Agriculture, Soils and Forestry Archive

Vegetable display at farmers market in Piedimonte. You can see oranges, peppers, potatoes, artichokes and other vegetables and fruits.

21. June 2019News reportAgriculture, Soils and Forestry, AwarenessItaly

Local Farmers’ Markets in Sicily

The EUKI project Frutti per la Biosfera organised farmers’ markets in Sicily to promote local and seasonal food with schoolchildren.

Pixabay

11. June 2019InterviewAgriculture, Soils and Forestry, Awareness, Buildings and MunicipalitiesRomania

Tackling Energy Poverty

Andreea Vornicu researches on energy poverty at the Center for the Study of Democracy and presented results at the BEACON conference.

Around 10 children stand on a field and listen to a man pointing on a fruit tree.

Giacche Verdi Bronte

28. March 2019News reportAgriculture, Soils and Forestry, AwarenessItaly

CO2-Neutral Vegetables from Sicilian School Gardens

School classes around Mount Etna opened the second phase of the project ‘Frutti per la Biosfera’ and planted vegetables in the school garden.

The brochure of the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) provides information on the objectives, working methods, funding opportunities and projects.

Children get explained plants buy a man out side in a field.

YouTube/Screenshot

30. January 2019Agriculture, Soils and Forestry, AwarenessItaly

Project video: Boschi per la Biosfera in Sicily

30. January 2019

Project video: Boschi per la Biosfera in Sicily

The “Boschi per la Biosfera – Forests for the Biosphere” project promoted environmental awareness among children in Sicily. 2,497 Sicilian schoolchildren planted 2,497 trees and were encouraged to support reforestation. The video shows the work of the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) project. The film was produced by the Manfred-Hermsen-Stiftung and Giacche Verdi Bronte.

Boschi per la Biosfera – Forests for the Biosphere

This policy brief explains the importance of greenhouse gas emissions from organic soils and describes recent policy frameworks.

(c)pixabay.com

14. November 2018Agriculture, Soils and ForestryDenmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Romania

INVESTIGATE – Improving National GHG Inventories for Organic Soils and Mitigation Potential

Project

INVESTIGATE will set up a consortium of relevant partners (European partners from research and implementing institutions) and conduct the network and capacity building for knowledge transfer on improving national GHG inventories for organic soils in different European countries. The GHG mitigation potentials from drained organic soils are little perceived. INVESTIGATE will tackle scientific and technical issues with respect to reporting GHG emissions and prepare the integration and application of innovative outcomes and new technologies in national GHG inventories. The project will enhance expertise sharing and cross-border dialogue between UNFCCC reporting bodies and leading peatland scientists within and between strategically selected EU countries. Cooperation with regard to GHG accounting and emission reductions from rewetting will be fostered within the entire EU.

Background

Organic soils (including peatlands) on only 3% of the global land area contain more carbon than the entire forest biomass. If drained, the organic soil material is oxidized and released as GHGs to the atmosphere. In Europe, c. 275,000 km² of organic soils are drained. The European Union (EU) is, after Indonesia, responsible for the largest peatland emissions worldwide. In the Nordic and Baltic states, drained peatlands account for 25% of all national anthropogenic emissions. In spite of this importance, organic soils are insufficiently reported in National Inventory Submissions (NIS), especially because of large uncertainties with respect to activity (area) data and inadequate or unavailable emission factors, especially of specific mitigation measures. Furthermore, organic soil emissions remain unrecognized in climate policies in case of undifferentiated consideration of the land sector, where forest biomass sinks ‘compensate’ for organic soil sources. The split reporting of agricultural emissions over the sectors ‘Agriculture’ and ‘Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)’ obscures that CO2 emissions from organic soils, i.e. from a minor part of all agriculture land, are of the same size as CH4 emissions from all animal husbandry and N2O emissions from all fertilization.