A Strategy for Taking Soil Carbon into the Policy Arena - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 77

negotiating a new strategy with its developed
country parties - its donors - for the next
replenishment (GEF- 6; 2014-2018) that in-
cludes SOC. If soil carbon gets explicit men-
tion as either or both of objectives and impact
indicator, then some measure of compli-
ance will inevitably follow. The financing
incentive is probably the most influential
mechanism in governance, alerting country
parties to the global environmental conven-
tions that money will only follow inclusion
of SOC as something worth accumulating.
There is a large literature on international
environmental governance - for example
Aggarwal-Khan (2012) - and the difficulties of
achieving compliance, when almost all agree-
ments are non-binding. Compliance is pri-
marily via the open release of national action
plans on convention websites. Therefore, gov-
ernance is essentially by national peer pres-
sure, identifying the 'guilty' or the 'weak' and
praising those countries that have comprehen-
sive plans and strategies. For the same reasons
as at the national level, SOC struggles to
achieve a high profile and must necessarily be
placed as a subset of more high-profile issues.
One of the possibilities for better gov-
ernance arrangements internationally is to
re-seek some way through international
agreements to design carbon markets that
include SOC accumulations by developing
countries in return for payments by devel-
oped countries. REDD is an effort to create
a financial value for the C stored in forests,
offering incentives for developing countries
to reduce emissions from forested lands
and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable
development. 'REDD+' goes beyond defor-
estation and forest degradation and includes
the role of conservation, the sustainable
management of forests and the enhancement
of forest C stocks. REDD+ may be a model
for SOC also to be included in C account-
ing. Verification and compliance will need
to be addressed and made more robust.

language through clear and simple messages
(see also the overview in Table 5.1).

Policy imperative

• Atthe local level , programmes aiming
at restoring SOC should address the re-
source capacity, socio-economic circum-
stances and field production conditions
of the farmers.
• Atthe national level , land planning,
economic incentives, legal frameworks
and regulatory mechanisms should
stimulate soil protection and SOC
improvement.
• ThestartingpointforenteringSOCinto
the policy arena should be to emphasize
its key cross-cutting role in high-profile
topics such as food security, sustain-
able development and climate change
scenarios.

Policy profile and discourse

• Atthe local level , it is necessary to
adopt an appropriate discourse that
focuses on: (i) the holistic perception of
the soil fertility from farmers; and
(ii) the economical access of farmers to
resources.
• At the national level , training pro-
grammes and events to address the
public should be adopted, passing on
the message of soil as a heritage and of
the importance of SOM in adequate soil
management.
• Atthe international level , the focus
should be on coordination and commu-
nication: (i) all the jeopardized efforts
to raise awareness by different hotspots
should team up under a unique organ-
ization such as the GSP; (ii) all types of
media should be explored and broad-
ened with an innovative approach (cul-
tural, services, society concerns, educa-
tional targets); (iii) an international
agenda for soil should be established to
promote and speed up the setting up of
all the previous recommendations.

Recommendations

The disconnection between the scientific
and the policy arenas at the international
level can only be solved with an innovative