6th European Soil Partnership (ESP) Plenary meeting 28-29 March 2019 FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy 'Encourage investment, technical cooperation policy, education, awareness and extension in soils', Arwyn Jones

2. European Soil Partnership
PILLAR 2
Encourage investment, technical cooperation,
policy, education, awareness and extension in soils
Arwyn Jones
European Commission
Joint Research Centre
arwyn.jones@ec.europa.eu
@Arwyn_Italy

3. ESP Pillar 2 Objectives
• Politicians and decision makers should be better informed.
• Policy development should be supported by regular and harmonised
assessments (pressures, state, trends, impacts) to prioritise and target
interventions (links to Pillar 4).
• Education on soil should be promoted.
• Promote strategies to engage with society as a whole.
• Extension services should be supported, developed and revitalised
to reflect the multi-functional services of soil.
• Scientific and technical cooperation should be promoted and
strengthened (links to Pillars 1 and 3).
• Foster investments in soils to benefit society and ensure effective
implementation of activities under the plans of action. The return
from investments should be assessed.

4. Outcomes
•World Soil Day Events – but still mostly technical
•ENSA-JRC Workshop - Summer of Soil- Amsterdam, 18-19 September 2019
•2nd Edition Soil Atlas of Europe @ EUROSOIL 2020
•Museums: European Network of Science Centres and Museums Conference 2018,
ARTEFACTS Exhibition Berlin Natural History Museum (ongoing)
•European Science Open Forum Toulouse Science in the City July 2018 (+ U. Rennes)
•Soil @ TED and PechaKucha events
•Best Awareness Raiding Practices Report
•Education: increasing MOOCs – no links to education ministries!
•Support to Eurasian Sub-Partnership & Asian-NENA Partnerships Pillar 2 on Soil Atlas
of Asia (meeting and training South Korea – 29/04-03/05/2019)
Recommendation 1 : Improve the appreciation of the value and
relevance of soil by all levels of civil society

5. Recom. 2 : Support to EU and national soil policy development
Outcomes
•EU Soil Developments
 Input to reform of EU CAP (soil erosion, soil organic carbon, soil health)
 Soil and climate issues (LULUCF Regulation, 4/1000 initiative) – policy briefs
on soil carbon & soil and agriculture
•UNCBD declaration & 2020 Global Soil Biodiversity Conference (China)
•Soil in SDG Indicators (EUROSTAT for EU but National, Regional, Local initiatives)
•Soil component within MAES framework
•SOER 2020 & follow up State of European Soils Assessment 2022 (EEA-JRC-ENV)
•Global Soil Carbon Map, Global Soil Pollution Report, Global Soil Erosion
•JRC/EEA Indicator on progress towards remediation of contaminated sites
•Policy brief on soil awareness

6. Recommendation 3 : Support to sustainable soil management
Outcomes
•Activities linked to Pillar 1
 Assessment of plant protection product residues in European soils
 Glyphosate and metabolites
 Roadmap to pesticide in soils indicator
 EU Soil Biodiversity Indicator (LUCAS DNA metagenomics)
 EU inventory of macro/nanno plastics in soil
•Sustainable Soil Management Short Course, INRA Dijon Living Lab,
Autumn 2019 (with WUR, IAM Bari and…)

7. Recommendation 5 : Strengthen scientific and technical cooperation
Outcomes
•Ongoing EU H2020 Projects (Landmark, iSQAPER, SOILCARE, LANDSUPPORT, etc.)
•Horizon Europe - Mission Land/Soil Health
•DG AGRI Call on Joint Programming Initiative on agricultural soil
management (integrated community of research groups to evaluate and
foster implementation of novel technologies for soil management and
carbon sequestration)
•JRC-EEA-EIONET Task Force on soil monitoring (links to Pillar 4)
 Two way integration of LUCAS Soil Survey and National
monitoring systems
 Towards harmonized soil indicators

8. Recommendation 6 : Investments
Outcomes
•Evidence-based success stories
 Cost of soil erosion – JRC
 Natural capital accounting of soil-related ecosystem services
 IPBES Assessment Economics of land degradation and
restoration
• SDGs as drivers for growth - private and financial sector
investments
 UN Global Compact
 UN Environment Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI)
 Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

9. Recommendation 4 : Support to extension services
Outcomes
• Limited activity
• Goal of the post-2020 CAP
• Topics under H2020 Project
 Sustainable farm Management Aimed at Reducing Threats to Soils under climate change
(SmartSOIL)
 Support of Learning and Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture (SOLINSA)
 SoilCare for profitable and sustainable crop production in Europe (SoilCare)
 Preventing and Remediating Degradation of Soils in Europe through Landcare (RECARE)
 University of Gloucestershire (UK) – Countryside and Community Research Institute

10. PILLAR 2 Reflections
•A lot going on …but in a piecemeal manner!
•More coordination required but resource demanding!
•WG composition ‘biased’ – limits progress on extension and investment
•Awareness raising still regarded as a “secondary” activity
•Scaling up of impact challenging – reflects funding?
•Scientific cooperation needs support (most coming from EU – e.g. EJPI
– elsewhere not so obvious)
•Needs focus?
 IYS successful - IUSS Decade of Soil not evident
 Single focus (for two years?) – also for GSP – allow follow up
 GSP Pillar 2 Event? Shared experiences
 Reboot?

11. Thank you for your attention
Questions?