 Okay, I think we can start now. Again, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night for all of you joining today here through Zoom, but also to those of you who are joining from the webcast. Excellencies colleagues from the UN organizations representative from the civil society and private sector. This is students and dear friends. Welcome to the last day of the Global Symposium on soil biodiversity. My name is Natalia Rodriguez Eugenio, I'm a water officer and member of the global soil partnership secretariat of FAO. And I will be moderating this first one hour planning session on soil biodiversity in the global agenda. I would like to start by wishing everyone a happy International Mother Earth Day. I'm very happy to be here with all of you. And I would like to thank you all for the interest shown in this fundamental topic for soil health, for our health, and in short, essential for our survival and for the care of our Pacha Mama. A very interesting agenda ahead of us, which is the grand finale of a successful symposium. But I want to start by reminding you of two main important points. First, I would like to remind you that today we have simultaneous interpretation in French and Spanish. To find it, please go to the bottom of your Zoom window and look for the small globe icon. If you click on the globe, you will see the language is available. And secondly, remind that the three most voted posters will be announced during the closing ceremony of the symposium. So please stay with us until the end. Again, a big congratulations to all the authors who participated in creating these posters and filming their video recording. They are awesome. And now let's get back to today's topic. In these three previous days, we have heard about the latest advances in the detection and identification of soil organism, about sustainable soil management practices to conserve and restore biodiversity, and how soil biodiversity can help us to improve systems. To complete the technical sessions of this symposium before the final conclusions, today we have some very distinguished speakers. And without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce you our first speaker. You all know him very well. He's a pioneer in the restoration of soil health, and with a tireless career promoting the role of soils as key allies in climate change mitigation, food security and water quality. He is a laureate of the 2019 Blinka World Soil Prize, and last year he was also awarded with the prestigious World Food Prize. Member of the Science Policy Interface of the United Nations Convention to Combat the Certification, join me in welcoming distinguished professor Radha Lal. Here Professor Lal, the floor is yours. Thank you. Please help me show my slides. I want to thank FAO. Professor Rodriguez, I want to thank UNCCD, Dr. Baranor, and colleagues. And I wish you all a very happy, very joyful the Earth Day. The next slide please. I'm very happy with advancing my slides. Thank you so much. Please. Soil life nexus is very well known, very well understood. Next please click. Essentially, all life depends on soil. There can be no life without soil and no soil without life. That the essence of biodiversity and the death feeds life. The rhizosphere, rich of biodiversity, is the only place in the universe where the death is resurrected into life. Next please. Thank you. Please next. Again, how the world increase anthropogenic activity has decreased biodiversity globally. Tremendous decrease between 1970 and 2016. Next slide please. Thank you. Please keep advancing. The Green Revolution, which was a great next one, which was a great success story between 1961 and 2020, while the global population increased to five times. The serial production went up 3.3 times. Next please. Please keep clicking. Please keep clicking. Thank you. The per capita production increased, which we call the global greenhouse miracle or the border log effect. The next one. Thank you. Please keep clicking. This was achieved because of the increase in input of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, pesticides, herbicides, many inputs, irrigation increase. Next one please. Continue please quickly. But it also led to degradation of soil, FAO data 33%, absolutely accelerated soil erosion by water. The next one please keep clicking. Continuously please keep clicking. Wind salinization, very serious problems. One third of the land area. The next one please. We have a concept called peak soil. Why not peak soil just as the case of peak oil or peak minerals. In fact, the plants, please keep clicking continuous basis. This suitable agricultural land about 0.25 hectare. We have many cases only 0.05 hectare, which is creating a lot of political issues and unrest. We have saw refugees. Please keep going. Thank you please. Keep going please. The peak soil and extinct soil should be also addressed today. In despite of all this, we still have a problem of food insecurity affecting as many as please keep going. Thank you. Please keep advancing. We have 700 million people mostly in Africa and South Asia. Keep going please. And the COVID-19 has also brought about severe increase in disruption of food supply chain. 40% increase use of land area and agriculture. All those inputs. Tremendous increase in food production yet we have one in 11 people under nourished and two to three in seven are malnourished and already increase of 1.1 degree centigrade in temperature since 1900 and therefore business as usual is not an option. Thank you. Please go next. Regenerative agriculture is an option which is inspired by eco innovation part by non carbon energy driven by circular economy and green infrastructure supported by the recarbonization of the trustee biosphere. The trustee biosphere may have lost as much as 460 to 500 gigaton of the carbon, therefore restoration of the recarbonization, increasing the carbon stock and so on vegetation is probably a very important option to consider. Next one please, which has also strong impact on food security. Therefore the green revolution of the 21st century has to be soil based. It has to be ecosystem based next one, and it has to be knowledge based. And that's a difference, rather than focusing, which are varieties are very important fertilizer important irrigation is important, but we can't ignore soil health, we can't ignore ecosystem integrity. And that's the point why biodiversity is important. Please next one. The idea is some people say produce enough from less, more from less matter of semantic. The idea is less land less water, less fertilizer, please keep going less chemicals less energy less greenhouse pollution so that we can save resources for nature. Biodiversity nature biodiversity together. Therefore we should be thinking about carbon based fertilization. It's not a question of NPK but CNPK see carbon if that comes before NPK the soil biodiversity will improve soil health will improve the next one please man. Thank you, please going keep going. Technical potential carbon sequestration soil is about two and half gigaton of carbon per year. Two and half, while the fossil fuel emission and land use emission together are about 11 gigaton. Even under the best case scenario soil carbon sequestration can mitigate offset reduce 25% maximum, therefore finding known carbon fuel sources is very critical between 2020 and 2100 the technical potential carbon sequestration is about 333 parts per million petergram, which is translated 157 parts per million, which is effective strategy if, and only if the fossil fuel emissions are reduced and known carbon fuel sources are found with that being the case. Trust your carbon sequestration is a win-win-win option. Next one. Thank you. Next one please. Farming carbon, what it means it means is creating another income stream for farmer. Paying them for ecosystem services. That's what farming carbon means the next one. And this is not necessarily please next. This is certainly market driven price and demand, which can sometime crash to less than $1 per ton of CO2. The societal value of carbon is about $120 to $130 per ton of C, $35 per ton of CO2. If farmer sequester half a ton per hectare of carbon, they must be compensated to somewhere $65 per hectare, $25 per acre or for one third ton $43 per hectare or $18 per acre. European price EU is about $25 to $30 per ton of CO2. That's fair. Next slide please. So soil health and SDGs are also very important. Keep going please. Such as goal number two, goal number three, 13 and 15 land degradation neutrality. Some other goal and poverty, good health and others are also very critical. So soil health is essential, critical to put back on the track. This sustainable development goal. Unfortunately they are not completely on the track to realization by 2030. Next one please. Please next one. I would like to promote the concept that soil health is like a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is global soil resources and global car carbon stock the next one. On it depend the four sides of the pyramid. One is food security. The next one is climate change adaptation mitigation. The next one is land degradation neutrality. This is very important to UNC D goal and the next one biodiversity. The four sides of this pyramid which are ecosystem services, essentially sustainable development goal can only be achieved the next one please. Please click next. If there is a political well and prudent governance, political well and prudent governance is very critical. And to that respect. Next one. I would like to share with you for the end the message from Pope Francis in his encyclical in 2015 and it's very pertinent because we are meeting in Rome. He said ongoing research should also give us a better understanding of how different creatures is referring to biodiversity. Relate to one another in making up the larger units, which today we call ecosystems. The last of the thing that I'd like to share from him, Pope Francis, let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life. The firm resort to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace and the joyful celebration of life. I think that message is very, very critical. Please next one. And with that one, I wish you all a very, very happy. The Earth Day, which started in 1970 as a result of the oil spill in Barb Santa Barbara, California. And that killed 10,000 birds, seabirds, sea lions, seal, and many aquatic animals. And that created the movement of protection of biodiversity and looking after the earth. Thank you for the invitation. All the best to you. Thank you very much, be a professor. It has been a very instructive presentation as always on how if we don't, if we do not protect soil health and soil biodiversity. We will not achieve the sustainable development goals to which the entire international community is committed. So thank you very much. Now it is time to take a closer look at the role of biodiversity in a good food system. And for this we are pleased to have with us today. The Secretary of the Commission on genetic resources for food and agriculture and the leader of FAO's biodiversity work stream, Dr. Irene Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman, sorry, over to you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Let me share my screen. Okay, you see my screen. Yes, perfect. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I think we have a very nice build up from what Professor Lal has mentioned is the entering into the policy arena, and biodiversity mainstreaming is a topic that is very close to all of our hearts. We have seen in the many assessments recently that biodiversity is being lost and that not only threatens the biodiversity itself, but also the ecosystem services that human well being depends upon and food security, of course, is one of the very important ones that is close to the heart of FAO. In the opening of this symposium, Eduardo Mansour showed this slide, and it looks at soil and the ecosystem services it provides. And if we think of that from the biodiversity mainstreaming perspective, then the importance of biodiversity in this specific case soil biodiversity has to be integrated in all the policies, actions, and other societal decisions and governance mechanisms that relate to these different sectors where these ecosystem services are finally ending up, for example, in climate regulation. And as Professor Lal said, this is a very important and increasingly important area, because biodiversity and climate change are very closely related, but also water purification and other types of habitats. So mainstreaming means that biodiversity is considered in all sectors of policymaking and practices that have an impact on this type of biodiversity. And that's where FAO comes into the game. FAO is the UN specialized agency with a mandate to reduce food insecurity and hunger. And also, since its beginning, it has been a neutral and open forum for our more than 194 member countries to discuss biodiversity related policies, and also to come to agreements on these among the members. Over time, we now have over 90 instruments and mechanisms hosted by FAO, many of which refer to biodiversity. And there are, is the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, where I'm the secretary of but also the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, the Global Soil Partnership, International Plant Protection Convention, globally important agricultural heritage systems, the Mountain Partnership, and many, many more. FAO's role extends in the 2030 agenda also as being custodian of the 21 sustainable development goals indicators. And out of these 21, 14 relate to the Convention on Biological Diversities, i.e. biodiversity targets, and that shows how closely we are also supporting countries in the monitoring of biodiversity in different fields. And this cuts across all the sectors that FAO is covering, which is crop and livestock agriculture, fisheries, forestry and aquaculture. And here you can see this is just a little snapshot of the different reports, assessments, guidelines, tools that FAO is developing in the different sectors of biodiversity. And coming back to biodiversity mainstreaming, Convention on Biological Diversity has since the beginning identified mainstreaming as one of the areas where improvements on biodiversity can be made because the majority of biodiversity is managed not by the conservation community, but by other sectors. And this must be, that biodiversity must therefore be mainstreamed in the actions of these other sectors. And FAO, therefore in 2019, adopted its own strategy on mainstreaming biodiversity across agricultural sectors, which is very closely linked to what the CBD is developing now as a long term approach to mainstreaming. So this FAO strategy is an FAO document, it's directed