A global soil degradation crisis threatens the soil that produces food. UNESCO estimates that 90% of global soil could be degraded by 2050. Save Soil was launched to raise awareness, including a 19,000-mile motorbike trip across Europe, the Middle East, and India. A volunteer, inspired by a YouTube post, joined by creating a shadow journey through many of the same countries and additional places, traveling mainly by bus and train and sometimes hitchhiking. She stayed in hostels or with volunteers and often prioritized campaign events over meals. Her motivation came from childhood empathy and experiences of persecution and displacement, shaping a commitment to activism focused on soil.
"According to Unesco, 90% of global soil could be degraded by 2050. Save Soil was launched by the spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, who announced a trip in 2022 to raise awareness: a 19,000-mile motorbike ride through Europe, the Middle East and India. A team of volunteers had already been booked to accompany Vasudev so Samadani, 65, who lives in Utrecht in the Netherlands, decided to make her own shadow journey."
"While Sadhguru travelled to 27 countries, Samadani made it to all those and more, continuing on to Nepal, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana, helping out at campaign events. Other than three flights, she travelled by bus and train, and even hitchhiked from Turkey to Georgia. She stayed in hostels or with volunteers, or in the cheapest hotel I could find."
"She travelled for three months, and sometimes went days without a proper meal because she would arrive at a station with her rucksack and rush off to campaign straight away. Samadani had never even been involved with activism before. So why soil, and why now? Ever since she was a child growing up in Iran, Samadani says, she has felt huge empathy for others her stomach would churn at the idea of others suffering whenever she heard an ambulance, and she would pick up banana skins from the ground so people wouldn't slip on them."
"She was born in Kermanshah, near the border with Iraq. Her father had a snack bar there, but when she was 19, the family, who are Baha'is, moved to Shiraz to escape persecution. We were lucky that at least we could move to another city. We could start a new lif"
#soil-degradation #food-security #environmental-activism #save-soil-campaign #global-awareness-travel
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