Terrabiom spent an action-packed day in the field with tree planting volunteers from, rooting MyBluePlanet's climate action in soil health.
Terrabiom was invited to share an educational input on soil health, soil carbon and the importance of biodiversity for climate action for the kick-off event of Winterthur-based MyBluePlanet’s 2020 corporate volunteering tree planting campaign, MyBlueTree
Beyond theory, we sampled soil from 30 ares of forest where 100 trees were planted on the day. Thanks to our science-based soil analysis, this allows to establish the soil microbiome baseline and track the effect of this nature-based solution over the coming years
We were gifted our own Terrabiom-tree, a young «Schwarzerle», which will sink 25kg of Carbon every year. You can visit it and follow its growth in the publicly accessible forest of the HKOW in Oberwinterthur
We loved to spend an action-packed day teaching the importance of soil life and taking soil samples for their microbiome analysis in the forest of Oberwinterthur, CH. It was a #terrabiom kind of field day with lots of fresh air, a taste of adventure, and a diverse group of people connecting with nature whilst getting their hands dirty in the forest.
The Terra field team was invited by Winterthur-based NGO MyBluePlanet to share an educational input on soil health, soil carbon and the importance of biodiversity for climate action for the kick-off event of their new corporate volunteering tree planting campaign by MyBlueTree. The “forest classroom” by the Holzkooperative Oberwinterthur HKOW was an ideal setting to highlight the importance of soil as the base for the whole forest ecosystem.
The educational input around soil health the Terrabiom team provided, along with the opportunity to contribute to the soil sampling hands-on, enriches this active day for our corporate clients significantly – it’s informative, eye-opening, and fun. Theresa Karpati, Program Lead
In a true explorer approach, we enjoyed guiding the participants into the invisible universe of soil life with the help field-proof of low-tech tools, including a field microscope and – everyone’s favorite - cotton underpants. You read that right! Burying cotton underwear into your soil for a couple of months is a simple and fun way of checking how alive your soil is. It even made national headlines when Agroscope launched "Beweisstück Unterhose", the arguably biggest soil citizen science project in Switzerland early 2021.
Curiosity was very high as we discovered some dirty soil secrets together. Our audience was particularly impressed by three soil life facts:
one spoon full of healthy soil contains more living beings than we are humans on Earth 🐜
the above-ground part, what we see of a tree, makes up only half of this organism. The rest is hidden belowground 🌳
biodiversity is as important as Carbon when it comes to solving our global environmental challenges 🌍
Following the theory input, it was time to get active: 100 young trees were waiting to be planted on 30 ares in the HKOW’s forest which was calling for afforestation, since the original trees had been destroyed by a pest. These 100 trees from 7 different species will sink 25t of Carbon over the coming 10 years.
Beyond Carbon, Terrabiom was also on-site to take soil samples to establish the baseline of the soil #microbiome of the land on the planting day. This will allow to track the effect of the planted trees not only on C-sinking, but also on fostering local #biodiversity and soil health.
“Tracking the effects of our corporate tree planting activities on the local soil quality with science-based soil biodiversity data is of great added value to our campaign”, said Theresa Karpati, MyBlueTree project leader. “The educational input around soil health the Terrabiom team provided, along with the opportunity to contribute to the soil sampling hands-on, enriches this active day for our corporate clients significantly – it’s informative, eye-opening, and fun.”
Our personal highlight was the young "terrabiom" tree we were gifted: a little "Schwarzerle" which will bind 25kg of Carbon every year from now on.
A heartfelt thank you to Sabrina Herold, managing director MyBluePlanet, for making the initial connection as well as Theresa Karpati and your great team for this regenerative gesture. We’re looking forward to where this #collaboration will lead!
Educational projects like this one are an important part of our work to re:connect humans with the value of nature, starting from the #soil up. Please reach out to us to explore how Terrabiom could support YOU in putting soil health on your organization and people’s radar. We love to get creative.
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