at FAO actions, but it aims to mainstream biodiversity across all the agricultural sectors at all levels. And to do that in a structured and coherent manner, taking into account all the national priorities, conditions, and so on, in FAO's country programming framework, but also linking with other UN organizations, activities at national level. The ultimate goal would be to reduce the negative impacts of agricultural practices on biodiversity by promoting sustainable agricultural practices, and therefore to conserve and restore and enhance biodiversity as a whole. As I said, this is a strategy for FAO. It looks at better coordinating FAO's work within the house to improve the support that is provided to members on their request on capacity development and policies, but also to embed biodiversity squarely within FAO's policies, programs and practices, but also to make the critical role of biodiversity and the ecosystem services that come from the food and agriculture sector and serve the food and agriculture sector internationally recognized. And this work sits squarely into what the CBD is doing. And for example, the CBD as part of the mainstreaming has a program of work on agricultural biodiversity with cross cutting initiatives, one is on soil biodiversity and one is on pollinators. And FAO is the agency that implements those initiatives. And this is where your work of the soil community comes in, very importantly, when this action plan on soil biodiversity will be finally approved by the CBD. And FAO is already implementing the national pollinator, international pollinator initiative. So you see the complementary between what the CBD does and what FAO then does and implements for the agricultural sectors. We also like the other organizations do assessments and let me just highlight here the 2019 state of the world's biodiversity for food and agriculture, which looked at the all aspects of biodiversity within and around production system and it put specific attention to the invisible parts of biodiversity, which we call associated biodiversity, which is soil, pollinators, pests and disease control organisms, and so on. So those that provide the ecosystem services without which agriculture cannot work. And it shouldn't be a surprise that also this assessment came to the conclusion that biodiversity for food and agriculture is declining all over the world. And there are many knowledge gaps, and therefore we were happy that the state of knowledge of soil biodiversity has added knowledge to gaps on soil biodiversity, but there are many other knowledge gaps that need to be filled. But there are also many actions that have to be taken by different actors in different sectors to improve the status and there are practices available that need to be more widely applied as Professor Lal also said. Then there is policy processes going on. And, for example, the Commission has agreed that this state of the world report deserves a policy response. And there is currently a negotiation ongoing to develop what may become a global plan of action on biodiversity for food and agriculture. And you may watch this space. And there is otherwise a program of work of the Commission on microbes and invertebrates which will look at soil biodiversity and there will also be discussions and we hope for a close synergy and collaboration with the soil community in that respect. So you see there are different streams of mainstreaming at different levels that go from assessments to policies to tools where what FAO does for the agricultural sector and what other sectors do should go hand in hand. And if you need more information on FAO's work on biodiversity mainstreaming, here are the web pages. And also some overall brochures. And I thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much, Dr Hoffman, you have indeed grounded the work to be done by this organization and other partners to ensure sustainable and resilient agriculture systems. So thank you very much. I would like now to remind all participants that you can use the chat to pose your questions so that the speakers can answer them directly because we will not have a Q&A session because due to the time constraint. Now we have heard during these four days that soil health and human health go hand in hand and that we must work towards the concept of one health, right? And our next speaker will explain why it is key to maintain soil biodiversity to address one of the greatest threats we face and that puts the lives of millions of people at risk each year. It is a great pleasure for me to welcome Deputy Director of the SREDIS Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation, who has also been a colleague of us here at FAO, Dr Gunilla Eklang. Dear Gunilla, you have our full attention. Thank you so much for being with us. Natalia, thank you so much and checking my sound. Can you hear me? Yes, perfectly and we can see your screen. Yes, that's perfect. Thank you so much and good afternoon from Stockholm in Sweden, where we have actually had a little snow this morning, but happy Earth Day to all of you. And thanks to the organizers for this opportunity to raise awareness of AMR as an emerging as pollutants in soil and also to highlight AMR's relationship with soil biodiversity. I'm Gunilla Eklund. I'm a veterinarian, a toxicologist, and as Natalia said, a former secondary to the FAO AMR working group. And to set the scene and reminding ourselves what AMR is, AMR stands for antimicrobial resistance and it is simply microbes fighting back against us or against medicines. It is bacteria, viruses or other microbes mutated to survive the drugs that we give to cure disease in humans, in plants and in animals. But there is also another kind of resistance. When plant pests are exposed to toxic chemicals like pesticides, they can become resistant too. But that is not what I'm addressing here, but rather resistant pathogens or resistance genes that are relevant to human or animal health. For example, bacteria resistant to penicillin. We must remember that AMR is a natural phenomenon. It can never be eradicated, but we need to keep it under control. And why is that? As Natalia said, this is an emerging global health threat and because a continued rise in AMR by 2050 is estimated to lead to 10 million deaths per year. That is more than cancer and a decrease of over 3% in GDP gross domestic products. So let's have a look at what triggers the emergence of AMR. Antimicrobials such as antibiotics are used in human health care, plant production and in animal health to control for disease, which is illustrated here. And here they play a critical role. They ensure health, food safety, food security and livelihoods. However, overuse or misuse of antimicrobials in all these sectors illustrated here trigger emergence of AMR through selection pressure. Microbes may gain resistance through mutation or gene transfer. So soil can be contaminated through these activities, namely through application of manure on agricultural land, irrigation with untreated wastewater or application of antibiotics as pesticides in plant production that select for resistance in soil bacteria. So the challenge illustrated here is really to try and control the tap on the slide and minimize the leakage or the emergence of AMR contamination of the environment, including in soil. There is also another challenge and that is that the agriculture production really needs to grow to meet the needs of a growing population. So increasing food production sustainably with less antimicrobials is going to be very challenging. And one solution would be to reduce the need for antimicrobials in all these sectors illustrated here by preventing disease in the first place. So here it says that AMR is a global challenge and it requires global response and I would also add an intersectoral global response because AMR does not respect borders between countries, species or biotopes. And resistant pathogens like salmonella or genes or drug residues circulate like you see here in this circular picture between food, animals, people into the environment, also into soil. So this slide really highlights that all these sectors need to engage together and develop solutions together on how to curb AMR. So what is known and what is needed? Well, we know that AMR as resistant pathogens, genes or drug residues is detected in soil and in food of plant origin. However, the impact on health from this is still unclear. So antibiotics are known also to add sorghum to soil and we know that release of antibiotics is possible if changes appear, for example, of pH in the soil. So soil is considered a possible favorable environment for emergence of AMR due to its high complexity and ongoing competition between the microorganisms in soil. Thus soil, as it said the first bullet here, serve as a reservoir of AMR and can act as a source of resistance determinants that can spread to human pathogens and contaminate food of plant origin. That we know. But is soil a possible cradle for exchange of resistance genes between soil bacteria and pathogens from say manure application or is soil an environment that dilutes the risks with AMR to health. What do we know about the relationship between soil biodiversity and AMR? I wish we knew more. There is a huge knowledge gap here on the impact of soil biodiversity on AMR and vice versa AMR on soil biodiversity. The presence of antimicrobials in soil could prompt changes in biodiversity since resistant organisms quite often have evolutionary advantages. We know that biodiversity in soil is known to slow pesticide resistance and it protects plants from disease. So perhaps biodiversity is also protects from emergence of AMR. Microbial diversity has been shown in studies to be negatively correlated with the abundance of resistance genes. This indicates that high microbial diversity can can act as a barrier and resist the spread of antibiotic resistance. But as I said, there are huge knowledge gaps here. So try to identify what is needed. First of all, currently there are no robust data on the volume of antimicrobials used as pesticides in plant production. But we know that at least 20 countries have registered antibiotics like streptomycin, for example, to control for bacterial diseases such as fireblight and citrus greening disease in plant production. Secondly, there is also lack of monitoring data on levels of AMR in soil and I will get back to this shortly. And thirdly, standardized methods to detect and trace the fate of AMR in soil are also needed. What happens with the resistance genes once it has reached the soil? So what is being done because that was a lot of question marks? Well, one must start by highlighting that AMR is being addressed by many stakeholders including FAO and WHO. And a blueprint, a starting point is that in 2015 a global action plan to curb AMR was adopted by the WHO members. And from their initiatives and progress evolved. It's what you see to the left and I think it's also clickable for if we are sharing these presentations afterwards. The environment is within the scope of this global action plan. Soil is not mentioned specifically and there are knowledge gaps, especially around AMR's impact on environmental health. That must be said. Moving to the right, what is being done? Well, first of all, within the EU I come from an EU country. There is no antibiotic approved as a pesticide. This is contrary to other countries where streptomycin, casugamycin and other antibiotics are used in rice, fruit and vegetable production. As I mentioned, there is a lack of monitoring data of AMR in soil. What's the condition really? We don't know so much, but to the left you see I mentioned the Lucas survey. The EU Lucas soil survey, Lucas stands for land use and coverage area from frame survey. It has sampled resistant genes in topsoil and we are all very much excited to look and looking forward to the results which are expected in 2022 next year. So there are many stakeholders addressing AMR, like FAO and IPPC are among those stakeholders. Through fact sheets such as the one you see to the left and other activities, these stakeholders keep raising awareness of AMR. But as mentioned, little is known about the fate of AMR in soil and tools are required to monitor AMR's movement. A clear methodology or standard operating procedure to trace AMR through soils does not yet exist. But the paper you see to the right is a collaboration between FAO and IAEA, exploring methodologies that can be used to detect and to trace the source and the transport of antimicrobials through soil. So in short, a better understanding of AMR, how it moves from agriculture areas to the environment through soil as a vector is very important. We need to grasp this knowledge if we are to develop guidance to managing AMR effectively in the environment and control the impact it has or it may have on health. And as a deeper understanding of the relationship between soil biodiversity and AMR in soil, that is another thing that we're just beginning to look into now. And again, I thank the organisers for the opportunity to raise awareness of the phenomenon of AMR as an emerging pollutant and as a possible threat to biodiversity. And with that, I think that was my last slide. So I thank you for the attention and over to you, Natalia. Thank you. Thank you very much, Gunilla indeed. I think we have learned a lot today, as I'm sure not many people were aware of the links of AMR and soil pollution and how soil organism could help to fight against antimicrobial resistance. So indeed, thank you very much. I would like now to introduce a member of the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soil. She's a senior researcher at the Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation, agrostavia. So please join me in welcoming Dr. Marta Bolaños-Venavides, who will tell us about the role of soil biodiversity on crop nutrition and disease management. Dr. Marta, it's a pleasure to have you here and please the floor is yours. Thank you. Sorry, Marta, you are mute. Thank you, Natalia. