• Mr. José Graziano Da Silva, Director-General of FAO (Speech)
• H.E. Jioji Konousi Konrote, President of the Republic of Fiji (Speech)
• Mr. Kamernu Vella, EU Commissioner for Environment (Video message)
• Ms. Monique Barbut, Executive Secretary UNCCD (Speech)
• Mr. Abdalah Mokssit, IPCC Secretary
• Mr. Stéphane Le Foll, French Minister for Agriculture, AgriFood and Forestry (Video message)
• Ms. Elena Manaenkova, Deputy-Secretary General WMO (Video message)

Launch of the GSOC17 Video

Introduction to the Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon (GSOC17), Mr. René Salazar Castro, Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water Department (CBL), Assistant Director-General, FAO

• Key aspects of soils and Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) and their contributions to mitigating and adapting to climate change, Mr. Luca Montanarella, Chair of ITPS
• Key findings of the AR5 on agriculture, soil and SOC; plans and progress with SR2, refinement of the inventory guidelines, and AR6,  Ms. Jo House, IPCC;
• SOC as indicator of progress towards achieving Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), Mr. Barron Orr, UNCCD-SPI
• Soil organic carbon and the IPBES land degradation and restoration assessment, Ms. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of IPBES

UNFCCC Keynote address, Ms. Patricia Espinosa, UNFCCC Executive Secretary

• Soil organic carbon sequestration: importance and State-of-the-Science, Mr. Rattan Lal, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, USA
• Quantifying global soil carbon losses in response to warming, Mr. Thomas Crowther, Netherlands Institute of Ecology
• Climate Smart Agriculture and forest conservation to foster SOC sequestration and reduce land degradation, Mr. Johan Six, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
• Estimating SOC changes: is it feasible? Ms. Eleanor Milne, Colorado State University, USA
• Status and challenges for mapping, monitoring and MRV of global SOC, Mr. Martial Bernoux, FAO, Italy

Moderator: Mr. Eduardo Mansur, Director Land and Water Division, FAO

Opening remarks:

• Mr. Hans Dreyer, Director Plant Production and Protection Division, FAO
• Ms. Roberta Lima on the ‘Importance of black soils’, Alternate Permanent Representative of Brazil to FAO

Black soils around the world:

1. Black Soil Conservation and Sustainable Use in China, Mr. Guiqing Han, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China
2. Black soils in Russia, Mr. Ivan Vasenev, Timiryazev Academy, Russian Federation
3. Black Soils: Mollisols in the USA. Ms. Skye Wills, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), USA
4. Area covered by black soils in Argentina and Uruguay, Mr. Miguel Taboada, INTA, Argentina

Theme Chair: Ms. Liesl Wiese, FAO, Italy; moderator: Ms. Maria de Lourdes, Mendonça, EMBRAPA, Brazil

1. Global Soil Organic Carbon map, Rainer Baritz, FAO, Italy
2. Can global soil organic carbon maps be used in policy decisions on practical agricultural management? Mats Söderström, CIAT, Kenya
3. Global space-time soil organic carbon assessment, José Padarian Campusano, Sydney Institute of Agriculture, University of Sydney, Australia
4. A high-resolution spatially-explicit methodology to assess global soil organic carbon restoration potential, Fleskens Luuk, Soil Physics and Land Management Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Theme Chair: Mr. Joris de Vente, UNCCD-SPI; moderator: Mr. Robert Stefanski, WMO

1. Global management of soil organic matter, Mr. Miguel Taboada, INTA, Argentina
2. Sustainable land management to mitigate and adapt to climate change, Ms. María José Sanz Sánchez, Basque Centre for Climate Change, Spain
3. Land management impact on soil organic carbon stocks – what do we really know? Mr. Axel Don, Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Germany
4. Enhancing SOC sequestration: myth or reality in Africa? Mr. Rolf Sommer, CIAT, Kenya

Theme Chair: Ms. Claire Chenu, INRA, France

Sub-theme 3.1: Soils with high SOC - peatlands, permafrost, and black soils

Moderator: Mr. Guiqing Han, HAAS, China

1. Managing SOC in the black soils of Russia. Mr. Ivan Vasenev, Timiryazev Academy, Russian Federation
2. Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region. Mr. Scott Smith, Agriculture and Agrifood Canada, Canada
3. Peat soil carbon monitoring and management in Indonesia. Mr. Fahmuddin Agus, Indonesian Soil Research Institute, Indonesia

