World Soil Day: Protecting our soils is climate protection
Key facts on soil consumption
- Over the past 25 years, Austria has irretrievably destroyed around 130,000 hectares of fields and meadows through construction - an area equivalent to the entire arable land of Burgenland.
- Over the past ten years, according to the WWF Soil Report an average of 12.1 hectares per day has been used, almost five times more than the previously announced maximum limit of 2.5 hectares.
- If this trend continues unchecked, there will be no more fields and meadows for food production in Austria in 200 years.
- Only 16 percent of Austria's land is suitable for food production, which is 50 percent less than in Germany with 32 percent.
- With 60 grocery stores per 100,000 inhabitants, this figure exceeds that of Germany by 50 percent, where there are only 40 stores per 100,000 inhabitants.
- In fact, according to a study by the Chamber of Labor, food prices in Austria are on average around 24 percent higher than in Germany, partly due to the high density of supermarkets.
- We must therefore be aware of this: Every geopolitical crisis and every disruption to supply chains, as the blockade of the Suez Canal has shown, directly threatens our food security.
Environmental protection organizations such as WWF and Greenpeace, as well as the Austrian Hail Insurance, have been calling for years for a soil protection treaty and a net zero target to ensure food security and quality of life for future generations.
BMK study shows solutions
Reducing land consumption and habitat fragmentation is one of the most urgent tasks of a sustainable biodiversity and environmental policy. However, around 12 hectares of additional land are currently consumed in Austria every day. A study by spatial planning and legal experts commissioned by the Ministry of Climate Protection (BMK) now presents solutions to this problem. It is clear that a soil protection law with a binding limit value for additional land use of 2.5 hectares per day is necessary for healthy soils.
The "Study on the possible legislative instruments of soil protection law in Austria" comprises two parts. On the one hand, spatial planning expert Gernot Stöglehner explains the urgency of a binding quantitative soil protection target. Legal scholars Daniel Ennöckl and Konrad Lachmayer then outline legislative options for implementing such a target.
Stöglehner argues for a net land consumption target of 2.5 hectares per day as a milestone towards net zero land consumption. "A net-zero soil consumption target implemented as quickly as possible is essential if food and raw material sovereignty is to be ensured on Austrian territory under climate change conditions and sufficient land is to be preserved for climate change adaptation, climate protection and biodiversity protection. To this end, a quantitative soil protection target should be enshrined in law and implemented through spatial planning measures and soil policy instruments in order to make building land that has already been allocated available, to activate vacant land and to provide affordable housing and affordable business locations," says Gernot Stöglehner.
In order to achieve this goal, the right legal framework is needed, which Ennöckl and Lachmayer point out. "It is obvious that a legally non-binding target to reduce soil consumption has no political consequences. Our study therefore provides for a financial sanction mechanism that obliges those federal states that do not take effective soil protection measures to make compensation payments to a soil protection fund. The amount depends on the extent to which the 2.5 hectares/day target is missed," says Daniel Ennöckl. Such a federal soil protection law should include objectives, allocation of responsibilities, monitoring, sanction mechanisms and a nationwide soil protection plan.
Event recommendation "Our soils - the thin skin of the earth" at the NHM
This year, on December 5, the Natural History Museum (NHM) will focus on the topic of soil, which was co-designed by experts from the Federal Environment Agency, among others. In addition to the special exhibition "Our soils - the thin skin of the earth", there will be a series of activities on World Soil Day focusing on soil as a valuable resource.
Among other things, there will be a "Get to know soil animals" research station in the special exhibition, and soil creatures will be dug up and examined under a microscope in the laboratory area on deck 50. The live micro-theater shows the living soil animals in impressive magnification on the huge LED wall.
A special highlight is the Virtual Life station, which is traveling from Innsbruck to Vienna exclusively for this day: Visitors can visit our soil virtually and in real life and explore life in the soil with virtual reality glasses and microscopes.