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Dan, thank you for the introduction and invitation to participate with the topic soil biodiversity for crop nutrition and disease management. I will discuss the soil biodiversity and the role of soil biodiversity to improve nutrition and health differing from the rules in different industries to perceive soil and management strategy for cesarean with musasias, the conservation of soil biodiversity benefits and considerations. There are a great number of opportunities in the stories that provide an important service to the humans by fertilizers, biophones, and crop promoters. And streptomyces penicillium with a main producer of antibiotics and saccharomyces are the same for the alcoholic beverage. However, in the soils, there are pathogen fitoparasites that affect food security crops, rice, chrome, wheat, potatoes, and musasias. And regarding the, in order to optimize economic practice, we must take advance in biological balance between organic, in order to increase biological controllers, update mechanisms, vaccine, computation, and symbiosis, synergies that improve activity biologically in the resource fields. This relation plants organisms improve efficient fertilization, improve productive capacity of soil, and improve adaptation of client chain variability. The topic two is biodiversity plant nutrition in disease management. According to the results of macrophamiline and the soil, it was found that the R1 population needs was higher, the Ayrton population in the second cycle production in plantain, and the herbuscular mycorrhizalphungi and Ayrton compost is better treatment. Regarding the population nematodes in soil, plantain roots under biopartillation was mycorrhizalphungi, plus plantain rice compost is a better treatment, allows decreasing population in roots and increasing the population for saprophytic nematodes. In these same crops, the, is reported that inoculation with the mycorrhizalphungi and amnesty, amnesty should reduce that nematodes. Okay, elicotylencus, platylencus, and radophilus is nematodes pathogenosimplotine, and in this case, the mycorrhizalphungi increase or more or does 34% in root space weight. Regarding the management of phytopathogenic bacteria, was navigate in the soil, has been demonstrated how some is trying on trichoderma, and allow reducing symptoms caused of this pathogen, while allow hadeli is the manifestation of disease symptoms and increase root development. In this infatage, infaticide, here that trichoderma has a beneficial effect, greater does, than that the other treatments of commercial produces, since in externeant antagonist. Delighted development and show with less severity, this, of the disease, and the favorit development of roots. In this case of the phytopteracinamomi, pathogen that attacks avocado crop, the application of trichoderma harcianum, an organic cobalt acid of sugarcane baguettes, allow the reduction of propagulose in the soil, and they separated of root growth or plants with the control. In this study, in addition to evaluating the effect of baguettes of the disease, the effect on biological activity was determined with the higher enzymatic activity of phosphatase, acid phosphatase, in soils that did not receive chemical fungicides. In this way, the importance of bioorganic component in the nutrients, in the nutrients, nutrition, excuse me, and health of our ecosystem is once again highlighted. As an indication of total activity, microbial activity, soil desidrogenase activity was used as a good parameter to measure the stability of organic matter, significant statistical differences were found for deep growth management, age of plant, flowering age, and with agroecological management versus conventional management. The topic in the suppressive soils as a management strategy for the disease causes for FOC R14. The study offered important information on a wide range of biological control agents. The study put the Norsi and Friel for the management of FOC R1 and FOC R14. The authors mentioned that the last four decades, about 182 papers have been advanced, in which it has reported that Friel condition control for sodium of 18% by pseudomonas, bacillus, and streptomyces. The major variability is present in FOC R14. This report the significance in regards in interation, excuse me, interation between pH and nitrogen dose, the higher the pH of nitrogen, the more severity of disease comes in the accordion of the rise of FOC. The report significance, interaction between pH and nitrogen, where pH about 6, lower the damage rate with medium doses of nitrogen. The topic four is economic evaluation on the economic benefits of soil biodiversity. The application of native micro rights show Hager economic retribution, due to the low cost of the input and higher yields, compared to the traditional management by farmers. And the economic benefits found in trying to study are supported by the great biodiversity or muscular micro resides in these kinds of soils cultivates with guava in Colombia. Some species presences in almost all the funds sample and other species, particular characteristics of the soils. Consideration as a sustainable agriculture practice who does bio fertilizers, bio fertilization decrease environmental contamination and increase the native population on soil biota. The regulation of crowds pathogens targeting across of the, if the balance between species in agricultural systems, the mountain, the bio organic component includes soil biodiversity is fundamental for the sustainable manufacture of agricultural systems, healthy to achieve the sustainable development goals. A very sustainable and competitive is flexible with title methodologies and results. Let's get to work. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed Marta. It has been very illustrative presentation where we have seen the role of soil biodiversity on improving crop productivity and overall soil health. So thank you so much and I'm sure you will continue your work as an ITPS member, enhancing the knowledge and filling the knowledge gaps on soil biodiversity so thank you so much. To conclude our technical session with the last presenter, he's a researcher from the Department of Environmental Biology at Sapienza University of Rome, and a good colleague of us who has contributed to the global soil partnerships work on soil pollution so thank you so much for that. And it's a pleasure to introduce you Dr Andrea Chechi who works on micro remediation of polluted soil. And today he will tell us more about the potentials and challenges of bio remediation. So the Andrea thank you so much for being here and is the floor is yours. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And Natalia. I'm going to share my presentation. Can you see this. And can you hear me. Okay. Thank you so much. First of all, I would like to thank the organizer to invite me for this presentation today. I decided this presentation in three main parts in an introduction, the biomediation and present and future challenges. So contamination is one of the main treats in that affect global soil and human activities can release different kinds of contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants, potentially toxic elements that can enter soil ecosystem, and can cause severe environmental and health problems. Mixers of substances are generally common in these cases, and they create complex interaction and synergies that can affect can be presented risk for humans and for living organisms. This is a global dimension of the problem. I have reported here some data from different countries, and these are just numbers that my underestimate the problem of the soil contamination. Because the soil are so important for life on earth as they provide ecosystem services and for human well being for living organisms. They are key reserve of global diversity. They can divide by diversity from soil. They are one things inside by diversity can help us to meet the sustainable development goals of United Nations 2030 agenda. And here a picture that was previously stated before, which I would like you to focus on the water purification and self contamination reduction, which is very important in this context. It can help inside remediation in all these levels. In particular, we know that there are different physical chemical methods, but often they are not sustainable or they can pair soil functionality, or they can create some problems or, for example, they are not so cheap. On the contrary, by remediation is a national based solution that can help us to solve this problem. Thanks to the processes of natural processes in soil or the activities of certain microorganisms and other organisms in soil. So by remediation is an environmentally friendly, cost effective and sustainable technology is really is relatively simple to use. It has a high public acceptance. We know different success story about my remediation. And just to have one data, and more than 400 sites has been cleaned up in USA, and just to say mention one data. So we know a lot of the taxa belong to different group of organisms, including bacteria fungi plants algae invertebrates a chance and have for that can have application in solar remediation. But in microorganisms a play fundamental ecological and geological rules, just to mention some decomposition soil formation and stabilization recycling of elements, and they can also have a very important and strong selective or not selective enzymes that can be used for transformation of organic persistent pollutants, or by immediate transformation of potentially toxic elements in less toxic form less available for they can accumulate species that can accumulate high concentration of potential toxic elements that can recover for further use. And these are reported some scheme about the different mechanisms that can be involved in these processes. In my experience, I have studied fungal species, they can be the transformation in the hominidization the accumulation of potentially toxic elements, but also they can transform pesticide and other organic pollutants. It's important to also the interaction between microorganisms in side, and just to mention one example, fungal transportation networks are so important as a fungal high fee can be sideways for bacterial dispersion, or for the can be pipelines for transportation of nutrients and pollutants. Of course, the plants also played fundamental rules in body mediation of toxic elements organic for semi biotics. And it is important they interaction with the microorganisms, including bacteria, filamentous fungi, or mycorrhizal fungi and the fighting microorganisms. They can mediated different mechanisms, and they can for example stimulate the microbial community, or they can extract elements and buy accumulated them. And they can also be this later recovered as a by horse for future use. We know several taxa that can be used as upper accumulators, and they can, they are divided in different several families, including, for example, brasekashi. And so by remediation can be achieved also by stimulating the microbial community by changing different parameters and sides, or by adding inoculating microorganisms in a single or in consortia. We will call this by augmentation. And here I have reported a table in which there are some of the main remediation methodologies that I, of course, as a methodologies they, there are lots of can be that some limitation, in particular, environmentally condition, contamination, chemical nature of contamination, and also ecological interaction between native microbial community of microorganisms, and the microorganisms use environmental conditions, especially if these are not native. And other limitation can be represented by the uncompleted transformation of organic pollutants or by, for example, by the activation of them. And in some cases, remediation can require a long period of time for the complete process. So some solution we can, for example, scientific research is doing a lot of progress in finding solution. We can get new technological integrated and multidisciplinary approach that coming from example from omics application from modeling of environmental modeling. We can discover new species, new strains, and get new information from genes that encode a specific process in specific mechanisms inside. We can also get better understanding of metabolic cooperation among the microbial communities. It's also possible integration about between physical chemical and biological methodologies. For example, nano bioremediation that can bind nanotechnologies and bioremediation. Just to say an example is possible, for example, for fungal species mediate the bio mineralization of some elements, some metals, toxic metals. The nano minerals resulted can be used to create new high tech products, for example, batteries. And we have to face new emerging pollutants, not just the old one that represented by new plastic materials, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. And of course we have to change our view economically, politically and socially and try to better focus on bioremediation application as a very good method and sustainable method. In conclusion, bioremediation is a technology, sustainable, environmentally friendly, is cost effective and can really mediate soil pollution. This is a natural solution that thanks to the activity of organisms can help in soil decontamination. Of course we have a solution to overcome limitation in bioremediation and to face future challenges to protect soil functionality and biodiversity. And I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you very much Andrea. There is, it has been a great presentation, and there is certainly a lot of work to be done to unlock the full potential of soil organism that can help us to remedy the damage that we have done to the planet. So thank you very much for bringing this important solution. And with this presentation, bring us to the end of this first session. A big thank you to all of our keynote speakers for such an enlightening session. I invite you to remain with us and look at the chat because I see there have been many many questions for you. So please try to address some of them. And also, I invite you to stay with us to listen the next session that will present the main conclusions of these three previous amazing days. So now I'm pleased to hand over the moderation of the final session of the symposium to our colleague Carida Canales. So dear Carida over to you. Thank you so much to everyone. Salia, thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for these excellent presentations. Let me welcome again all our distinguished panelists and participants, so all of you who have been following this symposium throughout this week. So this is the plenary session of where we will be hearing about the main outcomes and key findings of these 2021 global symposium on soil biodiversity so I think it's it's a really, it's a real honor to be here with you today and particularly to hear this, this session. My name is Carida Canales. I am a program officer at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and I will be moderating this session where we will hear from three excellent speakers. We said before on the main messages and findings from each of the themes of the symposium. So just to give you a little bit of a rundown of how the session will be held, each presentation will be around a bit over 10, 13 minutes. And I will just kindly remind our speakers to keep to the time so so we can have so we can finish on time. To all our participants, please do not hesitate to write to our speakers directly using the private message option of the chat in the box if needed we I can already see there's a lot of interaction and a lot of questions going on. But now without further ado, I would like to give the floor to Mr. George Brown, who will tell us about theme one of the symposium on the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity. Mr. Brown is a researcher in Brapa Forestry and professor at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil with over 30 years of experience working on discovering soil biodiversity and the role of soil macrofauna and ecosystem processes and services, particularly in agricultural systems, mostly in Latin America. And most recently he as well contributed to the FAO FAO report on on soil biodiversity and happy to say as well that he contributed to the to the initiative on the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity when it was recent when it was initially launched by the convention on on biological diversity. So, thank you very much, Mr. Brown, and please, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. And I will now share my screen. And please let me know if you can see it. All right. Yes, we can see it. Great. So thank you. