 Well, I think we should start because otherwise it's going to be too late. Welcome again to this second day of the Pacific soil partnership meeting this fifth meeting of the regional partnership for the Pacific. Today, normally we should as per the agenda we should talk and present about the just be pillars updates and way forward. So the main activities implemented over the five just be pillars of actions. And some other topics like the collaboration with the community and joint work on a culture and an update on the status of the word services report 2055 still as you may recall from yesterday. We didn't have time to let all country representatives to present. So we like to invite those country representatives who didn't got the chance to present yesterday to present today at the beginning of the meeting and then we can proceed with the agenda. Therefore, I would like to invite the focal points will present to squeeze the presentation in five minutes if possible, so we can have all the items of the agenda covered without having too much delay. And as yesterday we finish we conclude the meeting with the updates from New Zealand. I think we should start from new way. And I think they're presently from new ways here. Mr. boy. Yes, I can see you. So thanks for your participation. Mr. And I will give you the floor. Thank you, if you can. Good morning and good afternoon. Everyone quitting from from new way. If you can share the screen for my presentation, please. Thank you. Just a second. Let me let me open it. Yeah, you're the one you want me to change this light. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Philip. And also I just like to apologize for taking us back. It was a very busy agenda yesterday, but I was able to squeeze in our presentation for today. For those of you who don't know me. I'm boy, I'm the current director for the Department of Agriculture for trees. I'm not that I haven't met most of you but I have met some. And also just like to acknowledge for people for giving me the opportunity to be able to do our presentation for today. And we can proceed things. So straight into the presentation in terms of relation to pillar one and also the activities that are also implemented at the national level. And also to promote sustainable management practices so we have the one Department of Agriculture France three and also fisheries that it's also another ministry of natural resources. So some activities at the national level that we have been doing leading up to this year is very much around promoting mulching and also composting in our farms and also working closely with the New Zealand organic farmers Association, which is the main body is also NGO body but but is also housed within our premises and also just to promote organic farming principles at the national level. So a lot of activities are very much in line with the national strategic plan of government. And also, we have the exact the planet is also expired that takes into account soils and also organic farming principles to be able to be promoted at the national level. I noted also also just like to acknowledge practice you have also done some work for us over the years was with SPC and also doing some work for new way. So, we under the new umbrella we are promoting organic certification process with New Zealand Bible, but we are still under suspension over the last two years as we all know with COVID. So all details were unable to be able to come here and also to do the auditing process. But our focus is very much on vanilla production and also fruit trees at this point in time as import substitution as well. And we have also promote a sustainable land management practices under a couple of UNDP funded projects, and also promoting agroforestry, including Ligum cover crop with previous projects. Yes, so under pillar two and also some of the activities in terms of raising awareness and also communications and also in terms of policy documents and also education. So we have in previous years, I think was only in 2017 we will launch our new source resource manual and also selected knowledge if you know, and also land care in New Zealand for and also Jeff funding also able to fund. This is the first reference so manual for for new way and also previous findings through land care, New Zealand, and also previous scientists who did all the survey work, leading up to started all the way back in the 60s, 70s and and was the was the first manual to be able to be produced for new way. And also new way only consists of the one island. So it's, it's much more easier rather than having as I've noted in the Pacific. There are with with other Pacific Island countries, very much scattered around in the ocean, but we only have the one island so that makes it easier for us as well to carry out all this work. So, after when the soil manual manual was launched, there was a need also to, we noted that manual was a bit too scientific for for the growers and the farmers. We also decided to do the fertility of new source in relation to growth document, still through FBA Jeff and also with land care in New Zealand, and this is a very much water down document to be able to for the growers and also for students as well. So the source of new a manual for the Department of Education as well it's very much a document to guide some of the students in line with the main source manual for new way things we can move on please. So yes, so again, we have been using our World Food Day National Agriculture show the activities also to promote our world so they are also soils. We have the recent new Atari date, which we was the first one this year, and these are some of the avenues that we have used to promote some of the soils work as well. So working closely with the offer like I alluded to, and also with the new growers association. We also have a fortnightly radio radio agricultural awareness program, along with our Facebook page of the Department of Agriculture for history and fisheries. So these are some of the avenues that we have been using to for raising awareness with regards to soils matters in the way things. So yes, and under the pillar for we also, in terms of soil data and we, we have the soil map like I mentioned before we only have the one consistent the one island and it's also. It's only a very small island, it's only 1700 people with science here so with COVID, we have five cases in the isolation so far, and no cases in the community, but also we have these tools in place such as the soil map was developed way back in 1965 when those scientists that I have alluded to, did some work for new way and did all the surveys, and was only in 2007 that we were able to develop the first soil map for new island and acknowledging also the support and the funding towards this in line also with the reference manual for for new way. Moving on. So, yes, in pillar three and also pillar five, this is the this is the last slide for my presentation this month. So in terms of in relation to research and development is very little, or to no research at this point in time so we need to do more research. We have had the source manual and we have much them back on on all those information and those tools, but it's also an opportunity for students as well to be able to take up the career path. We also work with schools, we only have the two schools that we have my career path, every two weeks, and working with the schools and trying to promote agriculture, and also leading students to towards career path. Other than that, we, we work with one private sector in biochar development. And also, it's got a new phenomenon for us, but it's not new in a sense our ancestors I've been using charcoal and, and I can recall in our DCEP and CEO over the years with SPC. We have done trials and also using charcoals in the, in that sense, but we also did some proposal for further funding, which didn't be imitated in the end. So in relation to pillar five, in terms of harmonization of methods and indicators in relation to soils, and also soil laboratories. We don't have a soil laboratory as such. All the soil samples in the past we have been able to send to New Zealand to hill to laboratory and I think it's in Hamilton, New Zealand. And mainly, there's the need and also the samples are very minimal. But that this point in time it's also a very costly exercise. So if we are the transportation means into the logistical means in trying to send them overseas it's quite hard, even if we have to send to other Pacific County countries or PG or I know all of who I have got their laboratory as well. But it's also a costly exercise at this point in time. We only deal direct to New Zealand, we only have the one flight to New Zealand, and about this all comes into new in one to three weeks. So those are some of the challenges that we face. And I'd just like to that's the end of my presentation this month. Thank you for the opportunity and also just like to acknowledge FEO and, and also all the key stakeholders. Thank you for the pro for giving us an opportunity to be able to do a brief presentation. I think soils play a vital role in the Pacific and in line with climate change nowadays. Yes. And it is a reality that we need to look after our soils in line with also the FEO's strategic plan for better environment and better life for us. And thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. Mr. was very interesting to hear from from you from the situation in the islands and if in the challenges that you're facing there regarding some management and all the related aspects. So thank you again for your participation for sharing the updates on your country. I'm not sure if colleagues from power are present here. I don't see Mr. delay in the list of participants just want to double check if there is anyone from Palau. Otherwise, I will move forward to the next country is Papua New Guinea. I just want to check if Mr. Francis Dank is with us. I'm not sure about that. In the meantime, maybe we can move to Samoa, and I will invite I saw the clicks from Samoa before. Yes. Good morning from Samoa. Good morning. Good morning. Can I ask to start. Yes, please. If you could present your updates on soil for your country. Thanks. I didn't see no screen. Yes, he's loading. Yeah, we can see it. Can you put in presentation mode please. Yes. Thanks. Okay, good morning. Apology from Mr. David Hunter and Dr. says he was not available at the time, but my name is Lenny will say I'm working in sauce. We used to work at the Minister of Agriculture but now we move to sauce now. We are here in sauce so happy to present some of the findings that Dr. David Hunter and so so prepared a presentation for us this morning. Our main activities implemented on the pillar one. As in the presentation. Oncoming promotion of magic beans as some of the college they presented the Makuna princess as one of the cover crop during shorter fellow periods. This is due to lack of unavailable available land. Oncoming promotion of nitrogen fixing trees in roots and tree crops productions. About 300 acres of coastal land for villages in polo and two villages in survive those are the islands the big islands of Samoa. It's a problem with food and fruit trees using dynamic at the forestry. Apology with coconut as the focal tree prop, and this is funded by the World Bank funded project. The use of locally available chicken manure as fertilizer option to chemical NPK fertilizers internal houses vegetable productions. It's about 108 180 install tunnel houses in both islands follow and survive. And this is funded by the Samoa China. Agriculture project. Need to engage in the four pre one thousand initiatives and recarbonization of local soils. And the question is how. There's no sustainable soil management policies for some more yet. So we need assistance to