’s Plenary: The way forward
Date: Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Time: 16.00 – 18.00 GMT+1
Plenary Description
The sustainability governance landscape has become more complex. There is now a multitude of actors and a great variety ways of shaping or contributing to the global sustainable development agenda. Let us use this openness to bring our messages from the Global Soil Week foreword. Which partnerships do we need to strengthen, which topics require more attention and what are we going to do about them? During the concluding Way Forward Plenary we invite panelists and participants to share their view on
questions such as these and do discuss the next steps emerging from the Global Soil Week 2015. Read more