4 per 1000 Initiative Wins Prestigious Award
Published: September 13, 2017
The 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) on the fight against desertification is taking place in China from Sept. 6 to 16, 2017. In preparation for this event, the World Future Council identified, on a planetary scale, the most innovative policies and those best placed to stop soil degradation and desertification. As part of this, the jury selected the innovative French-initiated 4 per 1000 Initiative!
Launched on the international scene as part of the COP 21 Paris climate conference in December 2015, the 4 per 1000 Initiative invited all signatory partners of the common declaration to implement concrete actions for storing carbon in soils and promotes the type of practices to achieve it (agro-ecology, agroforestry, or conservation agriculture, for example).
By capturing CO2 in the air, via photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon. By decomposing, the plants will produce organic matter that will store the carbon in the soils, which constitutes the largest stock of carbon on the planet. This carbon sequestration in the earth allows to improve soil health, reinforce ecosystems and to increase agricultural production.