On 17 June, which marked the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, six Horizon Europe projects from the AgroTech Hub Cluster came together for a joint webinar Recognize. Respect. Restore. From Soil Degradation and Desertification to Resilient Land Systems. This session was dedicated to exploring practical approaches for restoring degraded lands, strengthening soil health, and building more resilient land systems.

The webinar was organised around two sessions. The first session, “Recognize & Respect” featured presentations from project representatives working on projects developing and testing solutions to combating soil degradation and desertification across Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa. The webinar featured a diverse array of projects, including TERRASAFE, MONALISA, LandShift, Nemesis, AfroGrow and EARTHONE. While each project approached these challenges from a different perspective, a common message emerged throughout the event: restoring land requires integrated solutions that acknowledge the interconnectedness of ecological, social, and economic systems.

Turning local organic resources into soil restoration opportunities

The first presentation by Michael I. Loizides (Isotech) representing TERRASAFE, focused on overcoming the practical barriers that prevent compost from reaching agricultural soils at scale, particularly in dryland regions. The presentation explained how both centralized composting facilities and individual on-farm composting often face economic, logistical, and technical challenges that limit adoption by farmers.

Addressing these issues, he introduced the concept of Community Compost Hubs and an open-source co-composting model that brings together farmers, local authorities, and other stakeholders to produce high-quality compost from locally available organic materials. The approach aims to reduce costs through shared infrastructure, local processing, and community ownership while simultaneously supporting soil carbon restoration, circular economy principles, and sustainable land management.

Locally adapted solutions for restoring Mediterranean drylands

Subsequently, Cristina Domingo-Marimon (CREAF) presented MONALISA‘s work on tackling land degradation and desertification in Mediterranean drylands through a range of locally adapted restoration and land management practices. The presentation showcased solutions such as sustainable grazing approaches, soil enhancement measures, conservation agriculture, ecosystem restoration, and innovative water management techniques, all aimed at supporting resilient landscapes while responding to local environmental and socio-economic conditions.

The LandShift NBS Library: a practical guide to Nature-Based Solutions for soil restoration

LandShift was represented by Antoine Coudard (Metabolic), who presented the LandShift Nature-based Solutions Library, guiding participants through the structure and navigation of the library, and showcasing how users can explore different Nature-based Solutions and assess their suitability for specific contexts. Antoine also highlighted the significant potential of Nature-Based Solutions to generate environmental, social, and economic co-benefits, positioning them as a key approach for advancing integrated and sustainable soil restoration efforts. His presentation also highlighted how the library integrates New European Bauhaus (NEB) principles and serves as a practical resource for LandShift’s Living Spaces and other stakeholders seeking to implement locally adapted and socially embedded soil restoration measures.

Scaling soil health solutions through collaborative Living Labs

Ioannis Varvaris (Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence) presented the NEMESIS project, which is establishing a network of Soil Health Living Labs across the Mediterranean to address desertification and soil degradation. His presentation highlighted the importance of co-creating solutions with farmers, researchers, policymakers, and local communities, recognising that soil health challenges differ across regions and require locally adapted responses. Through a combination of field testing, monitoring, digital tools, and knowledge exchange, NEMESIS aims to develop and scale effective solutions that strengthen soil health and resilience throughout the Mediterranean.

Restoring degraded landscapes through sustainable agroforestry

Representing AfroGrow, Zampela Pittaki (CIFOR-ICRAF) presented the project’s vision for advancing sustainable agroforestry systems as a pathway to restoring degraded land and improving soil health across Africa. The presentation highlighted how AfroGrow combines innovative monitoring technologies, digital tools, and stakeholder engagement to generate evidence on the contribution of agroforestry to land restoration and climate adaptation. By linking scientific knowledge with local experience, the project aims to support the wider adoption of agroforestry practices that can help reverse land degradation while delivering long-term environmental and socio-economic benefits.

Data-driven insights for resilient land systems

Finally, representing EARTHONE, Giancarlo Renella’s (University of Padova) presentation showcased how the project combines information from environmental sensors, soil monitoring systems, vegetation observations, and European data repositories to better understand the interactions between land management practices and climate-related processes. By analysing impacts on carbon storage, greenhouse gas dynamics, and ecosystem functioning, EARTHONE seeks to provide evidence that can guide adaptation strategies and promote more resilient agricultural landscapes.

