The soil is right beneath our feet. Yet we have insufficient understanding of the huge role played by soil and the fact that there is much more life in the soil than above it. It is precisely healthy, living soil that safeguards the richness of our ecosystem, provides us with food, keeps us healthy and ensures resilience against extreme weather events. At the same time, soil quality is declining at a rapid pace, due to surface hardening, compaction, erosion and pollution. That is why the Land+Affairs programme is putting soil, and more specifically soil as a living biotope, on the offensive.
The soil is right beneath our feet. Yet we have insufficient understanding of the role played by life in the soil. There is much more life in the soil than above it. It is precisely a healthy, living soil that safeguards the richness of our ecosystem, provides us with food, keeps us healthy and ensures resilience against extreme weather events. However, our current habits pay insufficient attention to soil and soil life: surface hardening, soil pollution, soil erosion, the decline in organic carbon or soil compaction harm our soil and soil life, thus also undermining the quality and resilience of our open space.
The importance of soil as a living biotope is coming back into focus in society, as a crucial natural capital to address climate challenges. We also see inspiring soil caretakers on the ground taking more and more initiatives to boost soil quality and (re)build soil life. For now, however, these are sadly the exception rather than the rule. To reverse this situation, we will have to accelerate changes in soil management traditions that are simply not changing fast enough.
Therefore, a whole range of government agencies and civil society actors took the initiative, in the Open Space Platform, to set up the Land+Affairs programme. Based on a holistic approach they want to put living soil on the offensive. The objective is an integrated method for tackling the resilience of soil in all its functions, aimed at more soil-aware (co-)ownership and sustainable land use tailored to the location and actual use. The Land+Affairs programme focuses on all types of land use and the highly diverse soil caretakers who (can) contribute to improved soil quality through their actions.
The programme has been running since 2018 and has launched many activities since then. All activities are aimed at finding the best possible support for soil caretakers on the ground in order to accelerate improvements in soil quality. This includes both efforts to raise awareness, such as the Soil Forum, the presentation of the Bodemschep (Soil Shovel) or the Soil Education Working Group, and efforts focused on policy innovation with the Mollenetwerk (Mole Network) or the Soil Data Working Group. Architecture Workroom Brussels supported the Land+Affairs programme in its start-up and coalition formation, in formulating a substantive agenda, general process supervision and organising specific efforts such as the Soil Forum in 2022.
