Several international, European, and national texts have emphasised the importance of storing organic carbon in soils to enable them to contribute more effectively to certain ecosystem services such as mitigating climate change, regulating water flows and quality, maintaining soil structure and biodiversity (e.g., the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UE Nature Restoration Regulation, the draft UE Framework Directive on soil monitoring and resilience, and in France the ‘Stratégie Nationale Bas Carbone (SNBC)’).
The various stakeholders at regional or national level must be encouraged to pursue these objectives. Several strategies can be envisaged at European, national or local level: roadmaps, financial incentives and conditionality of aid, binding or non-binding regulations, lists of approved practices, etc. On the one hand, it is important to understand how these levers (do or do not) enable the objectives to be achieved. On the other hand, methods for verifying results and the sustainability of actions also need to be considered.
The Key note presentations will focus on the various aspects mentioned, i.e. (i) public policies and regulations, (ii) national, European and international initiatives that are being taken, and (iii) research actions that can help in the design of policies and regulations.
