International World Soil Day is helping to increase visibility about the importance of healthy soils to the future of our planet. The GSP Secretariat was especially pleased on the occasion of this 3rd celebration of the World Soil Day to announce that another effort to raise the profile of soils in the international agenda was made: The new Glinka World Soil Prize, which was awarded for the first time ever to the Instituto Geográfico Augustín Codazzi in the person of its Director, Doctor Juan Antonio Nieto Escalante. A short film introducing the award and the recipient chosen for its first year welcomed the first Laureate of the Glinka World Soil Prize. He was invited to come to the podium to receive the Glinka Prize which comes with a 15,000 USD award and the Glinka Medal from FAO’s Director – General José Graziano Da Silva and delivered a Keynote address on Soils and Peace in Colombia.

As the drive to end soil degradation gain greater priority on the global agenda, the Glinka World Soil Award, named after Konstantin Glinka, honours individuals/organizations whose activities and leadership are contributing to the promotion of sustainable soil management and the protection of soil resources thereby improving the well-being of populations. IGAC as the entity in charge of producing the official map and basic cartography of Colombia, conducts soil survey, soil resource inventory, coordinates the Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure, and trains professionals from all over the world. IGAC was acknowledged for accelerating the trend of modernizing geographic technologies in Latin America and was recognized for its efforts to place geography squarely at the forefront of advanced geographical research capabilities and modeling programs.

True to its mission, in less than three years IGAC made the effort to understand Colombian soils in more details both in their morphology and in their complicated economic and social context. ”Soils and lands” of Colombia gives an account of the current state of soils in the country. From the launch of the book, a great impact was generated in the national and international media which emphasized the importance of the results and information contained in the publication for the country including the huge problem of conflicts over land use. Congratulation to Doctor Juan Antonio Nieto Escalante and its Instituto Geográfico Augustín Codazzi. A special word of thanks to the Russian Federation for sponsoring the Glinka World Soil Prize.

Video | Presentation (soon available)