develop one page on scientific evidence are implemented by the USP some more campus and I think that that is for bill one. In activities in bill a tool. This very little investment in sustainable soil management. Also in adequate coverage of soy science in a secondary and just rich education institution in their curricula or agricultural science subject in secondary school. This is also in soil science courses in the USP some more campus, and also the national University of Samoa. And there is very little communication and awareness materials. Also very weak extension services in sustainable soil management for the farmers. And I think that is for bill a tool. Now we move up to pillar free main activities implemented is low priority on targeted soil research and development activities. And one of the project. All the soil management in Pacific Islands investigating nutrients cycling and development of the soil portal. And this is funded by Asia. And also by products from biocast. This gesture under the UNDP and home biocast systems trial as organic fertilizers for vegetable production, and the research is in progress. And also there's a weak research. And extension math linkage in sustainable soil management activities. Math as a member of the array on GHG emissions from agricultural activities. This is crap and lifestyle productions and still exploring potential partnerships. And not only that the collaboration between math and MNRE on quantification of GHG emissions from agricultural activities. And then users, etc, etc. This is a monitoring of soil environment contamination levels from herbicide use on commercial taro farms, and that study is funded by stress. On our campus soil research tailored to undergraduate and postgraduate soil research topics. And also it's lack of formally trained local soil scientists in the Pacific, especially some more support from expatriate soil scientists at the USP campus, but collaboration is very weak. And that is under pillar two. We are to meet up to pillar four. In activities, large quantity of soil chemical, physical and biological data by USP some more campus math MNRE and source, and we need to access quality, applicability for sustainable soil management. And also we need training on how to use the Pacific soil portal need assistance to re-engage in GL OSIS, MNRE holds a digital land and soil maps for some more government. We have main activities laboratories with soil analysis capabilities under source and USP some more campus soil analysis limited to soil fertility evaluations. And we need to strengthen collaboration between math source and the USP some more campus on fertilizer recommendation space on soil testing. So trust the party and INN said accredited accredited for food analysis only trust involved in GL OSALN and ASPAC into laboratory proficiency program, and we need support with this training needs for math extension officers on basic soil science to effectively disseminate fertilizer recommendations and other sustainable soil management practice to farmers based on soil analysis results. This is to explore the focus informal training with USP some more campus or source research and math extension staff. And that's all from us. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Have a good day. Thanks a lot, Mr. Vai, for the nice presentation on someone. I would like to briefly move to the next country, because time is against us. And I see Mr. Jules Dammu Talau should be with us. Therefore I will invite representatives from Solomon Islands to present the updates on soils. Yes, Jules, can you unmute please. Yes, good morning. Good morning to you. Can I slide with you so I'm expecting you to put it on for me. Yes, just a second. Here you are. Over to you Jules. Yes, greetings and good morning again from the Solomon Islands. Introduction I guess most of the nature of soils in the Pacific are similar, as we've just heard from Samoa. From my view in terms of the Solomon Islands soils, basically there are at least four main farming systems which really deals with soil. We have undulated, rugged, mountain terrain, so we have slopes, people are farming on the slopes. We also have farming system on the coastal, which have some impact with the increasing the climate impacts and that is sea level rise. And also at the coastal level we also experience inundation of farm soils, farming soils, and also intrusion of salt water, let's see. And then we also have atolls that is mainly probably more like new way I guess, more sandy soil, and the farming system is also different and they have also their own constraints with regards to soil management and support to support farming. And then we have mostly plains, which I think the most of the good soils have been taken away by commercial plantations. So people are left to farm the slopes, coastal areas and that is for the main islands. So traditionally shifting cultivation was the main type of farming with regards to our small holder and for small holder. And soil infidelity has been an ongoing problem, I guess, expressed by most of the farmers. And that's generally, I guess, a scope of our farming systems around here in the Solomon Islands. By the way, by way of introduction, my name is Jules Damutelao and I am with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. Currently, I'm presenting as a volunteer, I guess. I am aware we still do have a national focal point for this program. That is what we'll do after I guess. And I am with the farming system soils section within the agricultural research. Here are some of the activities, I guess, that is performed in reference to the pillar one. On farm demonstrations, we did a lead farmers. In the Solomon Islands, we mostly we work with, especially from the agricultural perspective, we did with lead farmers, farmers who are passionate and are willing to actually take on new technologies. So we used to have them as demonstration farms. And mostly we forgot the soil, we encourage, promote composting, cover cropping. And yeah, with mukuna, that is one of those more, most incorrect cover crop. Green manoeuvering, vetiver grass, this is for the slope farms where people from along the slopes, we encourage the vetiver grasses contour to minimize soil erosion. And heavy melton to farmers on the plain, flat land or plains. So most of this work is mainly done from the ministry point of view with research and our agriculture extension, extension officers. I would also want to highlight custom garden as one of the champions in, in promoting organic farming, one of those local NGOs who has walked probably more than 20 years now in promoting soil. We forgot to organic farming. And we also with urban, urban setting, we also promote this is to extension and especially with women, women in agriculture, the sub-sub garden, it's more like a backyard sort of approach to supporting our people living within and around the city. Agricultural extension services and sustainable farming. There is a project currently that is also targeting this one. And I guess most of the sustainable farming was targeted on to soil, how best to manage soil in fertility, soil quality. I think the next point is just again reemphasizing KGA has been the champion of organic farming. I think I referred to this one. Currently there's a project on the FAO, which really came up with a lot of materials now. I have seen that materials for farmers for extension officers and also for a curriculum for high school and the university. So it's a big undertaking and FAO, which is spearheaded by live and learn. Forest resources management, they are promoting agroforestry in terms of managing soil as well. And carbon feeding. This is from the perspective of the Ministry of Forestry. There's another NGO that is taking on this challenge in terms of supporting youth with regards to farming. And it is very, very, I would say they've seen value chain and market as a push to encourage people going into good farming practices or agricultural practices, which is a good way forward for especially our young people here in the Salomon Islands. Next slide, please. It's in regards to activities implemented in reference to Fila 2. I think one of the major activities with regards to agriculture is the wall food day that we celebrate every year. And this will be like an agricultural soul for at least a week, which an invited all stakeholders in the arena of agriculture and food. And this is a very, what would I say, a very powerful way of disseminating information and, and, and I've observed that to be a very good event with messages passed on to farmers and the public at large. Development of agricultural extension materials and publications, I guess, would be one and I've mentioned a project that has already completed that one. Lead farm and farm demonstrations. These are approaches where where we disseminate information to our farmers. For that matter. Agriculture research on farm trials on station trials. Also, we also extension allows people to come and get a fast hand to see what actually is happening and they get fast and information. This is some activities under the ministry. We've also have a committee that has been set up. It's a national committee that's over overseas sustainable land management. It's called the integrated land management. It's a very strong committee, which encompasses also institutions of Solomon Islands as well as the ministry in trying to support sustainable land management activities and I guess, and the land management there is always soil. We have a policy that is in support of the language inside will be always sustainability and investment so we have there is a strong and powerful message as well as a support to ongoing work with regards to soil and land management, sustainable land management for that matter. In the recent past, we have a project which also during the project they develop a land use rural land use planning policy and it's in place at the moment and we also have support to the work of soils and then the climate change in the in the view of agriculture and food security. Next slide please. So you should ask you to please try to speed up and move towards the finalization of the presentation soon please. Thank you. I guess the last one will be very short and shop main activity implemented under three soil research on various soil amendments to research promoting biodiversity and micro organism that is what the current soil research program is and also farming up. Yes, next please. Yes, I think one of those very useful tools and which regards to soil management is this study that was done extensively around Solomon Islands on land resources. And I think another step forward on that one was the digitized digitization of that, which is already available for people to use major challenges. Yeah. Okay, next place on pillar five year soil laboratory. I think we have an existing lab. It's a new lab under the university, which also I guess supports our work from my from my perspective and sort of skills were used during our project project. Yeah, I think that's all thank you Felipe and thank you for your bearing with me. Thanks. Thanks a lot for your for the presentation of your country. These were really highly appreciated. And also for the nice details that you that you share thanks a lot for them. And now to what I think is the last country. Let's see if I'm not wrong. Let's see I think there is no one from Tokyo law, unfortunately, unless Mr Fatiha or someone else from the country from Tokyo law is with us. Otherwise, I would give the floor to the colleagues from Tonga and Mr Mino on 80 should be with us. Someone else from Tonga. I think I saw someone before. Is there anyone from Tonga, or is that anyone from any other countries that did not present yet. Okay, let's see because I think I saw someone from Tonga before maybe they have a connection issue, but maybe we can give the floor to them later on, if they connect again. In the meantime, I think we should move forward because again, I'm very sorry, but the John is is pretty packed. And as yesterday we didn't succeed in including all the country presentation because, because of the time. I would now like to move to the program of today and give the floor to my colleagues from the GSB secretary to will present you an update you on the activities of the global partnership over the five pillars of action. I command you that as it was mentioned yesterday by the by the secretary of the GSB, Mr Ronald Vargas. This is the last time we will present when we organize these activity in pillars as we will move forward towards a new framework of action for the GSB. Now still other pillar one, I will invite my colleague Mrs Carolina Cardoso Lisboa to take the floor, and she will present to you a very important initiative of GSB that is called rec soil is about the recarbonization of global agricultural soils. So Carolina over to you. Thanks again for your participation. Thank you. Thank everybody. