Feedback period: 5 Nov – 17 Dec 2020

The new Soil Strategy will provide the overarching framework and the concrete pathway towards achieving the following objectives:

  • Step up efforts to protect soil fertility and reduce soil erosion.
  • Increase soil organic matter and restore carbon-rich ecosystems.
  • Protect and enhance soil biodiversity.
  • Reduce the rate of land take, urban sprawl and sealing to achieve no net land take by 2050.
  • Progress in identifying and remediating contaminated sites and address diffuse contamination.
  • Address the growing threat of desertification.
  • Achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030.

The strategy will consolidate, complement and steer action in the different policy areas that affect and depend on soil (such as pollution prevention, agriculture, research) and guide the implementation of sustainable soil and land management practices. It will cover all key horizontal aspects from funding instruments to developing knowledge, research, communication and international cooperation.

This will be done in close coordination and complementarity with other European Green Deal initiatives, including the upcoming Zero Pollution Action Plan, and other initiatives resulting from the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Farm to Fork Strategy.

This also includes the legally binding EU nature restoration targets that the Commission will propose in 2021 and which should contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the new Soil Strategy and the restoration of degraded soils.

  For more details click here.