Abstract
This chapter provides a critique of the report, “Improving International Soil Governance: Analysis and Recommendations” prepared for the German Environment Agency by the Ecologic Institute, in cooperation with the Oko Institute and Professor Dr. Sebastian Oberthur. The purpose of the report is “to examine whether and how international cooperation between states for the purpose of sustainable land management can be strengthened and improved in the short, medium and long term”. A substantial proportion of the Report is devoted to a detailed examination of existing international instruments and institutions. This provides an insightful and refreshingly frank assessment of the limitations and deficiencies of the existing international framework for sustainable land management. The final section of the report presents “options and recommendations to improve international soil governance that the German government could pursue”. This section is the main focus of this critique. The proposals made in the Report for more immediate action primarily involve improvements to the existing governance arrangements and generally are practical and sensible. However, they are also relatively cautious and conservative and postpone some more far-reaching options, such as a new global instrument on soil, to the medium or long term. We suggest that the Report, In adopting this approach, has missed a valuable opportunity to promote more immediate and urgent action that might substantially improve international land governance within a shorter time-frame. In particular, we suggest that the development of a new international soils instrument modelled on the Paris Agreement on climate change could be a viable short to medium term initiative, alongside the improvement of current international soil governance arrangements.
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Notes
- 1.
Bodle, R et al. (2018) Improving International Soil Governance, Report for the German Federal Environment Agency, 29 May 2019.
- 2.
Id at 35. While the concept of sustainability has increasingly been used as a desired goal for soil conservation worldwide, there has been a general failure of the soil literature to adequately explain the precise context and limitations of sustainability and the appropriate type of soil legislation needed for its successful implementation; see Hannam and Boer (2002). However, the 2017 FAO Voluntary Guidelines on Sustainable Soil Management (VGSSM) provide some recent, useful technical and policy recommendations. The basis of the VSGSSM is Sustainable Soil Management, which it defines as follows: “Soil management is sustainable if the supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural services provided by soil are maintained or enhanced without significantly impairing either the soil functions that enable those services or biodiversity. The balance between the supporting and provisioning services for plant production and the regulating services the soil provides for water quality and availability and for atmospheric greenhouse gas composition is a particular concern” (at 3).The concept of SSM could form the basis of a new instrument for soil. The Report does not attempt to address this matter and instead focuses on the subject of governance arrangements through instruments and institutions at the international level.
- 3.
The Report, at 13.
- 4.
The Report at 126–140.
- 5.
Paris Agreement, available at: http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php; adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015.
- 6.
Id The Report at 126.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
The Report at 128.
- 9.
The Report at 126–127.
- 10.
The Report at 34.
- 11.
The Report at 95 (and seemingly also at 34).
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
IPBES (2018) available at https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/ldr.
- 14.
See IPBES Media Release: Worsening Worldwide Land Degradation Now Critical, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People, available at https://www.ipbes.net/news/media-release-worsening-worldwide-land-degradation-now-%E2%80%98critical%E2%80%99-undermining-well-being-32.
- 15.
Ibid. For a similar assessment, see UNEP (2019), p. 94: “The degradation of soil and land continues due to heighten[ed] competition for land use, undermining the long-term security and development of all countries. From 1999 to 2013, approximately one-fifth of the Earth’s land surface covered by vegetation showed persistent and declining trends in productivity, primarily due to poor land and water management…Reversing these worrying trends through sustainable land management is key to improving the livelihoods and resilience of over 1.3 billion people living off degraded lands.” (emphasis added).
- 16.
Ibid. For a similar call for action, see Institute for Public Policy Research (2019), available at https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/age-of-environmental-breakdown (arguing that land degradation is a top-level global issue that is being under-played).
- 17.
UNEP (1994).
- 18.
See IISD, SDG Knowledge Hub (2019), available at http://sdg.iisd.org/news/unccd-cric-reviews-global-assessment-of-land-degradation/, for a report on the CRIC review.
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
See UNCCD (2016), available at http://www2.unccd.int/sites/default/files/relevant-links/2017-01/18102016_Spi_pb_multipage_ENG_1.pdf, defining LDN as ‘a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems’.
- 21.
Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN A/RES/70/1, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld. The general aim of SDG 15 is to ‘conserve and restore the use of terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, drylands and mountains by 2020’. Note that fifteen soil scientists, in Keesstra et al. (2016), outline in a landmark paper how to reach the recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the most effective manner. The authors point out (at 111) that “soil science, as a land-related discipline, has important links to several of the SDGs, which are demonstrated through the functions of soils and the ecosystem services that are linked to those functions”.
- 22.
The Report at 121.
- 23.
The Report at 129.
- 24.
The Report at 126-7.
- 25.
The Report at 133.
- 26.
Supra fn 18.
- 27.
- 28.
The Report at 129.
- 29.