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. And I will speak about the under pillar one activity about the problem work soil, which is called recarbonization of global soils. My name is Carolina Cardoso, and I'm also a member of the GSB as Secretary of the FAO. So, we are all aware of climate change and all the different the challenge it has brought to us in our sectors, and also for the agricultural sector. Yeah, and despite of those challenge also in the agricultural sector the good news is that the latest IPCC reports have also identified soil as our ally to help us to address those challenges and overcome the issues related to climate change. And also to contribute the sustainable development goals. And we do that by implementing sustainable soil management in the agricultural sector. So, in this scenario, what we came with this proposal of implemented the rec soil program, which is an initiative with them to scale up the implementation of sustainable soil management practices. The end those practices are many are so you're going to cover it centered with means it aims to to to preserve or increase soil carbon is talks as the main goals of the GS program is to avoid for the loss of soil going to cover Maßnahmen increase so customers about rain on increaseciamo carbon stocks boosts your health by doing that improve a farmer's life hold and recognize farm farmers for the contribution to the better environment, enhance food securely and also food nutritional value, and they also ultimately build up systems resilience and adaptation while supporting the provision of ecosystem service. So the Rec Soil Program framework has basically two paths. One path we call Soil Health Path or Green Path, which is focused on the improvement of Soil Health, and another one, it's a longer path, and it's a follow-up after the first path, which is called Soil Health. We call it a carbon market path, and this one, it's aimed on the quantification of the balance of carbon inputs and outputs in the system. And to implement the Rec Soil, we have some steps to do that. It's a very comprehensive approach. We started with technical feasibility, and then identify committed farmers, establish the agreement with them to work with the Rec Soil Program, and then we start with the capacity building program to provide and strengthen local, technical, and external service to farmers. And then we move forward to the implementation of good practices, so-called sustainable Soil Management practices. And then after a period of implementation of four years, we do the first assessment, MRV assessment. For the Green Path, we follow the protocol for assessment of sustainable Soil Management, and if we go for the carbon market path, we use the GSOC MRV protocol. To get to the site, you see the Rec Soil Toolkit is a summary of it. As I said, to do the technical feasibility assessment, we use the GSOC-SEC approach developed by Glossis, which I believe you are very familiar with, to identify the areas with the highest potential to sequester carbon soil. For the capacity building program, we have a series of capacity building sections, being one of them the Soil Doctors Program, which my colleague, Silve, you give you more details later on. And we also have other capacity building training there for the MRV protocols, how to implement that in the field, and also for laboratory capacities through the Glossolum training sections. And also promote a series of workshopping to support the knowledge change between farms. And the other set of tools is in the MRV protocols. As I just said, we use two protocols, the protocol for assessment of sustainable soil management or the GSOC MRV protocol. And we come to the support of the Glossolum laboratory network to do, to analyze the samples that we take in the field for one of those protocols. So as a benefit for farmers, once they join the Rex soil program is the improvement of technical knowledge on sustainable soil management and provision of technical support throughout the implementation of the Rex soil program. And to help them to implement sustainable soil management, improve soil health, enhance yield productivity, and also enhance system resilience. So the implementation of sustainable soil management, we decrease the needs for external inputs, such as mineral fertilizers per site as in the use of machinery. As a result, obviously, there you'll be tend to decrease the overall cost of production. And the implementation of the Rex soil programs is also you help the farmers to be acknowledged for the sustainable contribution to the environment by support the provision of existing service. The idea is that the end of the first each cycle of the program, we can issue a kind of certificate to farmers to to acknowledge they have to verify verify they haven't permitted sustainable soil management, therefore contributes to ecosystem service. So the implementation of the Rex soil program has three phase with step by step approach, and the duration of each phase varies according to the readiness level of each partner in the project. And the strategy to adopt the implementation of Rex soil tools is decided between the partners working in this collaboration in the program. Just as a final message, we have started now this year with a few pilot countries being one of them, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Kenya. And we are also discussed with another countries to start piloting Rex soil. And these countries has been identified based on the GSOC SAC, where we identify the areas with the highest potential. And hopefully once we succeed, we can scale up the implementation of Rex soil. So I'm sorry for the short presentation, but I'm happy you have here my email. And I'm very happy to answer any further questions. My there is any doubt there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Carolina, and especially for squeezing your presentation in search for time, but I'm sure the message reach the participants. And again, if you please can write your email also in the chat. So in case of need, participants can can reach you for further information on the Rex soil program. In the meanwhile, we can move forward to the pillar two. I should start, but I would be I would first give the floor to my colleague, Siva Piolli, as he's already late here in Italy. So Siva, over to you. And again, if after your presentation, you may leave your email address in the in the chat so participants can can write you in case of interest or if they would like to receive further information on your presentation. Thanks. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear me? Can you see the screen? Yes. Okay. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and I would like to thank you, Philippo, for that. My name is Siva Piolli and I'm within the global partnership. My activities are mainly related to the implementation of the global soil program, which is a farmer to farmer training initiative. But before going through the implementation examples, let me briefly stress some key points of the program. As you can see from these diagram, different actors are involved in the implementation of this program. Although maybe the most important one is the promoter, which is the institution that coordinates the implementation at the local level, that in collaboration with the GSP ensures the scaling up of the program in the country. The roadmap is also quite straightforward. As I mentioned, the first step is the identification of the suitable promoter, which is trained by the GSP. Then the promoter identifies the potential soil doctors among a group of farmers and trained them using the educational material provided by the GSP. And last, the certified soil doctors will train the other farmers in their own communities. The GSP will request the promoter to agree with a term of reference, where all the roles, responsibilities and benefits for the promoters are listed and ultimately the promoter should sign in and now are database through this online form. This registration is just a way to formalize the collaboration and our mutual commitment. The GSP provides the support, the educational material and the visibility to the promoter and in turn, the promoter provides the technical and financial support for the sustainability of the program in the long term. We expect the promoter to provide us with feedbacks and inputs to improve the program and adapt it to the local context, like for example, the topic of the training that can be targeted to local needs. So speaking about trainings, these training are structured into modules, which include both the theoretical and practical session. And each module includes a series of posters with related field exercises that target specific soil topic. In this case, for example, what is soil is our first module and it addresses the main soil physical, biological and chemical properties. And at the end of each module, there will be the evaluation table and the recommendation table for the best practices to improve the desired soil characteristics. But let's move on to some example of the implementation. Unfortunately, we didn't implement a pilot in the Pacific region yet, but we got the first meeting with Mr. Sua and we agreed on the way forward, which is to find the suitable promoter or promoters, which came from the extension service of the government but also from the private sector. And then we should find the proper location to implement the pilot also in harmonization with the existing projects. And after that, we can agree on the module and we can start already to translate some posters to the local language and then the next step would be to agree on the budget on the side of the implementation and so on. I really wanted to show you some successful example of this soil doctor program. So I will report the experience of these two countries that are quite far away from each other, but can stress some similarities and differences as well. In Mexico, we have an association of universities that are the promoter of the program, why, for example, in Bangladesh, we have the Ministry of Agriculture, which is the main promoter. In Mexico, the GSP already trained more than 30 trainers, but the training of the soil doctor is still ongoing. And in Bangladesh, we trained 10 trainers and these trainers already selected 15 soil doctors. So I just wanted to report some key moments of this training. And here you can see there are both the theoretical explanation of the posters, but also the field activities. And in this case, we also received some inputs from the pilot because they explained how to evaluate the soil pH using simple red cabbage water, for