Advancing soil restoration through embedded and integrated solutions

Despite their different geographical focuses and methodological approaches, all presentations highlighted the importance of combining scientific innovation with locally grounded action to address soil degradation and build more resilient land systems. Whether through Nature-based Solutions, agroforestry, composting initiatives, Living Labs, or data-driven monitoring and decision-making, the presentations demonstrated that effective land restoration requires collaboration across sectors, disciplines, and stakeholder groups. A recurring message throughout the webinar was that restoring soil health is not only an environmental necessity, but also a critical foundation for climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, sustainable food systems, and rural livelihoods.

Watch the full webinar here.

In LandShift, the Living Spaces are where the project’s ideas meet real places, real stakeholders and real land-use challenges. They are central to the project’s participatory approach, bringing together different actors to co-create Nature-based Solutions that respond to local needs and regional land management challenges.

Supporting this process requires careful coordination. Across the five Living Spaces, the European Rural Development Network (ERDN) supports the implementation of LandShift’s multi-actor approach, helping Living Space managing teams, research partners and wider stakeholder groups work together in a participatory and inclusive way.

As LandShift moves forward, this role becomes increasingly important. The Living Spaces will be involved in becoming familiar with, presenting and testing the project’s results, requiring clear communication between the project and local stakeholders.

In this Q&A, the ERDN team reflects on its role in LandShift, the value of the Living Spaces, the lessons learned so far, and the next steps for supporting co-creation across the project.

Insights shared by: Barbara Wieliczko, Marcin Żekało and Paweł Chmieliński.

How would you describe ERDN’s role in LandShift to someone who is hearing about the project for the first time?

ERDN is responsible for creating the framework and supporting the implementation of the multi-actor approach in the LandShift project. This approach helps ensure participatory and inclusive collaboration between different stakeholder groups in the co-creation of Nature-based Solutions for land use.

Through this work, ERDN supports collaboration across the countries participating in the project, with a key focus on urgent challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable land management practices.

Why are the Living Spaces so important for the project, and how does working with them contribute to the research itself?

Living Spaces are vital for the co-creation of tailored Nature-based Solutions and for their promotion in the regions where they operate. They bring together members representing diverse stakeholder groups, whose perspectives are essential for shaping solutions that respond to real needs.

By contributing their local knowledge and experience, Living Space members significantly strengthen the research carried out within LandShift. Their input helps ensure that the solutions proposed are tailored to the specific needs and land management challenges of each area.

What does coordinating the Living Spaces involve in practice?

Coordination takes place on two practical levels. At project level, ERDN acts as a facilitator, supporting cooperation between the Living Space managing teams and the consortium partners responsible for research tasks. This helps ensure that partners work together towards LandShift’s wider objectives.

At Living Space level, ERDN supervises the coordination of activities across all five Living Spaces. This includes supporting the managing teams in organising planned activities with Living Space members and wider stakeholder groups through Community Labs and Policy Labs.

How do you help ensure that the different local realities and stakeholder perspectives of each Living Space are reflected in the wider project?

ERDN supports this process through several activities. First, by supervising the implementation of the multi-actor approach in each Living Space, ERDN helps ensure that diverse local realities and stakeholder perspectives are well represented.

Second, ERDN supports partners in applying co-creation methods through training and consultations. Finally, by facilitating dialogue between Living Space managing teams and other consortium partners, ERDN helps ensure that project results take into account the diversity of local contexts and stakeholder perspectives.

What have been some of the main insights or lessons learned so far from working with the Living Spaces?

One of the main insights, both for ERDN and for the LandShift project as a whole, is that constructive dialogue between different actors still needs to be actively supported. In many cases, this type of dialogue is not yet an obvious or established practice in the creation of new policies.

For ERDN, as a partner with strong expertise in facilitating multi-actor approaches, an important lesson has been the need to constantly look for and test new ideas for attracting stakeholders and maintaining their commitment throughout the process.

Looking ahead, what are the next important steps for the Living Spaces, and how will ERDN continue supporting them?

The next steps include helping the Living Spaces become familiar with the project’s results, as well as presenting and testing these results locally. This will require stronger and more targeted communication between the project and the members of the Living Spaces.

ERDN will continue to support the Living Space managing teams as key intermediaries between the project and Living Space members. This support will include best practices, training, individual consultations and problem-solving sessions. ERDN will also continue following EU-level policies to help the Living Spaces contribute up-to-date insights to relevant dialogue topics.

In one sentence, what do you hope the Living Spaces will achieve by the end of LandShift?

We hope that the Living Spaces will become platforms for constructive dialogue and the co-creation of solutions tailored to local land-use management issues, which can be sustained beyond the project and serve as best practice for other parts of Europe.