 opening speech, opening remarks from Mrs. Yao. So, Maria, if you're there, you can take the floor. Thank you very much, Filippo. You can hear me? Yeah, very well, thanks. Okay, perfect. So good morning. Let me just quickly turn my camera on just to say hello to everyone. Sorry. Talofa from Samoa. So now I will turn it off because the bandwidth is not great in the Pacific as a lot of people in this meeting will know. So, okay. So good morning, everyone, and very warm greetings from the Fowls Subregional Office in the Pacific Islands in Samoa. I am delighted as Filippo has mentioned to join this meeting, this very important meeting this morning. Unfortunately, the far representative and subregional coordinator for the Pacific Islands, Mrs. Sam Juniao, is unable to join us this morning. But let me convey her best wishes to everyone for the two days of deliberations. Improving soil health, soil fertility, soil biodiversity, and soil carbon have been highlighted by Pacific countries to FAO as key priorities. Soil is an invaluable resource, as you all know for the Pacific countries, as it provides ecosystem services critical for life and in supporting food production. Soil were often considered an infinite resource that will always be around forever with its ecosystem services. But as we know, soils are under pressure from increase in population, high demands for food production and competing land uses. As we know also that approximately 33% of our global soil degraded and there is an urgent need to raise awareness on the importance of soil, especially the need to protect soils and use them sustainably. The decline in soil carbon in the Pacific is associated with soil erosion, excessive cultivation, poor soil management. Other factors include population growth and logging. Measures for soil degradation in the Pacific can be seen from the rate of soil erosion in excess of 50 times per hectare as recorded in Fiji and Samoa, for example. Studies in the Pacific islands show the loss of soil organic garden is also associated with nutrient losses, declining water stable aggregate gets, decreased water holding capacity, declining soil biodiversity and increasing incidences of pests and diseases. As you are aware, FAO hosts the Global Soil Partnership Secretariat through the Global Soil Partnership. FAO has supported a number of initiatives including the Coronavia joint work on agriculture with initiatives such as the recarbonization of global soils and support also the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Soil Decredition Neutrality Initiatives on the SDG 15.3. And I'm aware that our next speakers from FAO will also address this further. In 2021, FAO, SPC and SPREC organized a meeting for Pacific countries in preparation for the 24th meeting of the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity which included the gathering of information that informed the drafting of a regional statement on priorities for the conservation and sustainable resource soil biodiversity in the Pacific. In the recent file Asia Pacific Regional Conference this was held last month, member states of FAO endorsed for FAO to develop a Pacific Regional Action Plan on mainstreaming biodiversity across agriculture sectors. In addition, through a project titled the Supporting the Pacific to Address the Vulnerability of Agriculture and Food Security Declimate Change through the Coronavia joint work on agriculture, the FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands implemented a number of soil related activities in 2021 and include a soil webinar on improved soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility. A webinar on soil testing and its adaptation benefits to adapting to climate change including the procurement of soil test kits for countries to be able to conduct soil testing. A joint workshop with the Pacific Climate Change Center and JICA on climate resilience and food production systems in which one module was on climate-smart agriculture drawing on the soil work that was implemented under the Coronavia joint work on agriculture project. Knowledge products were also developed on good practices relating to soil. For example, on Magico Mokuna, Peruvian's fellow in the Pacific Islands, developed a use of targeted compost on Pacific air tools and improving nutrient management in the Pacific Islands. I also note that there's a session tomorrow in which Dr. Sosiyua Halavatao, who has been working with the FAO Subregional Office on the project. Through the Coronavia joint work on agriculture, Pacific countries requested FAO to support them with the need to develop voluntary guidelines based on good practices relating to soil management and building the capacity of countries on soil science. Through a Neelfile Technical Corporation project on integrated climate-smart agriculture practices and approaches towards sustainability and climate resilience, FAO will be supporting Pacific countries to develop a Pacific regional guideline on soil management. FAO continues to provide the technical support to Pacific countries in promoting soil management, soil health and soil fertility. Let me end by wishing you all a very fruitful meeting today and tomorrow. Thank you very much. Back to you, Filippo. Thanks a lot, Maria, for addressing the remarks of Mrs. Yao from FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands. I would like to invite Ronald Vargas, the Secretary of the Global Soil Partnership to deliver his welcome remarks this meeting. Thank you very much, Filippo. And good morning, all colleagues in the Pacific. Greetings from all of us here in Rome, which is still 11 p.m. on Monday. Well, we are grateful for your participation and I would like just to maybe update you on what is happening with the Global Soil Partnership and that is currently facing some, let's say, changes. We have been always promoting sustainable soil management through various actions and I'm glad that some countries in the regions where in this region have been active members of these activities, currently the GSP is going to complete 10 years of existence this year. And as part of that, a new action framework is currently under development. There is a new version of what the GSP will be doing the next 10 years and countries and partners will be reviewing this in the upcoming plenary assembly that will take place on the 23rd to 25th May. I really hope that all of you will be part of that meeting where you will be able to review the action framework where we are putting clearly new targets and then of course there will be the work on indicators. So we are really moving out from pillars to concrete targets towards 2030, including all of the soil threats that have been the focus of the Global Soil Partnership. Linked to that, there is also the proposal for institutionalizing the Global Soil Partnership in the FAO meaning that we, well, thanks to the request of member countries, there is a need to move the GSP into a statutory body in FAO because currently the Global Soil Partnership is perceived as a voluntary partnership and now we want to make it more institutional. So we will present an analysis of all the implications, legal, financial, including also what will happen in case this partnership is converted into a statutory body, what will happen with the regional soil partnerships, with the focal points, with the intergovernmental technical panel on soils, et cetera. And of course, during the plenary member countries we'll decide and then final decision made in the committee on agriculture which will take place in July this year. Therefore, as you can see, there could be some changes that will happen, but that will depend on all of you, meaning the members of the partnership. Meanwhile, of course, we continue with all the activities that were requested by the plenary plus others that are emerging. There is the good thing globally is that soils are really in the agenda and I don't know if you see that from your site in your region, but globally now there is huge interest about soils and currently due to the political situation even more because of the role of soils, fertilizers, fertility, food production because food prices are increasing. So there is a lot of say about soils. Therefore, this topic is really getting more and more attention and we believe we really need to act according. Now, well, I can see some names here that are familiar to me and of course Ms. Sara Burr was part of the open-ended working group that prepared the action framework, but also I want to take the opportunity to introduce two colleagues here, Professor Ravi Naidu and Professor Brahe Singh, who were nominated by the Pacific as the new members of the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils. During May in the plenary, there will be the official, let's say endorsement of their names, but we consider important that they participate in this meeting because I think they need to become familiar with all of you because they will represent your region, of course, in the ITPS and provide all the scientific guidance, scientific inputs and of course your region should be well represented and I'm sure the region will be well represented because they are really well known and recognized professors. I'm sure they will have the opportunity to speak, Filippo will give that opportunity and just to conclude from my side, what we really want and from the secretariat is to see how we can best support not only our office for the subregion, but how from the global subregion secretariat can support soil activities in the Pacific, particularly of course in the seeds, which is a very important area because we know that well, Australia, New Zealand have many activities taking place on soils, very solid institutions and I'm sure the chair, Peter, can even give many details about, but then we want to see how we can support you in the different activities there. So I hope during this meeting, of course this can be discussed and maybe we can focus on some priorities and then see how we can all join forces to support the implementation. So that is from my side and of course really looking forward to see what will be the exchanges between all of you and see what we can advance in terms of soil sustainable soil management in the region. So thanks for this and of course I wish you a good discussions. Thank you, Filippo and all of you, please. Thanks a lot, Ronald and thanks for giving this overview about the new framework of the GSP towards which we are moving. I agree with you, maybe after the