The Report at 130.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
The Report at 46. These criticisms include (see at 26–39) that the UNCCD applies to only 40% of the terrestrial surface of the Earth; that its definition of land degradation could include virtually any change of land-use; that although National Action Plans (NAPs) are core legal obligations, they appear to have had little effect in practice; that eight years after adoption of a 10-year strategic plan, only 20% of parties to the UNCCD have aligned their NAPs with it; and that the “CCD’s obligations are rather general and toothless, lacking in precison and prescriptiveness, and its potential for a global approach on LDN is limited by its geographical scope” (at 37).
- 32.
See Article 3.
- 33.
This particular element of the Paris Agreement has also been criticised in terms of its likely effectiveness: see Lawrence and Wong (2017).
- 34.
See Clark (2018).
- 35.
The Report at 128.
- 36.
Cited in the Report at 97; it is useful to note here that the FAO (2017) Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management were adopted by the 4th Global Soil Partnership Plenary Assembly (Rome, 25 May 2016). The VGSSM elaborate the principles outlined in the revised World Soil Charter 2014.
- 37.
The bulk of the report is devoted to a “stocktake of existing international soil governance”: see Part 2, pp. 37–125.
- 38.
See also Boer and Hannam (2015) available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IntJlRuralLawP/2015/2.pdf; and Boer and Hannam (2003).
- 39.
E.g., the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) was founded as the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) on 19th May 1924. The International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) is the global union of soil scientists. The objectives of the IUSS are to promote all branches of soil science, and to support all soil scientists across the world in the pursuit of their activities.
- 40.
The Report at 130.
- 41.
The Report at 131; Boer and Hannam (2019) contend “that for the CBD to take on an expanded, more precise role in addressing land degradation and encouraging the sustainable use of land, it would be desirable for technical guidelines to be drafted on sustainable land management, reinforced by an extra protocol to the Convention”.
- 42.
Ibid. The IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law’s Specialist Group for Sustainable Use of Soil comprehensively explored in 2009 the potential role for the application of the CBD to achieve sustainable use of soil and drafted a possible protocol under the CBD on this topic. A detailed Commentary also was prepared which comprehensively discussed the legal and scientific background for each Article in the proposed instrument.
- 43.
- 44.
The Report at 131. See also at 137, where it is noted that “one proposed indicator for SDG target 15.3 – “proportion of land that is degraded over total land area” – could also be used as an indicator for Aichi Target 5 (“At least halving the rate of loss of all natural habitats”); the same applies for indicators for soil organic carbon as well as for soil organic matter content (for Aichi Target 7, 15).”
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
The Report at 132; see also, Boer and Hannam (2015), p. 7.
- 47.
- 48.
- 49.
The Report at 134.
- 50.
Ibid. Re Decision C.23, see https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/bonn_nov_2017/application/pdf/cp23_auv_agri.pdf.
- 51.
Of significance, the FAO has carriage of the revised World Soil Charter 2014 and the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management through the Global Soil Partnership.
- 52.
The Report at 133; including to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable; reduce rural poverty; increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises; http://www.fao.org/about/what-we-do/en/.
- 53.
The Report at 133.
- 54.
UNEP (2004); it should be noted that the 2004 Strategy outlined the critical issues UNEP saw in environmental assessment, policy guidance and implementation to improve the integration of environmental land and soil aspects across other environmental focal areas, and relevant international, regional and national development processes. The UNEP Strategy promoted the “ecosystem” approach for land management and soil conservation.
- 55.
UNEA 2 December 2017; https://www.informea.org/en/decision/managing-soil-pollution-achieve-sustainable-development.
- 56.
It is noted here that the UNEP (2018) Final Assessment of the Fourth Program for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law (Montevideo IV) at 77, presents an overview of its mandated actions to achieve its objective. This is: “to improve national and international principles and standards and to support efforts under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification for the further development of legal approaches for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of soils”.
- 57.
The Report at 134.
- 58.
The Report at 134.
- 59.
The Report at 135.
- 60.
Ibid.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
E.g., The International Union of Science, World Association of Soil and Water Conservation, European Society for Soil Conservation, Soil Science Society of America.
- 63.
See Hurni and Meyer (2002).
- 64.
Ibid.; it should be noted that the various versions of draft protocols developed by the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law’s Specialist Group on Sustainable Use of Soil make provision for a peak global body on soil, not unlike the concept of the existing GSP, but with a much more extensive role than the GSP.
- 65.
Paris Agreement Article 5.1 at 6.
- 66.
The Report at 136.
- 67.
It should be noted that the various versions of draft protocols developed by the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law’s Specialist Group on Sustainable Use of Soil make provision for a peak global body on soil, not unlike the concept of the existing GSP, but with a much more extensive role.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
The Report at 137.
- 70.
The Report at 138.
- 71.
For example, the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management have a strong policy element and could readily be turned into policy material.
- 72.
The Report at 138; see Hannam and Boer (2004) Part IV, 37–80.
- 73.
Originally adopted as the “Non-legally binding instrument on all types of forests“, renamed by UNGA Res 70/199 of 16.2.2016.
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Fowler, R.J., Hannam, I. (2021). Critique of the Report “Improving International Soil Governance: Analysis and Recommendations”. In: Ginzky, H., et al. International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy 2019. International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy, vol 2019. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52317-6_10
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