Abstract
The world is awakening to the need to take better care of its natural and finite resources, such as soil, which is fundamental to the life of every living being and deserves special treatment.
The world is awakening to the need to take better care of its natural and finite resources, such as soil, which is fundamental to the life of every living being and deserves special treatment.
After all, soil underpins everything we have and is at the center of the main challenges of the planet: food, fiber and energy production, as well as environmental services. It is essential to ecosystem functions as it plays a key role in mitigating climate change effects, maintaining water sources and sustaining biodiversity. Therefore, its misuse can even make life on our planet impossible.
This matter has always been very attractive and challenging for me, which is why I took every opportunity to provoke discussion on the subject during my work on different activities.
Thus, stemming from our experience at the first Global Soil Week in late 2012 in Berlin, Germany, a small group of Brazilian scholars and I concluded it would be extremely appropriate to bring this debate to Brazil. After all, in a country with continental characteristics like ours, being a power concurrently agricultural, mineral and environmental, the sustainable use of this important natural resource has special relevance.
At that time, it was understood that the Brazilian Court of Audit (TCU)Footnote 1 should lead the debate due to its position in the Brazilian state structure. I, as president of TCU, accepted the challenge of convincing my peers that we should hold an event in Brazil to discuss the issue of land, with emphasis on the issue of governance, in line with our institutional mission of contributing to the improvement of public administration for the benefit of society.
It is worth noting that, from the moment the idea was launched, we received immediate support and engagement from several Brazilian institutions working in areas directly connected to the subject as well as international organizations, such as the Institute for Advanced Studies in Sustainability of Germany and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). All these institutions worked with us on the design and construction of the “Soil Governance Conference”, which took place in Brasilia on 25–27 March 2015.
It was a timely choice to hold the event during the International Year of Soils, decreed by the United Nations (UN), as there was more motivation to deepen the thematic discussion and awareness of society, governors and legislators about the importance of this important natural resource. The forum provided a stage for debates regarding highly complex issues related to degradation, governance and soil management.
At the end of the meeting, the “Letter of Brasilia”Footnote 2 was launched. In line with the conference’s aim to foster fruitful results for our country, this outcome document aimed to influence the adoption of global measures for the conservation and sustainable use of soil. It includes reflections, considerations and conclusions along the theme of soil, while also sharing with society a number of suggestions for materialized improvement in a number of structural measures to be prioritized by the responsible agents.
The Soil Governance Conference, in conclusion, shares the opportunities for improvement a construction of a permanent forum for discussion about soil, emphasis on soil in the policies that promote development, preparation of new surveys and mapping in more detailed scales, for the planning and use of the territory, ongoing information to society about the threats and costs involved in the current form of soil use and exploitation, revision and consolidation of the several scattered norms and laws about soil and investment in proper education, preparation and qualification of different segments of society that deal directly with this resource.
This important issue was again highlight in other forums I attended, such as the 39th FAO Conference held in Rome on the 10th and 11th of June 2015, which brought together 16 Heads of State and Government, 116 Ministers, and around 1700 participants representing 191 delegations, an unprecedented number in the Organization’s history. The relationship between soil, food security and climate change set the tone of the debate, focusing on sustainable management.
On that occasion, the FAO released technical data on the global status of soil resources. According to the Organization, soils are responsible for 95 % of world food production and its sustainable management could increase food production by as much as 58 %.
In addition, it was reported that soils make up 1/4 of the planet’s biodiversity and account for the second largest global carbon stock—second only to the oceans. However, approximately 1/3 of this natural resource is degraded worldwide due to erosion, compaction, sealing, salinization, acidification, pollution and depletion of nutrients caused by unsustainable management practices.
Moreover, the extent of areas considered “lost” due to intense degradation increases by about 500,000 km2 per year—equivalent to the size of Costa Rica. According to the FAO, nature can take up to 400 years to produce 1 cm of soil, so soils’ recovery far exceeds the span of multiple generations. Therefore, though often perceived as a given resource, soil is a nonrenewable natural resource and is increasingly threatened.
The Post-2015 Development Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) adopted by the UN, which replace the Millennium Development Goals, should guide national policies and international cooperation activities over the next 15 years. Goal 15 recognized the dilemma facing soils worldwide, stating: “protect, restore and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage the forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.”
Few areas of the world contain a territorial reach and amount of land used for agricultural production as Brazil. However, data from the Ministry of the Environment indicate that 140 million hectares of Brazilian land are degraded, which corresponds to 16.5 % of the national territory. Among these lands, about 30 million hectares of pastures are in some stage of degradation, with very low productivity for animal feed. In recent years, the country has faced the phenomenon of desertification, which is affecting various regions such as the Northeast semi-arid region, the Cerrado of Tocantins, Northern Mato Grosso and Minas Gerais. In addition, the process of increasing arenization has reached the Pampas Gauchos. With the formation of arid areas, the temperature rises and the humidity level of the air decreases, making the soil infertile, thereby threatening decreases in food production and increases in hunger and poverty.
