Third Global Soil Week (GSW) 2015 - “Soil. The Substance of Transformation”

During the last day of Global Soil Conference 2015, participants attended a series of Open Space Format Sessions to deepen discussion on issues that emerged during the previous days.

In the morning, delegates were invited to attend one of eight parallel sessions announced on: Giving living soil a voice: approaches and tools; Sustainable land use and human habitats: the role of cities and rural development in achieving global sustainable land use; Soil quality and agricultural sustainability indicators for the environmental performance index; Sprouting new ideas, rooted in old wisdom: intergenerational dialogue on sustainable land management; Brave farmers, green belts and wrong debates; Discussion on European soil data base update in light of the revision of the Soil Atlas of Europe: examples from Finland and Central European countries; Legal means for the national implementation of sustainable development goals related to soil – with a focus on the objective of a “land degradation neutral world;” and Soil management – it’s about livelihoods.

In the afternoon, additional sessions were held in response to suggestions submitted by participants during the conference on the following issues: The practical rehydration of soils to stop desertification in cool climates; Overcoming and confronting challenges, frontiers, dilemmas; How to motivate people (civil society) to care about soil?; Where are spatial planning approaches in the current soil debate?; and Raising public awareness about contaminated soils- how to get people to care and take action.