#IYS15 On the brink of the International Year of Soil!

I am very excited.

This Friday, 5th December kicks off the launch of the International Year of Soil (IYS) and as President of the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS), as well as a Professor of Soil and Water Science at Lancaster University, I am all of a buzz.

Soil is the often hidden resource that is essential for supporting everything we do in our lives, from providing the food we eat to purifying the water we drink and supporting the houses we live in. BSSS is planning a bumper set of activities, where thirty schools across the United Kingdom will be visited by a BSSS Soil Scientist for a tree planting this week. The society will also be marking the event in the Falkland Islands with a planting, and I will be doing a planting at Lancaster Girls Grammar School in Lancashire.

BSSS is looking to raise awareness of the importance of soils, celebrate our soils, catalyse initiatives and provide a modern perspective of soil science as well as marking the start of the road to the 2022 World Congress of Soil Science which BSSS will be hosting in Glasgow in August 2022.

To celebrate the start of the week here is a link to some recent soils films including a new one from Barry Rawlins on the importance of soils and the IYS.  Please get the message out there, let's get it alive on the social media and spread the word with #IYS15

Thanks, Phil