Aware of this, the performance audit by the Brazilian TCU of non-urban soil and land governance actions taken by the Federal Government highlighted matters that were on the agenda in all the forums I have mentioned. The audit also resulted in the diagnosis of the risk to the country’s natural heritage and identification of the damage suffered.
Incidentally, it is good to clarify that the TCU’s operations in this area are supported by its constitutional competence and its strategic objectives, including to “Improve governance in public organizations and policies.”
Additionally, in the institutional framework of the Brazilian state, the TCU is an autonomous body that offers society and the National Congress an independent and technical perspective founded on sound methods and international auditing standards. Like other Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI), it has been offering its expertise to the Brazilian Government regarding the implementation of public policies, including those aimed at the sustainable use of soil.
In this context, the main objectives of the Department of Agriculture and Environment (the TCU unit which coordinated this work) are to perform oversight functions that contribute to the production of food quantity and quality to ensure food security for the people of Brazil and generate exports; to the organization of rural areas and the development of family, economic and social agriculture; and to the maintenance of a healthy environment. All these objectives are strongly linked to soil protection.
In this regard, the audit was extremely timely. In the wake of world events, there is much to learn and put into practice. In general, countries have striven to improve soil protection, be it within their governments or within the scope of action of the SAIs, such as the Brazilian TCU, in pursuit of the SDGs.
The audit touched on five of the SDGs and specifically addressed two of them—goal 2 (Eradicating hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture) and goal 15 (Protect, restore and promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage the forests, combating desertification, arrest and reverse land degradation and halt the loss of biodiversity).
Hence, the importance of doing our part becomes apparent, including seeking to integrate with international organizations, such as International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (Intosai), which provided an institutionalized framework for supreme audit institutions to foster development and share knowledge and best practices to improve government auditing worldwide and enhance professional capacities.
On this track, Resolution A/RES/69/228 adopted by the UN General Assembly on 19 December 2014, titled Promoting and fostering the transparency of public administration by strengthening supreme audit Institutions, recognizes the role that SAIs can play is conducive to achieving the SDGs and soil-related priorities.
Despite the fact that the majority of international agreements conducted by the UN are not compulsory in nature, it is clear the important role that SAIs can play in monitoring the implementation of SDG. SAIs have different mechanisms to induce the implementation of agreed actions as well as promote transparency and accountability in the sphere of global agreements.
Moreover, such regulation encourages countries and UN institutions to intensify cooperation with Intosai, especially with regards to capacity building of the various actors in order to promote good governance at all levels, ensuring efficiency, accountability, effectiveness and transparency from the strengthening of SAIs.
At the national level, we still have a great responsibility: to contribute to a forward-looking vision, of strategic character, that will be a part of the guidance for government plans, policies and programs. We know that if we are looking 15 years ahead, now we need to think, decide and act in a timely manner because in order for positive effects of state social and economic actions to be transformative, years or even decades of learning, maturing and consolidation are required.
As stated in the “Letter of Brasilia”, Brazil does not have a specific soil policy, which was proven in the audit and demonstrates the need for the determinations and recommendations provided in the resulting judgment 1,942/2015-TCU-Plenary.Footnote 3
Thus, there are several reasons to continue discussions in order to seek elements that may support state actions in the context of a future National Soils Policy, which is quite necessary for the Brazilian nation.
The question to discuss then is how to tread the virtuous path since the Court’s audit provided a view of the effects of the complexity and dispersion of rules. There is clearly an instability of objectives and strategies; unpredictability of resources; lack of definition of competencies; absence of formal coordination instruments; lack of coherence between public programs and actors; lack of adequate systems of monitoring and validation; and difficulty in the implementation of public policies.
These deficiencies are not unique to the Brazilian nation, which is why the United Nations has requested the SAIs to assist in reversing this situation so that countries may better pursue the ideal of eradicating hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture. Thus, the aim is to ensure access of all people, particularly the poor and vulnerable persons, e.g., children, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food throughout the year.
In fact, the goals are ambitious, but we must bear in mind that all these ideals are part of a fundamental condition for us to achieve full democracy. A democracy in which economic growth proves lasting, preserving the rights of future generations, and showing itself to be inclusive by improving the quality of life of our citizens in the present in a fair and harmonious way.
Therefore, aware of the gravity of the soil situation, the audit by the Brazilian TCU, is another tool for sharing information with the global society on a monitoring methodology and diagnosis of the soil situation. It will certainly serve as input for the national adoption of practical actions to preserve the natural and finite soil resources of Brazil, which are essential to achieving the SDGs.
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de Oliveira, A.C. (2017). Audit of Soil Governance. In: Ginzky, H., Heuser, I., Qin, T., Ruppel, O., Wegerdt, P. (eds) International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy 2016. International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy, vol 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42508-5_2
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