FAO recently released its first ever report on "The state of knowledge
of soil biodiversity" on World Soil Day, which falls on 5 December. The
report on the state of knowledge of soil biodiversity, covering its
current status, challenges and potentialities, was produced in response
to an invitation by the 14^th Conference of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for FAO, in collaboration with
other organizations, to consider its preparation.

The report represents the output of an inclusive process involving 300
scientists from around the world under the auspices of the FAO Global
Soil Partnership and its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils, the
CBD, the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative and the European
Commission. It presents the state of knowledge on soil biodiversity, the
threats it faces, the solutions that soil biodiversity can provide to
problems in different fields, including agriculture, environmental
conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, nutrition,
medicine and pharmaceuticals, and remediation of polluted sites, and
more. The report also considers the role of molecular approaches to
studying soil biodiversity.

See the 618-page report at
www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/CB1928EN[www.fao.org],
its â??Summary for policy makersâ?? at
www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/CB1929EN[www.fao.org]
the related press release at
[www.fao.org]