Sub-theme 3.2: Grasslands, and livestock production systems

Moderator: Mr. Sergio Zelaya, FAO, Italy

1. Carbon sequestration in Irish grasslands. Mr. Rogier Schulte, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
2. Accounting for soil carbon stock changes in grasslands and rangelands: proposal for a tiered-approach and preliminary recommendations of the LEAP Partnership. Mr. Aaron Simmons, Orange Agricultural Institute, Australia
3. Carbon Sequestration Potential of the Ecoregion Savannas (flatlands) of Venezuela. Mr. Juan Antonio Comerma, IDECYT, Venezuela
4. C sequestration of a grazed permanent grasslands: uses of complementary methods for data analyses and interpretation. Ms. Katja Klumpp, INRA, France

Sub-theme 3.3: Dryland soils

Moderator: Ms. Botle Mapeshoane, National University of Lesotho, Lesotho

1. Challenges of soil organic carbon sequestration in drylands. Mr. Rachid Mousadek, INRA, Morocco
2. Soil Inorganic Carbon and Climate Change in drylands? An emerging issue? Ms. Tiphaine Chevallier, IRD
3. Effect of deforestation and management on soil carbon stocks in the South American Chaco. Ms. Rosa Carina Alvarez, CONICET, Argentina
4. Protection of soil from the loss of organic carbon by taking into account erosion and managing land use at varying soil type: indication from a model semiarid area. Mr. Sergio Saia, Italy Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Italy.

Moderators: Mr. Jean-Luc Chotte, IRDUNCCD- SPI, France and Ms. Rosa Cuevas, Red Labs, Mexico

1. 4 per 1000 soil carbon sequestration. Mr. Budiman Minasmy, University of Sydney, Australia
2. Status of soil organic carbon stocks in the Small Island Developing States (ISDS). Mr. Siosiua Halavatu, Secretariat of Pacific States, Fiji
3. Methodology for the measurement and monitoring of SOC stock under sustainable land/forest management in the transboundary ecosystem of the Grand Chaco Sudamericano. Mr. Matías Bosio, PASCHACO, Argentina
4. Soil carbon models for carbon stock estimation – where do we fail? Mr. Aleksi Lehtonen, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Finland
5. Measuring and monitoring the impact of agricultural management on soil carbon stocks from point to continental scale in Australia. Mr. Jeff Baldock, CSIRO, Australia
6. Development of a soil organic carbon baseline for Otjozondjupa, Namibia. Mr. Nijbroek Ravic, CIAT, Kenya
7. Calculating changes in soil organic carbon in Japanese agricultural land by IPCC-Tier 3 modeling approach: use of modified Rothamsted carbon model. Mr. Yasuhito Shirato, Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Japan
8. Towards a Tier 3 approach to estimate SOC stocks at sub-regional scale in Southern Italy. Ms. Roberta Farina, Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria, Italy
9. Update on Canada’s contribution to the Global Soil Organic Carbon map. Mr. Bert VandenBygaart, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada
10. National map of organic carbon in the soils and mantle of Mexico. Mr. Rodrigo Vargas, University of Delaware, USA
11. Turkey’s National Geospatial Soil Fertility and Soil Organic Carbon Information System. Ms. Sevinç Madenoglu, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Turkey
12. Spatial assessments for the mapping and monitoring of soil organic carbon: Using stakeholder engagement processes. Ms. Leigh Ann Winowiecki, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Kenya
13. Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon stocks in Serbia. Ms. Dragana Vidojević, Environmental Protection Agency, Republic of Serbia
14. Soil organic carbon mapping and estimation of stock in rice soils of India. Mr. V. Ravindra Babu, ICAR, India
15. Estimation of reference soil organic carbon (SOC) for mineral soils of Colombia. Mr. Fredy Hernando Neira Mendez, LDN-Consultant, Colombia
16. Estimation of soil organic carbon stocks in the northeast Tibetan Plateau. Mr. Ganlin Zhang, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Soil Science, China 
17. New measurement, mapping and modeling of SOC in Australia supports national carbon accounting and monitoring. Mr. Raphael Viscarra-Rossel, CSIRO, Australia
18. Monitoring, reporting, and verification of soil carbon sequestration on the cropland and grassland of Canada. Mr. Brian McConkey, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada
19. Assessment, monitoring and managing soil organic carbon (SOC) for climate change mitigation and adaptation: An Indian perspective. Mr. Suresh K. Chaudhari, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, India
20. Overview of the Rapid Carbon Assessment Project: Design and Conterminous. Ms. Skye Wills, USDA, USA
21. Coupling high spatial resolution data, GIS approaches and modelling for reliable estimates of SOC stocks and their historical changes in agricultural lands. Mr. Ibrahim Khalil, UCD Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland
22. Using Infrared Spectroscopy for detection of change in soil properties in selected land uses in Mt. Marsabit ecosystem, Northern Kenya. Ms. Caroline Ouko, CETRAD, Kenya
23. The performance of portable mid-infrared spectroscopy for the prediction of soil carbon. Mr. Martín Soriano–Disla, CSIRO Land and Water, Australia
24. Soil Spectral Libraries for monitoring and reporting on Sustainable Development Goal indicators in Northern Greece. Mr. George Zalidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 