contribution of the chair of the Pacific soil partnership, Mr. Wilson, we can give the floor to the new, those who will join the ITPM members. So I would suggest to give the floor to the chair of the Pacific soil partnership, Mr. Peter Wilson from Australia, who I thank for the living this welcome speech. Peter, I think you are on mute. Could you please, we cannot hear you, still see we cannot. Can you try to click on the three dots on top of your icon? You should be able to find the unmute option. No, you can't. Can you hear me now? Yeah, now we can see you. Okay, sorry, Skype is doing so hard. Zoom is doing some odd things with my microphones. Anyway, good morning everybody. It's nice to see some familiar faces and some new faces here across the Pacific. I'd like to start by thanking the GSP secretariat for the initiative to get us all together. I will be the first to admit that I struggled even as the chair of the PSP to have commitment, the appropriate commitment to the time that we have here. And I'd like to think that's really just that we're all trying to do too much rather than thinking that the PSP, the Pacific soil partnership is not a priority for us. As Ronald suggests, there is quite a lot of mixed activity and levels of activity across the region. So Australia and New Zealand do have significant soils programs and activities. Although I get from my New Zealand colleagues recently that they are now struggling to find the institutional engagement with the GSP and one of our colleagues, David Medici-Scott, is not going to be part of the partnership anymore. But there is a lot of regional activity in data systems, in infrared and lab developments, in mapping projects, in extension and the top of soils programs and those things. So that's good, of course, our region and our priorities are tempered by fires and floods and cyclones and volcanoes and tsunamis that ride across the region and we have to deal with our day-to-day lives as well. But it's great that we can all come together, reinforce our commitments to sustainable soils management and to connect and enact those in any way that we can. So again, thank you to the GSP, Secretary for the leadership. I really look forward to hearing about all of the activity that's going on here and to discussing the future and the engagement of the pillars and the regions under the new structures. So thank you again and welcome everybody. Thanks a lot, Peter. As proposed by Ronald, I would like to ask the new members of the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the ITPS, from the Pacific, Dr. Ravi Naidu and Dr. Brajak Singh, sorry for my bad pronunciation, to briefly introduce yourself. So participants, so focal points from the Pacific can get familiar with you. I don't want to start, I see Dr. Singh is already on mute so maybe you can start. Thank you very much, Ronald and everybody. It was really, I'm quite really looking forward to hear today but first of all, my name is Brajak Singh. I work at the Huxley Institute for the Environment and have a double role as a director for the Global Center for the Land-Based Innovations at Western Sydney University. My expertise, scientific expertise lies mainly in soil biodiversity, soil health and sustainability side of things. I have worked with United Nations, FL and Global Soil Partners support a number of initiatives, just the example of the new report of the knowledge of soil biodiversity with GSFV. And I'm working with NETSOB at this moment, also with FLU on how to use the microbound for the sustainable agriculture. And working with FLU, sorry, the European Commissions and FLU on the transferring the future food systems. I guess I'm quite passionate about, very briefly about the system-based approach, not looking for just one aspect. I heard someone of the speaker talking about the Knowledge Hub, I'm very keen that those sort of things needs to come up and I'm guessing GSB changing the status with address those sort of things that should not just include the technical side, I mean the scientific and engineering sides but also the cultural and social sciences and how then we're going to translate for the policy and actions and the communications including equity and inclusions. I think that should be the brief introduction of myself. Thank you. Thank you very much, very appreciated. Now to Dr. Naidu. Thank you very much, Felipe. And thank you very much, Ronald as well for the very brief introduction to the panel. Just about a way of brief introduction, originally from Fiji Islands, I've been living in Australia for nearly 30 years, initially with CSIRO, which is a peak research body as chief research scientist that was part of the Leonard Water Division. Later I moved to the university academic world where I have a dual role, one as the chief executive of the Australian Center of Excellence that focuses entirely on pollutants in the environment and I've been chief executive for nearly 16 years now. In addition to that, I'm also the director of the Global Center for Environmental Remediation. As the director of Global Center for Environmental Remediation and also as the chief executive of CRC care, the focus has always been very much towards building capacity in the South Pacific and also Asia region where we've been training lots of people with short workshops, running conferences and raising external funds to help train the regional researchers towards assessing, monitoring and where it required the cleanup of container sites as well. I've also been part of GSP where we wrote the report on pollutants and containerate soil in the Asia, largely in the Asia Pacific region and I bring to the panel my eight years of experience as the chair of Commission 3.5, International Union of Souls Congress where we are looking at soil rehabilitation and remediation as well. I look forward to joining the panel. I'm really pleased to meet so many of you. Just like my colleague and friend, the judge mentioned the systems of prologes what we are looking for and therefore I'll be putting on my effort to provide that support to help us move towards that. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot to all of you. Thanks again for your interest in joining the ITPS to represent your region. I would like now to move forward to ensure you a little bit the agenda for this two days meeting. Let me allow to share my screen. I hope you can see and I hope you are all familiar with the agenda. Very briefly, I will provide you an overview on what we will discuss today and tomorrow. After these opening remarks we just provided. We will provide you an overview of the GSP communication activities and I really thank my colleague Isabel Verbeck for her participation. After that we will provide you an overview of the GSP initiatives that are implemented currently. Worldwide will be a specific focus for the region, for the Pacific region. After that we will hear from you about the updates on the activities related to soil in each country in the region. While tomorrow we will start by presenting you what are more details, the activities over the five GSP pillars of actions. And as mentioned by Ronald, this will be the last time we will organize this presentation in pillars as we will move out from this kind of structure towards a new framework. Therefore we present several activities over the five pillars of action, taking place in the region and new opportunities as well of projects. After that, Mr. Alavatao will present about the collaboration possibilities with the Coronavia Joint Work and Agriculture in the region. And my colleague Lucrez Zacon will present on behalf of Megan Bulls, who unfortunately cannot attend the meeting on the status of the World Soil Resource Report 2025. Now without any further ado, I would like to move forwards and give the floor to my colleague Isabel. But before that, just very quickly, I would like to take a group picture. Therefore I would like to ask you to please turn on your camera if possible so we can all have a great group picture of this Pacific soil partnership meeting. If your connection allow. Mr. Zacon, let's wait for everyone to turn on the camera. Great. Okay, big smile. Thanks a lot. So Isabel, I think we can give you the floor and thanks again for your participation. Thank you, Kili, for a good morning, everybody. Very nice to see you all. So I will quickly share my screen. Okay, so I think you can all see my screen. Yeah, so very quickly, I will remind briefly what is the main, the main role of the national focal point. So basically they bring the national priorities into the global discussion in order to engage all national stakeholders. So a bit of background, going back to the southern session of the GSP Plenary Assembly. The Plenary Assembly endorsed the proposal made by far members to nominate GSP National Focal Point. So the idea was to end the communication and the technical exchange with the GSP Secretariat. I'm sure you know about this webpage here where you have all the different country focal points clearly indicated. There is no reference to the email but just organized by country with the institution and the name. You can have access here. I'm sure Filippo and Keca will share the presentation after. So you can have access to the official document that were released at that time. And so what is a national focal point is officially appointed by each far members to end the communication with the GSP Secretariat. So if the focal point changes, please of course let us know so that we can update recording laser database. So how is a national focal point nominated through a formal communication to the Secretariat made by the minister or the permanent, the minister head of department or the permanent representation to a failure. So what is a key role of the focal point, of course, the basis is to promote sustainable soil management but they also have an important role to share and distribute all the communication, the information, material, invitation to meeting. And you see here all the symposium, we have the symposium upcoming in July this year, the annual regional soil partnership where we are here today, the plenary assembly and all the technical network and the symposium that I just mentioned. So here of course engaged in the regional assemblies before they were in the region now, they are all virtual and also one of the role is to consolidate the regional soil partnership in all the different regions. So they have another role which is to bring all the actors at national level together. They are