ECOSF and YPARD, and other partners jointly organized the World Soil Day 2020
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Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) Pakistan and ECO Science Foundation in joint collaboration with Pakistan Agricultural Research Council – (PARC) Soil4Climate USA, Why Farm Caribbean, Agriculture University Peshawar, Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam organized a webinar on World Soil Day (Soil Biodiversity) on 5th December 2020, highlighting the key role played by soil biodiversity in the functioning of the Earth’s ecosystem
The purpose of organizing this event was to mobilize new resources and partnerships to ensure adequate investments and territorially based solutions for Soil Conservation and restoration, which is critical for sustaining life on this planet. Experts during their deliberation underscored that the partnerships between Agricultural Stakeholders and Young Professionals can play a vital role in restoring soil health.
This event was hosted and moderated by Shahla Salah Khan, YPARD Country Representative. Dr. Muhammad Azeem Khan, Chairman - Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) was Guest of Honour of the event and Prof. Dr. Ratan Lal, a renowned soil scientist was the special guest and keynote speaker. Prof. Dr. Manzoor Soomro, President ECOSF also participated in the webinar as a guest speaker.
The webinar centered around three thematic areas, as listed below:
- Partnership: Engagement of agricultural stakeholders and young experts (YPs) as key partners to assess the regional vulnerability of arable land to soil erosion and restoration measures in farmland.
- Food Security: Soil biodiversity a nature-based solution – for sustainable agriculture production, human health, and food security.
- Climate Change SDG13: Soil destructing activities are not climate-neutral. Soil Biodiversity, as a major source of positive impact on global climate change, environmental protection, adaptation, and agricultural vulnerability.
Prof. Manzoor Hussain Soomro, President ECOSF highlighted critical role of soil biodiversity in maintaining the ecosystem of the earth planet. He further shared that ECOSF as a stakeholder of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has been contributing towards on a number of key initiatives on biodiversity conservation. He underlined that industrial waste and pesticide use has been devastating the soil fauna and flora. Soil biodiversity not only plays a major role in food security and nutrition but it also plays a key role for developing vaccines and medicines from the soil micro-organisms.