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues from all over the world. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are. It is my pleasure to be presenting to you today. Synthesis of theme one together with Cynthia Niva, my colleague at in Brapa, and the help of several colleagues from the FAO. We have decided to present to you here. Some of the aspects related to latest discoveries on the taxonomic genetic diversity of soil organisms, some of the main benefits from so about diversity and their activity, the status and trends of the world so about diversity in terms of threats and and and management practices, and this aiming to strengthen the dialogue between the scientific community policymakers and the general public. I'm going to go back and I thank Karidat for opening this and reminding us that much of this work here at the FAO and even this this conference is due to actually initiative that began almost 20 years ago. The international initiative for the conservation and sustainable use of soil diversity it's a cross cutting initiative, a CBD that was established in 2002 at cop six. In the year we organize in Brazil and in Brapa soybean together with the FAO workshop that set up basically the framework for this initiative, which was then approved of a few years later a few years later at cop eight in Brazil in 2006, and then was recently evaluated in and there was reviewed and the review presented at Substa last May in Montreal, and this provides an updated plan of action for the international initiative for the next few years. So, in fact, we've come over the last 20 years a very long way with some really great publications and great synthesis like the European Atlas the global Atlas, several books. And of course, the recently published synthesis in the state of knowledge of so about diversity in December of last year and the summary for policymakers. And for the last 10 years the global cyber diversity initiative has also been very active program promoting publications conferences webinars and and several other activities worldwide. As scientists we know that there are a lot of variables that we need to be studying and and a lot of interactions happening at different scales above and below ground as we look at the different drivers that affects so about diversity and their contribution to ecosystems. And we know that we also have to evaluate those at all sorts of different scales. We know that at the local scale where we at the farm field scale where we do much of our work. And there's, it's quite easy to show the impact of the soil biota nutrient cycling uptake plant growth, pest depression organic matter, supplies and, and regulation and soil structure and and water retention. To go up upscale to the farm level and to the landscape level, there's other variables that need to be taken into consideration, particularly land use practices management, and their impacts on species diversity and their activity. And at the landscape level where we measure the ecosystem services, the regional pools are going to be important and particularly their adaptability and resistance and resilience to to land use changes and to climate changes. So as we go. Stop there. We, we, we have had a lot of scientific progress that has been at various levels, technologically ability to detect and measure and describe this biodiversity has has immensely improved with our next generation sequencing the use of the city of micro micro biomes EDNA. And as we look into gene expression functional aspects related to so biodiversity we can use a transcriptomics. We've seen a huge grain and gain in our computing power machine learning remote sensing tools, and the ability to crunch huge amounts of data with new statistical tools and computers, and, and due to the lack many times of taxonomic expertise, we've seen a wider and wider adoption of proxies of diversity, and these have been really useful when when taxonomists are not available. As we we go into to the beneficial economic aspects aspects we've also seen huge gains in the ability to measure and these ecosystem functions and the value of these services and just I throw in here some figures of the billions of dollars of savings and nitrogen fertilizer by and to fixation with legumes and other crops. We've seen some fantastic country synthesis, not just in the last three days, but in the literature, we've seen some global synthesis for some taxa and some great national and global initiatives for the assessment and monitoring of so about diversity. And just to show an example here of some recent publications, this this map showing the so about diversity in Europe, using six biological attributes and some proxies from soil chemistry for soil function. One of the great examples of good implemented networks that are working in the Netherlands and in a map just for that country based on 11 soil biological attributes. So we've seen some some great country synthesis and some regional synthesis like these and continental in global such as this one that shows that yes we have a lot of data, but sometimes this data is is is very skewed towards particular taxa, whereas some taxa like mites, which have very few sampling sites worldwide and are extremely diverse, still have have to be much more studied so that we can adequately assess impacts of land use changes and the global biodiversity for for these taxa. And we see that as we go into functions. Several functions have been measured but again once again some have been prioritized over others and the same goes for biomass, and we see that, in fact, many times these sampling sites overlap for some of these variables but sometimes they don't, and there's huge gaps that still need to be filled in. So there is still a lot to do, and not just in terms of geographic distribution of our sampling but also taxonomic expertise and and being able to name some of these animals and some of these microbes. And they're because conservation strategies need names you know the red lists need names so that they can be adequately assessed and and their conservation status, particularly if they're endangered can be an actions can be taken. And therefore we need taxonomist you know these are endangered species just like some of these organisms taxonomists are also in danger of extinction many in many cases where they're lacking in many countries and for many taxa. So I mean, not enough monitoring programs so that we know what's happening over time. And, in fact, as I mentioned we have had some progress but not enough in terms of the economic valuation and the quantification of these ecosystem services, so much so that even I had the best report, I had very little information on sort of biodiversity. So we need more integrative collaborative standardized and comparable studies and results worldwide and these will work basically with with establishment of networks and there are some of them quite old, you know, over 20 years, like the so macro funnel network, and which has almost 9,000 sites sampled for so invertebrates worldwide. And we just sent in publication recently which reviews about half of these sites showing biodiversity of the so invertebrates ecosystems. And there's some other networks that are out there like my horizon networks riso biology networks, Lucas, and many others which I didn't have time to include here. I'm sure many of you are familiar with them. Yet, it's important that these networks start to evaluate using the standard methods, many variables, not just for biodiversity but for ecosystem services and functions. This is an example of soil bond in this recently published paper by Carlos Gahan and on collaborators in science, showing soil bond, which is a great initiative, and we hope that this takes off. And yet they are also running into some roadblocks, particularly bureaucratic blockages to to sanding samples and and organisms and soils across different country boundaries so there definitely is some some need for some frameworks to help improve international collaboration and sending of samples and and organisms worldwide. I'd like to finish off with some highlights of the last three days. We've had over 170 presentations, some really wonderful results being presented and some lots of calls to action and challenges to all of us for the future. Definitely these are just highlights. I, I exhort all of you to go in and check the website and look into all the posters and presentations they're all there. There's some really wonderful things in there. I'm just going to highlight five main themes, five main topics that we, we chose from this, this theme one, which have to do there again with the discovery of biodiversity so we've had some great presentations and posters showing many new species of invertebrates of microbes in different countries and and some great synthesis for for countries like just Georgia, Mexico, Colombia, Iran and some regions in Italy and and Spain and Argentina and Bulgaria and other countries, and some understudies organisms, particularly for instance, Enki trades in the large number of new species in South America, and some ground nesting bees you know flying soil organisms you know they're they passed and the part of their time in the soil, yet they're found in in part of their lifetime as well so definitely a niche there for further study and how these animals contribute to ecosystem services and how we what we're doing helps or hinders their populations. We've seen some great examples of technological advances and measurements and traditional indigenous knowledge. We've seen some great results of the soil bio for for Brazil. We've seen soil enzymes soil ions and the chemical kinetics in Japan. Great techniques such as EDNA and meta barcoding and equal plates to look at microbial biodiversity and and and functional importance, and even some simulated dark earths, you know to happen at the end of recent indigenous techniques and their improvement of soil fertility. We've seen some great new techniques showing how to measure ecosystem functions functions and delivery of ecosystem services through the study of bioturbation. So chromatography here with some great images that can be used to show so about diversity farmers traits database Betsy various tools such as the bio funk tool which looks at various variables and integrates biodiversity and ecosystem services impact impacts. And of course, lots of studies on soil market organisms, you know, their beneficial aspects for co inoculation plant growth promoting bacteria, biofilms bio fertilizers micro as a fungeline nitrogen fixers piece solid by this bacteria and these control agents and all of their these agents and their importance in soil health. We've some further examples of tools that QBSS AR using so arthropods in various countries in the world, using invertebrates and microbes as indicators of pesticide use or or ecotoxicology and of land use changes fear scoring functions and and and statistical tools to look at microbial and invertebrates and so properties and plant growth, all in combination. And of course, by observation so highlight hydrology and and impacts on on on soil structure. And we've seen some great initiatives over the last few years in such as the decomposition looking at decomposition using teabags with the network all over the world, several monitoring networks, mainly in Europe, be great to see some of those more opportunities. We have the so health initiative for instance the United States, and a great citizen science initiative in Switzerland showing the use of undergarments as, as indicators for for decomposition and soils. So there, we've seen a lot of things happening a lot of great results and yet still some considerable challenges for the future, and this. I just like show and here with this slide, showing some of the, the issues that have to do with the theme to and theme three as we go into actually promoting the conservation sustainable management that use of the soil biota. So that they start to get integrated into red lists, and these very under representative organisms are practically absent from these lists. And as we see increasing use of urban, urban soils and urban agriculture organic agriculture and conservation agriculture across the world. There's several issues of how to incorporate so by diversity and the services of these animals and organisms, microorganisms into these systems. And of course, assessment of land use and climate change impacts on both soil biodiversity and ecosystem services. So I'd like to end there and once again say, thank you for your attention, thank you for this invitation those colleagues who helped us, the funding institutions and our own institutions for for providing all their support. So, thank you once again. Thank you. Thank you very much, George. And it is really for this really excellent presentation and for reminding us as well, and highlighting the importance that there has been progress but there are still gaps, especially around taxonomic expertise and gaps graphically but also the importance of networks and and standardizing methods and really capturing these five, these five themes where where we can already see that the emerging outcomes of of these discussions, and also the the mentioning of the initiative on soil biodiversity is that will be discussed and hopefully adopted by the next conference of the parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. So now I would like to to invite me is Zoe Linda, who is a tenure professor, professor and faculty scholar of the Department