the contact person in the country ensuring coordination among all the different national stakeholders dealing with soil. So I'm sure you know about all of our tools or priorities and the activities. So the role is to bring them at country level. You see here all the technical network. I've just had here the in-sup network that will be launched next week. So I hope you all receive the announcement this morning and that you register to this important launch. And another role of course also is to promote the wealth of resources. You know the GSP website, the Soys Portal, the World Sunday website and here and there's a GSP website and the resources you have access to all the publication, multimedia communication material and the archive of all the highlights. So act as a bridge and share the material. So here you, I hope you all know about our social media platform, mainly Facebook and Twitter and we use also LinkedIn but the corporate channel not a GSP channel. So if you don't receive the support of social media please join us and like and follow us. So the resources here, you have all the links that again with the presentation that will make it very easy for you. Okay, another key role also is to identify potential new partners in your country and invite them to become GSP partners and of course subscribe to the newsletter. So if you didn't receive the newsletter this morning just write me on the chat and I will immediately add you to the mailing list. Of course, words all day. Well, I'm the communication focal point. So this is the day of the year, the 5th of December. So you have also a very important role to involve all the actors in your country in engaging into this important celebration, the most important for soil of course. So promote the words all day award and the Glinka words all prize. I'm sure you know them. If not, please take a look at the words all day. I won't insist, but I'm sure you know the call will open late June and will close in September. So please help us also to promote those two prizes. And then we have also a reverse flow of information that you need to see to the GSP secretariat all the development taking place at country level and which indeed can have in turn implication for an ends cooperation within the GSP framework. So a national focal point also have a role in the international scene to encourage the establishment of national partnership. I will come back to that after make sure that all the areas of work related to soil and effectively liaise with the national delegation and put soys higher in the agenda. And of course, support the global soil partnership to implement the upcoming action, new action framework that Rona mentioned earlier. Promoting for the inclusion of soils in national framework, national commitment and SDG related to soil and also in all the international convention. So you should have received the welcoming package a few months ago, it was sent to you. So if not, please let us know. So we can remediate and send you the key publication and the bags and so on. So the GSP facilitator, you know, this is a great year and help also by Filippo. And also, as I mentioned before, you all know about the technical network and there is one person responsible for each network. So again, you can have the email on the website. So very quickly to finish national soil partnership. So what is a national soil partnership? It comprises all interested and active partners in a country that are willing to contribute to the achievement of sustainable soil management and under the framework of the GSP. So you see here a number of countries have already established national soil partnership and we invite all countries of code to continue and establish their own national soil partnership. So what are the structural and government's arrangement? So they should interact with the regional soil partnership and the global soil partnership, align it actions and plan with those operating at a higher level. It should select a secretariat. It can be, it should be a governmental entity or an institution, a steering committee and a shared person should be appointed. And indeed the shared person may belong to one of the most representative national institution working on soil, create a working group, which are in relation to the GSP areas of work and organize plenary meeting, bringing together all the national soil partnership partners. So the arrangement can mirror the more elaborate arrangement of the GSP, but not necessarily. So there is flexibility in this regard. So here there is the list of all the main function and key task of the NSP. I won't, I will not detail that, but you see there are many different option function for it. And well, how to establish a national soil partnership? You see here that was actually in Brazil during the World Soil Congress, the establishment of the Brazilian soil partnership that was paired with important database that was launched also during, so it was nice to join those two events. So the first step is to conduct an inventory of all the relevant stakeholders in the country, organize also a meeting of all the key actors to identify the national priority action, agree on the establishment and structure of the NSP and draft NSP implementation plan. And finally, the last step is to finalize and implement the implementation plan. So if you go here on this webpage, you will, you have a link together with all the region of soil partnership and then you have here the national soil partnership. The page is still under preparation, but you have also a lot of reference documents that can help you to establish the partnership. I thank you very much for your attention. If you have any question, I would be very happy to answer. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Pissabelle. Thanks also for covering this topic and I invite all focal points to take advantage of the examples of the other countries which already work on establishment of the national soil partnership to take advantage of the example to maybe overcome the challenge you may face in establish your national partnership. Now without any further ado, I'm seeing Lucrezza is here with us. So I'm happy to give her the floor. She will update you about the JSP development of regional interest. So basically, she will provide you an overview of the main activities of JSP, especially on those happening in the region. And again, let me remind you that tomorrow we will discuss more in details about the all activities implemented under the five pillar selection. So Lucrezza, over to you. Yes, good morning or good evening to us. Sorry, I couldn't join you earlier because I've been traveling, but I'm very happy to be here with you now. I hope you can hear me well and also see my stream. Apology if it looks a bit weird, but I'm doing it from my phone. So I'm happy to indeed give you some updates on the global soil partnership and especially those that are of interest to the Pacific region. I didn't organize this presentation by pillars of action because as my colleagues and also Ronald mentioned, I'm sure that was mentioned, we are not sure that we will continue by pillars in the coming years because of the restiting of the JSP. So we have to wait for the outcomes of the JSP plenary assembly. So I organized this presentation by topics. The first topic I would like to talk to you about is a Soilex. Well, Soilex is the GSP tool on soil governance. It was created to facilitate access to information on the existing legal instruments in force. And it is also an online global database on soil protection and soil degradation prevention legal instruments. What we would kindly ask you to do in response to the development of this important tool is to please respond to the questionnaire that you have the link here below for your country, including missing new legislation indicating which legal instruments are not longer valid in your country and also classify these legal instruments by Soilex keywords. But after we would like to invite you to contribute to regional legal analysis of the information that are in the database and the support that date and growth of Soilex. And ultimately it would be great if you could also promote this tool at the country level so that we hope that it would really make the difference, not humiliating countries in adopting good policies on soil. The second activity I would like to briefly mention about because this will be discussed in more details tomorrow by a colleague of mine is the Global Soil Doctors Program. So this program is basically a farmer to farmer training program that you might have already heard about. It ultimately aims to build the capacity of farmers on soil and sustainable soil management. And the idea is that at the end we will establish a self support sufficient system that will promote good practices on sustainable soil management and optimize available national resources. So in this case, we talk about supporting national extension services. Under this program, we developed some educational material that you see here some example of. So I'm talking about posters mainly that can be translated into local languages. But also we developed some visual identity for the farmers that are tasked to train other farmers, which are those that we call soil doctors. And in addition to this visual identity, material and to the posters, we also provide a soil doctor with the soil educational kit that allow them to do some field assessment. How to implement this program in case you are interested. Well, the first step is that of identifying a promoter in your country. There are terms of preferences for this. And here you have a screenshot of these terms of preference, but my colleague tomorrow will provide you also the link. And then there is a registration form to make this collaboration official. And as I said, tomorrow, my colleague will tell you more about this program. The third activity I would like to talk you about referred to the International Network on Black Soils. Well, this network was built around the concept of black soil and the definition of black soils that was approved at the 11th ITPS working session in 2019. So here on screen, you have like a quick overview of what this definition consists of. As you can see, it's very technical. I will not go into detail, but I would like to inform you that the present and no country from the Pacific officially joined the International Network on Black Soil. Here you can see like the global map on black soil distribution on screen. So the areas in brown