PRESS RELEASE

Protecting our native soil: EU law essential defence against climate change

(Brussels, 14 February 2007) - Ahead of the first Environment Council debate on the Commission's proposal for a Soil Framework Directive, on Tuesday, 20 February, the European Environmental Bureau, Europe's largest federation of environmental citizens' organisations, is stressing the need for a strong EU law on soil protection, thus closing the gap in EU-level protection of all the environmental media. Not only will protecting soil make a major contribution to mitigating climate change but it is also crucial to countering the inevitable impact of climate change on soil.

But EEB has noted that the absence of EU soil laws has also meant other soil problems have not been adequately tackled in most EU countries: contamination, erosion, salinisation (salt build-up in the soil), biodiversity loss and sealing, to name but a few, all threaten soil both in its role as a fundamental resource in its own right and for sustainable agricultural production, hence for competitiveness and food security in Europe. EEB believes that we can only tackle these problems at EU level.  Otherwise companies will, for example, inevitably face widely varying costs associated with cleaning up contaminated sites in different countries. What is more, EEB considers that many of the problems associated with currently unsustainable land-use are partly driven by EU agriculture policies and thus require an EU-generated solution in the form of strong environmental laws to drive necessary policy changes. Soil laws are also indispensable if we are to meet the EU's objectives of halting biodiversity loss by 2010.

"Over recent decades, there's been a dramatic decline in the carbon content of soil throughout the EU, which is jeopardising sustainable farming, and contributing to climate change", said John Hontelez, EEB's Secretary General. "This problem has been particularly well documented in the United Kingdom, where soils are estimated to have lost on average of 13 million tonnes of carbon a year over the last 30 years[1]. This exceeds the total emissions in carbon equivalent in 2003 of a country the size of Luxembourg or Latvia[2]. Neither national nor other EU environmental policies have so far been able to reverse this trend, and have sometimes even contributed to it."

EEB has therefore urged the Council to close this gaping hole in EU environmental policy (see EEB's letter to the Environment Council below).

For further information please contact:-
Pieter de Pous, Soil Policy Officer, EEB: pieter.depous@eeb.org; Tel : +32 (0)2 289 1306
Peter Clarke, Press & Publications Office, EEB: press@eeb.org; Tel: +32 (0)2 289 1309

EEB first reaction to the Commission's proposal: http://www.eeb.org/activities/Soil/documents/EEBpositionpaperonaSoilThematicStrategy_002.pdf