A Strategy for Taking Soil Carbon into the Policy Arena - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 63

countries (e.g. Africa), productivity is very
low due to insufficient input application
(fertilizer, both organic and mineral). At the
same time, the traditional systems are not
being practised as a result of an uneven dis-
tribution of land in relation to the high popu-
lation density, lack of tenure security and
lack of investments. The consequence is a
low level of organic restitutions to the soil by
an increasingly urbanized population. The
low level of organic matter and associated
nutrients has prompted the resource-poor
local population to convert forests into mono-
cultures and to overgraze common lands in
other cases, with severe environmental con-
sequences such as high erosion rates, mining
agriculture and greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-
sions. Whatever the level of development,
these numerous environmental problems need
to be addressed.

densities and limited national fertile soil
resources have to rely on imports of 'virtual
soils' or invest in foreign land acquisitions
('land grabbing'). Locally, forests have been
converted into agricultural land, endanger-
ing soil biodiversity and severely diminishing
SOC stocks. Forest ecosystems are interrupted
and finally collapse due to the clearing ac-
tivities of farmers. The often unscrupulous
dealers, leaning on loose legislation, find a
boon by corrupting their ways to owning
forestland and selling to other third parties
or farmers in need.
Sustainable land management (SLM)
combines technologies, policies and activ-
ities aimed at integrating socio-economic
principles with environmental concerns, so
as simultaneously to maintain and enhance
production, protect natural resources and
improve incomes at socially acceptable
levels. It is the use of land to meet changing
human needs (agriculture, forestry and con-
servation) while ensuring long-term socio-
economic and ecological functions of the land.
Land provides an environment for agricul-
tural production, but it is also an essential
condition for improved environmental man-
agement, including source-sink functions for
GHGs, recycling of nutrients, reduced use and
filtering of pollutants, and transmission and
purification of water as part of the hydro-
logical cycle. Whatever technology advances,
the land will always be necessary for hu-
mans to grow most of the food, and soils
are non-renewable resources at the human
timescale. Therefore, optimizing the bio-
logical productivity of the land to ensure
ecological sustainability and environmental
protection will always be a necessity for
production and the improvement of rural
livelihoods. A pre-condition for SLM imple-
mentation is the existence of secure land
tenure rights, allowing intergenerational trans-
fer of land rights, and therefore incentivizing
sustainable management practices, preserv-
ing land for future generations.
Farmers' modifications of natural ecosys-
tems will always have an impact on land qual-
ity. Hence, advice on land management must
consider farmers' options according to their
goals, resource capacity, socio-economic cir-
cumstances and field production conditions.

Sustainable production and increasing
productivity/fertilization at the local level

Agricultural productivity and household
income depend on natural resources man-
agement (soil, water, forests, air, and flora
and fauna biodiversity) and their quality.
In most of the farming systems, their lower
income is due to declining terms of trade
between farm inputs and agricultural pro-
duction. This decline has diminished the use
of organic matter and fertilizer inputs for
land- quality improvement, especially among
smallholder farmers, leading to low biomass
production. This also results in a decline of
the land quality through a loss of SOC, and
this can be attributed to crop removals, soil
erosion and leaching of nutrients. Therefore,
in order to increase smallholder productivity,
it is necessary to introduce viable incentives
and market regulating instruments, encour-
aging farmers to sustain soil and water re-
sources as well as biodiversity.
Since land is a fragile and a finite re-
source on this planet, its use is bound to
have conflicts. Among the farmers, conflict
takes the form of competition for arable and
grazing land. This means that as the popula-
tion grows, so too does the quest to acquire
more land to accommodate the increasing
population. Countries with high population