of Biology at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. And Dr Linda's research explores the links between soil biodiversity and ecosystem level processes such as the composition and carbon storage and has worked extensively in in forested and peatland ecosystems to understand the impacts of global environmental change in soil systems. So, so we saw his presentation will focus on theme to soil biodiversity in action, and I hand over to you so you please you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. Welcome everybody. Just give me one second here. So soils contain one quarter of the world's biodiversity, and they perform critical functions such as nutrient cycling and carbon storage. However, soil systems are being subjected to the stress of global environmental change, and indeed the numerous threats that are impacting genetic taxonomic and functional diversity and many soil systems are causing non random changes in illustration, the provisioning of food, fiber and fuel and cascading biodiversity losses. There's no doubt that the consequences of ignoring soil biodiversity have caught up with us. So where do we go from here. So, so we do aims to review the role and the application of soil biodiversity in the field and explore the effective methodologies technologies techniques and practices that promote the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity. So the presentations that are in theme two of this global symposium, provide a way forward to upscale those sustainable approaches, such that we can improve by productivity, accelerate biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of its resources, as well as guarantee equitable participation in predictive landscapes. The presentations in theme to address several key questions and provide important information that will help us reach these goals. The second question addresses understanding the main drivers of soil biodiversity loss and the ecosystem level consequences of loss. The second question how do the losses vary across environments, and the third can loss of soil biodiversity be reversed. The drivers of soil biodiversity are similar to the drivers of biodiversity loss and above ground systems. This includes intensive and industrial agricultural practices, and often subsequent conversion of agricultural lands to urbanization. There's intensive and industrial resource extraction so for example mining but also forestry that can lead to the pollution of our soils. The most well known are the consequences of multiple climate change factors, but these industrial practices affect soil biodiversity through physical chemical and biological mechanisms. And as such, the losses of soil biodiversity are somewhat predictable across different environments. Physical disturbance, for example, disrupts fungal networks, it alters soil pore spaces where the organism leads live, and this leads to changes in soil food web dynamics. Some of the predictable changes that we see across many different types of disturbances include fungal abundance and diversity tends to decrease. This shifts the microbial dominance towards bacterial communities, and we also know that slow growing longer live arthropods like orabatic mites tend to decrease in favor of faster reproducing species, as well larger bodied arthropods and some of our top soil predators tend to be lost. The absolute pattern of these losses however do depend on the physical and chemical soil variables, such as soil moisture nutrient availability and pH just to name a few. The response of soil biodiversity can vary across different ecosystems. The big question though is whether and how soil biodiversity loss can be reversed. Land degradation encompasses many threats to soil biodiversity, and I think the action is clear. Avoid the drivers of loss where we can reduce the drivers of loss where we can, and in doing so we can start the process of reversing the loss of soil biodiversity. The question isn't, can we reverse these losses, but how can we reverse these losses. So several presentations spoke to organic amendments and these images here are from presentations by Ortega and Kumar. So for instance, adding compost manure and other organic sources to soils that lack or depleted in soil organic carbon helps to maintain moisture, it provides habitat and structure, as well as nutrients for soil biodiversity. At the same time, we can inoculate the soils directly with soil biodiversity. And this leads to our next core question. Given the prevalence of industrial intensive agricultural practices across most the globe and the need for sustainable food security, how can soil biodiversity support the transformation of agricultural systems towards achieving sustainable intensification. Many of the presentations in the past two days spoke to this question, and they provide clear and scientific results that suggest the way forward. The link between soil biodiversity and the primary soil functions of carbon transformation, nutrient cycling and soil structure that are required for plant productivity are clear. In our goals to reconcile high food yields that are associated with high intensity agriculture with agricultural practices that protect and promote soil biodiversity. The recommendations are also clear. No or minimum till practices that minimize soil physical disturbance, enter and multi cropping systems that provide more diverse food production and enhance plant soil biotic interactions and prevent soil erosion. There's also organic amendments that enhance soil carbon, help retain moisture and our reservoir for nutrients, as well as biological inoculants that act as bio fertilizers. Alternatively, studies across different levels of complexity like the study that we saw by Bender at all provide compelling evidence that soil biodiversity can directly support agricultural production and environmental integrity. Given this, what are the most effective knowledge sharing and capacity building approaches to raise awareness on the better use of soil biodiversity into agricultural practices. We all suggest that effective communication strategies like the soil your undies citizen science initiative are needed to successfully transfer scientific research results to stakeholders, such as policymakers, farmers and the general population. As mentioned by Yoshi and Sharma, they demonstrated how participatory learning actions and initiatives can reinvigorate more traditional practices and innovations that may actually be more cost effective as well as sustainable. But the successful use of scientific knowledge by farmers relies on transforming scientific findings into easy to understand information and readily available tools. So add that open access to information and global data repositories alongside accessible education programs are important components of this knowledge sharing. And together, these actions themselves may actually provide new opportunities for employment to people who span boundaries between science and policy science and education and science and industry. Moving to the next question, what are the current successful methodologies techniques technologies and practices in place to promote soil biodiversity conservation. We have many tools for assessing soil biodiversity that can monitor and therefore promote conservation. The challenge may in fact be that we have too many options. Many different tools exist from deep sequencing that can be expensive and generates large amounts of data to simpler, faster, more cost effective tools such as enzyme essays and visual assessments for microbial biomass and their ratios. There's also the use of gene markers for specific functions such as carbon cycling and aggregation. And these are being used for instance by the USDA to examine what was referred to as the ghost of soil management management past. At the same time, we still need appropriate species level by indicators to observe and monitor how well the system is operating nematodes soil arthropods and earthworms are some of the common ones. We do need to use the appropriate methodologies for the system and the question that will be that we're asking, as well as the appropriate statistical tools for the data. But with increased collaborations, open access databases and global repositories. This is making it easier every day. The second part of this question, however, is how can we upscale biodiversity based solutions and other sustainable approaches and similar to question two for achieving sustainable and productive agriculture. So about diversity can accelerate or facilitate soil restoration in disturbed and contaminated areas. We had several good talks exploring the effects of organic amendments, biological inoculants and keystone fauna effects on mining disturbed sites sites that were contaminated by heavy metals and degraded pasture lands. So organic amendments such as biochar can enhance root growth for bio remediation and heavy metal contaminated sites, especially when they're inoculated with things like and fixing bacteria. Biological inoculants and bio augmentation can improve soil microbial biodiversity and revegetation, as well as soil stabilization and co introductions particularly of native mycorrhizal fungi and native plant species can also accelerate restoration. While the biological activity of fauna themselves contribute to soil structure through biogenic soil aggregates that can retain nutrients as well as carbon. That said, restoration takes time, and we have to be prepared for some changes in the biological community to remain unrestored. My last two slides and questions today are relatively understudied but none the less important questions that we need to address in future studies. The first is how can soil biodiversity support the one health approach. One health is an approach that recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to our shared environment. One health is closely linked to the concepts of ecosystem services that are of course underpinned by biodiversity. So bio biodiversity has a direct impact on our health by boosting nutrient content ever food, protecting us from foodborne illnesses and modulating our immune response. Definitely the provisioning of nutrient rich plants and clean water for consumption is directly linked to the quality of the soil system and our ability to produce sustainable agricultural crops. And they support the sustainable development goals for no poverty, zero hunger and clean water. So about diversity also underpins many supporting and regulating ecosystem services like soil formation and the prevention of erosion, climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration and pest management. And this facilitates the sustainable cities and communities where access to clean air and water improves human health. We also know that cultural ecosystem services, such as a sense of place or aesthetic relief or or inspiration, as well as having good social relationships and security can reduce stress and improve human health. And finally soils hold potential for combating antimicrobial resistance and fungicide herbicide insecticide resistance as well. And this brings me to my final slide in question regarding the complexities and interconnectedness of the soil. Given the complexities of soil systems, the high diversity and plethora of indirect effects among soil food web members, how do we deal with and best understand this complexity. There's much evidence to suggest that this complexity and interconnectedness is important for emerging ecosystem properties like stability and soil health that link to human health. Understanding this interconnectedness will also help us predict what was referred to as the victories and defeats as as Maria Briones calls them that are inherent in bioregulation. We also know that any single species may contribute to multiple ecosystem functions, and that numerous species likely contribute to any given function, and this is the concept of multifunctionality. However, there's still relatively little published work on how soil organisms regulate fundamental ecosystem processes functions and services, despite this emerging evidence. Finally, how do we best address interactions among multiple environmental stressors. The recent work of really at all suggests that so processes properties and communities are actually poorly predicted by examining single effect responses, and this is because we lack a holistic knowledge on the complex interactions such as representations and indirect effects that occur in soils. That said, I'm delighted that the importance, as well as the beauty and the complexity of soil biodiversity is being recognized, and the incredible presentations presented at this symposium signal a ground swell that will shape government policy provides sustainable methodologies, and does promise equitable participation in productive landscapes. I thank you for your attention. Thank you so you thank you so much for this excellent presentation and this very structured way of taking us through from the drivers of soil biodiversity and how to avoid reduce but how to reverse these drivers when when there's no other option, and all the concept of the one health and the complexity so soil biodiversity and as you rightly put it the beauty of these complexities and the importance as well for for sustainable intensification of agricultural system so thank you so much for this excellent presentation. So, um, finally, and last but not least, it is an honor for me to introduce Mr Rosa, Miss, sorry Rosa Poc, who is chair of the intergovernmental technical panel on soils of the FAO Global Soil Partnership. And Miss Rosa Poc will close this session this plenary with presentation on theme three soil biodiversity shaping the future of food systems. I think, Rosa, if you allow me you this needs little introduction but I'm just going to say a few lines about her impressive career and her background. She's an agricultural engineer and professor of soil science at the University of Leyda and with extensive experience in in areas such as soil genesis and micro morphology she has been chaired of the I us commission and co authored the soil chapter of three climate and has much changed reports of Catalonia mine amongst many, many others. So, Rosa, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much for giving me the floor, and, well, when advantage of being the last one presenting today is that many of the things I'm going to show. So presenting my slides have already been set, but I hope I will be able to show them in the scope of applying them to soil policy which is, in fact, the theme of, well, the subject of three. The theme three in the original formulation of this symposium was set to discuss legislation policies international frameworks and financial mechanisms to mainstreaming soil