Share This Article
The plenary session “Promoting Biodiversity and Managing Water Resources” took place at the World Living Soils Forum in the presence of Gilles Boeuf, biologist and teacher at the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University, Diana Wall, biologist and lecturer at the University of Colorado and Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Hélène Valade, Director of Environmental Development for the LVMH Group, and Stuart Orr, Head of the WWF’s Freshwater Practice at the World Wide Fund for Nature. The participants discussed the essential assets to ensure soil fertility.
Here are the key points from their discussions:
✅ The climate is changing so fast that living beings cannot keep pace to adapt. This is one of the major challenges we face in order to avoid a 6th mass extinction of species.
✅ The overriding challenge for the maintenance of biodiversity and the capacity of soils to produce the food that humanity needs is water management and water governance.
✅ 70% of the freshwater used by humans is spent on irrigating crops. In terms of yield, irrigation allows agricultural land to produce 3 to 8 times more than if it relied on rain only.
✅ If people accept the idea that they are part of biodiversity, they may be more willing to protect it.
✅ Underground ecosystems are still poorly understood because they have been little studied; they are believed to represent between 40 and 50% of total biodiversity.