are those that have black soils. My colleague in charge of this network is currently requesting the national focal points to the Pacific countries to please identify black soils in your countries and region, according to the definition of black soils and the global black soil distribution map developed by FAO. So if you find out that you actually have black soils according to this definition in your country, we would like to kindly ask you to please join this international network and also agree and support the development of an international agreement towards black soil conservation that will be proposed during the GSB 10th Plenary Assembly. There is also an invite for resource partners to invest on capacity development on soil information around the black soils. Passing from black soils to salt-affected soils. I would like to inform you that there is also in this case an international network on salt-affected soils called INSAS. The network is organized into four working groups that deal with the assessment of salt-affected soils. So the activities deals with mapping, assessing and monitoring, these soil type, sustainable soil management. So we talk about practices and policies, crops. So we focus mostly on a hollow-fit agriculture and salt-tolerant crops and ultimately water. So in this case, we work on integrating soil and water management and this under sign and solid conditions. You are more than welcome to join the network by selecting and clicking on the link here on screen. Just to let you know that following this meeting, we will send you a follow-up email with all the links and the contact information of colleagues at the Global Soil Partnership Secretariat in charge of each of the topics so that you can easily connect and follow up. Again, the activities on salt-affected soils. I would like to inform you that in 2021, we organized the Global Symposium on Salt-affected Soil that is resulting in a proceeding document that has some recommendation. These recommendations, again, I will not read them loud, but are those on screen and are, let's say, shaped around the three theme of the symposium. So assessment mapping and monitoring salt-affected soil, integrated the soil-water crop solution for the rehabilitation and management of salt-affected areas, and an agenda for action to prevent and rehabilitate salt-affected soils, protect natural saline and sodic soils, and scale up sustainable soil management practices. Ultimately, there is a questionnaire on salt-affected soils, dealing really with the status of monitoring and management of these soils that we would like you to please complete. For doing this, you should contact my colleague in charge of the network and also of all activities related to salt-affected soil that is Maria Koniuszkowa. But we will also send you an email with a link to the questionnaire to complete by email. Talking about soil information and data, we'll go again very quickly through it because tomorrow a colleague of mine in charge of this topic will provide you more information on this. I would like to inform you that we are working on preparing a global soil organic carbon sequestration potential map here on screen, like you will have an overview of the status of submission of the national maps. Unfortunately, in the Pacific, we don't have any country that submitted the national maps yet. However, some countries like Cook Islands, Micronesia and Tokerao nominated an expert to work on the preparation of these national maps. So we would like to ask the focal points for these countries to please follow up with their expert on the preparation of the map and others like Australia, New Zealand requested to remain blank on the global map. So as anticipated, the actions that my colleague in charge of the topic kindly asked me to present to your attention, well, to please nominate the national expert to follow up on this important work. And here there is a form through which you can make denominations and then organize or actually attend that regional online or in-person training on soil organic carbon sequestration potential, modeling and mapping. And then in case your expert still have troubles after the training to produce the maps, the request is to please contact my colleague in charge of preparing this specific map Mrs. Abelluotto for seeking technical support basically, but also to report about progress, so that we are aware on where your national map will be or when your national map will be submitted. Another map that we are working on preparing is that on global salt affected soils. At present we have six countries that already submitted their maps. These are Papua New Guinea, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands and Micronesia. National experts who are working or haven't yet started should reach out in this case another colleague of mine that is Mr. Cristiano Muto. Again, please report progress on the preparation of your national map or seek technical support so that they can help you and guide you through the process. Ultimately, I would like to talk to you about the international network on soil information institutions. Why? Because this is the network that is actually responsible and coordinating a bit all activities on mapping within the GSP. We would like to ask you to please make sure that you have a representative within this network. So please make sure that you have a representative but also please reconfirm the name of your representative in the network so that we are sure that we're working with the right person. Here there are a couple of links through which you can make your nomination. As you can see, basically Pacific Islands, quite a number of Pacific Islands still have to nominate their experts in INSI. So please, it's very important that you're also represented in this network so that your needs and yeah, basically your needs can be taken up during the writing, for example, of the technical guidance for preparing the maps or anyway, your technical opinion can be brought to the attention of the network. As I mentioned tomorrow, my colleague in charge of this specific topic will provide you more information on it. Now, I would like to tell you about the Global Soil Laboratory Network, LOSALAN, which I'm personally managing. So if you have any question, please, I'm coordinating its activities together with Filippo. So this network was established in 2017 to harmonize soil laboratory methods and data and to build the capacity of laboratories in soil analysis. At present, we have three plus one major areas of work. Well, we work on the execution of external quality control, so proficiency testing. And as you might know, we are implementing a global proficiency testing with more than 260 laboratories in 120 countries involved at present. We are also providing training on the execution of both internal and external quality control. We are working on the harmonization of standard operating procedures and we are training laboratories on their implementation, which actually go beyond laboratory analysis. We also deal with the health and safety procurement of equipment and many others. And talking about equipment, we provide training indeed on the use, maintenance and purchasing of the equipment. We have been trying to establish a bartering and donation system. And we also establish a network like a sub network of Glossalon to deal with soil spectroscopy. The plus one area of work that I didn't report in here regards fertilizers because under Glossalon actually or as a twin network to Glossalon, we establish infant international network on fertilizer analysis that I will tell you about in a few slides. At present Glossalon counts on 827 laboratories from 151 countries. In the Pacific, we operate through ASPAC. So we did not create a new regional network but we linked to an already existing network that has been operating in the region for decades, I would say. So Glossalon at the regional level, as I mentioned, operates through regional soil laboratory network and in this case there is ASPAC. And then at the national level, we operate through the national reference laboratories. Usually these are one per each country as long as there are not political issues that push us to have more than one national reference laboratories. These national reference laboratories are appointed by the focal point of the country to the GSP. And that's a major role in Glossalon but also in the regional network. So it receive a lot of benefits out of their position but also has a lot of responsibilities. And one of these responsibility is that of establishing national soil laboratory network. That is the ultimate level of implementation of Glossalon activities at the local level. Taking advantage of our meeting, we would like to kindly ask you to support the Glossalon activities as following. First of all, we would like to ask you to please motivate laboratories in your country to join Glossalon and the Pacific Soil Laboratory Network, ASPAC. Then to encourage national laboratories to participate to Glossalon and ASPAC meetings and trainings and global and regional proficiency tests. We would also like to ask you to please support the establishment of your national soil laboratory network and the organization of national proficiency tests. And ultimately to facilitate the translation of Glossalon materials including publication, videos, pliers and so on in your local language. As I told you, Glossalon has a twin network that focus on fertilizers. And this is called INFA. So the work of what INFA was launched in December 2020 and organize its work into three, let's say, working groups. The first working group works, focus on the harmonization of methodologies for fertilizer analysis. So we talk about standardization of fertilizer analysis methods and harmonization of fertilizer classification and definitions. The second working group focus on capacity building or strengthening. So basically to strengthen the performance of fertilizer laboratory using standardized methods and also provide training guidelines through literature and media. The third working group, it's about the governance, so policy and regulations. It deals with the regulatory framework regarding fertilizer use and imports at the national, regional and global levels. So they are dealing with the database and also the development of policy guidelines for fertilizer quality requirements. At present, only four laboratories in the Pacific region joined INFA out of the 154 members that are in the network at present. Please note that