International Soil Conservation Day is celebrated on July 7 to draw attention to the importance of soil and the benefits of its proper management and protection.
Soils are fundamental to all the processes that sustain life on our planet. As Hugh Hammond Bennet, who is honored on this day for his pioneering work in the field of soil conservation, said:
“History is a record of the human struggle to wrest the land from nature, because man's food depends on the products of the soil. So direct is the relationship between soil erosion, the productivity of the land, and the prosperity of people, that the history of mankind can be interpreted, at least to a high degree, in terms of the soil and what has happened to it as a result of man's use.”
Hugh Hammond Bennett
Among the environmental threats caused by changes in land use are the impact on biodiversity due to the modification and fragmentation of habitats or the loss of species; the repercussions on climate change (alteration of the carbon cycle, emission of greenhouse gases, etc.); air, water and soil pollution or land degradation due to erosion, compaction, contamination, salinization or anthropogenic sealing.
In this video you can see the importance of proper soil conservation:
CIDE Communication
