Consolidation of the European Soil Partnership
Focal Points from 20 European countries and partners from more than 20 countries participated with the overall goal to consolidate the ESP and discuss about the regional implementation plan.
March 17-18, 2015, Rome FAO HQ, Italy – The European Soil Partnership (ESP) convened a workshop organized at FAO during 17-18 March 2015 in the framework of the International Year of Soils 2015.
During the workshop, a brief on the status of implementation of the Global Soil partnership was provided, highlighting the important developments at regional level and what were the main challenges in the European Soil Partnership.
Making use of the Guidelines for Regional Soil partnerships, an important discussion took place to address the governance of the ESP. The current ad-hoc steering committee and Secretariat were acknowledged for taking the challenge of moving the ESP forward.
Partners agreed to maintain the current Steering Committee members for another year and decided to review it during the next ESP workshop to take place on 8-9 March 2016 at FAO in Rome, Italy. The following GSP members compose the current Steering Committee of the ESP: Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Germany (Chair); European Commission (Secretariat); Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute, Slovakia; Eurasian Centre for Food Security (ECFS), Russian Federation and the European Soil Bureau Network (ESBN).
The main issues at regional level and in relation to the GSP Pillars were discussed, highlighting the need to implement regional activities covering the ample spectrum of soil issues. It was agreed that the process for developing a regional implementation will continue and more partners will be involved for such an important task. It is important to highlight that there are key awareness raising activities planned at regional level in connection to the International Year of Soils and beyond.