who can join the network? Well, laboratories that are already doing fertilizer analysis, but also laboratories that are interested in doing fertilizer analysis can join INFA. So even if you did not start to do fertilizer analysis yet, but you have an interest in doing it, you can become a member of the network. My colleague in charge of the network asked us to please bring to your attention the following. We would like to ask you to please encourage soil laboratories and other key stakeholders on the topic to join INFA and implement agreed activities, including harmonization, policy and regulations. Secondly, we would like to ask you to please facilitate the activities related to the intercomparison test to be performed. As we are doing in Glossalon, INFA would like to organize, let's say proficiency testing or intercomparison test to assess the performance of its members of fertilizer analysis. Ultimately, they would like to ask you to please facilitate the search and access to information related with the regulatory frameworks regarding fertilizer use and imports at the national, regional and global levels. Heading to the end, we talk about soil biodiversity. Again, a network on the topic was established. This is called NETSOP, and NETSOP aims to bring soil biodiversity experts and existing initiatives together in order to become the human talent that contributes to the implementation of the Global Soil Biodiversity Observatory, GLOSOB. GLOSOB aims to monitor and forecast the condition of soil biodiversity and soil health and will serve as the framework for developing policies, promoting good practices and developing national capacities. The overall goal of NETSOP are here with presented, and ultimately they focus on promoting the sustainable use and conservation of soil biodiversity. This is an organogram of the network. As you can see, there is a strong connection with the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Here you can see the four working groups. NETSOP is organized into while the first one focus on measuring, assessing and monitoring soil biodiversity. The second one is about the sustainable use, management and conservation of soil biodiversity. The third one is on the economics of soil biodiversity. And the fourth one is about the policies and legal instruments related to soil biodiversity. My colleague in charge of the network is kindly asking you to please fill out the online registration form to become members of NETSOP. And also to please invite your national soil biodiversity experts to join the network in order to develop standard operating procedures together with Glossalon for micro, meso and microfauna assessment and monitoring. I take this opportunity to inform you that Glossalon, so the Global Soil Laboratory Network, is collaborating with other networks like INSAS, IMBS, even INSY, NETSOP and INSOP that I will tell you about in a while for the harmonization of standard operating procedures on topic related to those specific networks. Additionally, there is the kind of request to please join the working group in the Glossalon NETSOP on soil biological analysis. Here there is an overview of the responses of the different regions to the questionnaire. And as you can see, well, the answers from the Pacific are very slim. To conclude, I would like to tell you about our activities on soil pollution that are just about to start. Well, there are three ongoing activities that can be of your interest. The first one is the writing of technical guidelines for assessing mapping, monitoring and reporting soil pollution. So, authors can contribute to the different chapters and to do these, you're kindly asked to contact our colleague Sergius Ustino. The second activity that is of interest and that I briefly mentioned earlier is the launch of the International Network on Soil Pollution INSOP that will happen on the 22nd of April. We will send you an email with the link to register to the event. And it will be very interesting. So please join. And ultimately, we are also looking at establishing pilot site studies to assess and manage or remediate contaminated agricultural soils. And for this, I would like to kindly ask you to contact my colleague Natalia Rodriguez. Looking a bit into the specific of these different activities starting from INSOP. So this network has the overall aim of stopping soil pollution and achieve the global goal of zero pollution. It will work to improve knowledge on the full cycle of soil pollution, trends and technical capacities and legislative frameworks for the prevention of soil pollution. And it will also promote the exchange of experiences and technologies for the sustainable management and remediation of polluted soils. As I told you, the network will be launched on the 22nd of April. And anyone can, well, join the launch event, of course, but also join the network and contribute to the implementation, but also the development of its work plan. Looking into the identification and establishment of pilot site projects to manage or remediate contaminated agricultural soils. What we are looking for are agricultural areas contaminated or they may be contaminated by heavy metals due to agricultural practices, for example, related to the use of cadmium-rich fertilizers. The project will support national local governments to develop a methodology to perform risk assessment and define which practices can be adopted to reduce the availability of heavy metals in soil and hence reduce the uptake by plants and the contamination of food chain. So if you feel like can be dating your country to the establishment of these pilot site projects, please retrieve basic information like the hydrogeology agricultural practices of the size, but also the lab capacity to analyze heavy metals. This was my last slide. I thank you very much for your attention and I opened the floor for questions in case you have any. You can also use the chat if you feel like, but otherwise rise your hand. Philippo, maybe you help me to see if there are questions because I'm doing everything from my phone, so. I don't see any comment in the chat just from some other interest in the, in receiving educational materials. I think this was ready to. For the soil doctors indeed. But again, let me remind you that tomorrow we'll have a presentation on this topic. Our colleague, Sylvie Piolli, will present you about soil doctors and she will be more than happy to provide you more information and you can, she will also share her email address. You can contact her for further questions. Indeed. So if there are no other questions, maybe we can move into the next item. I will be moderating this time. So, national updates on soil. Now we would like to give the floor to each country to report about the activities they've been implementing on soil. Well, mostly in the last year, but if you want even in the longest term, we will proceed in alphabetical order. So the first country I would like to give the floor to is Australia. I believe that Ms. Sara Burr will present. Thank you very much. I'd just like to ask Mumbi to share the screen. Fantastic. Thank you very much. So good morning, everyone. And thank you for the opportunity to provide Australia's soil update. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the eight million square kilometers of soil that make up Australia and pay my respects to Aboriginal and Trisha and Islander Elders both past and present who have cared for this country for thousands of generations, protecting our soils and waters through traditional knowledge and culture. My name is Sara Burr and I am Acting Assistant Secretary of the Soils and Nature-Based Solutions Branch of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. My team is Australia's National Focal Point to the Global Soil Partnership. Before I commence Australia's presentation, I note that the Australian Government has just entered a caretaker period as our parliament has been dissolved in order to hold an election in six weeks' time. And due to this caretaker period, I'm unable to comment on some aspects of Australia's soil programs and policies and I apologise for this in advance. Next slide, please. So the past 12 months have been a very exciting time for Australia's soils. Australian soil stakeholders, including governments, research institutions, industry and land managers have implemented a number of key activities that promote the sustainable management of soil resources, the soil protection, conservation and productivity. In May last year, Australia published the National Soil Strategy, which was a national effort from all Australian governments to document our soil management priorities for the next 20 years. Guided by Pillar One, Australian soil stakeholders recognise that protecting our soils from degradation is not only important to achieving agricultural productivity and economic outcomes, but also for Australia's environmental health, ecosystem services and climate resilience. The 20-year National Soil Strategy outlines three key goals, to prioritise soil health, empower soil innovation and stewards, and strengthen soil knowledge and capability. The National Soil Strategy is accompanied by a four-year National Soil Package, consisting of measures that align with the goals and objectives of the National Soil Strategy. And these measures include soil extension activities for farmers. And as I mentioned earlier, due to our government being in a caretaker period, I'm unable to speak about the specifics of the National Soil Package measures, such as funding or the aims of each initiative, but I hope to be able to discuss this further with you in coming months. Activities undertaken by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, or ACR, also prioritise the sustainable management of soil resources, but with a focus on working with you, our lovely Pacific neighbours, as well as our friends in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Through these activities, ACR has funded 22 research projects focused on improving the sustainability of soil management practices. Next slide, please. Australian soil stakeholders recognise that improved collaboration and knowledge sharing will help us to better understand how soil condition is affected by different practices and interventions, and to identify opportunities for improvement and investment. So, aligned with Pillar 2, Australia's soil CRC, facilitates innovation and collaboration between industry and research, and manages significant partnerships between soil scientists and