Moderators: Ms. Annette Cowie, UNCCD-SPI, Australia, Ms. Anna Benedetti, CREA, Italy & Mr. Pavel Krasilnikov, ECFS, Russian Federation

1. The new Global soil erosion assessment: a contribution to quantify erosion effect on global carbon budget. Mr. Pasquale Borrelli, Joint Research Centre, Italy
2. Combining SOC sequestration and food security in African soils. Ms. Yacine Badiane Ndour, Institut Senegalais de Recherches Agricoles, Senegal
3. Assessing the potential of soil organic carbon sequestration in African soils. Ms. Tantely Razafimbelo, University of Antananarivo and CASA, Madagascar
4. Deep ploughing mineral soils for SOC sequestration. Ms. Viridiana Alcantara, FAO, Italy
5. Land use changes on soil carbon dynamics, stocks in eastern Himalayas, India. Mr. Brajendra Parmar, Indian Institute of Rice Research, India
6. Effects of land use/land cover on aggregate fractions, aggregate stability, and aggregate associated organic carbon in a montane ecosystem. Mr. Tshering Dorji, Ministry of Agriculture and Forest, Bhutan
7. Regenerative organic farm management practices mitigate agro-ecosystem vulnerability to climate change by sequestering carbon and building resilience. Ms. Kristine Nichols, Rodale Institute, USA
8. Significant offset of long-term potential soil carbon sequestration by nitrous oxide emissions in the EU. Mr. Emanuele Lugato, Joint Research Centre, Italy
9. Conservation agriculture, an option for carbon sequestration in soil. Case study in Guantánamo, Cuba. Ms. Marianela Cintra Arencibia, Institute of Soils - UCTB Guantánamo, Cuba
10. Factors limiting SOC sequestration by notillage in Mediterranean agroecosystems. Mr. Jorge Álvaro-Fuentes, Spanish National Research Council, Spain
11. Biochar as a strategy for sustainable land management and climate change mitigation. Ms. Annette Cowie, UNCCD-SPI, Australia
12. The effect of forest harvest on soil carbon: a global meta-analysis. Mr. Rob Harrison, University of Washington, USA
13. Dynamics of soil carbon sequestration under oil palm plantations of different age. Mr. Sebastian Wisdom Brahene, FAO Regional Office for Africa, Ghana
14. Urban soils as hotspots of anthropogenic carbon accumulation. Mr. Viacheslav Vasenev, RUDN University, Russian Federation
15. Soil organic carbon stabilization in compost amended soils. Mr. Riccardo Spaccini, Università di Napoli, Italy 
16. Agricultural practices that store organic carbon in soils: is it only a matter of inputs? Ms. Claire Chenu, INRA, France

Sub-theme 3.1: Managing soils with high SOC - peatlands, permafrost, and black soils

Moderators: Mr. Hamid Custovic, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Ms. Isaurinda Dos Santos, INIDA, Cape Verde

