Soil, the Overlooked Carbon Reservoir
Often neglected, soils are fundamental to carbon storage, biodiversity and food security. Protecting them has become essential in responding to today's environmental challenges.
We look at forests and forget what lies beneath them. Yet soils are among the planet's largest carbon reservoirs, storing more than vegetation and the atmosphere combined, and their health has a direct effect on the climate.
A vast stock in a fragile balance
Soil carbon comes from organic matter: roots, dead leaves and decomposed organisms gradually incorporated by a rich underground community of earthworms, fungi and bacteria. Intensive ploughing, land sealing, erosion and overuse disrupt this process.
Stored carbon is then released back into the atmosphere as CO2. A degraded soil therefore shifts from being a carbon sink to a source of emissions.
Making soils part of the solution
Practices that restore soils are well identified: permanent plant cover, reduced tillage, diversified rotations, agroforestry, organic inputs, hedgerows and protected grasslands.
They build carbon stocks while improving fertility and water retention, one of the few areas in which the climate, agriculture and biodiversity all benefit together.
Protecting living soils means literally cultivating the solution beneath our feet.
- Soils store more carbon than vegetation and the atmosphere combined.
- When degraded they release carbon; when healthy they capture more each year.
- Regenerative farming practices support both the climate and crop yields.