farmers. This year, the soil CRC celebrates five years since its establishment in 2017 and has brought together eight universities, four state government agencies, seven industry organisations, and 20 farmer groups. Soil Science Australia is another organisation that plays a key role in raising awareness and engagement in soil science, including enhancing soil education and bringing together soil practitioners to share ideas, foster technical collaboration, and encourage soil extension and adoption activities. Australia is the only country in the world to establish the role of a national soilers advocate, and this role contributes to awareness-raising activities about the importance of healthy Australian soils. Some of you may have met our national soilers advocate, the Honourable Penelope Wensley at the soil salinisation event at the end of last year, and I hope you all enjoyed her keynote speech at that event. In our region, ACR's Soil and Land Management Program raises awareness of soil-related issues across a diverse group of stakeholders, including government ministries and agencies, research organisations, farmers, private sector, and other development partners. ACR regularly engages with the general public on the importance of soils. For example, recently helping Taweo and the island farmers in Fiji to recognise the importance of organic matter and nutrient inputs, especially potassium for taro production. This included three days of education and awareness training on sustainable soil extension practices on the island. Next slide, please. As outlined under pillar one, Australia's national soil strategy includes a goal to strengthen Australia's soil knowledge and capability, and it's through this goal that soil stakeholders wish to see soil-related research priorities addressed, including both fundamental and applied soil science research. Building Australia's soil knowledge base among all stakeholders is necessary to support innovative land management practices and improve productivity, profitability, and climate resilience for Australian farmers and the agricultural sector. This includes exploring new technologies to address the cost of soil carbon measurement, such as the National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge. ACR is also providing support for soil research through the Soil and Land Management Program. On to pillar four, the National Soil Strategy encourages the collection and use of soil data to inform land management practices. As such, a key focus of the National Soil Package is to improve Australia's soil knowledge, monitoring, and data collection. This includes working closely with our colleagues at CSIRO, led by our Pacific Soil Partnership Chair Peter Wilson and his team, to develop the Australian National Soil Information System, or ANSYS, to capture and federate soil data from a range of sources and make it more accessible and usable by all Australians interested in the health and condition of Australia's soils. Australia is also exploring support for more soil testing and reviewing our historical soil data to better inform our decision-making and understand our land and soils. I should note here that Peter and his colleagues at CSIRO are also heavily involved in the work to develop and validate soil carbon measurement approaches. Regionally, ACR has led several soil data projects, including the Pacific Soils Project and the Pacific Soil Portal, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. And on a personal note, I'd like to congratulate Professor Brajes Singh from Australia in joining the ITPS. I do look forward to working with you, especially in the role the ITPS will take in laying the groundwork for identifying soil indicators and metrics under the Global Soil Partnership Action Framework to 2030. Australian soil stakeholders have identified the importance of harmonising our soil methods, measurements, and indicators across the country to assist them to sustainably manage and protect our precious soil resources. Key activities in this space include Peter and CSIRO's work to develop a soil spectral analysis platform, the 2021 refresh of the Emissions Reduction Fund's Soil Carbon Method, and ACR's project supporting soil spectral analysis and consistency in soil survey methodologies. For example, through ACR's work in Cambodia, research activities have brought multiple development agencies and the Cambodian government together to agree on a standard soil survey methodology and data management plan for the country. As a final but slightly left field point about harmonisation, my team has recently consulted over 380 soil stakeholders in Australia to better understand their vision for bringing the national soil strategy to life in coming years. A key feature of these consultations was the desire to harmonise actions across all levels of government to ensure that Australia's soil management is treated consistently by jurisdictions using a long-term, being long-term in vision and nature, being place-based and responsive to the needs of local landscapes and communities, ensuring that work is evidence-based, informed by data and soil monitoring information, employing partnership approaches to deliver maximum collective impact, applying an international lens to continue engaging with you in forums like this and the GSP more broadly, and working to assess and protect the value of soil to Australia's environmental, economic and social wellbeing. Their hope is that by the end of the 20-year national soil strategy in 2041, Australian soil is recognised and valued as a key national asset, is better understood and sustainably managed and benefits our environment, economy and communities for many generations to come. So thank you very much for your time this morning. I look forward to sharing more about Australia's soil policies and programmes in future post-election when we will be able to share more about the work that we are progressing. Thanks very much. Many thanks, Ms. Burr. It was super interesting. I don't know if there are questions from the audience, but again, because of time's sake, I would like to ask participants to ask eventual questions through the chat. Now I would like to give the floor to the Cook Islands and so to Mr. William Wigmore. Mr. William Wigmore, the floor is yours. Thank you, Ms. Kahn. If I would appreciate if you could load my presentation. Thank you. Sure, just let me upload it for a second. Is it visible now? Yes, thank you, Philippo. If you could bring up the next slide please. Yeah, thank you. My presentation I'll be talking around the activities around each of the five pillars. And my presentation will be talking mainly about what has taken place around sustainable soil management, managing soil resources from about 2015. Prior to this period, the emphasis in the country was basically in terms of improving food security and crop production was promoting the use of artificial fertilizers, but starting in 2015 through an FAO project, there was this push and to promoting the use of promoting sustainable soil resources, as farmers and the country was seeing an increasing depletion of the soil in the country. But to date, still a lot more needs to be done by way of improving sustainable soil management in the country. In the Cook Islands, we have volcanic soils and we have some low-lying atolls where the soils are very poor and some of these soils due to climate change and saltwater intrusion are being affected by sea water. And one of the main things I would say that needs to be done in the Cook Islands and probably in some other islands as well is the need for better legislation and policy around improving soil management. And a lot of agencies in the country are using the year in the country involved in managing soil resources and using soil resources that do not have good legislation and policy to protect the soil. The importance of a balanced soil fertility promoting the use of green manure is one area that has been promoted since 2015 towards improving soil management such as the use of mucuna. And I understand a lot of work has been done in other countries, including Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and probably a number of other countries through the use of mucuna to improve soil fertility. One of the big problems we have in the country and as you can see from the picture on the right there is that farmers often remove organic matter before planting a crop. And one of the main reason for this is to speed up the process of clearing the land and making it ready for planting. Over the years, the promotion of minimum tillage techniques has been promoted through the Ministry of Agriculture to our farmers. And lastly, the increasing cost of fertilizers. And I think this was alluded to by Dr. Ronald earlier in that increasing prices would play an interesting role in many countries. And as far as agriculture and food production is concerned like in our country, we have seen over the last three to six months the increasing costs of fertilizers. And through that, we have to be looking at options such that we can cut down on the use of fertilizers and eventually cut down on the cost of inputs, especially fertilizers in our farming activities. Next slide, please. Thank you. This ongoing education and awareness on sustainable soil management, targeting especially farmers. I think more emphasis should be targeting women groups as well and youth groups as these groups are becoming more and more important in crop production in the country. In terms of the school curriculum, the Ministry of Agriculture over the last 10 years has been quite active in promoting a teaching of agriculture in the schools, working closely with the ministries of education and health, looking at healthy diets and promotion of agriculture in general. But unfortunately, there is limited emphasis on soil science and this is one area that needs to be further enhanced and looked into, enhancing linkages amongst key institutions such as environment, infrastructure and agriculture and even including the general community. Some of the works that are being done by some of these institutions in particular infrastructure through road developments have caused a lot of soil erosion in some areas, in some of the islands. And I see this a need for improved or enhanced linkages amongst these ministries, talking to each other, so they can better share information to better assist with the work that is done in order to minimize soil erosion. In a lot of cases with stream developments and road