Please download the Rapporteurs’ Report for this session here.
There is a general lack of societal awareness of the importance of soil in people’s lives, terrestrial life, and the well-being of the planet. That can be attributed to alienation from basic conditions of life, and to a deficiency in education, which are compounded by ineffective or non-existent communication strategies. This session tries to address approaches and tools to overcome this fundamental problem of global culture, and help trigger better dialogue between all players with a vested interest in soils, from farmers to policymakers. As almost all nourishment depends on it, and the farmers who cultivate the soil, the key role of sustainable soil farming for living fertile soil preservation can hardly be separated from any effective soil communication.
The session will open with short contributions from representatives of four projects aimed at increasing public and stakeholder engagement. These range from the large-scale initiatives of the Global Soil Partnership Action Plan on policy, investment, education, extension, public awareness and technical cooperation to developing key messaging approaches to influence decision- makers, the development of audio-visual tools for soil literacy and understanding the conflict between the demands of agriculture and wilderness better.
The core of the session will comprise a rotating world-café style series of workshop and interactive training elements with the key aspects of each scene-setting presentation forming the foci of the debate. The recommendations from each table will provide a specific focus for prompting the common dialogue and the establishment of a collaborative network and framework for communicating soil issues that will continue to develop the opinions raised long after the Global Soil Week 2015.
You may also be interested in the following Lunch Break Forum (LBF) contributions:
–> LBF-04: How to brand soils?
–> LBF-14: Film Terminal
Download the session description here.
Programme
Contact: Daniela Hoyer-Rensmann