example. Similarly for Bangladesh, we have the classroom, we have also the implementation in the field with some practical exercises. And in this case, we also have the certificate, the distribution for the successful soil doctors. I included just a couple of video here, but I don't want to show them. I'm sure that Filipo will share the link of the presentation so you can play them. And here I just reported some very, the next implementation activities, the next pilots that would be Bolivia, which already started. And the next one will be Kazakhstan that is going to start in a couple of weeks from now. So regarding the impact of this program, we are developing a brand new website where we want to show through this map all the promoters that are implementing the program in their own country. But we would like to consider this map and the whole site website as a sharing platform where the promoters from any countries can share their own experience and learn from the experience of the other promoters. And yes, I will drop in the chat also the link to some highlights that has been published related to the soil doctor program and more pictures that can be found in this file repository. So I hope this very short presentation triggered your attention. We are really looking forward to collaborate together for the implementation of the program in the Pacific regions. If you have other information, if you need further information or if you want to join the program, you can contact me or my colleagues at these email addresses. And I'm sharing these addresses in the chat right now. So thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for being in a given time. And I agree with you, I think the program as a big potential, especially in this region. So I would like to invite country representatives to follow up with you to move towards the identification of potential promoters to implement the program in the Pacific countries. If there is any question for my colleagues, Sylvia and Carolina, so regarding the soil doctor programs and the Rexel program, you can raise your hand or you can write in the chat. Otherwise, you can follow up by email with them. And thanks again, Sylvia. And thanks also to Siwa, because I know you're raising with him for the exploring potential promoters, indeed, for the implementation of the program in the Pacific islands. I didn't see any questions coming in this regard. So thank you again. And I will move forward towards my presentation that will be very brief and will cover the topic of the policy briefs. This is basically a proposal that we would like to share with you according to what is currently being done in other regions regarding these policy briefs. First, what is a policy brief? Under the framework of the pillar two of the GSP, a policy briefs can be produced aiming to raise the awareness on soils and to provide and to highlight the multiple role of soils to the wide range of stakeholders, to regulators and policymakers in a given country or region. These are some examples about policy briefs that have been developed in the Near East and North African region. So basically, they agree on the topic according to the main needs of the region. These have been produced and even translated in local languages. And many others are on their way, under preparation. Because as you can see, there is a strong need for this document to indeed raise the awareness on these topics and on the best practices to manage soils according to the main soil threats affecting the region. And these, of course, the threats change region by region. So this is an example from the Near East and North African region. In Asia as well, country experts and focal points agree to work on the first policy brief for the region. It is about the multi-faceted role of soil in Asia. And the structure of this document is reported in the left lower corner of the slide. So just to give you an overview on what the regions are doing in this regard to raise the awareness on soils and on the best practices to manage the soils. The question is, if countries in the Pacific, so a few members of the Pacific soil partnership would be interested in work on this kind of activity. So basically, if we would like to produce a policy brief for the Pacific soils, if so, on the left are reported a kind of roadmap that can be considered. But so we can both agree, of course, on the main topics to be covered. Then we can establish a working group, grouping together people who are willing to work on this document or on a series of documents. Define the structure, then, of course, the text can be reviewed within the region. Photos can be collected to be included in the document. And then this can be published. Now, very briefly, I would like to hear from you if or we can follow up by email about the possibility to develop this kind of document, this kind of material for the Pacific region. And as Lucrezia mentioned in the chat, these documents are very important also because it can be considered as a prevention pathways to get projects. Because policy briefs not only raise the awareness on soils and on the main soil threats of the region. But thanks to this, they can be the base. And it can offer an opportunity to develop projects and mobilize financial resources for the region and to implement the best practices that can be highlighted in this document. So I would like to hear from you, or you can write in the chat. Or I don't know if even Peter, what you think, as chair of the Pacific soil partnership, if you think it is worth it to work on this kind of document. So basically on the writing, on the policy briefs, if any of you have already experienced, if any of you already work on the, for instance, national policy briefs, we would like to hear also from you, what is your feeling about that? If you think we can work on this, then we can follow up by email, for instance, as we didn't have much time here. I don't know, Peter, if you have any comment on this, if you think this can be worth it, or will we need further discussion on that? I do need to wait and mute. You cannot unmute? Oh, sorry. Philippa, if I can compliment. Please. Good evening to everybody and good morning to you in the Pacific. We can use policy briefs as not only for getting projects, but also eventually to see the development of new laws and legislation from the soil, we can shape them around your needs to get where you want. But these, of course, depends on the reality in your region. Maybe you don't have the need to rise the awareness of your government on the need to protect soils or to have better legislation on soil. So this is just a proposal that Philippa is moving on behalf of the GST building on the experience of the other regional soil partnership. So you are welcome to tell us your opinion. Sorry, Peter, are you very bad, actually? I think this is an issue with your microphone. I don't know. Can you try maybe to write in the chat? I don't know. Any here and there? Yeah, kind of better. I'm a better, sorry. I don't know. What's going on? So I guess the issue for us here is the big difference across the region between where the countries sit with all of this. So it's very hard to make broad statements on behalf of the Pacific because we have countries like Australia with a very, very strong national soils policy and a national advocate. And it's right up there. There's big priorities at the moment. So the assistance to the other countries like Newie, the persons that don't have soil policy would be really supported, I guess, but together we struggle to be able to come together and discuss these things in appropriate time. And maybe it's again after the redevelopment of the framework for the actions under the GSP that we could make some consideration of how to go forward as a region including this sort of activity. Thanks, Peter. So I'm not under a person's sure that I got your message because of the audio issues. If I got it right, you suggest to follow up the discussion after the January meeting of the GSP and the development of policy briefs can be an option, but we should take into consideration the variety of course of priorities for different countries according to their position in the region and size, of course, because of course, and maybe just to make an example, Pacific Islands may have different priorities and needs according to Australia and New Zealand also in terms of policy that are already being developed and the need of awareness be as different degrees according to the considered countries. So maybe we can kind of group together countries which share the same kind of needs and the same kind of threats. So maybe we can group them together and work on policy briefs, grouping together certain countries. But I see Siwa, you have the hands up. Maybe you want to intervene. Yeah, Filippo, can you hear me? Yes, please. Yeah, I think with the Pacific Islands to target to get the legislation is probably the last thing that farmers would want to get to. But before you get to the policy brief, I think with regards to soil management, because soil is a big issue in the Pacific, the first step is probably to develop guidelines. So I think guidelines is a must. And our work in the Pacific in KJWA, it was very clear from all the countries that they would like to have guidelines that leads to policy brief. We sort of not so much into legislations because that is a politician's zone. So getting to develop guidelines and get to policy brief is probably what we need in the islands right now. Thank you. Thanks, Siwa. We should think about priorities. And if others agree, maybe your proposal is to focus first on material for farmers, basically guidelines for farmers. And as Lukrette says, suggesting in the chat, this is strongly linked with the soil doctors program that I can see that just presented. So maybe we may... I think that that will be the first step to take now. Okay. So your proposal is to first focus on that and join the force on working on the guidelines for farmers and these kinds of programs. So maybe we can follow up later on because I think this should be done in parallel somehow because we cannot... according also to the experience of other regions, we should try to keep all levels involved now. So not only the... first, of course, with the farmers, but also do not oversee the importance of raising awareness through this document because they really can support and allow countries to better develop policies to support the implementation and on the guidelines for farmers. So these are kind of complementing initiatives somehow. So we can follow up later maybe by email later this year and see... I think we... Especially if there is a need, yeah. I think we can do that. But I want to make an example that we do not want this to happen in my work around the Pacific. There are some islands, they have legislation banning the use of inorganic fertilizers and inorganic pesticides. When you go right back to the root of the things and how it was developed, there was no substantiated reasoning. That's why we would prefer to go through guidelines so that when you get to the legislation, the legislation has been built on some firm foundation. There are legislations banning fertilizers and inorganic pesticides in the Pacific. The foundation is very shaky. Thank you. If I can... To adapt to the situation of the region. If there is not a need to work on policymakers first or at all, let's support farmers and focal points are suggesting. So maybe if... Please, if you feel like intervening, please do it. If we can maybe link this proposal to write guidelines to the soil doctor programs that I think it's the best place to support on this and maybe also link into the implementation of the protocol and sustainable soil management law. Then we just... Well, we don't duplicate