developments, there are a lot of issues often a lot of trees removed unnecessarily in these activities. And a lot of these things could be improved through better communication amongst, in particular these line ministries. Capacity building for extension agents, a lot of extension agents have limited understanding of soil management, sustainable soil management and true capacity building. This should be extension officers will have better understanding of sustainable soil management and can better assist our farmers and the farming community in general to sustain their soils. And I think demonstration sites would be very important necessary as some farmers would hardly change their practices until they see the practices that are working. So I think demonstration sites would be key a key feature in sustainable soil management. Next slide please, thank you. Here on pillar three, it's crucial that the dissemination of information. I believe there's a lot of information within the regional agencies and also the international agencies and but there needs to be a better dissemination of such information by the ministry and the extension services to the other public sectors and to and the farmers. The use of Mokuna as a green manure crop to improve. So the facilities should be continually promoted. A lot of work, I understand also has been used on has been done in some other countries by SBC. And these information would be adaptable to our at all islands in the at all islands and saw the soils in these islands as I mentioned earlier has been affected by sea level rise which has inundated some of the soils. And finally, I think one of the things in the Pacific islands is that a lot of farmers, especially growing short-term crops like melons, tomatoes and cabbages and so forth have continually used implements. And I think this practice will continue for a long time still, which is the existing tillage of the soils. And I think it would help if we can come up with implements that can help farmers such that they can minimize the use of the tilling of the land for planting of especially crops like watermelons, tomatoes and so forth. Next slide, please. Here around enhancing the quantity and quality of soil data, a number of publications has been produced such as the information manual for understanding and managing the soil resources of the South and Cook Islands. This is basically making the information from the soil maps more use of friendly. And crop suitability maps for tree crops, including citrus, avocado and so forth. Root crops and vegetable crops have been developed. Next slide, please. Here the source of the cook-out. The source of the cook-out was mapped between the 70s and 80s. And the source of the volcanic islands, the seven islands in total were mapped according to the US classification system. In terms of soil testing and plant tissue analysis, we do not have a laboratory in the country to conduct soil tests. So soil and plant samples are basically sent to New Zealand. We basically work with the Hill Laboratories based in Hamilton for soil analysis work and also plant tissue analysis. I think for the long run, we will continue to work with laboratories in New Zealand for soil analysis because the island is quite small and a number of samples that we would have to put through the lab and in addition to the logistics, training of laboratory technicians and purchase of laboratory equipment would not meet up with the costs of setting up a lab. So in the end, it would be cheaper for us to submit samples to laboratories in New Zealand for analysis. And finally, I would like to acknowledge the work in the assistance of FAO over the years in the sustainable, especially in the areas of sustainable soil management. And in more recent time on the work of the Coronavia, joint work on active co-chair, and also the support of the Japanese government helping along with that area as well. And the other point I would like to make is that earlier, Dr. Vagas mentioned about the thinking to institutionalize the source of body in FAO and Cook Island supports the idea. And we have the commission on genetic resources for food and agriculture, the International Treaty and probably other bodies as well. And I think it would be important and especially moving the work of source which is the basis of food production forward. If this could become a similar body within FAO. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Wigmore. It was a super interesting presentation. I enjoyed especially the part on the laboratories because, you know, I'm managing Glossalon. So I took good notes of what you were saying. Now I would like to give the floor to Mr. Ami Sharma from Fiji. Dr. Sharma, the floor is yours. And I take this opportunity to remind all participants that are going to present to please send us your presentations. We will make all these material available on the Pacific Soil Partnership website. Thank you very much. Mr. Sharma, the floor is yours. Mr. Sharma, we cannot hear you. I see you are on mute, but we cannot hear you. I think there is an issue with your microphone, maybe. Can you try to speak? I cannot hear. No, if you look, let's say you can hear it. No, I cannot hear. I was checking the same. And I cannot do anything to help him. I'm checking also that. Maybe. Yes, I see that he's a message, maybe. Yes. His mic is okay. I have no idea. Can you please try to speak? We cannot hear anything. Maybe you can try to disconnect to reconnect again. Yeah, I was about to suggest the same. And maybe meanwhile we pass to the next presentations. The next one should have been from Kiribati. But I didn't see the name of Mr. Kabuati Nakabuta in the list of participants. Is there anyone from Kiribati in the meeting? If not, we go to Marshall Islands. Again, I do not see Miss Risa Kabua-Miazoe in the attendees. Maybe she's under another name. I don't know. Is there anyone from Marshall Islands? Maybe not. Then we go to Micronesia. Mr. Elias Trisdan. Again, I do not see him in the list of attendees. Is there anyone from Micronesia? Hello, hello. Yes, I'm here. Ah, yes. Now I see you. Sorry. Now, yes. So Micronesia, Mr. Trisdan, the floor is yours. Okay. Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to pay my respects and also introduce myself. My name is Trisdan Elias. And I'll be representing the office of CRB, Cooperative Research and Extension here in the Boundary. And I'll be also replacing my boss, Jackson Phillip, who sadly passed away. So I'll be the new focal point here in Micronesia. So right now I would also like to apologize since there has been some miscommunications and technical difficulties. And so all that I can share with you guys right now is that right now what we're doing for pillar one, we're just trying to promote sustainable soil management practices through the use of compost. So that's for pillar one. And so for compost what I usually do, and I'm an extension agent here at the CRB. So what I usually do is I would go into the communities and try to encourage the farmers to use compost in order to like help their, like promote healthy soils for their farming. And for pillar two, my plan for pillar two is to raise soil awareness through a world soil day. So I think that's all that I can share. I'm sorry for this. I apologize for not coming prepared. I hope that next time I'll be a more resourceful focal point. Thank you. Thank you very much, Elias. And welcome to the Global Soil Partnership and to the Pacific Soil Partnership. We are really looking forward to work with you. And also my colleague, Isabel, we send you the welcome kit of as a new focal point. No, so we are still waiting for the official emails from your government about your position, but we will send you the kit. And of course you are welcome. Okay, thank you very much. Now, I don't know if Amy solved these issues. Amy, Amy Sharma from Fiji, would you like to try to talk once more? I'm trying, but still we cannot hear you. I'm sorry, Mr. Sharma. Okay. Then let me go to Nauru. So Ms. Marisa, the room cook, the floor is yours, please. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, colleagues from all over the world. I'm trying to send my PowerPoint to Filippo. I'm not very, I'm trying to, so can I go last? I will try and send it to Filippo, my presentation. Sure. Sure, sure. No problem. Okay. Thank you. So we got to New Zealand. Also in this case, there has been a change in the focal point as far as I understood. But my understanding is also that today there is no representative from New Zealand for a series of unlucky events. But maybe wrong. Is there anyone from New Zealand? So Lucrezia, it's Feta. How are you? I'm a bit sick as you might hear from my boy. A bit like New Zealand. So Megan and David asked that I just present some of the key points out of the report that we put together. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so no presentation. I'm sorry. And I will just very briefly run through some of the activities that New Zealand have been undertaking. So there is a really high demand still in New Zealand for soils information, which is good. And some of their key priority areas are around fresh water management, looking for versatile and high quality agricultural land and the maintenance of that. State of environment reporting and of course the impacts of climate change. How soil is helping to mitigate that but also the effects of climate change on the use of soils. So that's good. There's some good key political and economic drivers in there. The Pacific Soils Portal has been a key activity that Manaki Fanoa Landcare Research in New Zealand has been undertaking in collaboration with ACR and other partners across the Pacific. So it's been up and running for a couple of years now with some soils data and knowledge being accumulated particularly for Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati and Tuvalu. And they have a significant number of users across the Pacific of that information system. And with over sort of 12,000 users being registered through the system, which is again very good. New Zealand has quite a large survey program, soil survey program going on at the moment. Some 23 regional soil surveys, which is a big step up from where they've been in the last few years. Unfortunately for them, one of their key land resource survey officers, Gerard Grealish, has come over to accept a position with CSIRO in Australia, which is great for us, not so good for them. And Gerard will actually be undertaking our national soil carbon sequestration