Save Soil movement celebrates World Environment Day 2022 in Melbourne

Earth Buddies of the Save Soil movement celebrated World Environment Day on Sunday, June 5 with a Save Soil at Federation Square event. The fun-filled event was organised by enthusiastic Earth Buddies to raise awareness of the need to Save Soil to Save the Environment. The event included a children’s story telling activity, singing and dancing. For the special children’s story telling activity, our little Earth Buddies dressed up as creatures (Dung Beetle, Worm, Nematode, Ant) that live in the soil and enacted the story of why the creatures wanted to Save Soil. The energy and enthusiasm of the Earth Buddies, and the colourful dress up costumes generated a buzz from passerby - despite a cold Melbourne day. The Earth Buddies joyfully and enthusiastically shared the important message of the need to Save Soil at the fun event.

Most of us take the food that we eat for granted. However, the food of today is 90% less nutritious as compared to that of the early 20th century. Research conducted by the United Nations predicts that by the years 2040-2045, there will be 40% less food available for our growing population, which will reach 9.4 billion people by that time. That is happening because our soil is degrading rapidly. 27,000 species of soil microorganisms are becoming extinct per year. In addition, we have 80 – 100 harvests left and that is just another 45-60 years of farming globally. Therefore, we are facing soil extinction and the fallout from that will include ongoing famines, relentless civil wars and mass forced migrations.

The solution is to regenerate our soil and to ensure that there is at least 3-6% organic content in the soil so that we can grow nutritious food. At present, there is less than 1% organic content in over 60% of the farming lands globally. If we start working on solutions to regenerate soil now, it will take 25-30 years to see results. But if we don’t act for the next 25-30 years, it will take 150 - 200 years to restore soil health and fertility. The only way to prevent soil extinction is to ensure that soil regeneration is enshrined in government policy globally, in each country. As citizens, we have to speak with one voice and let our governments know that soil health is important to us. To initiate citizen movement, Sadhguru, the founder of the Save Soil movement, at the age of 65, has given voice to the plight of soil, by undertaking an arduous 30,000 km, 100 day, solo motorbike ride across Europe, Middle East and culminating in Southern India in late June 2022. On his journey, Sadhguru has been meeting citizens, influencers, scientists, prime ministers of nations and ministers for the environment to raise awareness and to garner support. This movement is not a protest or agitation. It aims to raise mass awareness and to work with governments of the world to change the narrative on soil and to bring about policy changes. That will protect us from impending shortages of food.

Each one of us can participate in this movement by signing up to be an Earth Buddy on savesoil. org. Being an Earth Buddy is very simple. It takes only 10 minutes each day for the next 20 days to spread the word about soil. There is a wealth of information on the website savesoil.org that you can learn from. Social media channels are the best to spread the word so you can type #SaveSoil, each time you post something on Facebook, on twitter, on Instagram or any other channels you use. To date, Save Soil has garnered support from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations World Food Program, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the “4 per 1000” Initiative. Additionally, 74 nations so far have pledged to address, through concrete action, the depletion of fertile soil in their countries.