July 2026

​​​Soil Publications

To save the soils, we have to save the farmers! Soil degradation is primarily framed as one of mismanagement, with training and technology prioritised as solutions. However, this narrow, technicist perspective overlooks the broader context affecting farmers’ decisions. Drawing on political ecology, this study in Nepal shows that soil degradation is not just an environmental issue but also a social justice issue rooted in unequal power, access to resources, and viable management options. Systemic factors push farmers toward practices that can harm the soil. Policies must extend beyond training and technology to tackle structural inequalities, enhance accountability in agricultural governance, and support more socially sensitive strategies that reflect the realities of farmers and the advisors working with them.

How do soils become carbon sinks? What does it take to translate a scientific claim into a governance reality? This paper investigates these questions in the French context.

Another paper draws attention to the importance of relations and emotions in addressing land degradation. This study in Romania examines how empathy operates within participatory land governance. Empathy strengthens group cohesion and grounds land-use visions in locally embedded values of care and stewardship, making it important to include in collaborative environmental governance in rural regions undergoing transition.

What are old-growth soils? The authors argue that extending the old-growth concept from forest, grassland and microbial systems to soils themselves, will help highlight the crucial role soils play in the formation and restoration of these systems and will help raise awareness of the unique, emergent nature of soils, aiding the protection of soils.

How are soil carbon markets made? This paper draws on data from the UK and Taiwan to propose that some people (e.g. agricultural advisors) act as ‘pragmatic economists’ who translate scientific and metrological knowledge, assemble infrastructures for measurement and certification, and align agricultural, policy, and commercial interests.

What is the potential of artistic methods in questioning the separation between people and soils - and becoming ‘sandpeople’? This paper explores this on the basis of artistic research in the Netherlands.

​​​Call for Papers

An interesting Collection “Human Footprints Belowground” is being assembled in npj Soil Ecology. The Collection is guest edited by Dr. Serita Frey. Submission deadline in early November.

Oldies but Goodies

In 1995, a small, humbly entitled book, Soils, by Thomas Paton, Geoph Humphreys, and P.B. Mitchell, opened with broadside critique of soil science (Yale Univ Press). The subtitle was not so humble: A New Global View! The criticism was wide ranging and makes for exciting reading. One critique was of the old and powerful idea of "soil zonalism" that often prioritizes two state factors of soil formation above the other three (that of climate and biology over geomorphology, geology, and time). Another attack was of soil biology itself because soil science historically favors vegetation to the neglect of soil animals. Most convincing was the questioning of whether soil movement, translocation, and sedimentation had been adequately addressed in the past, eg, that in many, perhaps most soil profiles, individual soil grains had been pre-weathered in a former soil profile located somewhere else! The implications of this small book are many and one may be that they opened the door for Dan Yaalon's reinterpretation of the concept "paleosol" to include not only ancient buried soils that are cut off from the contemporary soil environment, but to define paleosol to include nearly all contemporary soils as well! Most soils are old enough to have been formed by a changing, dynamic environment!