biodiversity across government and society reducing the direct pressures and promoting sustainable views and improving the status of soil biodiversity. So it's the big gap between science and policy and it is very difficult for us because we are scientists and we do not have the focus or the or the power or the sometimes we miss some aspects that the difficulties to put our ideas and our recommendations in practice. Well, in fact this graph has been already shown by George but I want to use it to illustrate that the policies applied to climate agriculture and forestry and nature conservation, the management of these sectors should be should be ruled by several indicators that are directly related to soil biodiversity indeed. And then you have here the essential biodiversity variables that should be used to measure these indicators or to build these indicators. In this theme. We have had 31 excellent photo presentations and 14 posters but in fact the posters are the kind of cross cutting. Well fall in the in the other in the other things as well. And since some policies, as I said the cross cutting subject. I have used also ideas and presentations of the other themes. Okay, then the core questions well I have used several drawings and pictures of the of the nice books on the on the world's digital context of the children books. I think that they illustrate very well all the ideas I'm going to show. So the first core questions of a core question of this team would be what are the contributions of soil biodiversity to implement policies, facing key sustainable challenges and to support countries to achieve sustainable development goals and other global commitments. Well, in fact the contributions are already already known but in this symposium the other contributions have shown indeed that soil biodiversity for food production act in three ways that have been illustrated already in previous talks. One part is improving fertilizers for the fertility of soils, either by by making the nutrients more available, or improving plant resistance against water stress, or well through the application of bio fertilizers that improve also the fertility of soils. Then there is another aspect that is the pathogen control, the use of soil biodiversity or the management of soil biodiversity to find against pests. Also against soil pollution, there has been several presentations dealing with degradation of pesticides. And also very interesting presentations on, for instance, the influence of wood biodiversity on soils on post harvest quality of some of some products. All this has been perfectly illustrated so more or less the mechanisms and the methods are known so our challenge is how to use these methodologies to convince the politicians and the decision makers to formulate policies to make these methods being applied easily. There has been several presentations also dealing with the positive effect of bio fertilization and organic fertilization on soil biodiversity as well as in general sustainable management practices that in general favor biodiversity. And on the contrary, some non sustainable management practices as general application of pesticides, intensive agriculture, changing land use, some land use changes that adversely affect soil biodiversity. And also very interesting to show that even after several years of having applied pesticides or having degraded the soil, soil biodiversity has memory and does not recover immediately. So the recovering is in some cases in the mid or long term. So these things have to be taken into account when formulating policies. Well, and I wanted also to stress that this is not in some cases it is not as clear as that so it depends also on on the combination of practices and some of these methods are site specific. So we need to know how the ecosystem works to recommend some of these practices. Well, the second question would be how to include these practices and how to convince the politicians to include the biodiversity in, in the, in, in the, in the policies. And in different sectors as land tenure, tenure or landscape management or ecosystem gravitation for security and nutrition, and also to involve small holders and family farmers in the sectors of public health and forestry as well. So I wanted here to remember our first session the first days on the key notes of several companies that demonstrate that some biodiversity friendly policies and programs can be introduced. There has been several, several presentations, stressing the role of the social awareness on soil and soil biodiversity promotion. This is difficult already in the field of soils, so even more in the field of soil biodiversity. So I think that it's a problem we all scientists are aware of, of how to include soils as a friendly concept to the society. So this is, I think that of, of very high importance, and is a previous factor that we have to include in any, any formulation of policies. It has been said also in previous talks, the important role that urban and urban agriculture may have in promoting soil biodiversity. Cities are not special, good places, fiber of places for soil biodiversity, but given the advantages that urban and urban agriculture have in other social aspects, I think that it's very important to include them, include biodiversity in this, in this field. Also the importance of demonstration plots. People understand what people see. So if we demonstrate the effectiveness of some of these methods and practices, we have a halfway done. Participatory work, it's a must. So to have social approval and social acceptance, you must include all the decision makers and stakeholders in the process of formulating them. Also, I will show some examples of how to use existing policies to introduce biodiversity indices and indicators. And also, I will also show some examples of the need of quality control for bio fertilizers, and for some products that are not standardized and without this standardization, it will be very difficult to introduce some practices into the policies. So what I'm going to do is I have chosen several of the presentations to illustrate these aspects. They are not the best ones, because I have seen, I have said that all of them are good. Yeah, so you should not take them as the thinking that the others are not good, but just to illustrate some of these aspects. Well, in fact, I think that these presentations, this presentation on bio fertilizers in India by Ashok Patra and the authors is the one that most comprehensively is showing one example of how bio fertilization can be can be promoted country-wide, so in the whole country, by a combined strategy. So the Indian government has introduced schemes to scale up the use of bio fertilizers from the beginning from the formulation of the bio fertilizers itself to establishment of plots and to extension to farmers. And, well, as shortcomings or problems in introducing the bio fertilizers, it was said that awareness has to be even more increased, and that it is very important, as I said before, the quality control and the standardization of the process of making the bio fertilizers and also of the all the process after making them so focus research on improving the shelf life of the bio inoculants, delivery storage and quality control are needed. Another example would be the agro environmental policy for the protection of soil biodiversity in Cuba. In this case, these policies in the frame of the Voluntary Guidelines and Soil Sustainable Management and biodiversity was introduced through strength, weaknesses, opportunities and faith analysis that allow to establish demonstration areas for soil water and forest conservation where these different parameters including some ecological and biological variables are tested. And also as always in these formulations that traditional knowledge and participatory formulation and research here was applied. And, well, this is one of the examples of the use of urban and per urban agriculture for the promotion of soil biodiversity in cities. So, promotion of soil biodiversity that must be seen as another factor that can be used in front of the politicians, besides other environmental benefits that these practices provide. Well, it has been also mentioned before in the in the previous team, but here I wanted to stress that this index of this indicator based on counting and identifying micro arthropods as a quality index for soils has been introduced or incorporated in the regional monitoring network funded by the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. So, these biodiversity index can be introduced in an existing policy. I wanted also to stress that nowadays in the European community with the Green Deal project, it is being built so now it is the moment to introduce the indicators we want in particular if it is possible biological indicators to monitor the quality of the soil in Europe. So, I don't think we have to wait that these indicators are asked for, but I think that we should be proactive and try to incorporate them in the in the forum that are debating now in the building of the monitoring networks and so on. I also wanted to point out or to indicate this, this soil quality index that takes into account on sociological succession, interaction minerals from the other through also an holistic approach. So, these factors have also have always to be together. Two more examples, one of these multilateral evaluation of our ecological practices, including the agronomic performance and farmer perception in Madagascar with with extensive coverage of all the island setting different soil management practices in different areas. So, these kinds of experiences I think that they are very useful for creating awareness and promoting the application of the formulation of policies. And, well, I want to finish, I don't know if I have more, but I wanted to finish the examples with this, with this communication with this presentation on perception of soil microfauna in Brazil. So it deals with the awareness of people about the value of soil bioma. And it is very interesting to see that the perception of the people is is mostly bad so most of the microfauna is perceived as best not beneficial. And this perception, this perception is even worse when the in the regions where the good practices are not applied widely. Well, the third core question of this of the theme was what are the economic incentives subsidies and financial mechanisms that could support some biodiversity and sustainable production can be can they be supported and how the problem is that there are no presentations on these on these aspects. I'm sure that some experiences and some, some cases in the world that they have not been shown here in this in this symposium. It is, of course, related to the first to my first slide, because so we have scientists we are, or there are very few economists among us, or politicians. But, for instance, the only example I have seen I have, I have And that is related to these to these her question would be the case of the promotion of bio fertilizers in India where the government subsidizes the process of making the of making the bio fertilizers, the network of labs to ensure the quality control and also subsidies to the farmers that apply these bio fertilizers. As I said before, this is our challenge now. So the, the conclusions, the conclusions. Well, I also have chosen several of several aspects that I find that are important to keep in mind as they home messages. One of them is that comprehensive and realistic approaches through participatory strategies to increase awareness are needed when formulating actions to promote soil biodiversity. We are always thinking the connection between soil health, plant health and human health so we should not restrict the biodiversity or including or mainstreaming biodiversity of soils in agricultural or forestry policies, for instance. But we should look at other fields of plant and human health where bio soil biodiversity is important, it has been demonstrated in this symposium. Another aspect that has been pointed out before also is the need of continued research in diamond space. Yeah. As you have noticed, I suppose that in the many maps of the world that we have been shown pointing some experiences or networks or or monitoring plots. There are some geographical gaps. Now, in particular, I think that there is a big gap in Africa that are in other places, but I think that without knowledge without research, it's impossible to formulate any, any, any policy saying we are going here or there. We don't know the status of and the dynamics of our systems. It will be very difficult to to convince people to deal with them. And other aspect is the need to evaluate organic residues and bio fertilizers in the frame of circular economy. So standardization and quality control is needed. Otherwise, we cannot ensure what is the response of your soil and your system to this product or this practice. Yeah, some so some standardization is needed. Another message would be that we have seen that the introduction of biological indices in existing monitoring the protein and verification mechanisms in sustainable soil management in general is feasible and prove successful in some cases. So it is possible to include them as a quality index for our source. And another one would be that, well, we need to formulate proposals of financial instruments to incentivize soil diversity protection and promotion. This is maybe the big gap in the in the participation in this in this imposition that we have seen that very few communications deal with this. So, yeah, I think that that's all I wanted to take these occasions to thank all the organizers to the first step that has been wonderful organized meeting to all the participants for their very high quality presentations and research and thank you all for your attention. That's all kind of that. Thank you. Thank you so much for this excellent presentation as well you've taken us as well from the importance of of linking science and policy and then through very concrete examples from biofiber bio fertilizers in in India way all the way through urban and gardens and to Brazil and the perceptions of soil macro fauna and then to to this important gap on financial instruments so again really capturing those elements of the discussions that are coming through. And with these three excellent presentations, we are now wrapping up these sessions dear participants and I would just like to to wrap up again thanking our speakers. Thank you for for being so active in in the chat and maybe just with very quick three takeaways from from my part. We have heard that the three main topics of of of the symposium, and the first one I would say we recognize that progress has been made and we've heard about the scientific discoveries that that have been presented already but gaps still remain especially geographically. We've heard about the complexities of and how these are important as well and an important as well to recognize the linkages of health for the for the ecosystems but also health for for for people and planets. Again, the importance of how science can can inform policy. So, thank you again dear participants from the Secretary of the Convention on biological diversity this symposium and the collaboration with FAO is extremely important and it is a real and concrete example as well of how science is informing policy we're looking forward to discussing and to the adoption of the new in not new but renewed initiative on on the conservation and and sustainable use of soil by biodiversity and we very much look forward to continuing this collaboration. And I think, again, the organizers for for having the CBD the convention and I hand over now, I can see me, so middle in the screen. So thank you very much and all the best for this last session of this symposium. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope that you can hear me. Ladies and gentlemen colleagues. My name is Eduardo Mansoor and the director of the Office of climate change by diversity and environment here in FAO in Rome. Good morning for those on the East. Good afternoon for those in our time zone. Good afternoon for those on the West. And good evening for those in the East of us. We are arriving at the closing session of this symposia. So your excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure to welcome you. A large number. About 1700 people on the zoom about we estimate we don't have precise but about 1500 on the on the web stream. So we had no days in this symposium since Monday with less than 3000 attendance, very impressive. And it's overwhelming for us. I'm moderating the session. And, you know that we repeated throughout the day 22 April is the international mother Earth Day, especially for those from South America like me. We know the importance we attribute to our Pacha mama. And this global this feeling of the Pacha mama today is global. So happy mother Earth Day, everyone. So we move then to the session of conclusion of this symposium, which is going to be brief. We will have an artist presentation. We will have the conclusions presented by the secretary of the global soil partnership. Dr. Ronald Vargas, and the closing remarks, we are very honored to have here with us. And by already attending the session. Madame Maria Elena Semedo, the deputy director general of the food and agriculture organization of United Nations affair. So, I'm also thrilled with the fact that we arrived to our fourth global symposium since the approval of the, the state of the word soils the launching of the document in 26 2016 every year. We organized one symposium to dip dive in each one of the 10 major tracks to soil health that have been identified in the, in the state of word soils for food and agriculture. In 2017 we had the soil organic carbon symposium in the 2018 we had the soil pollution in the 2019. We had the soil erosion and we are planning to have the soil biodiversity 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had to delay it. This turn it into we are here now we are concluding it and turn it into a very special event because you can't imagine how many emails are received from from all over the world hundreds of mail of people very grateful for the digital format of this because they said they could finally attend a global meeting without having to fight for getting money to travel. And this is remarkably positive if we can look at least one aspect positive it is very tragic a pandemic that the world is living through. And that is this new reality, the new virtual reality that motivates us to, to, to move ahead, and we have learned a lot through throughout the day. I think all of you, looking at what we have in hands now, the state of word biodiversity soil biodiversity, a thick volume, but also all the information that we had here we learned a lot. Let's let's start our closing session with a refreshing video that presents the work of an artist that's here with us so that same from the Netherlands. So that we introduce us the mysterious and hidden word of micro riso, micro riso you say in English right fungal network. The project is called a super organism and was developed in collaboration with Nadia Sudzilovskaya as well as scientists and the professor at Hassel University in Belgium, and also Leiden University in the Netherlands. The PhD students participated and I am as excited as you are to see the video of Suzanne and Nadia that will be shown to us. Please. Almost all plants on earth live in collaboration with fungi that are connected to their roots. This collaboration is called mycorrhiza. The mycorrhizal fungal network is the largest living system that ever existed on earth and plays a crucial role in ecosystems, carbon storage, as well as our very existence. Commonly described as the internet or the brain of the forest, almost all plants are connected through this below ground fungal network. Often referred to as a form of communication, plants trade carbon with the fungal network, improving access to nutrients, minerals and water. More than half of the carbon processed by plants during photosynthesis passes through mycorrhiza and is stored in soil. This ancient symbiosis between plants and fungi is threatened by human activities such as the use of fertilizers and pesticides, deforestation and change in land use. We cannot feel, see nor hear the fungal network. It could even seem that it doesn't exist, while actually it's important to humanity as we cannot live without it. That is why I started this multimedia project in which I make mycorrhiza tangible, visible, hearable and smellable. This project aims to connect us to this hidden network and stimulate empathy by exploring it using all our senses. Many, many thanks, Suzette Guzema, for sharing with us your marvelous and unique work and experience. The link to the bio of the artist is also being shared by my colleagues in the chat. So do not hesitate to contact her through the chat or by email if you want more information about this beautiful video that has been presented to us. And now before passing to Ronald Vargas, the Secretary of the Global Soil Partnership for the impressive closure, you're going to be impressed by the numbers that he's going to show us. I have the privilege to announce the winners of the poster competition. We had a poster competition since Monday. The poster exhibition is available online on the symposium website. It was open to public voting. I would like to ask my colleagues to put the link of the public voting online. The webpage featured over 50 scientific posters presenting the latest research on soil by diversity and let us congratulate all of the authors involved in creating these posters and filming their video presentations. And according to the symposium website, I'm honored to announce the five winners of the poster competition, which came by vote. And the first one is biodiverse for our muscular mycorrhiza and chemical properties in soils of the Colombian Poffee zone. It's from Marta Marina Bolaños, Benavides and others from AgroSavia and had a 10085 votes. The second one is Fungal Community, assembly in soils of different crops farming in North Argentina from Octivero and others from Argentina who received 817 votes. This is based on between soil by diversity at Rio da Garça and Ribeirão Arrependido. It's a preserved watershed from Osvaldo, Júlio, Fisque, Filho and others from Unicamp, the University of Campinas in Brazil, got 764 votes. And there might diversity of the Colombian Amazon soil from Clarapena, Venegas and others of the Instituto Amazônico de Investigaciones Científicas in Colombia got the fourth position with 530 votes. And the fifth position was the effect of ferry ring fungi on top soils, micromorphology in Pyrenean grasslands from Lourdes, Salazar and others of the University of Leida in Spain with a total of 293 votes. We got more than 8000 votes. So very, very impressive. This new system also that allowed us to have the voting for the posters. Congratulations to the authors and my colleagues, Zabel Verdeck, who will contact them for sending the prize which consists of the GSobi kit. The kit is composed of shoppers, soil related publications and material and the report of the state of word soil by diversity in hard copy. So it's very symbolic, but we are very honored to have this system. It's now time to move to the very last presentation of the symposium. Allow me to invite Dr. Ronald Vargas, the secretary of the fall global soil partnership to present the conclusions of the symposium and what it will lead us to. Ronald, you have the floor. Thank you very much Eduardo. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to everyone. All the participants that are still there. So I will go straight to share with you the conclusions and the way forward of this symposium. As you know, all the symposiums we organize are target oriented. It means that they don't end here. Instead, it is just the beginning. So Eduardo already mentioned, COVID really gave us a lot of headache because we had to postpone many times the symposium but a problem always gives you an opportunity and this virtual symposium, which was the first time we organized it as such, was a very challenging, let's say, effort. But I think it was worth because, well, we also contributed because we reduced the carbon footprint, nobody had to travel, etc. It was far cheaper. It was definitely, it was very much inclusive because we could have 161 countries represented and look at the number of participants that were in every day. So we are really proud and happy that we had all of you really joining this symposium. And if we see the regions that were represented, luckily all regions were there. And as compared to other symposiums, the trend of having people in Europe was less and now you have almost all regions represented at least three equally. So that's very important for us. Talking about gender balance, you can see that in this topic particularly because in social sciences challenging, but in this one, we have great balance between the two. And very importantly, we have a diverse participation, not only for research and academia because that's the main science behind, but as you can see we had private sector, we have also farmer representatives, we had NGOs, the UN and private sector. We need to work with them. We cannot ignore them. They are also doing and we show that. So this is very important because we need to work together and try to address all the problems like that. Well, during the four days we had always plenaries starting with good keynotes and we hope that you enjoy it. We try to go to a variety of topics and also people and definitely it was dynamic, not as interactive maybe as it could be when you are present, but okay, we need to take the best of this opportunity. In total, we had eight hours of plenary sessions. We have more than 250 scientific abstract submitted that we had to, of course, with our scientific committee select all the most representative ones, posters, 24 hours of plenary sessions. And we have also tried to go beyond our social science community because that's very important. We need to bring social science to non-social scientists. We need to start from children and youth because they are the future and that's why the launch of the children book is very important for us and always trying to combine soils with art is a very important way of reaching the public and showing the beauty behind this natural resource. Something very important. We need to be in the news. We need to go beyond our circle because otherwise all the great work you do in terms of science is not used or is not really reaching the policy dimension. And that's why we always pay a lot of attention in trying to have a press release that then can trigger reaction but by main newspapers, journals, etc. And as you can see, there has been quite good coverage of this event, meaning that now people can understand what at least, or they heard what is sold by your diversity. But what are the findings and conclusions? Well, there have been excellent presentations before me by the three teams and I just tried to get all of them together. So yes, there is notable progress on soil biodiversity, particularly when talking about soil science. And there has been a number of global regional and national initiatives that are doing quite good work. Nowadays, we have greater computing power to process modeling, but we have machine learning, bio augmentation, artificial intelligence, etc. We have molecular tools to describe a non-biodiversity. We have the establishment of some processes for soil biodiversity, growing awareness on the value of ecosystem services provided by soil science, soil biodiversity. Multiple stakeholders trying to address this issue, not only academia and the UN, etc. and every government, but also private sector as you could witness. We've seen also new approaches like syntropic farming, cynical culture that are aimed to reduce agrochemical inputs, and overall, very importantly, the recognition that soil is alive. That's why we talk about soil health. And this is especially important today that we celebrate International Day of Mother Earth Pachamama because that's exactly why it is alive. But still, there are gaps and challenges. And we should be clear that soil biodiversity needs to be recognized on the sustainable development agendas, including the post-2020 biodiversity agenda. And there is a very important topic that we need to address, targets and indicators. And I know that for soil science, that is painful. Soil biodiversity should move from research to full application and not only in agriculture in all sectors, and we need to scale up investment. Most biota remains unknown and unnamed. And there has been some suggestions why we don't have a list of red species in terms of soil biodiversity. Lack of soil biodiversity data and information, especially in some regions, there is a geographic imbalance, standard protocols for data collection, soil information systems and soil surveys do not really include fully soil biodiversity. And secondly, we need to enhance capacities, human capacities in many countries around the world, especially new methods, technologies, tools, in order to move forward together. And a particular case was the taxonomy incentives or payments for ecosystem services provided by soil should be recognized and established and we should really advocate for that. And restoration should include soil biodiversity and soil health because it's where we start. Bioremediation should be a scale up because now we are facing with a lot of soil pollution. We