In my view, the authors of the voluntary guideline have done a good job: they combined existing and binding policy documents with the state-of-the-art of science on soil protection and distilled a set of rules and procedures which can be applied in any agricultural production systems to ensure sustainable soil management. The questions that prompted the consultation can be positively answered with good conscience.
The scope of the presented work includes: „The guidelines will focus on technical and biological aspects …..” From this standpoint, the normative nature of the proposal is understandable: all soil degradation processes are equally important everywhere on earth. Although I can gladly accept this starting point, I still agree with many of the contributors who emphasize the importance of social aspects.
The 4th principle of the revised World Soil Charter says: „The implementation of soil management decisions is typically made locally and occurs within widely differing socio-economic contexts. The development of specific measures appropriate for adoption by local decision-makers often requires multi-level, interdisciplinary initiatives by many stakeholders. A strong commitment to including local and indigenous knowledge is critical.”
Any soil threats except contamination with man-made organic compounds produced by the chemical industry have both natural and human induced causes. Even such events like pollution with crude oil, heavy metals or radionuclides have their natural parallels: tar sand or ores with high radionuclide or heavy metal content may occur at or near to the land surface posing imminent effect on the ecosystem including humans. Other soil degradation processes (acidification, salinization) are mainly natural phenomena and involve millions of hectares of agricultural land. Water erosion has always been present on slopes in areas with some precipitation nevertheless, human activity increased it by several magnitudes.
Societies and local communities have existed in the vicinity of these soil degradation processes for long and people have learned how to cope with the harmful effects. Communities have developed certain sensitivity and a certain tolerance to those threats. However, societal and economic driving forces have changed the whole game: intensity of soil degradation processes have been altered but tolerance and sensitivity of the societies have changed, too. In my view, this framework should be comprehensively understood to formulate proper policy targets.
What hurts and why? - this question should be answered including the explanation for why some of the soil degradation processes do not exceed tolerance level of the societies in spite of their clear detrimental effects on soil functions.
However, this was not the scope of the presented guideline and the aimed exercise to elaborate technical and biological aspects was clearly and elegantly solved by the authors.
Dear Moderators,
In my view, the authors of the voluntary guideline have done a good job: they combined existing and binding policy documents with the state-of-the-art of science on soil protection and distilled a set of rules and procedures which can be applied in any agricultural production systems to ensure sustainable soil management. The questions that prompted the consultation can be positively answered with good conscience.
The scope of the presented work includes: „The guidelines will focus on technical and biological aspects …..” From this standpoint, the normative nature of the proposal is understandable: all soil degradation processes are equally important everywhere on earth. Although I can gladly accept this starting point, I still agree with many of the contributors who emphasize the importance of social aspects.
The 4th principle of the revised World Soil Charter says: „The implementation of soil management decisions is typically made locally and occurs within widely differing socio-economic contexts. The development of specific measures appropriate for adoption by local decision-makers often requires multi-level, interdisciplinary initiatives by many stakeholders. A strong commitment to including local and indigenous knowledge is critical.”
Any soil threats except contamination with man-made organic compounds produced by the chemical industry have both natural and human induced causes. Even such events like pollution with crude oil, heavy metals or radionuclides have their natural parallels: tar sand or ores with high radionuclide or heavy metal content may occur at or near to the land surface posing imminent effect on the ecosystem including humans. Other soil degradation processes (acidification, salinization) are mainly natural phenomena and involve millions of hectares of agricultural land. Water erosion has always been present on slopes in areas with some precipitation nevertheless, human activity increased it by several magnitudes.
Societies and local communities have existed in the vicinity of these soil degradation processes for long and people have learned how to cope with the harmful effects. Communities have developed certain sensitivity and a certain tolerance to those threats. However, societal and economic driving forces have changed the whole game: intensity of soil degradation processes have been altered but tolerance and sensitivity of the societies have changed, too. In my view, this framework should be comprehensively understood to formulate proper policy targets.
What hurts and why? - this question should be answered including the explanation for why some of the soil degradation processes do not exceed tolerance level of the societies in spite of their clear detrimental effects on soil functions.
However, this was not the scope of the presented guideline and the aimed exercise to elaborate technical and biological aspects was clearly and elegantly solved by the authors.
Best regards
István Sisák
University of Pannonia, Georgikon Faculty
16 Deák F. st., H-8360 Keszthely, Hungary