potential report. So very good, but means that's left a little bit of a hole in there for them. The information systems work that New Zealand has been integral as part of the global work through Glossis and INSI, again is going to suffer a little bit because David Medici Scott, who has been one of their key participants in the Global Soil Partnership, probably since its inception, is making some career changes. And part of that is to withdraw out of the international activity that he's been involved in and they haven't yet been able to find a replacement. I think they're also struggling a little bit with the upper hierarchical representation to the GSP through their ministerial connections. So hopefully we can assist in some of that because our international engagement has actually become a lot stronger in the last couple of years and we've got good connections through to their ministries. An interesting point that New Zealand is dealing with is Maori data sovereignty. So the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and there is a lot of interest in working through that but David suggests that that could actually have some implications on the sorts of data and information that become freely available and shareable because of different rules that it might get trapped by. So an interesting space for all of us to deal with that. Certainly here in Australia as well we have some significant interest in indigenous culture and knowledge. New Zealand is also going through a revision of their soils description handbook and I think that's largely based on original FAO descriptions but taking a local country labor to that and they are also developing their capabilities in soil spectroscopy and working closely with us in how we're looking at harmonisation of spectra and the prediction of soil properties from that and assisting the region of these countries in developing of that. So there's just some of the key activities that we're reporting on and ask me to pass along. Thank you. Thank you very much Peter. That was much appreciated. Now my understanding is that Amy solved these issues. Shall we try once more Amy? Let me try. Can you hear me? Yes finally. Okay so probably I'll share the slides from this end. Yeah so Fiji, Mr Amy Sharma, the floor is yours. Okay this is Amy Sharma. I work with the Ministry of Agriculture in the Properties Division and I'm very, it's pleasure for me to share some of the work that we have done in different pillars with the Glosson team and the PSP and thank you very much for providing this opportunity. Anyway, as Ministry of Agriculture it's our responsibility to educate our farmers, our key holders to and provide the necessary soil knowledge and ensure that they have adequate knowledge to manage the soil, you know, sustainable manage the soil and some of the activities that we have taken under different pillars as follows, you know, promote sustainable management of soil resources for soil protection, conservation assistance. So under this activity we have sort of re-aligned our agriculture policy on fertilizers to farmers. So Ministry of Agriculture has sort of removed subsidy on selected fertilizers, promoting carbon coated urea and straight or single fertilizers because at the moment we are using blend fertilizers, which is not very, I mean, suitable to all these, you know, sites. So perhaps what we are encouraging farmers is to do soil sample and based on soil sample, we do our own blending or apply fertilizers. And the last one here under this one is promoting organic or biological based organic fertilizers. And the second one is we are also providing massive awareness and training on inclusion of agroforestry in existing farming systems, especially in maritime areas. The use of soil tests results to make necessary amendments including application of agriculture, lime and fertilizers. Introduction of soil test kit at farm levels. And here I must take this opportunity to thank ICR for providing this opportunity and also SPC. Just recently we have done some comprehensive training interview. I think this was mentioned by Sarah. And, you know, we have seen some, you know, very, what you call a lot of interest in farmers, especially young and young farmers and women's group. Well, we were, you know, conducting the training. They have really shown a lot of interest in, you know, when we have conducted this soil test at the farm level using the soil test kits. And we will continue doing this in other areas in PG. And another work that we are sort of it's an ongoing thing is use of cover crops, just mucuna beans and legumes to fix nitrogen and other nutrients. The other initiative that we have undertaken under the soil health management is the soil health card initiative. So last year we have launched this program and I think PG is the second country in the world that we have, that have launched the soil health card. And we are so proud of that. And this work will continue through the, you know, the, the finance from the ministry and support from the ministry. And we are looking forward to do this work. Now I'm moving to the next slide. So this one is Pilar to encourage in investment technical cooperation, policy education, awareness and extension soil. So this is a nationwide training and awareness to farmers and extension officers on good farming systems in collaboration with PCR, CSIRO, SPC and ministry agriculture. And we are so fortunate that the government is providing a lot of support in terms of finance, in terms of, you know, infrastructure and we are sort of so fortunate that we got a very established lab here in Pune, and just recently we have seen a lot of samples coming in from various districts, various divisions and this shows that farmers are really, you know, into this, what we are sort of preaching them. And a lot of soil samples coming so, which means, you know, they have taken this approach, this way management approach. And this, some of the trainings that we have conducted is, you know, how to take proper soil sampling and some of the indicators in healthy soils at farmer level. Also, also the, you know, the science and symptoms, which indicates which nutrient deficiencies and also we request if some, we also request GLOSAN if they can provide us some training materials for this sort of work and the soil testing demonstrations at the field level and researcher, extension and farmer involved in awareness training. So it's basically a sort of interaction training at the farm levels where everybody participate in this sort of training. So this picture really indicates the interest, especially the youth and the young and the old people during the training and they're very attentive while we were conducting this training. And the top portion of this is soil health that it's not very clear, but this is what at the soil in the farmer's field and then what sort of recommendations that we're going to put there. So, yeah, this work is going to further enhance and we try to capture all the existing farmers in PG. And the PILA-3 promote targeted soil research development focusing on identifying gaps and priorities. So soil research and development collaboration research was undertaken between CSIRO, Ministry of Agriculture through ACR funding. This is the project. I think Sarah has already mentioned this and this project was undertaken in PG. The site was because that's a sort of commercial and we have seen a decline in our commercial production. So we have chosen that as a site. So that was the aim of the project. The aim of the project is to ensure that the soil knowledge is enhanced and provides a reliable foundation for sustainable intensification of the system. So these were the key objectives under that project and we are so fortunate to have a this MIR this is a rapid soil analyzer that was given through this project and we are working on this and this tool is was very handy when it comes to the COVID situation when we were asked to stay home or work from home. So only one or two technicians were here and they were sort of working on this tools to do our soil analysis and this harmonization of methods as you know Fiji Agriculture has been participating in this ESPEC program and this proficiency testing program and at the moment our government is sort of financing this being the membership and our proficiency rating is about 70 to 80 percent because at the moment our laboratory is sort of under renovation and we have removed to a building and our work continues but once our laboratory is done so our machines are all established again then probably definitely we will be looking higher proficiency rating and we also established our in-house reference samples and QC charts for soils and plants and we are looking forward for some sort of support from in the area of soil improving our soil proficiency testing program. So that's basically my presentation under different pillars and I like to thank everyone for listening thank you very much many thanks Amy now since it's already what 1 a.m. in Rome but it means like ending the meeting by now I'm asking you do you feel like continuing a bit longer or shall we continue tomorrow do not think about us for us it's fine if you want to continue but I'm wondering about you maybe you have other meetings shall we continue let's say for another half an hour or shall we continue tomorrow I think we continue tomorrow because we have other engagements here in PG yeah I think I'm the same here perfect okay I just felt like asking you so tomorrow we continue so we close the meeting here now I thank all presenters tomorrow we continue from new okay so we continue with the missing countries and you will hear a bit more about ongoing activities at the GSP under the five pillars of action but especially under pillar one two four and five they should not take too much time and then we will also have the time maybe to discuss a bit more about activities that you would like to propose now for the GSP to support implementing we will hear a bit from Suha Halavatau on collaboration with the joint work on agriculture and we will close tomorrow meeting by talking about the status of the resources report unfortunately Megan that is the ITPS representative for New Zealand but also a member of the editorial board on this publication cannot be with us but I will present on her behalf so we meet again tomorrow at the same time I thank you all for your time and collaboration and support and I wish you a good rest of the day so see you tomorrow thank you so much thanks everyone