Why we should take better care of our soil

What actually is soil?

"Soil is formed by the weathering of rock into smaller and smaller particles, " explains Karine Paris. She works at Citizens for Ecological Learning & Living (CELL) as a coordinator for urban gardening and has been part of the transition movement in Luxembourg from the very beginning. Plants, animals, organic matter (plant leaves, dead animals, …), water and air are mixed into these particles to form the soil.

What characterises an intact soil?

"Our societies are entirely based on well-functioning or healthy soils, the cornerstone of which is biodiversity, " emphasises Dr David Porco, soil biologist and researcher at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) Science Centre. In other words, soil is life – or rather, it must be alive in order to fulfil its many functions. "You could say that biodiversity makes soils functional and provides the ecosystem services from which our society benefits."

Soil provides the basis for food production, harbours worms and many other creatures that burrow through it and decompose organic matter. The structure of the soil in turn determines how much water can be absorbed, which in turn has an impact on the risk of erosion and flooding, and how much oxygen is transported deep into the ground. Soils also fulfil a filter function for the water that eventually fills the groundwater reservoirs and serves as drinking water for humans.

Karine Paris notes that there are more microorganisms in a spoonful of soil than there are individual humans living on the planet. David Porco says: "In almost all terrestrial ecosystems, the soil is the part with the greatest biodiversity." What lives on the surface is actually only a small part.