To tackle the multiple threats to soil - a multifunctional resource essential for life - the EU Soil Strategy, expected from the European Commission on Wednesday 17 November, will provide both a new holistic vision and an overall legal framework for healthy EU soil.
According to a draft seen by EUROPE, this vision will be anchored in two EU strategies at the heart of the ‘European Green Deal’: the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.
The EU Soil Strategy will be designed to help the EU achieve the long-term objectives of the ‘Green Deal’ to reach climate neutrality by 2050, the ‘Zero Net Land Take target and an environment free of pollution harmful to human and ecosystem health.
It will also serve medium-term objectives, such as the net elimination of greenhouse gases in the EU of 310 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year in the so-called ‘LULUCF’ sector (agriculture and forestry), reducing nutrient losses by at least 50%, halving the overall use and risks of chemical pesticides and the use of the most hazardous ones by 2030, combating desertification, restoring degraded land and soils by 2030 - a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15.3) - and achieve good ecological and chemical status of surface waters and good chemical and quantitative status of groundwater by 2027.
‘Healthy soil’ means soils that are in good chemical, biological and physical condition and therefore able to provide the ecosystem services that can be expected from them: food, raw materials, biomass, water absorption and filtering, a carbon reservoir, recreational areas and cultural services, an archive of archaeological heritage, etc.
A soil health law, supported by an impact assessment and extensive stakeholder consultation, is provided for under the strategy to be presented by the Commission to fill the gaps in the 2006 soil protection strategy which lacks teeth, since the 2006 soil protection directive proposal had to be withdrawn in 2014 due to EU Council blockage (see EUROPE 12708/9).
In addition, a legislative proposal setting nature restoration targets is expected by the end of the year to restore degraded ecosystems, including soils, by 2050.
The Commission will also propose measures for soil to contribute to the ‘Fit for 55’ climate change mitigation and adaptation package.
This includes organic soils (including peatlands), which have a high carbon content of more than 20% by dry weight and cover 8% of the EU territory, and mineral soils, which generally have a carbon content of less than 5%.
For organic soils, it will be:
- establish legally binding targets for halting further drainage of wetlands and soils and restoring peatlands to maintain and increase soil carbon stocks, minimise flood and drought risks and enhance biodiversity. These targets may be established in the context of future nature restoration legislation;
- to contribute to the assessment of the status of peatlands in the framework of the global (FAO and UNEP) peatland initiative.
For mineral soils, the following are considered:
- measures, possibly under the Nature Restoration Act, to enhance biodiversity in agricultural land, which would help to conserve and increase organic soil carbon;
- EU participation in the international ‘4 by 1,000’ initiative to increase soil carbon in agricultural land;
- a Commission Communication on restoring sustainable carbon cycles to develop a long-term vision. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang with Lionel Changeur)