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Last changed: 16/02/11
Soil protection continues to be treated as the stepchild of environmental politics. This is not just, for soils and their many interconnections to water, air and the climate as well as providing the site for foods and feedstuffs play a crucial role at the heart of precautionary environmental politics. To support the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) in the area of soil protection, Prof. Dr. Andreas Troge, UBA President at the time, appointed the Soil Protection Commission in 2004. Its objective is to raise public awareness of soil protection and to provide impulses for future soil protection strategies in environmental politics.
As a cross-task of environmental protection soil protection is in the hands of many public task managers. In addition to the Federal Soil Protection Act and the Federal Soil Protection and Contaminated Sites Ordinance a great number of other environmental regulations govern soil protection issues. This led to a situation where there is no national uniform level of protection that applies to all area of soil protection. There is a particular need to harmonize evaluation schemes for harmonization is urgent, in part because European and international environmental regulations governing soil protection will move to the forefront in future.
The legislation on soil protection in existence since 1998 is to be further developed by the Soil Protection Commission. New developments such as the European Commission’s soil protection strategy are to be followed. Last but not least new threats to soils are to be detected early on and preventative and containment strategies developed.
The Soil Protection Commission (KBU) was officially founded on 6 December 2004, immediately after World Soil Day. The Commission serves as a means link work done in the field at the federal level: it connects the most important stakeholders of soil protection from science, the field, and public administration.
All the important disciplines to uphold sustainable soil protection are represented on the board. In addition to the classic disciplines of geological and agricultural sciences, the KBU also includes members for sustainable development, economics, ecotoxicology, and remediation of contaminated sites. Its members work on a volunteer basis and are appointed by the President of the Federal Environment Agency for a period of three years each. The second period of appointment to the KBU started at the beginning of 2008; all members were re-appointed.
The KBU provides professional advisory support to the Federal Environment Agency, in particular to the Soil Department. It also works on issues of soil protection and related subjects.