need to invest on research, especially in soil-borne diseases because the solution is there. You saw that we have bad and good organisms there. So the solution is there. And we need to scale it up to all the agricultural sector. And of course, we're talking about climate change. We talk about soil health, but that should be downstream in this one health approach as soil plan environment and human health cannot be separated, and we should not forget the issue of microbiome and AMIR. When we say soil biodiversity is scarce, I give you an example. We have the guidelines for soil description and in there, and that's from FAO and is used widely. When we go to biological activity, you will see that we count roots and maybe if there are earthworms and ants. Do you think that's enough to talk about all the biodiversity that we have been talking all these four days? And also when we have soil information systems, global or national ones, is soil biodiversity included? That's not really the case. So we really need to fill that gap. In the global soil laboratory network that we have with more than 680 soil laboratories, you can see how much of the laboratories from these laboratories in 150 countries perform soil biological analysis. Very few. And we want to populate soil biodiversity data. Are we ready? What do we need to do for really breaking this gap? I know that when we talk about indicators, it's always a challenge. But you know, we face this in our case because we had established a protocol in order to see the compliance of the voluntary guidance for sustainable soil management. And with countries, we have been trying to negotiate for three years which are indicators. And you can see there the recommended set of indicators. And luckily there we have soil biological activity, respiration rate. However, the discussion is still with scientists is huge because not all agree that respiration rate represents really soil biological activity, etc. So it's a non-ending discussion. But then we have an opportunity because currently there is a global biodiversity framework post 2020 that the Convention on Biological Diversity and its members is discussing. And we have tried to advocate for including soil biodiversity and they tell us, okay, what are the targets and indicators you want to include? And that's where we get with the bottleneck. So what is our key message here? In soil science, in soil biodiversity, I know we always try to get the best, but sometimes we need to compromise because we can lose a huge opportunity. And then soil biodiversity will be always in this framework of organizing, meeting science, etc., but not having an opportunity for action. And that should be really something we need to take into account. I heard a lot about this, how to bring science into policy. So we have been developing a sort of soft normative tools like the Voluntary Guidance for Sustainable Soil Management, the Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers. What is the compliance with this? It's not mandatory, but we are trying to advocate and we know that this is happening slowly but it is. So we should be really trying to associate this. And we need to integrate. Very soon we will be launching the global assessment of soil pollution. So soil biodiversity, soil pollution and all should be integrated because at the end we need to manage the following an integrated approach. And we should not leave governance and legislation behind. What is the concrete way forward out of this impossible? Well, first of all, we need to see that we are not trying to address, because we are the food and agriculture organization. We are not only focusing on food security and food safety, but as you can see, soil biodiversity offers us many potentialities and we want to address them all. Okay. And this week has been the case because you have seen all type of cases and applications. Well, we don't start from zero. There is a lot of happenings already in terms of institutional framework and you have heard about some of this. We started with the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas. We have an initiative. We have Solvon. We produce the state of knowledge of soil biodiversity. The countries are discussing the new biodiversity framework and we have this international initiative for the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity. Okay, so that's our framework and we need to really harvest it. What are concrete steps? We will continue advocating and raising awareness of the importance of soil biodiversity at all levels. We together will prepare the outcome document, keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity, and this is really like our way forward. In that document, we will have the actions that need to be implemented, but together otherwise it will not work. We will prepare proceedings of this imposition and then we need to join forces to execute the implementation plan of the international initiative for the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity, that hopefully will be endorsed by countries during the upcoming COP that will be held in China. That will help us also to mobilize resources because we need to enhance investment on this. Then we need to establish a global soil biodiversity observatory because we have been talking about need for having harmonization in terms of protocols for measuring, for mapping, etc. But also for monitoring. So we need such an observatory and we need to have you all of you. We have how many scientists, people, practitioners, etc. We want to continue working with you and for that we would like to establish this technical network on soil biodiversity and it doesn't mean that we will avoid or we will forget all the work that it has been done so far. No, it doesn't mean this. So we, our core objective is to execute that implementation plan of this international initiative because it will be endorsed by all countries in the CBD and the outcome document that we will finalize together. By implementing these two by establishing these two arms the observatory and the network, we will be able to have all colleagues, not only scientists but also private sector civil society NGOs coming together in order to execute and implement these activities. And we will start from all the work that we have been witnessing all this week. So we will start from zero and we will not forget anyone. So we really invite you to join us in all this because we want to make a change. Many of you have been saying that in the chat. So the opportunity is here. I hope we will count with you. And with this I, I come to the end of my presentation and I want to thank you all for your active participation all the speakers, but also my colleague in the secretariat who have been working very hard to make this happen. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much, Ronald and that big round of applause, a virtual applause for you for into the global soil partnership colleagues also for our partners in CBD in the global soil by diverse initiative in the UNCCD SPI. All those who contributed to make sure that the symposium reached this level. And now, ladies and gentlemen, your Excellencies colleagues, it's my honor to invite Madame Maria Elena Semedo, the Deputy Director General of FAIO for the closing remarks of the global symposium on soil biodiversity. Madame Semedo, the floor is yours. Thank you thank you very much, good morning good afternoon, Good morning, Good morning, good afternoon. are these excellencies, distinguished guests, dear participants, colleagues, friends, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to greet you at the closer of this symposium. We have reached the end of this marathon as Vargas has said Eduardo, all the other presenters, including the last plenary which set out the way forward beyond the global symposium on soil biodiversity. Today, as it has already been said, we celebrate International Day of Mother Earth, a strong global call to protect our planet. This means we must protect our soils from the gradation which begins with sustainably managing our soil biodiversity. Our symposium originally scheduled for March 2020 was postponed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we managed to adapt to a new reality. And even if this format does not allow us as much informal exchange as face-to-face events, it has allowed an impressive number of participants. Over 5,000 people have connected in this four-day event. And as it has also been said, is the positive side of the useful format. It provides better geographic participation, gender balance, and a multistakeholder biodiversity. Indeed, this webinar has made so many connections possible and expanded, I'm sure, even more the soil community and its outreach. I would like to recognize all the hard work undertaken by the Global Soil Partnership team and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soil who have been closely collaborating with the CBD, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative, and the Science Policy Interface of the NCCD to make this meeting a great success. I would also like to thank our donors, the European Commission, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, as well as the Netherlands, thanks to all of you. Finally, I would like to thank all the keynote speakers, the panelists, the moderators, the authors, the artists who brought a special touch to the event, linking art to science, FAO colleagues, maybe allow me to send a big thank you to Honol Vargas. And I know, coming from a very difficult situation, he was able to successfully manage this symposium. And all the presenters for their engaging intervention that made for dynamic exchange. The team's chair have presented the main key messages and conclusion that have come out of productive discussion over the last three days. Nevertheless, let us keep in mind that this symposium is just the first step of many collaborative actions to tackle soil biodiversity loss. The recently launched report, State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity, highlighted the challenge and protection solutions. But this symposium truly provided a clear framework on the way forward. The World Soil Day 2020, the Soil Biodiversity Report, and now this symposium have his awareness on soil biodiversity, which I am convinced will trigger action needed to prevent long-term soil biodiversity loss. It is clear that when discussing the POST 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to be adopted at the upcoming Biodiversity Conference of 15, we will advocate for including soil biodiversity as a key component that provides multiple benefits to its cross-cutting nature. Indeed, COP15 represents a crucial platform where we can present all the outcomes of this symposium and seek support for addressing the gaps that were clearly identified. We need to move to action. During this symposium, we managed to examine the current scientific and traditional knowledge on the role of soil biodiversity on food production, human health, and it was also said that we need to link plant, animal and human health and on sustaining biodiversity above ground. Identify knowledge gap and explore opportunities for collaborative research, capacity building and technical cooperation. Identify limitations and opportunities to promote the sustainable use of soil biodiversity. Present effective and replicable methodologies, technologies and practices that promote sustainability and identify policy options to protect soil biodiversity and encourage the adoption of practices that enhance it. It was evident from different case studies that the sustainable use of soil biodiversity could really helps us address the different challenge we have in food production, in environmental protection, climate, human health and achieve the sustainable development goals and other global commitments. We need to scale up. All your work will feed the outcome document, keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity, which will highlight the importance of addressing soil biodiversity loss from the food safety, environment and human health perspectives and will include a joint agenda for action based on scientific evidence to prevent and mitigate soil biodiversity loss. I hope we can count on all of you to implement this ambitious way forward. The first step is prioritizing soil biodiversity is to develop standards, protocols and procedures for assessing soil biodiversity and monitoring its change over time. At FAO, we are committed to putting healthy soils on the global agenda, improve awareness on soil and support the countries to implement the appropriate policies. This is why FAO members establish and continue to support the global soil partnership. The world needs innovative and effective solutions to prevent and address the threatening consequences of soil biodiversity loss. I hope the youth who attended this symposium will help us to identify new, and effective solutions. We are committed to revamp the international initiative for the conservation and sustainable use of soil biodiversity, as this provides the intergovernmental framework to tackle soil biodiversity loss. Once again, thank you all for participation in the discussion over these three last four days. You will soon receive information on the next step, and I hope we can continue the discussion on the financial instruments to support biodiversity and sustainable production, as it has been said. It's a miss from the discussion. Only by working together, we can prevent soil biodiversity loss and foster healthy soils for all to sustainable soil management. Again, happy International Mother Day, and thank you for being here with us during these four days. Thank you all, and keep safe and healthy. Thank you, Eduardo, over to you. Thank you so much, Madame Semedo. Also a big round of applause for you. For your inspiring words, which will certainly will make sure that it's part, will be part of the proceedings of the symposium because they provide the guidance, the inspiration that all of us need to move ahead with the implementation of, as it puts so well, ambitious challenge ahead of us. On behalf of the organizers, I would like to present our humble thank you for the wonderful message of appreciation that we receive through the chat that we are receiving from all over the world, from East West countries, from colleagues that we make this knowledge and this information that we shared here available. We are very humble with your participation. And I think we all leave this symposium with the feeling that we know more about soil biodiversity and we have steps ahead all of us to fulfill. So let's, keep soil alive. Let's protect soil biodiversity. I thank you very much. The symposium is now closed. I wish you all the best in your endeavors. Thank you.