Round table: Practical problems and obstacles in framing soil policies at national and supra-national scale

Our session wil focus on exploring the difficulties in developing and implementing policy frameworks for soil/soil biodiversity at large scales (national and supra-national). Soils are at the core of many environmental legislations, but without addressing soil biodiversiy and many other environmental (an climate) efforts may simply lag behind if not even fail. Member States are required to submit their national Nature Restoration Plans by September 2026 under the EU Nature Restoration Law and also have three years to implement the Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive. This is certainly a strategic moment for EU-funded projects to consider how we can provide input from a soil biodiversity perspective at national and european levels. As soil biologists and ecologists we urge to deliver politicians with indicators and criteria that are doable, implementable and feasible - and yet scientifically sufficiently robust/based – together with bringing significant new information for assesment of relevant ecosystem/habitat state as important added value.