efforts in my opinion and then we leave the policy brief that is something different from what is being proposed here from SUA for a later stage if needed. Because my understanding is that as SUA and Peter were saying maybe countries are already advanced on this and we need to develop under two scores. Yeah. What do you think? Yes, yes, no. I think it is a good chance to combine the effort in this case. Yes. I think it is feasible. Okay, thank you. Yes, I was just referring to the message that Vili wrote in the chat about that there are some examples from countries that already develop policy briefs and they took many benefits from that. So maybe I agree. Let's first work on these guidelines and to further explore the implementation of the possibility to implement soil doctor programs in the region. At the same stage maybe we can investigate maybe even through an online survey about the need first of awareness raising material and the need to develop policy briefs. Because some countries in the Pacific I think they already have experience on that. Some may not. Some may see benefits, some may not. So maybe we can flop first, test in the ground and check if there is this kind of need and willingness. Yeah. Okay. I agree. Good. So thanks for your comments. I don't know if Vili, if you want to implement because you wrote this nice comment in the chat about, I think you have experience in that. And Poi also writes this ad. Poi, yeah, in the meantime, if you want to take the floor. Mr. Ruhesene. Yeah, thank you, Philip. I'd just like to echo some support towards some of the comments by Dr. Siwa. I think it's really important that we have a simple tool and also a good practical solution for the farmers in the entirety and also for those around the Pacific. I noted that we all have different challenges and different situations with regards to where we are at this point in time. But also I think Ms. Noham in having policy briefs and working in tandem with, and also with the guidelines, but I think the guidelines are much more, it's more of a practical solution at this point and easy to implement across many of the Pacific Island countries and I guess if there's an opportunity to address all the gaps, I know that we all have different gaps and where each country set at which level, then we will also be able to draw on similar needs like you have proposed in terms of putting together countries who have similar needs moving forward and also similar priorities so I'd just like to add that into the conversation at this point, thanks. Thanks a lot because indeed the big variety across the region may be also kind of an optical to develop a policy brief and identify common challenges and common needs. Really, I see you're reading because I don't remember from which country you're from, can you please specify? Hello, everyone. This is what Billy looks like. Yeah, I'm I work here at the University of South Pacific. I'm originally Samoan, citizen of Tuvalu, but now living in Fiji. So I'm from the Pacific Islands, Phillipo. Yeah, I just want to to make two quick points. I was mentioning the experience with policy briefs because we have written a lot of them, but they were not about soil. I think that is one important thing to note there. They were mainly about the resilience building and nature-based solutions and things like that. It's because they already have very good information in those fields. So there is experience of getting policy briefs. And I think it's important to map out as well the purpose and the framing of those policy briefs as alluded to earlier. And I think I also the second point is that I support what as you were mentioned as well as point because for doing a policy brief for soil, we must also provide strong evidence and also provide those standards and guidelines in order to entice the interest because the main question that will come will be why. If we have to do a policy brief, we have to answer the question why. It's not just about what. And in order to answer why, we have to say that because we need to do this, this, this, this because of this recent this, this, this, this. So to build a house, we need to build the foundation first and to build the wall and then build it upward. And I think she was suggested very well to get the guidelines and get the evidence based from the ground up in order to entice the appetite of the policy makers and then and the donors and so forth. So it's a good opportunity to look at getting those policies and those information and it's also a very good opportunity to work together to get those guidelines. So when it gets to the legislation, we know how to enforce it because as you were mentioned, we do have a lot of legislations and it's frustrating from one side, there is a legislation it says not to do this. And on the other hand, everyone is doing the opposite of what the legislation says, but it's a problem with enforcement. So yeah, I just wanted to I like that. Thank you very much. Thanks again to you. That was very clear and I think we all agree with your statement. And I think look at the really summarized it very well in the chat. So maybe let's first develop guidelines for our farmers first. And then once we work on the ground and we collect evidence as you mentioned and we retrieve data, we can then work on policy briefs and she's suggesting we can maybe present the document that will be produced in a major event in the region. Maybe attended by those people who are targeted by the policy briefs or policy makers. So we'll start by looking at the guidelines for farmers and then we will eventually explore the possibility to develop such document. So thanks again to really see what Peter and everyone for the discussion. I think the next one the next presentation in the agenda unless there is any other comments on this is with my colleague Isabel Watto leave the floor to Lucrezia to moderate from now onwards please. Thank you Filippo for moderating this first part of the meeting. I'm sorry for my look I'm a bit sick but I'm happy to be with you. So good morning everybody again. As Filippo mentioned I would like to give the floor to my colleague Isabel Watto to go a bit deeper in what I presented yesterday on soil data information. Thank you Lucrezia and thank you Filippo and good morning participants of the meeting and good morning to the colleagues as we're reaching already the morning let's say for us. So as Lucrezia was anticipating I will be providing a little bit more information regarding the activities and the progress on the area of work of soil information and data formally known as pillar four and Lucrezia already presented some part of it and I will be going a little bit more into detail in my presentation since I'm going to mention quite some emails and also Google forms that are linked in this presentation I would ask Lucrezia Filippo if it's okay if I can just directly share the link to this presentation in the chat so that everyone has already the links to the emails and the forms that I will be mentioning. So here in this first slide you can see the overall progress of the various global products that have been launched over the years always following the country driven approach that was initiated and implemented first for the global soil organic carbon map back in 2017 and this map really set the basis for the country driven approach that basically represents the maxim of what we do with soil information data so we don't work following a top down approach but we really value bridging technical divides working directly with countries so to allow them or to give them access to methodologies that they can make their own to produce national products to build upon the methodologies and to contribute then ultimately to the global products that allow for trans boundary analysis this process is not perfect since it fulfills two daunting tasks so answering questions at the global scale but also scaling up methodologies that have to deal with very different data and computational realities the last thing about this country driven approach is that it's made possible by working directly with the countries by working directly with the NC network the international network of some information institutions to create living products that can be improved throughout time so we are currently working on also improving the GSOC map we're working on improving the GSOC potential map which was launched recently and we are perpetuating this country driven process also for the other products I will focus a bit on the GSOC potential map you already saw it in small in Carolina's presentation and I think you will notice something very stark when it comes to the Pacific region there is no data there are no national maps from this region to date this is the current submission status of the GSOC SEC you can see in green the submitted maps in red the not submitted maps that have been partially gap filled through globally available data sets in yellow you can see maps that are currently in progress that we know we are currently working closely with that are currently being created under other projects and you see here that we currently don't have submissions for the Pacific region and this is definitely something that we would like to improve and initiate let's say a dialogue to work together just to provide a little bit more background on the GSOC SEC the main reasons for the GSOC SEC for it to be initiated were the needs to set attainable and evidence based national targets for carbon sequestration so provide a mechanism for countries to set evidence based data driven targets for carbon sequestration when it comes to sustainable management identify areas that have high potential for the implementation of management projects and then what I was also mentioning earlier enhance national capacities also Australia for instance that are quite advanced when it comes to estimating SOC sequestration potential and we see this process as a means or as a way to bridge technical divides globally so to scale up based on the example and the experience of other countries and give access to these methodologies to other countries as well as I was mentioning earlier both the GSOC map and the GSOC SEC there are plans to further improve these products and we're currently working on a concept note in which we're going to combine these improvements of the GSOC map which sets the basis for the GSOC SEC to be included and for this purpose we have established a working group an open call was sent to INSI to participate in this working group with the dual objective of contributing to key GSOC SEC publications we want the GSOC SEC to be represented in a high impact journal and to consolidate a way forward in form of this concept note more information will be shared as soon as we have finalized it so for the current status of the GSOC SEC when focusing on the Pacific some work was or some dialogue was initiated with some of the countries at the beginning of the process some national experts were selected either by the focal points or the INSI members and some countries have officially requested to remain blank for this first version of the GSOC SEC I very hope that in the future we can initiate a dialogue again and work together so that we can improve the GSOC SEC as it is a living product for the other countries here you will see in this slide a link to a form this is specifically aimed at the INSI members and the focal point if you're interested in participating in this activity I would be very grateful on behalf of the SOLE information and data team if you could nominate a national expert for this activity for the other countries that would like to know more also if you are if you didn't hear about this working group and you would like to know more and participate please feel free to just write me