Soils are essential building blocks of sustainable development. They are essential for food security, to support human well-being and provide further ecosystem services like as carbon storage. Sadly, soils are also severely threatened, having suffered a continuous decline in quality due to, for example, industrial agriculture and urban sprawl. Even though soils are managed and owned locally, their degradation is a key global issue since their functions transcend national boundaries.
The first Global Soil Week, which takes place from November 18–22 in Berlin, will provide a platform to initiate follow-up actions on land and soil-related decisions made at the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Conference. Stakeholders from science, government, business and civil society will come together to share their land and soil-related experience and expertise, and to develop future plans of action for sustainably managing and governing soil as a global resource.
Grounded is a two-day film festival in Berlin that makes it possible for all of us (who happen to be in Berlin at the time) to take part in raising awareness around this issue. The film festival, held at Kino Arsenal on Potsdamer Platz, brings together some of the most compelling short and long documentary films about soil from around the world. The works of ten filmmakers highlight the diversity of personal, cultural, historical, scientific and environmental meanings of our soil — from medium for food production to habitat for diverse life systems. Films include Dirt! The Movie, King Corn, The Man Who Stopped The Desert, Up In Smoke, The Plow That Broke The Plains, When The Water Ends, Aral, The Lost Sea, Chasing Water, Der Tag, An Dem Boden Starb, Soil Sealing, and the German premiere of Symphony of the Soil.
All films will be shown in English or with English subtitles and entrance is free to the public.
A detailed program of the festival is available on the Global Soil Week website and on the event’s Facebook page.
