Let’s stop treating soil like dirt – all life relies on the ecosystems under our feet

Instead of pouring chemicals into the world’s magnificent muddy habitats, let’s protect them, writes Natalie Bennett

On World Soil Day let’s celebrate the remarkable dirt beneath our feet (Getty/iStock)

In his collection of verse The Soil Never Sleeps, Adam Horovitz refers to the power of the “microscopic multiverse” where “all the sciences work as one” to generate heat like that of “a phoenix’s rebirthing flame”.

It’s a flame that globally, and nationally, has been greatly dimmed by human destruction – artificial fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides, industrial monoculture and destructive cultivation with ever-bigger and heavier machines.

That dimming is described by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its major report on soil biodiversity marking World Soil Day on 5 December. The FAO says that soil biodiversity is crucial to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, international agreements on biodiversity, desertification and climate change, and will be “pivotal” to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-30).