directly via email for the other countries and the national experts that I mentioned earlier if you would like to pick up again this activity please reach out to me directly to either report on progress or seek technical support now to the Global SOLE affected SOLE's map for this product we have indeed some submissions for the Pacific and some maps were already submitted and a capacity development activity that's a form of regional training was already organized back in 2020 to date six countries have submitted maps to the Jesus map this is the list of countries that submitted if you are a country that has nominated a national expert and would like to seek further technical support or report on progress on this activity the key contact person for this product is Christiano Muto my colleague at the GSB and again just feel free to directly contact him via email a recent map that is about to be launched soon is the Global Black SOLE distribution map here on this slide you can see some background regarding black soils the world's most productive and fertile soils and in order to map their spatial distribution an activity to launch the Global Black SOLE distribution map was initiated and an international training was already organized for specifically the INBS member countries to map their distribution if you would like to join the INBS network the international network on black soils your key contact person is my colleague Eugene Tong just feel free again to contact him directly as I was mentioning earlier an international training has been delivered alongside a technical manual and a global report on the status of black soils is being produced and will be delivered by the end of May here in the slide you can also see some interesting results so we are currently working on a dashboard that will be part of the GSB website where you can see some at glance statistics regarding the black soils all these activities are made possible by the international network of SOLE information institutions known as INSEE INSEE has three key functions it helps us identify and nominate national experts to support the implementation of the various SOLE information and data activities they provide access to SOLE geographic information in order to populate the products of the global SOLE information system to support the overall process they make it possible by providing their technical expertise for the implementation of the various activities here on this slide you can see a link to well first of all a spreadsheet that shows the current contacts that we have for INSEE I would invite you to check this spreadsheet to see if the contacts are still up to date if the emails and the contact person for the INSEE member is correct then down here you see a list of countries that still have to nominate their experts for INSEE I would highly invite you to do so by using this form that you see here at the end of this slide and this is it for my part I thank you very much for your attention and again if you have any question for the various global products you see the various emails listed there and also if you would like to have further clarifications regarding the activities I'm always available by email thank you very much thank you if there is already some questions for you if so I can ask the participants to raise their hand or take the floor or write in the chat I see maybe a comment by Peter he's having connection issues okay Australia will be undertaking a GSOC that is great news and we are looking forward to working with you so I guess I'm going to proceed and coordinate to maybe organize a meeting you're having audio problems your voice is so funny when you trash this thing Peter we can't understand but it's okay my best Italian is that any better or no no yes slightly better thank you interesting to see again the presentation of global products here if you're very keen to know more about the black soils map because when you look for Australia that's just a very bad representation of black soils down here which again just highlighting this issue of global production of products that don't come from country up so I'll use Jean I think it was around who did that one okay so you will be following up with Peter directly okay now because of time's sake I would like to move to the next presentation if you remember yesterday I've been talking about the global soil laboratory network and its regional soil laboratory network and in the Pacific we have ASPAC so I can the higher to present on ASPAC Rob over to you thank you good morning everybody thanks very much the opportunity I'm just sharing my screen and making sure that's correct is that correct okay so as Peter alluded to yesterday the last couple of years have been quite difficult particularly in the lab seen across the region due to the COVID a lot of labs have been closed not operating and staff have been unavailable and also managers of the laboratories have been all focused on managing their own facilities rather than looking outwards to what's going on either regionally nationally or regionally or globally and to that end we've been probably acquired as two years of activity in ASPAC that I can remember in as also the creature alluded to the 30 years that ASPAC's been around and just a quick reminder of who ASPAC is again we already existed so when Glozeland looking for the creation of a regional network in the Pacific it was silly to duplicate something that has already existed since 1990 and we have membership of corporate membership of the laboratories individuals and students and ASPAC is overseen by our Executive Committee of Jurisdictional Representation so we have representations of each state in Australia from New Zealand and as of a year or so ago we included a representative from the Pacific Islands Mahawad Abdul Qadir from USP and Samoa campus has done a great job trying to catch up with where we are ASPAC also has a few subcommittees the laboratory proficiency committee which runs the interlaboratory proficiency trial across the region we have a methods committee who looks at researching and improving methods and updating methods with new technologies we also offer travel awards and we are represented on what the Fertcare committee in conjunction with Fertiliser Australia looking at improving Fertiliser analysis and use and sampling and quite a few other topics of interest to both the fertilizer industry and the soil laboratory industry so ASPAC aims I'll quickly go through I'll probably just jump across this we can look this up to the time but basically we're here to help facilitate the harmonisation of soil data through promoting better laboratory practice you'll see there's 77 laboratories on the Pacific from 9 countries that are currently registered with Glosselin you'll see the big jump in December 2020 when it was agreed that all ASPAC members would automatically become Glosselin registered with Glosselin so all of a sudden 50 or 60 laboratories ASPAC members automatically were registered with Glosselin so it's considerable amount it's fair to say that most of those laboratories are on the Australian continent over 2021 we had our annual general meeting in December and also in December we ran a specific laboratories meeting and the results of that will come up in a little bit later so what are some of the initiatives that we've tried to get going in the last couple of years we sent out a survey to Pacific labs just to find out what they feel we could be doing to assist them we are aware that there was a initiative started to support the development of laboratories in Benawatu and the Solomon Islands and I've got a question mark on that we haven't been able to find out where that initiative has got to and how far along the project has developed we've worked with stakeholders to leverage financial support so we're in consultation although sporadically with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New Zealand, ACR and Land Care Research and the SPC and of course that's always an ongoing activity trying to get funding for some of the activities that we would like to achieve in the Pacific so because we have over the last couple of years it's been very quiet that the Pacific Executive has decided to hold a strategic planning meeting early this year and looking at developing one-three and five-year work plans based on the regional member needs and identifying mentors and champions to be able to implement some of those activities obviously whatever comes out of that strategic planning meeting will be passed through the members of ASPAC for comment and hopefully some ideas on implementation before it's released as a strategic plan we've also supporting the implementation of the Australian National Soil Strategy particularly in the laboratory and soil analysis parts of it and particularly in carbon analysis proposed Peter and I have a yet to sit down and finalise the proposed regionals that cross the plenary early this year for the region I'm sure we'll get around to that at some stage and I just want to make that the it's been advised that the 17th International Symposium for Soil and Plant Analysis will be held in 2023 in San Diego, Chile but it'll also have a virtual platform as well I think the last one I went to was in China in 2019 and I think there was over 700 delegates at it so it's a big it's a big it's a big thing it's going for quite some time as I said the 17th until every four years we had reported on the potential of revision of soil chemical methods of Australasia and unfortunately that revision is still due to issues between the authors and the publishers in coming to an agreement on the contract so we hope we can help to facilitate an answer to those issues and as I said before from that book was published in 2011 there's been a revision of what we call the SPACnet method manual that Kata, sorry produced he did a fantastic job and while it took some time for SPAC members to review it there wasn't anything really significant to make changes to the document that he actually produced so the reason for that is if you've seen the publication but affectionately known as the green book you'll know that the structure and the style is based on trying to make the book as short of possible rather than having clear understandable instructions as it is a reference book not necessarily a standard operating procedure so taking it into a more user friendly version for laboratory staff in the Pacific was a really good idea and done very well by Kata so what have we been doing actually for Pacific labs well as SPAC has sponsored them as you might realise our corporate members our laboratories pay a fee which supports a lot of that SPAC try and do we have 11 laboratories sponsored from the Pacific islands the inter-laboratory proficiency program is a very very important part of SPAC's operation we have clear evidence and statistical evidence over time of just being involved in the inter-laboratory proficiency program seeing that the coefficients of variation in each individual analysis have dropped by more than 60% over that 15 year period which only goes to say that in general across the board the performance of laboratories in doing soil analysis has improved by probably 60 or 70% which is a really good news and that's just sheer participation even though training and education is important we've found probably the best value we get is by laboratories being involved in inter-laboratory proficiency program and we were lucky enough now to have ACR come on board to support the laboratories that can't afford to be involved in that program so unfortunately only two labs have participated in the first round this year and there was really not enough participation in 2020 and 2021 to give a really good account of the performance across all labs some labs only performed or