Nearly half of the world’s population is below 25 years old. Young people are the adults of tomorrow and have always demonstrated an incredible capacity to meet challenges and act as effective agents of change at the local, national and international levels.

It is within this framework that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), its Global Soil Partnership (GSP) and the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) have joined forces to encourage children and young people around the world to become aware of the ever-growing problems that affect the biodiversity of the soil and, consequently, the health and survival of all human beings. 

Soils are home to 25 percent of the world’s biodiversity and are responsible for providing the ecosystem services essential to sustaining life on earth and therefore truly deserve to be protected. World Soil Day, 5 December – celebrated in 2020 under the motto “Keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity”, succeeded in communicating this urgency by reaching an estimated 800 million people worldwide through seven hundred and eighty events in over one hundred countries.

Since its inception in 2014, this annual awareness–raising campaign has successfully promoted the importance of healthy soils, advocated for the sustainable management of soil resources to billions of people, empowered youth through knowledge sharing and most importantly has successfully engaged children, teachers, and educators.

“The magical world of soil biodiversity - A collection of 10 children’s stories from around the world” is a successful result of one of the campaign activity launched  during World Soil Day 2020. This contest, a booklet-writing competition about soil biodiversity, was addressed to children aged between six to eleven. Scientists, researchers, professors, teachers, classrooms, individual students, soil practitioners, designers, writers and photographers actively participated and resulted in over eighty entries from sixty countries.

The translations of this book in Portuguese and in Kyrgiz represent a perfect example of the commendable efforts of FAO, its GSP and IUSS are doing to target the youth, increase the outreach of the communication campaigns and their capacity to adapt smoothly to the national and local context.

By providing practical tools for young people we motivate them to become actively involved in the preservation and improvement of soils - among other  natural resources - and the life they sustains. Children and youth have an important role to play in addressing and overcoming the issues related to the loss of soil biodiversity.

Kids, dig in and discover the magic that lies beneath our feet!

Download the PDF | Discover the book in English - Russian - Kyrgyz