1. Distribution of tropical peatland types, their location and current degradation status, emissions. Ms. Alexandra Barthelmes, Greifswald University, Germany
2. An expert system model for mapping tropical wetlands and peatlands. Ms. Rosa Maria Roman- Cuesta, Center for International Forestry Research, Indonesia
3. Quantifying terrestrial ecosystem carbon stocks for future GHG mitigation, sustainable land-use planning and adaptation to climate change in the Québec province, Canada. Ms. Michelle Garneau, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
4. Peatland restoration in Russia for reduction of carbon losses and greenhouse gas emissions: the experience of large scale rewetting project. Mr. Andrey Sirin, Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation
5. Re-wetting drained peatlands can potentially reduce large greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Hongxing He, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
6. Effects of a raised water table on CO2 and CH4 soil emissions and celery yield from agricultural peat under climate warming conditions. Ms. Magdalena J. Matysek, University of Sheffield, UK
7. Evaluation of annual carbon losses due to “soil respiration”. Ms. Olesya Siabruk, National Scientific Center ISSAR, Ukraine
8. Diminishing peat oxidation of agricultural peat soils by infiltration via submerged drains. Mr. Jan J.H. van den Akker, Wageningen Environmetal Research, The Netherlands
9. Water migration of soil organic carbon in soils and landscapes in humid forests of middle taiga (Arkhangelsk region, Russian Federation). Mr. German Kust, Lomonosov State University, Russian Federation
10. Managing of karst peatland use and potential rehabilitation in Dinaric Region. Mr. Hamid Custovic, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
11. Ukrainian chernozems as a factor in global food security and resilience of agriculture to climate change. Ms. Olesya Siabruk, National Scientific Center ISSAR, Ukraine
12. Alarming loss of soil carbon stores due to intensive forestry measures in the boreal forest zone in Finland. Mr. Heikki Simola, Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, Finland 
13. Spatial distribution of organic matter content in plough layer of Balikh flood plain soils Norteastern of Syria. Mr. Hussam H. M. Husein, General Commission for Scientific Agriculture Research, Syria

Sub-theme 3.2: Grasslands, and livestock production systems

Moderator: Mr. Rainer Horn, Kiel University, Germany

1. Long-term effect of different agricultural soil use and management systems on the organic carbon content of Uruguay prairie soils. Mr. Fernando Garcia, University of Uruguay, Uruguay
2. Is it possible to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soil by introduction of temporary grassland into cropping cycles? Ms. Cornelia Rumpel, CNRS-INRA-ENS-Paris, France
3. Soil organic carbon stock changes under grazed grasslands in New Zealand. Mr. David Whitehead, University of Waikato, New Zealand
4. Sub-surface soil carbon stock affected by tree lines in an oxisol under integrated crop-livestock-forestry in the southern Amazon. Ms. Beata Emoke Madari, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, Brazil
5. Land cover and land use change driven change of regional soil organic carbon storage in croplands and grasslands of Northeast Slovakia. Ms. Gabriela Barančíková, National Agricultural and Food Centre, Slovakia 

Sub-theme 3.3: Managing SOC in Dryland soils

Moderators: Ms. Karma Dema Dorji, Ministry of Agriculture and Forest, Bhutan and Mr. Dan Pennock, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

1. National land degradation neutrality targets foster SOC Sequestration in Turkey. Mr. Keskin Hamza, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs, Turkey
2. Sequestering soil carbon in the low input farming systems of the semi-arid tropics – does litter quality matter? Mr. Anthony M. Whitbread, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics, India
3. Integrated use of organic carbon, plant nutrients and bio-fertilizers is key to improve field crops productivity under arid and semiarid climates. Mr. Amanullah Khan, University of Agriculture, Pakistan
4. Carbon management and sequestration in dryland soils of Morocco: Nexus approach. Mr. Rachid Moussadek, INRA, Morocco  
5. Mapping of soil organic carbon stock in the Arab countries. Mr. Talal Darwish, National Council for Scientific Research, Lebanon
6. Soil organic carbon: A key factor of sustainable agriculture in Iran. Mr. Farhad Moshiri, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Iran
7. Rehabilitating degraded croplands for improved crop productivity and soil carbon sequestration on smallholder farms in Zimbabwe. Mr. Hatirarami Nezomba, Soil Fertility Consortium for Southern Africa, Zimbabwe 
8. Biochair to conserve carbon and nitrogen in an arid region soil of low native organic matter. Mr. Muhammad Riaz, Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan

Unlocking the potential of SOC for climate action, food security and sustainable development - a feasible future. Mr. Pete Smith, Aberdeen University, UK

Presentation by Theme Chairs:

Theme 1: Main session outcomes and key messages, Liesl Wiese, FAO

Theme 2: Main session outcomes and key messages, Joris De Vente, UNCCD-SPI

Theme 3: Main session outcomes and key messages, Claire Chenu, INRA, France

• H.E. François Pythoud, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to FAO, IFAD and WFP
• Ms. Margarita Astrálaga, Director Environment and Climate Division, IFAD
• Mr. Patrick Heffer, International Fertilizer Association
• Ms. Josiane Masson, European Commission
• Mr. Evangelos Koumentakos, World Farmers Organization
• Ms. Betsy Taylor, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions
• Mr. Yaya Adisa Olaitan Olaniran, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to FAO

Conclusions and way forward (beyond GSOC17), Mr. Ronald Vargas, Land and Water Division, FAO