participated in one round instead of the three some labs two, some labs three some labs not at all so having a conversation about the general performance of labs across was fought with danger so I decided not to bother and mainly and some of the issues with participation is due to some of the changes and bi-security rules in some of the countries that have really tightened and some of the costs for importing soil samples have increased significantly at the stage where actually we're sending all three rounds for the year to the laboratories in one shipment to try and save on costs for those laboratories to be able to import the samples. We're hoping that they don't do them all at once but hoping that they do them at the appropriate dons but that's the way it is but unfortunately we only find we see labs and some of the labs are only receiving their samples now for the first round because of those holdups and also the labs closing due to COVID and staff unavailability due to the fact that they're either isolating or unable to attend work. It also impacted pretty severely on our 2020 and 2021 training schedule we like to hold our training in person so that we can have proper communication and proper dialogue between people and actually be able to demonstrate things in person and so we as I said before a lot of the members of the executive were pretty busy trying to deal with managing the issues within their own laboratories through those problems. That's happened. I'm sorry can I ask you to please get to the end because... I can finish off now. So sorry. One of the important results of the survey was that I don't think that this regional network was important. Yes the answer was everybody said that it was extremely important. So I won't go through the results any more results due to time but they'll be on the presentation when you want to if you look it up I'll leave it there for the question. That's it. Okay. I'm so sorry. You're right. I knew I was going to leave us. Now I knew I was going to be in trouble so I was going for your dozen times to come across. Thank you so much for your presentation I don't know if there is any burning questions for Rob that maybe can also be asked in the chat. As you can see we are not really giving space for making proposals for new activities under the five pillars of actions because what Ronald but also like people have been saying throughout the meeting so that there will be a restyling of the GSB let's say so that we will move out of pillars. So that's why we are not giving space to discuss like pillar specific activities but it's more likely that we will start talking about topic specific activities. So in order to close this agenda item I would like to make a proposal because as far as I know this year and during this meeting we should also be discussing about the governance of the Pacific soil partnership. So there was the point of re-electing the pillars chairs and I think also the regional soil partnership chair. I think so so so I make a proposal also looking at what the other regions agreed on at least the Near East and North Africa and Asia that we organize another very brief meeting after the GSB plenary assembly to discuss about the governance of the region so that we can have a better idea of how the global soil partnership is evolving and we decide if we need chairs for topic specific activities we will make the action of the new chair of the partnership and we will discuss also maybe a bit better the activities that you would like to implement as a region based on the new GSB framework so out of the pillars. So today we just discussed indeed the proposal and we made actually the proposal to have these guidelines for farmers but maybe during this time so from now to let's say June so right after the plenary you can come up with other ideas you can discuss with each other to see especially also the islands the Pacific countries if you have similarities that lead you to propose activities to the GSB to implement or to other partners in the region to implement. So this is my proposal you are welcome to propose anything better or I don't know Yeah I think that's good as we discussed in emails earlier on that we certainly in need of some new energy within the PSP and I apologise again to everybody for my lack of ability to really engage as strongly as I would have hoped I'm pretty sure we're all in the same position which is good because it means we're all doing lots of work but I agree with you that after the plenary and we know what the new form of the GSB is then we should come together review our action plan and how we deal with it so I would support that. Thank you very much I see it's a comment also in the chat so let's stick with this we talk again after the plenary let's say in Zoom. First meeting only about the governance and action plan of the partnership now I'm sorry we are late but at least the presentation on the status of the work service will be very brief now I would like to give the floor to present about the collaboration with the Caribbean joint work on agriculture so you are the floor is yours I'm sorry that you have little time to present the shorter you can keep it the better I'm very sorry because I'm afraid that people will leave due to other commitments Oh that's alright I will rush you have to help me quick in the slight moment so Filippo Filippo can you put up the slide please I'm so sorry I'm afraid that people would have other commitments like yesterday okay thank you Filippo I think the introduction slide is just about pacific position on the future of the coronavirus joint work on agriculture and I have a subtitle there that I think the pacific have done a lot but what is reported is disappointing in the fact that it has been reported around the world that we are doing very little to the contrary we are doing quite a lot next slide please okay this slide is simply in the region couple with it the rainfall in some places the increasing is so much some are decreasing sea level rise is a real issue in some countries like around Gelibas and Tuvalu sea level rise is more than the world average and cyclone the frequency is lesser but the intensity is much much more in the last 10 years our cyclones have been mostly category 5 so that is climate change in availability in the pacific next slide so I just want to share with this this is a saying from one of our pacific statesmen who about adaptation that we as a people are prepared and resilient enough to survive through impacts of climate change with our cultural resources and identity in tech for generations to come so that encapsulate what the pacific is all about we want to step with everything that we have that's why in some times when people are going to be refugee in Australia they always ask are we going to be australians or we will be called refugee pass in Australia okay continue next slide please well this is just a an example of what we can do and we have developed a manual on vulnerability analysis of climate change and based on the equation vulnerability equal exposure time sensitivity divided by adaptive capacity I'm not going to go through this but it shows that our exposure is quite high sensitivity is also in the higher range and adaptive capacity is not very very convincing so in a sense that our vulnerability most of the pacific as this example say it is quite high can you press for the there's a red thing there please yeah so the question here is how can we continue to intensify food production and yet maintain sustainability of the production systems of the pacific island in the face of climate change this is throughout the pacific despite our environmental differences from adults right up to high islands next one please so the answer is we need to go climate change and to go climate smart agriculture of course the premises of climate smart agriculture is improve productivity improve resilience while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions there are some here you'll get the slides of what we mean by weather smart seed smart, rich smart, nutrient carbon smart, institutional and market smart next slide please next slide yep so this slide I want to share because this is in particular adults like Kiribati to value we are not able to present but I think if there is something from the adults that we want to share it's what we going targeted compost targeted compost is developing recipe that addresses the source of adults are limiting in at least say 5 nutrients NPK sometimes copper, manganese iron and you know this these are multiple nutrient deficiency so what we have done on athletes look for ingredients that when you make the compost you are targeting these nutrient deficiencies and these are some of the work, the research how is applied to the two food system in there the the rain fat and the system where where they call papaya pit they take a pit and they grow the food around it next one please the next one is use of magic we have been talking a lot about mukuna please next one this one is animated I need the next slide see this is studies we have done in the pacific so how much nitrogen a 6 month crop of mukuna can supply it's about 50 to 60 kilograms per hectare next one please and we didn't know that mukuna is one of those wonder that's why I call it magic beans it also sorry you for permitting today so next one please next one please and then when we did the beef fractionation you see that mukuna are able to mobilize the iron and aluminium phosphate fractions in the soil that is something I wanted to share with you guys and in the fallow system you can see that mukuna is much better than the traditional grass fallow next and this is a study of one of our students in Samoa showing how labile carbon from mukuna is doing much better than others so that's in brief of that the next one please then of course in our country especially like and these are just some of the things that have been promoted around the Pacific the kind of irrigation using drinking water bottles, bucket irrigation at the top is a choir from coconut that we are introducing into the compost and then the bottom left that is a wicking system and then bottom right is using mouses on adults to grow taro next one please yeah and I see Rohit is there he slides from Rohit's he was supposed to present yesterday and that is we are pushing the front of agriculture in the Pacific especially taro in Taveli where Rohit is and you can see there the amount of soil erosion that can happen on these hills that have been turned into taro next one please and that is what Rohit is doing in combining vetiver grass with condor barriers taro, pineapple I think this is a good piece of work unfortunately it didn't fit into the Fiji presentation yesterday next one please yeah I think this is something that is really really important in the Pacific when you talk to car and to environmentalists and climate change people they talk about biodiversity and when you ask them they only talk about what they see, about ground biodiversity they don't talk about below ground biodiversity and we just had a global symposium on soil biodiversity and I think it is so important that to make a balance so that environmentalists can realize that without below ground biodiversity the above ground biodiversity will suffer and I think this is an important thing in the Pacific right now yeah I think this is so important, there is a huge volume of study around the world and around the Pacific on climate change but very little on correlation between climate change and invasive peasant diseases mind you a lot of our peasant diseases they live in the soil so we must also look at invasive species as relations to the soil and I think FAO and SPC are looking at developing a GCF project in this but this is very very important in the Pacific