World Soil Day 2020 - Thank you to all soil fans!
FAO and its Global Soil Partnership wish to thank all of you! Without your activism, we could never reached such a large appeal.
WORLDWIDE EVENTS
Concerted action across up to 105 countries and hundreds of million participants is what makes World Soil Day one of the most celebrated UN Observances. For its latest edition ‘Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity', more than 780 events brought together governments, businesses, NGOs, youth, the media, and the public. Rome, New York, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Moscow held official ceremonies while twenty-one FAO regional, sub-regional and country offices actively supported the campaign.
Read the Magical World of Soil Biodiversity
WSD 2020 IN THE PRESS
The media coverage was strong - reaching 891 million users - roughly 2 in 10 persons worldwide. More than 500 online articles were detected globally between 3 and 7 December with most exposure coming from Asia, North America, and Europe. Broadcast-wise, WSD have had a great pick-up from BBC, NDTV.com, al-Jazeera. FAO’s press release presenting the launch of the "State of knowledge on soil biodiversity: Status, challenges and potentialities. Main report" and its "Summary for policy makers" were a source of media interest and major outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Xinhuanet, National Geographic, Science, and le Monde gave prominence to soil and biodiversity on 5 December.
INTERNATIONAL SOIL PRIZES
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) won the King Bhumibol World Soil Day Award and while Mr Luca Montanarella, European Commission won the Glinka World Soil Prize 2020.
CAMPAIGN MATERIAL
The dedicated website and corporate web pages on fao.org were updated with new content available in 16 languages and new initiatives (see here). The hits: (1) ‘Soils should have rights too’, (2) ‘It’s alive! Soil is much more than you think’, the webcast of the virtual event, and the Director-General's speech are available online. The WSD logo is currently available for download in 100 languages. The joint work of soil scientists and designers scored success at the book contest for children on soil biodiversity.
WEB MONITORING
During the campaign, FAO soil-related websites totalized around 4 million page views. Over 33 900 total users visited WSD related content on fao.org during the period 4-7 December. The web traffic had an increase of 4 times more than the usual average compared to the previous weeks. The highest cumulative traffic came from Asia with 55% of users, then Americas with 25%, and Europe with 16%. with peaks in India, the United States, and Mexico.
SOCIAL MEDIA
On social media, #WorldSoilDay content reached over 308+ million accounts with over 190 multilingual posts (see here all FAO tweets). On the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo, the topic related to WSD reached 8.3 million accounts. The campaign’s video, released on WSD, got over 500 000+ cumulative views on the spot. Promotional videos produced for TikTok reached 42 000 views by 9 December 2020. Over 5 490 accounts around the world shared FAO content.
RELATED LINKS:
- World Soil Day
- Contest results
- Events: WSD interactive map | Official celebration and its webcast | Full list of official events | Photogallery
- Media coverage: FAO press release | Hot off the press | Full list of articles
MULTIMEDIA:
- Beneath your feet | Sous nos pieds | Debajo de nuestros pies| تحت أقدامنا | 在我们脚下——世界土壤日 | У нас под ногами
- Video message by Ms Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Biodiversity
- Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity - Short version for social media
- Beneath our feet
- Glinka World Soil Prize
- King Bhumibol World Soil Day Award
- Underneath by Fossick project
- Mission: Keep soil alive!
Read the Magical World of Soil Biodiversity