Keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity

Plants nurture a whole world of creatures in the soil, that in return feed and protect the
plants. This diverse community of living organisms keeps the soil healthy and fertile.
This vast world constitutes soil biodiversity and determines the main biogeochemical
processes that make life possible on Earth.

This year, by addressing the increasing challenges of soil management, the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) campaign ” Keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity “
aims to raise awareness of the importance of sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being. By encouraging people around the world to engage in proactively improving soil health, the campaign also aims to fight soil biodiversity loss. If we do not act soon, the fertility of soil will continue to be adversely affected at an alarming rate, threatening global food supplies and food safety.

Encouraging all people to participate, FAO has created a thematic website full of
information, initiatives and material to spread the message through different multimedia
platforms.

Background
World Soil Day (WSD) is held annually on 5 December as a means to focus attention on
the importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil
resources.

An international day to celebrate Soil was recommended by the International Union of
Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 2002. Under the leadership of the Kingdom of Thailand and
within the framework of the Global Soil Partnership, FAO has supported the formal
establishment of WSD as a global awareness raising platform. The FAO Conference
unanimously endorsed World Soil Day in June 2013 and requested its official adoption at the 68th UN General Assembly. In December 2013, the UN General Assembly responded by designating 5 December 2014 as the first official World Soil Day.

In 2005 the UNESCO General Conference proclaimed that World Philosophy Day would be celebrated every third Thursday of November.

In establishing World Philosophy Day UNESCO strives to promote an international
culture of philosophical debate that respects human dignity and diversity. The Day encourages academic exchange and highlights the contribution of philosophical
knowledge in addressing global issues.

Why a Philosophy Day?

Many thinkers state that “astonishment” is the root of philosophy. Indeed, philosophy
stems from humans’ natural tendency to be astonished by themselves and the world in
which they live.

This field, which sees itself as a form of “wisdom”, teaches us to reflect on reflection
itself, to continually question well-established truths, to verify hypotheses and to find
conclusions.

For centuries, in every culture, philosophy has given birth to concepts, ideas and
analyses, and, through this, has set down the basis for critical, independent and creative thought.

World Philosophy Day celebrates the importance of philosophical reflection, and
encourages people all over the world to share their philosophical heritage with each other.

For UNESCO, philosophy provides the conceptual bases of principles and values on
which world peace depends: democracy, human rights, justice, and equality.
Philosophy helps consolidate these authentic foundations of peaceful coexistence.

On 5 November 2001, the UN General Assembly declared 6 November of each year as
the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict (A/RES/56/4 ).
Though mankind has always counted its war casualties in terms of dead and wounded soldiers and civilians, destroyed cities and livelihoods, the environment has often remained the unpublicized victim of war.Water wells have been polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed to gain military advantage.
Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that over
the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal conflicts have been linked to the
exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also been found to be twice as likely to relapse.
The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding strategies – because there can be no durable peace if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed.
On 27 May 2016, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted
resolution UNEP/EA.2/Res.15 , which recognized the role of healthy ecosystems and
sustainably managed resources in reducing the risk of armed conflict, and reaffirmed its
strong commitment to the full implementation of the Sustainable Development
Goals listed in General Assembly resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ”.

This year on International Day of Rural Women (15 October), we’re celebrating the vital
role that rural women play in climate action with a spotlight on “ Rural women and girls
building resilience ” theme.

As the world faces an increasingly critical need to address climate change, the important impact that rural women and girls have on building resilience is undeniable.

It will take not only leaders, but whole populations to make the changes for a carbon-
neutral world.

Rural women and girls are leaders in agriculture, food security and nutrition, land, managing natural resource management and unpaid and domestic care work. They are at the frontline when natural resources and agriculture are threatened. In fact, globally, one in three employed women works in agriculture . Women also collect biomass fuels, manually process food materials, and pump water; eighty percent of households without piped water rely on women and girls for water collection.