because one of the biggest problem with our agriculture is now the trans-pantry invasive peasant diseases next one yeah and I think we need to to understand that that the equation won't be complete if we do not try and make use of long-term weather data this is just an example of the southwest tropical cyclone outlook for the Pacific for the end of 2020 to 21 the number of cyclones and then some probability for some of the places in Tonga but right now I have a group of commercial farmers that I am in the WhatsApp group and the interesting thing about these farmers is the trading farmers they are so interested in using their mobile phone and looking at weather data so we always if they have we say okay we share the next 10 days weather forecast so I think we are heading in the right direction in that case but it's using long-term weather data is very important next one yeah food waste the amount of food waste is equivalent to a waste of some of the whole countries and these food waste can be can add to the equation of improving soil organic carbon in the world that's why I just put in this slide next one please yeah and the other one is methane and nitrous oxide in under KJWA we have been promoting the biocast suggestion some of these photos are from Samoa Kerebas and also N2O not only in the animal systems production but related to the unconscious use or too much use of urea around the Pacific right now next one please yeah this is I think the last slide I want to look all of you to look at the square the square one side is agriculture and livestock one side is forestry in between is land use changes and then the ecosystem services these ones when we mismanage they produce emissions that causes climate change and impact that system again so when we talk about mitigation and adaptation and co-benefits time we try to look at it inside there the co-benefit is coming outside from that system and a lot of our STGs are our co-benefits I'm not going to go through this because it's not enough time but I think it will be very good to have a look at this diagram and see how we cause climate change and how we can we can look at co-benefits of some of these things next one please I don't have two slides left please we also do a lot of capacity building in the region and these are some of the areas we have conducted we have developed a submission to UNFCC and some of the webinars I must share that most of our team in the coronavirus agriculture network most of them are our soil scientists and people working in soils and then I think the last slide yeah, I think the last slide is to improve resilience and productivity of food systems in the Pacific and minimize greenhouse gas emissions these are some of the things that we must address improve biodiversity improve soil management, increase soil organic carbon reduce food loss introduce trees and when you mean trees, more permanent sink not trees that we harvest from and build we must contribute to national determined contribution plans very few countries in the Pacific have agriculture in the NDCs most of the NDCs are energy driven improve water management mind you, I want to end up by saying most important fact that in all these is the people a lot of our adaptation project coming into the Pacific forget the people and when they fail and realize that the community were not consulted in day one if you want it to be successful you must consult people in day one, thank you there is KZW and you can see KZW in the Pacific is very much a soil driven activity in the Pacific thank you thank you so much is there any question, request for clarifications remark we will make all the presentations available on the website of the Pacific soil partnership we will send you an email following this meeting as a follow up indeed we will send an email with all the contact person for the activities that were mentioned during the meeting links to documents, links to presentation also the link to the video recording of the meeting so that you can go through it anytime if there are no questions I would like to quickly share my screen to present just one comment please just one comment quickly and picking up on something that Siwa mentioned I think we need to be able to recognize all of this work that does happen around the region whilst we have the framework of the GSP it's very difficult sometimes to fit within those activities and recognize that those things are being done within that framework because they are sometimes they're happening all around the other way so constantly I think we've said throughout the GSP's history that at the plenary we need to be able to report on all of the soils related work not just the stuff that has a GSP badge on it and somehow recognize that and use the GSP to help coordinate and connect which is good but still recognize the huge amount of work that everybody does so thank you to Siwa it should be a two ways communication so we don't like just to have this kind of down you know like average so we hope really with the new framework GSP framework we will be able to give also more visibility to what you're doing in the region now by putting it under the right topic maybe so that we can also advertise it in the proper way to the proper audience so let's see what will happen and let's talk about it in June but indeed congratulations for the amazing work you are doing on this project as I was saying please allow me to share my screen my presentation will be very brief it's about the second edition of the status of the World Soil Resources Report that I hope you all know it's a publication that was released in 2015 it has like a global it presents like a global description of the status of soils also has chapters with regional perspectives right now we are working on the second edition with the support of the ITPS and I in this regard I'm presenting on behalf of Miss Mega Box that is the current ITPS representative for New Zealand her mandate is coming to the end but she's also a member of the editorial board and the executive editorial board of this publication so as I mentioned this is the second edition of the report that we released in 2015 and it will focus on new information gather in this period so from 2015 to 2025 so we aim to assess changes in the status but also in the trends of soil the primary audience of this publication is policymakers and other decision makers involved in sustainable soil management but it's also a very important source of information for other stakeholders usually out of this publication we also release a shorter version of it specific for policymakers what is in this slide it's likely to change following the editions of the last ITPS meeting but for the moment this is the proposal of the editorial board on the way to tackle the issues related to soil in the publication in the first edition of the status of the water resources report we had 10 soil tracks in the second edition the editorial board is proposing to work on 8 risk to soil function that are the ones reported on screen soil erosion, soil carbon change, soil biodiversity change nutrient mismanagement solidification and solidification pollution and physical degradation that will include soil compaction and this risk are linked to the UN sustainable development goals for the sake of making this report and the information in this report comparable to what was released in 2015 this proposal is likely going to change so that we will stick to the 10 soil tracks that were identified in 2015 but this is still a decision to be made the document has two main parts the first part is an update on risk to soil function the second part is as I mentioned before a focus on regional assessment of the status of soil in 2025 so really we will zoom in into the condition of soil in each region regional assessments will be carried out by partners of experts from each of the seven regions that were identified in the report the regions that will be discussed in this report so the 2025 report will be the same that were in the report in 2015 and this is why we care of presenting these documents here because we will kindly ask towards the end of the year more or less the support of experts from the Pacific soil partnership especially the regional assessment for the Pacific the tentative structure of the expert funders there will be the editorial board of the ITPS that will collaborate with regional soil partnerships in the selection of the experts for each region again here the editorial board is working on writing selection criteria for these experts so that there is more or less balance also in terms of of experience and expertise between the different regions and we can release something that is more or less at the same level in all regions the timetable for expert funders is like the one on screen so from July to December 2022 we will establish the framework for expert funders and select members in April 2023 and then until March 2024 we will do an assessment by the expert funders and from April 2024 to September 2024 we will really start working and drafting the regional chapters by the staff and expert funders in this work the GSP secretariat will have an editorial role we will support the editorial board and the the managing editor and we will look after the overall publication of this report so as I mentioned as anticipated from October 2024 to December 2024 we will review and revise the draft regional chapters and then ultimately from January to March 2025 the ITPS will review what was prepared and make a decision on the regional chapters the ultimately the report will be launched on the worst soil day so on December 25th so this was in short an anticipation on what will happen on the writing of this important document I don't know if there is any question so this is just an anticipation more information will follow also based on the decision on the future of the editorial board as I told you the threats will likely go back to the threats and we will also go from 8 to 10 again and then I'm sure that other changes will also be proposed if there is no question I would like to thank you all I'm sorry that we run late but not so late I thank you so much for having been with us I invite all of you that did not send the presentation that you gave to Filippo to please do it so that we can upload it on the Pacific soil partnership website and as anticipated we will follow up by email we will send you all information related to what was presented during this meeting and we will also inform you and ask for your opinion on the date of the next meeting in June I close by inviting you all to please attend the upcoming plenary assembly of the GSP I will send you more information about it by email you are welcome to attend and also to contribute to the discussion as you know the plenary assembly is our highest decision making body and also the highest opportunity we have to discuss everything about the GSP and we will also discuss the new GSP action framework that you mentioned several times so your opinion is really valuable because it will also have a direct impact the decision that will be made that this meeting will have a direct impact on how we move forward working with the regional soil partnership so I will stop talk now and I thank you all again I wish you a great day and I wish you Filippo a good night and thank you for having me with us bye bye thank you so much thank you very much thanks to the presenters thanks everyone hey Peter thank you thanks Peter thanks now we need the fun time to all get together for real thank you you guys come to Tonga because we are just recovering so no worries yeah no you take care of it my legs are tight I am in charge of the recovery so if we come to Tonga we will bring some wine just to recover okay stay safe thank you very much alright good to see you guys