The New Year seems like a long time ago. I didn’t realise when Big Ben chimed-in 2023 that I would be seeing it in person a few months later. I was talking to the BSSS Executive Officer, Sarah Garry, in December, remarking how challenging it was going to be to follow 2022 after the brilliant success of the congress. Well, it seems to have started off with a bang!
In January, I was invited to talk about our engagement and outreach activities at the Botanic Gardens Education Network (Bgen) annual conference at RHS Wisley. Bgen is a specialist support network for professional plant and natural world educators. It was fantastic to connect with Bgen members and educators, especially inspiring were Jack Baker, Connor Davies and Chelsie, young people working in the conservation sector, who are enabling change through innovative approaches such as youth boards and podcasts.
In February, Paul Hallett (President-Elect), Sarah Garry and I visited the Society’s Patron, HRH Duke of Gloucester, at Kensington Palace. We reflected on the World Congress of Soil Science and he was delighted to attend the opening ceremony. He was particularly interested in what we are doing next through our Congress legacy activities, the policy work and our plans for 2023. He will be giving his support again at one of our activities this year, so watch this space.
In February, we also submitted our response to the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee soil health inquiry – special thanks to the Professional Practice Committee for their inputs and to Sarah for collating the response. You can read our response here. I met the committee on their first “field tip” of the inquiry when they visited Rothamsted Research, leading the discussions on the current state of soil in England. As a result of our excellent written response, we were invited to give evidence in Parliament at the first oral session of the inquiry. It was pretty intimidating being grilled in an oak panelled committee room, but it was a brilliant experience to be able to directly underline our recommendations and discuss the ambition for sustainable soil management. Thank you so much for your individual messages of support afterwards. You can watch the session here – I haven’t plucked up the courage to watch it again yet!
Later in March, Sarah and I met with the Coalition of Action for Soil Health (CA4SH). CA4SH is a collaboration of international organisations and its aim is to improve soil health globally by addressing critical implementation, monitoring, policy, and public and private investment barriers that constrain farmers from adopting and scaling healthy soil practices. We support the CA4SH draft soil resolution. It calls for governments to ensure there is a formal process for discussing soil at the COP climate summits, ultimately strengthening national and international policy implementation for soil health as part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity crises. We are planning further collaboration with CA4SH through international policy sessions and joint activities at COP28 later in the year.
So I did not need to worry, there is plenty of momentum. It is an exciting time to be a soil scientist, not least President of BSSS, with so much focus on soil in many sectors, touching on many aspects of our lives. Thank you to BSSS members for your continued support, input and contributions that underpin our various activities. I hope 2023 has started well for you all, I’m certainly looking forward to the next quarter!
