What is the best way forward for soil protection in the EU? How can we improve EU policies to secure the delivery of soil ecosystem services? These questions were the focus of the final policy conference of the RECARE project which took place on 27 September 2018 in Brussels. More than 100 participants from 21 countries participated in the conference.
The conference presented project findings on:
- effective strategies for prevention and remediation of soil threats and their uptake among land managers
- the impacts of European policies, and
- options for future policy responses.
Participants discussed the implications of RECARE project findings for the design of future European policies on soil protection. The results of the conference as well as the presentations are available on the RECARE conference website.
Soils in European Union are a vital environmental resource in need of better protection. Despite the wide recognition of the importance of soils, soil protection efforts in European Union have been partial, fragmented and insufficient to halt their degradation. Calls for improving this situation have increasingly come from scientists, policymakers, non-governmental organisations and citizens. The discussions and negotiations around the design of European policies for post-2020 period offer the opportunity to improve the current situation.
Within the RECARE project, Ecologic Institute lead WP9 where an integrated impact assessment of European and national soil and land use-related policies and strategies was carried out, and policy recommendations for improving policy coherence and integration were developed.
Policy briefs on the topics "Soil Sealing and Land Take", "Subsoil compaction" and "Remediating Historical Soil Contamination", as well as a brochure with the most important project results are available for download.
Tweets from the conference were published with the hashtag #RECARE2018.
