In the opening session Ms Takagi, FAO Regional programme leader for Latin America and the Caribbean reminded all participants that soils are an essential resource, both for the production of food and for the environmental services necessary for life, including water purification, climate regulation, and biodiversity conservation. She recalled the statement of Dr QU Dongyu – FAO Director General “Soil is the Mother of all creatures on earth; Do not forget the Mother when you are getting nourishment from”. But soils are under severe pressure, considering population growth and the increasing food demand and degradation affects around 33% of this precious resource.

Mr Mansur, Director of FAO Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment recalled the steps that led to the establishment of the Global Soil Partnership and how the topic of "SOIL" has peaked since 2012. He mentioned the International Year of Soils 2015 and the launch of the Status of the World's Soil Resources report. Healthy soils mean healthy food and healthy people and healthy environments, the overall goal being to achieve sustainable soil management by transforming challenges into opportunities.

Ms Poch, Chair of the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, added that RECSOIL, is indeed a very ambitious initiative for the fight against climate change. Ms Pascale, Chair of the Regional Partnership of Latin America and the Caribbean (ASLAC), closed the opening session by explaining to all participants the principles inspiring the regional partnership in its daily work in the region.

The online discussions followed the webinar thematic sessions as introduced by Ms Oliveira Sanchez:

June 4: Soils and climate change, program for the Recarbonization of global soils – RECSOIL

In this first session Mr Vargas, GSP Secretary and FAO Land and Water officer, presented RECSOIL as a soil recarbonisation technology tool for climate change adaptation and mitigation and discussed the importance of creating an enabling environment for scaling up sustainable soil management practices based on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration. This comprehensive programme is complemented by a series of tools being developed by FAO/GSP to address the challenge of increasing SOC sequestration at global scale and includes national SOC sequestration maps. Ms Saynes  added more information on the work being done by the GSP on nitrogen in agri-food system. Mr Fraguio and Ms Proano focused on the financing aspect of climate change adaptation and mitigation, including farmer financial support. Mr Gutierrez intervened on the Climate Action Enhancement Package Project - CAEP II on the best way to use the information of the carbon potential sequestration map to define the national determined contributions (NDCs) in Colombia while Ms Bertsch from Costa Rica closed the session by bringing an example of the implementation of the RECSOIL programme as a farmer´s support system, of payment for environmental services.

June 8: Measurement of indicators of sustainable soil management

In this second session, Ms Rodriguez Eugenio introduced the activities of the Global Soil Partnership and its efforts to boost Sustainable Soil Management practices at regional and global scale. Ms Olivera Sanchez described the work done for the Protocol for the Assessment of Sustainable Soil Management in LAC and its indicators as well as the ongoing process for soil data harmonization. Mr Rey and Mr Eudoxie presented two projects, respectively, ASLAC Regional cooperation project for the climate management of agricultural ecosystems and SOILCARE project actions in implementing soil indicators to improve sustainable soil management in the region. The session was closed by Ms Ochoa who gave further details on the measurement of soil biological indicators for the assessment of the practices implemented in the Caribbean biodiversity connections GEF project in Colombia.

June 9: Soil Doctors Program in Latin America and the Caribbean

In this third session, Ms Olivera Sanchez presented the roadmap for implementation at the local level of the Global Soil Doctors Programme. Tutorials and methodologies of the Soil Doctors were shared by Ms Wiese. Interesting comments and proposals on implementation in the LAC region came from Ms Bertha Reyes. Mr Zapata provided information of a possible collaboration on the Forest and Farm Facility and the Soil Doctors in Bolivia and Ecuador. Ms Ostinelli, the last presenter, presented the importance of soil laboratory analysis, and proposed to include information about application and interpretation in the soil Doctors educational material.

The webinars' conclusions emphasized:

• The importance of collaboration with the national governments for the implementation of tools developed by the Global Soil Partnership on the ground.
• The possibility of concrete actions to promote sustainable soil management in different countries of the region. This “plan of action” requires the development of appropriate tools and the necessary collaboration between all stakeholders involved in the sustainable management of soil resources: i.e. governments, farmers, private sector and academia.
• The need for a comprehensive and structured tool such as RECSOIL which requires an enabling environment, the implementation of a range of public policies by the government, the active participation of academia and the empowerment of farmers together with the entire production chain.
• The Sustainable Soil Management Protocol to strengthen soil ecosystem services and the use of soil indicators data and information for informed decision-making.
• The Soil Doctors programme as an essential tool to disseminate sustainable soil management practices through farmer-to-farmer training empowerment.

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