Soils

ISSUES

Soil degradation

Soil provides living things with food, fibres and fuel. It supports wildlife and rural and urban activities. From the end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1990s, over 90% of the degradation of productive land was due to overgrazing, deforestation and inappropriate agricultural practices. These changes in the soil affect over 2 billion people, most of the 852 million people suffering from hunger in particular.
Soil can therefore not be ignored in ecosystem mechanisms.

NEWS

Land degradation causes up to 5% loss in farm output

After 2012 drought, US farmers adapt for climate change

Governments falling short in drought fight: UN

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DEBATES

Rebuilding Afghanistan’s irrigation network

FAO

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is boosting its technical support for rehabilitation of Afghanistan's dilapidated...

Desertification costs US$ 42 billions per year

This year, the UNCDD launchs the UN Decade for Deserts and...

An ecosystem approach to drylands : building support for new development policies

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FOCUS

Nobel Price of ecology

Designed to recognize grassroots environmental heroes, the Goldman Environmental Prize, founded by Richard and Rhoda Goldman in 1989 In San Francisco, is awarded annually to individuals from the six inhabited continental regions for sustained and significant efforts to...

VIDEOS

20/06/2012	From a harsh, uncompromising land comes a story of hope...Yacouba...	04/11/2011	n this beautifully animated clip from Dirt! The Movie, Wangari Maathai...
13/10/2011	Desertification means hunger and poverty. It could affect more than a...	27/09/2010	With planning permission for Britain's biggest dairy at Nocton about to be...

GREEN TIPS

Un nouveau bitume végétal, moins polluant

Le Végécol est le premier composant végétal pouvant se substituer au bitume ne contenant aucun dérivé...

INDICATORS

Arable land
Desertification risks
Degraded soils
Ecological footprint

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