Each year on December 5th, the global community comes together to celebrate World Soil Day (WSD), a day dedicated to raising awareness about the critical role of soils in sustaining life on Earth. This year’s theme, “Caring for Soils: Measure, Monitor, Manage”, highlights the importance of accurate soil data and sustainable management practices to ensure food security, ecosystem health, and resilience to climate change.
Soils are the foundation of our planet’s natural systems, supporting over 95% of our food production and supplying essential nutrients to plants. Beyond agriculture, healthy soils play a vital role in maintaining biodiversity, filtering and storing water, reducing erosion, and sequestering carbon to mitigate climate change.
However, soils worldwide face significant threats from human activity and climate change. Practices such as deforestation, overgrazing, and intensive farming accelerate soil degradation, leading to erosion, nutrient loss, and reduced water availability. These issues jeopardize food security and ecosystem stability, making sustainable soil management more urgent than ever.
The day serves as a platform to promote sustainable soil practices, such as:
- Minimum tillage to reduce soil erosion.
- Crop rotation to maintain soil fertility.
- Organic matter addition to enhance soil health.
- Cover cropping to preserve biodiversity and improve water infiltration.
The Role of MONALISA
The MONALISA project aims to develop and promote effective strategies to address land degradation and desertification (LDD) while highlighting their social, economic, and environmental benefits. It emphasizes innovative approaches such as adaptive multi-paddock grazing systems, microbial-based solutions, conservation agriculture, ecological restoration, water harvesting methods, and the sustainable use of treated wastewater in agriculture.
Get Involved
This December 5th, join the global movement to protect and restore our soils. Let’s measure, monitor, and manage our soils—for the planet, for people, and for generations to come.